Neil Peart, the Bleeding Heart Libertarian...Pt. 1.

 This first post will lay some groundwork that I will build on in Part 2, which is my read on Neil Peart’s libertarianism (and Rush’s outlook on the world as well). What libertarianism is, especially today, and what Neil was, I argue, are not the same. 

There is a repeating conversation I have from time to time. Different versions of it happen depending on whether my interlocutor is of a more conversative or liberal inclination, but the heart of it is the same. I’ll be talking about Rush (as is my way) and someone will say something to the effect of “aren’t they really into Ayn Rand?” My liberal friends tend to wonder, since I am very liberal myself, why I love this band so much as they perceive them to be followers of Rand. My conservative friends, on the other hand, frequently see Rush as an affirmation of their “individualist” principles and cite Rush’s devotion to Rand as evidence. 

Both are wrong. 

Did Rush, especially Neil, have an affinity or even devotion to Ayn Rand and her thought? Well, yes and no. My intention in this post is to offer my take on the “Rush-Ayn Rand connection” and I am pretty confident it is on target. It is not about being right or winning any arguments, but to try to see the truth of the matter. You and I—each of us—are free to be what we want to be and think what we want to think regardless of whether Neil Peart thought the way we do or not. I love Rush as, I assume, you do as well, dear reader. After all, here you are reading this blog. But I don’t need Rush to validate what I believe, and I think they wouldn’t want to be a validation. An inspiration, sure. But I think the fellows would want you to search for the truth and believe what you do despite whether it aligns with them or not.

Getting right to the point (before my own take), in a 2012 interview with Rolling Stone, Neil was asked if the words of Ayn Rand still spoke to him. He replied, “Oh, no. That was 40 years ago. But it was important to me at the time in a transition of finding myself and having faith that what I believed was worthwhile.” A few sentences later, he went on to say, “For me, it was an affirmation that it’s all right to totally believe in something and live for it and not compromise. It was a simple as that” [emphasis mine]. On that 2112 album, again, I was in my early twenties. I was a kid.” 

As he related in the interview, this was near the time he had went to England with a dream of making it big, only to be disillusioned with the music industry there that he described as “factory-like.” The work of Ayn Rand spoke to him, as it did many of us as kids, that we could be creative and free as individuals and artists. We need not conform or do what others say we must do. As Neil said, he was inspired to accept that we could believe in something, live for it, and we need not compromise to please others. 
Indeed, this message spoke to a lot of us as kids. Needless to say, I was exposed to Ayn Rand because of the dedication to Rand’s “genius” in 2112 and started reading her books. I had read The Fountain Head and Anthem before I learned to drive. During the late teen to young adult years, we were all seeking our own identity. We want to define ourselves, not be defined by family, religious upbringing, etc. “I wanna be me!” was the call of the day. Ayn Rand, setting aside the full extent of her philosophy of selfishness, appealed to us in those days when we needed someone to tell us that we could be ourselves and define who we wanted to be. 

Most of us, including Neil Peart, grew out of that. That message of individual freedom and liberty, the permission to be creative in our own way and not have to conform to anything or anyone else was the affirming message we wanted to hear. That is all it was. Neil Peart (and all of Rush for that matter) never bought in wholesale to the philosophy of Ayn Rand.

The Trees on the Hemispheres album is often cited as Rush’s continuing commitment Randian style libertarianism. Some have taken it as a shot at labor unions. After all, the Maples formed a union, demanding equal rights, their equality being secured by “hatchet, axe, and saw.” Neil has certainly said in his books that the song is about being against all forms of collectivism. But keep in mind a very important point…The Trees is an allegory. Warning: DO NOT TAKE LITERAL. I can’t speak to Neil’s intention, but I don’t think it is a song protesting labor unions. 

Consistent with Neil’s desire to be creative and not make the music he was told to make, and given his disillusionment with what he saw in England, I take The Trees to be much more about the creative freedom of the individual artist over the industry and its pressure to make mediocre music just to sell. In that same Rolling Stone interview, he said that the attitude of making repetitive songs because that’s what people want is the attitude that had been his lifelong enemy. He followed that with, “Ever since I was a kid, I always wanted to play music that I liked, and even when I was in cover bands when I was a teenager we only played cover tunes that we liked. That was the simple morality that I grew up with. It’s hard to think of the number of bands that just do what they want.” 

Even though music in the post-1978 catalogue revealed a Rush that was anything but Randian disciples, even songs like Closer to the Heart from 1977 starts off with a line about the importance of “the men [and women] who hold high places” who must “be the ones who start.” Yes, we are all individuals and should be free to pursue a life of satisfaction and creativity as we choose, but we are still never alone. Each of us must “know our part” in the larger community. 

So, with that background, the next post will specifically address what Neil meant by describing himself as “bleeding heart libertarian.”

Stay tuned!