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More oxford books @ www.OxfordeBook.comFore more urdu books visit www.4Urdu.comRADICALS FOR CAPITALISM 193to call it. She explained that she used the word as did the French philosopherAugust Comte, to mean “self-sacrifice.” This usage was philosophicallyprecise, but potentially very confusing. Most of Rand’s critics tookthe word in the more colloquial sense, as broadly meaning concern foror caring about other people. This meant that Rand seemed to be attackingeven kindness itself. Once again, as she had with selfishness, Randwas redefining words to match her philosophical concepts. 8 It was not,she thought, her fault that she was sometimes misunderstood, and inany event she relished her iconoclastic persona. If her audience thoughtshe was violating all standards of human decency, so much the better.Rand presented herself as a serious philosophical thinker and analystof American history, but could not fully escape her innate penchant forprovocation and emotional invective. Her high-minded discussion ofphilosophy was punctured by colorful and occasionally bizarre metaphors.She described contemporary intellectual discourse as “a stickypuddle of stale syrup” and referred to “chickens hiding their heads in thesand (‘ostrich’ is too big and dignified a metaphor for this instance).” 9Still, she effectively charged her readers with a world-historical task: herNew Intellectuals must challenge and replace the left-leaning supportersof socialism and the welfare state.For the New Intellectual drew a terrific blast from Sidney Hook inthe New York Times Book Review. Hook observed archly, “Despite thegreat play with the word ‘Reason,’ one is struck by the absence of anyserious argument in this unique combination of tautology and extravagantabsurdity.” Like the reviewers of Atlas Shrugged, Hook focused asmuch on Rand’s tone as her ideas. He granted that nonprofessionalscould write interesting work on philosophy, but not by “substitutingdenunciation for analysis and mouthing slogans instead of consideringproblems . . . The language of reason does not justify references toeconomists with whom one disagrees as ‘frantic cowards,’ or to philosophersas ‘intellectual hoodlums who pose as professors.’ This is the wayphilosophy is written in the Soviet Union.” Hook could conceive of nopossible reason why Rand should be taken seriously as a thinker. Still,his scorn did little to dent Rand’s popularity or the book’s sales. 10Other reviewers made similarly vain attempts to stem the tide ofObjectivism. Gore Vidal seconded Hook’s opinion in Esquire, callingRand an unreadable novelist who “has a great attraction for simple