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The Ominous Parallels
A Book Review by Phil Elmore

Barbara Branden, whose biography of Ayn Rand is considered by many to be the best available, says that Leonard Peikoff spent 14 years writing The Ominous Parallels under Ayn Rand's stern guidance. According to Jeff Walker's The Ayn Rand Cult, the book was originally to be published in 1968 as an anti-Democrat propaganda tool in the elections. If one is to believe Walker, the reason that Peikoff's Parallels didn't see a bookshelf until 1982, the year Rand died, is because Rand wasn't satisfied with young Leonard's efforts.

"It's so wonderful to see a great, new, crucial achievement which is not mine!" concludes Rand in her introduction to the book. Anyone who enjoys reading her essays will enjoy reading The Ominous Parallels, too, for -- whether because of Rand's years of influence on him or because of her editing -- the book reads like Peikoff is channeling her. The tone and style are identical to that of Rand's nonfiction essays (a comment made by more than one reviewer). Peikoff borrows from himself, too, though I'm not sure which came first. The synopsis of Objectivism that appears near the end of Parallels is very similar to, if not reproduced verbatim in, Peikoff's text, Objectivism: The Philosophy of Ayn Rand.

The Ominous Parallels asks the question, regarding the Nazi horrors: "Why?" As far as Peikoff is concerned, this question has not been answered to his satisfaction by previous authors. He believes it is a question of philosophy: German philosophers prepared the minds of the German people to accept philosophical concepts that paved the way for the coming of the Nazi jackboots. The philosophical tenets Peikoff blames include irrationality, the belief that the welfare of the State and of the collective are more important than the welfare of the individual, and the morality of altruism and its doctrine of self-sacrifice as the highest good. Peikoff lays the blame primarily at the feet of three prominent philosophers: Plato, Kant, and Hegel.

Plato, of course, was a Statist and an elitist whose writings are a blueprint for totalitarianism. Kant believed we can never really know things; his Critique of Pure Reason occupies a special place in Peikoff's pantheon of Great Horrors of Civilization. Hegel is considered by Peikoff to be Kant's "chief heir," his work instrumental in cementing in the minds of the German people that the individual is but a component of the group.

Peikoff spends a good deal of time describing what makes totalitarianism and the "ethics of evil" operate as they do. He then contrasts Statist or collectivist thought with the United States, which he sees as a nation born of Enlightenment ideas by men who conceived, in his view, the first nation truly built on a philosophy of individualism. Alas, he complains, this was not sustainable; since its inception, the inability of individualists to defend these Enlightenment ideals has led to the popularity of philosophical thought that chips away at the foundation of our great nation. Thus, one may draw "ominous parallels" between the US and Nazi Germany, seeing in our country the same worship of irrationality, of collectivist and altruistic ethics, of Statism, that led to Hitler's rise to power.

The Ominous Parallels includes sections detailing that rise to power as well as the horrors of the concentration camps that followed. Peikoff also devotes some space to the dangers of expressionist art, the popularity of which indicates (to Peikoff and to Rand) a sense-of-life hostile to humanity.

There is a ray of hope, however. Peikoff believes that, while Germany's people and Germany's intellectuals shared the same basic outlook on life and society, the United States' intellectual establishment is at odds with society at large. America's intellectuals, asserts Peikoff, advocate irrationalism and Statism, and preach a philosophy hateful of the Enlightenment ideas on which the country was founded. Society at large generally rejects these notions, though individuals do not necessarily embrace the alternatives explicitly.

The solution to America's ills, Peikoff, concludes, can only be the adoption of a rational, egoistic philosophy. This philosophy, of course, is Objectivism, the philosophy of Ayn Rand.

If you enjoy reading Rand's other nonfiction, The Ominous Parallels is worth your time. Methodical and relatively convincing, it must nevertheless be read warily -- for one should not draw conclusions about individual philosophers based solely on the assertions of Rand or her heir. Peikoff's book will, perhaps, prompt one to seek out more on the individual philosophers he indicts, as well as Aristotle, the philosopher he and Rand most admired. As a means of provoking thought, I recommend this book. As a treatise on the philosophical foundations and possible future of the United States, I still recommend it, though I suggest the reader approach it with caution.