Esquire’s Dishonest Smear of Aaron Rodgers and Ayn Rand
On January 4, Justin Kirkland published an “article” in Esquire titled “Of Course Aaron Rodgers Loves Atlas Shrugged.”
On January 4, Justin Kirkland published an “article” in Esquire titled “Of Course Aaron Rodgers Loves Atlas Shrugged.” The word “article” is in scare quotes because Kirkland’s piece, like much modern “journalism,” bears little resemblance to actual journalism. (And shame on Esquire’s editors for running such a dishonest hit piece.)
Genuine journalists have two basic choices about how to write articles that are meant to inform or persuade readers. They can either attempt to draw conclusions or refrain from doing so, but both approaches require the journalist to accurately report facts and evidence (or the lack thereof). The title of Kirkland’s piece draws a specific conclusion and is a giant IOU to readers—it heavily implies that Rodgers’s actions are consistent with Ayn Rand’s philosophy of Objectivism, and it contains a baked-in promise that the writer will offer evidence in support of that claim.
Kirkland’s “article,” however, contains sixteen insults and zero evidence or arguments to support his headline. This is not journalism. Kirkland is simply using Esquire as a platform to broadcast his personal dislike of Ayn Rand and her novel, as is the case in almost all published criticisms of Rand that I’ve ever seen (and I’ve seen a lot of them).
Kirkland opens his diatribe by describing Atlas Shrugged as the “noted favorite novel of Aaron Rodgers and every 17-year-old libertarian interested in majoring in fuh-nance,” immediately substituting personal attacks for evidence-based arguments by invoking a common, uncharitable stereotype of young libertarians. (This claim is simply a lie; Rodgers never said that Atlas Shrugged is his favorite novel—we’ll address his actual statement later.) Kirkland goes on to say that the book “represents an ideology that values the individual and his own decisions, or, as my friend Zack used to say, it’s a ‘real douche-nozzle’s guide to the world.’”1
At this point, honest readers may already have recognized Kirkland’s vulgar insults for what they are: confessions of intellectual impotence. But in the name of being objective (as journalists are supposed to do unfailingly), let’s quickly review the recent controversies around Rodgers and see if they have any plausible connection to Rand’s novel, as Kirkland claims.
Rodgers is the quarterback for the Green Bay Packers, and for several months now, he’s been under fire for his words and actions regarding COVID-19 vaccinations and NFL policies on social distancing. Sometime in 2021, Rodgers stated during an interview that he had been “immunized” against COVID-19. He didn’t elaborate, but many sports journalists took the word “immunized” to mean that he had taken one of the three federally approved vaccines, and they reported accordingly. It later came to light that Rodgers had taken ivermectin, not a vaccine, and that the NFL had known that all along.2 Many media pundits and sports fans were outraged at Rodgers’s seeming deception.
Rodgers was also heavily criticized for “hug-gate”—for briefly hugging a reporter after an interview, thus violating the NFL’s social distancing policy.3 (I must point out the absurdity of a “social distancing policy” that applies after the game but not during it, wherein the athletes are in continuous and direct physical contact with one another for three hours or longer.)
Does any of this have anything to do with Atlas Shrugged? Kirkland’s only “evidence” for his claim that Rodgers “loves” Atlas Shrugged is a twenty-seven-second video clip in which Rodgers says that he’s currently reading the novel. He doesn’t say that he loves (or even likes) the book, as Kirkland claims in his headline and repeatedly throughout the article. Look for yourself. As of this writing, there is no evidence indicating Rodgers “loves” the book. Everything I’ve seen refers back to the same twenty-seven-second video clip.
Whether Rodgers loves Atlas Shrugged seems like a difficult question for anyone but him to answer. The question of whether he understands or lives by the philosophy presented in the book is harder still. To even attempt to answer the latter would require examining the book’s content and Rodgers’s actions in various contexts.
Kirkland attempts none of that work. He is, instead, content to make completely unfounded claims, quote nasty tweets wherein total strangers insult Rand and her fans, and call it a day. I can’t attempt to refute Kirkland’s arguments because he doesn’t make any arguments, only baseless assertions—all of which seem to stem from the common misconception that Rand’s philosophy advocates doing whatever you want without regard for how your actions affect others.
This is a complete misrepresentation of Rand and her philosophy. In the interest of brevity, I will quote only a single example of Rand’s actual views on self-interest and individualism:
Do not make the mistake of the ignorant who think that an individualist is a man who says: “I’ll do as I please at everybody else’s expense.” An individualist is a man who recognizes the inalienable individual rights of man—his own and those of others.
An individualist is a man who says: “I will not run anyone’s life—nor let anyone run mine. I will not rule nor be ruled. I will not be a master nor a slave. I will not sacrifice myself to anyone—nor sacrifice anyone to myself.”4
There are dozens, perhaps hundreds of passages like this one throughout Rand’s work that unequivocally refute the notion that she advocated disregard for the rights or well-being of others. Anyone who has actually read Rand’s work with the goal of understanding her (as opposed to cherry-picking her words out of context in order to “support” a pre-drawn conclusion) knows that she never advocated the common misconception of selfishness—of doing whatever you want, everyone else be damned. In fact, she consistently and vehemently denounced such behavior, precisely because it cannot promote individual happiness.
Justin Kirkland takes for granted that Atlas Shrugged is a bad book and that Aaron Rodgers’s behavior exemplifies its content—without providing a single shred of evidence to support either conclusion. Kirkland, along with countless “journalists” like him, is contributing to the slow death of real journalism and to the ongoing erosion of the mainstream media’s credibility. Those who recognize and lament today’s pseudo-journalism and who want the facts about Atlas Shrugged (or any other issue) should investigate the source and decide for themselves.