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More oxford books @ www.OxfordeBook.comFore more urdu books visit www.4Urdu.comINDIVIDUALISTS OF THE WORLD, UNITE! 43critique, writing that Christianity “is the best kindergarten of communismpossible.” 10 Christianity taught believers to put others before self,an ethical mandate that matched the collectivist emphasis on the groupover the individual. Thus a new system of individualist, non-Christianethics was needed to prevent the triumph of Communism.Although her ethical theory was firm, Rand was less certain of theother messages her book would impart. In her first notes she thought she“may not include” Communism in the novel. By early 1938 she describedit to an interested publisher as “not political, this time.” “I do not want tobe considered a ‘one-theme’ author,” she added. 11 Not a single Russian orCommunist would appear, she assured him. At the same time Rand hadalways sensed a connection between politics and her conception of thesecond-hander. Indeed, her neighbor’s statement had rocked her preciselybecause it seemed to illuminate a puzzling question: What madesome people collectivists and others individualists? Before, Rand hadnever understood the difference, but now she believed that the basic collectivistprinciple was “motivation by the value of others versus your ownindependence.” 12 Even as she professed a purely philosophical intent, thebook’s very origins suggested its possibilities as political morality play.Still, Rand was ambivalent about writing that kind of book.Part of the problem was that outside of the Russian setting, Randwasn’t sure where she stood politically. By the early 1930s she wasexpanding her range of nonfiction reading beyond Nietzsche, and shegravitated first to writers who were deeply skeptical of democracy, suchas H. L. Mencken, Oswald Spengler, Albert Jay Nock, and José Ortegay Gasset. 13 These thinkers did little to shake Rand out of her Nietzscheanfixation on the superior individual. Indeed, they may even have shapedher understanding of Nietzsche, for the writers she selected had themselvesbeen deeply influenced by the German philosopher. Mencken wasone of Nietzsche’s foremost American interpreters, and Nietzsche’s ideasstrongly influenced Spengler’s Decline of the West and Ortega y Gasset’sRevolt of the Masses, which in turn exerted its powers on Nock’s Memoirsof a Superfluous Man. Rand’s reading was a Nietzschean hall of mirrorswith a common theme: forthright elitism.Accordingly, her reflections on American society were both tentativeand deeply pessimistic. Rand doubted that America was hospitable toher values, an impression furthered by the popularity of Communism