# So The Watchman's "Rorschach" was an Ayn Rand Objectivist. I never knew! **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [April 26, 2011, 12:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-the-watchmans-rorschach-was-an-ayn-rand-objectivist-i-never-knew/579720 "2011-04-26T00:42:09Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![astro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/9dc877/32.png) [@astro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/astro)\ **Post date:** [April 26, 2011, 12:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-the-watchmans-rorschach-was-an-ayn-rand-objectivist-i-never-knew/579720/1 "2011-04-26T00:42:09Z")
Interesting. I thought he was just kind of a borderline sociopath. [Interesting reveal on this issue.](http://www.dialbforblog.com/archives/296/) > [@](#): > > DC loved Moore’s pitch, but told him that they were already committed to other plans involving the Charlton heroes. Moore had the solution: He simply changed the names of the heroes, wrote new back stories for them, and dubbed his new super-group THE WATCHMEN. > > The Question was transformed into the mysterious Rorschach (pictured right, drawn by Watchmen artist Dave Gibbons), a character who, like the Question, applies the uncompromising principals of Randian Objectivism to vigilante crimefighting – as seen in the WATCHMEN #1 panels shown below: ---
**Author:** ![Marley23](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@Marley23](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Marley23)\ **Post date:** [April 26, 2011, 1:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-the-watchmans-rorschach-was-an-ayn-rand-objectivist-i-never-knew/579720/2 "2011-04-26T01:00:13Z")
The Question might be an Objectivist- I don’t know anything about him. Rorschach is an individualist for sure, but he’s also a religious fanatic. I’m not sure how well that squares with Objectivism. ETA: If Rorschach is only a borderline sociopath, who’s a full blown sociopath? 😉 ---
**Author:** ![The\_Other\_Waldo\_Pepper](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/the_other_waldo_pepper/32/12370_2.png) [@The\_Other\_Waldo\_Pepper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Other_Waldo_Pepper)\ **Post date:** [April 26, 2011, 2:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-the-watchmans-rorschach-was-an-ayn-rand-objectivist-i-never-knew/579720/3 "2011-04-26T02:13:37Z")
> [@Marley23](#): > > The Question might be an Objectivist- I don’t know anything about him. Rorschach is an individualist for sure, but he’s also a religious fanatic. Not sure where you got that. “Looked at sky through smoke heavy with human fat and God was not there. The cold, suffocating dark goes on forever, and we are alone. Live our lives, lacking anything better to do … There is nothing else. Existence is random. Has no pattern save what we imagine after staring at it for too long. No meaning save what we choose to impose. This rudderless world is not shaped by metaphysical forces. It is not God who kills the children. Not fate that butchers them or destiny that feeds them to the dogs. It’s us. Only us.” ---
**Author:** ![Sage\_Rat](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sage_rat/32/399_2.png) [@Sage\_Rat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sage_Rat)\ **Post date:** [April 26, 2011, 2:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-the-watchmans-rorschach-was-an-ayn-rand-objectivist-i-never-knew/579720/4 "2011-04-26T02:48:13Z")
Rand wasn’t individualist, nor did she advocate lawlessness. If Moore intended Rorschach to be Objectivist, then I’d vote that he doesn’t understand Objectivism. (Of course, that’s true of basically everyone so far as I can tell. There are many reasons to think that Objectivism is less than brilliant, but I’ll be darned if I’ve ever seen anyone argue them.) ---
**Author:** ![Miller](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/miller/32/481_2.png) [@Miller](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Miller)\ **Post date:** [April 26, 2011, 3:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-the-watchmans-rorschach-was-an-ayn-rand-objectivist-i-never-knew/579720/5 "2011-04-26T03:06:04Z")
> [@The\_Other\_Waldo\_Pepper](#): > > Not sure where you got that. Possibly from his tendency to [wander around with a placard that said, “The End is Near.”](http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_G9DZYfKIKok/SZBRa1ev12I/AAAAAAAAADA/_fwI8tJCK20/s400/Rorschach+Unsmasked.jpg) But I think that was just a disguise - he wasn’t wearing his face at the time. ---
**Author:** ![The\_Other\_Waldo\_Pepper](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/the_other_waldo_pepper/32/12370_2.png) [@The\_Other\_Waldo\_Pepper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Other_Waldo_Pepper)\ **Post date:** [April 26, 2011, 3:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-the-watchmans-rorschach-was-an-ayn-rand-objectivist-i-never-knew/579720/6 "2011-04-26T03:21:39Z")
> [@Miller](#): > > Possibly from his tendency to [wander around with a placard that said, “The End is Near.”](http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_G9DZYfKIKok/SZBRa1ev12I/AAAAAAAAADA/_fwI8tJCK20/s400/Rorschach+Unsmasked.jpg) But I think that was just a disguise For what it’s worth, couldn’t he have been referencing an entirely secular end of the world? He explicitly uses “armageddon” and “apocalypse” to refer to the purely mundane possibility of nuclear war – up to and including the possibility of Mutually Assured Destruction wiping out every human on the planet. ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [April 26, 2011, 3:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-the-watchmans-rorschach-was-an-ayn-rand-objectivist-i-never-knew/579720/7 "2011-04-26T03:26:02Z")
> [@](#): > > Interesting. I thought he was just kind of a borderline sociopath. There’s a difference? (sorry, someone had to say it) ---
**Author:** ![Qin\_Shi\_Huangdi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/q/f04885/32.png) [@Qin\_Shi\_Huangdi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Qin_Shi_Huangdi)\ **Post date:** [April 26, 2011, 3:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-the-watchmans-rorschach-was-an-ayn-rand-objectivist-i-never-knew/579720/8 "2011-04-26T03:31:49Z")
Lawlessness? How is Rorschach lawless? Anyways he always struck me as sort of a “law and order” conservative (as evidenced by his avid reading of the _New Frontiersman_ and admiration for President Truman). ---
**Author:** ![Miller](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/miller/32/481_2.png) [@Miller](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Miller)\ **Post date:** [April 26, 2011, 3:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-the-watchmans-rorschach-was-an-ayn-rand-objectivist-i-never-knew/579720/9 "2011-04-26T03:33:07Z")
> [@Qin\_Shi\_Huangdi](#): > > Lawlessness? How is Rorschach lawless? Well, there’s the way he knowingly and repeatedly violates the law… ---
**Author:** ![pravnik](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/8edcca/32.png) [@pravnik](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pravnik)\ **Post date:** [April 26, 2011, 4:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-the-watchmans-rorschach-was-an-ayn-rand-objectivist-i-never-knew/579720/10 "2011-04-26T04:04:56Z")
Yeah, protesting the Keene act by leaving the dead body of a serial rapist outside the NYC police station with a note on him saying “Never!” could arguably be seen as a tad lawless. Regarding Rorschach’s history as an objectivist hero, he was based on Steve Ditko’s objectivist hero “[Mr. A](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mr._A),” who eventually became “The Question.” Mr. A was an extreme black and white thinker, because as far as he was concerned there only _was_ black and white, good and evil, simple as that, thus his calling card of half black and half white. Moore’s vision of Rorschach was sort of exploring how far that sort of black and white thinking could go; Rorschach thought Truman was a great man for dropping the A bomb and stopping the war, but was that truly different from what Ozymandias accomplished? [Alan Moore’s poem/song about Mr. A](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hD7EKZ32ODQ) ---
**Author:** ![3trew](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/3/13edae/32.png) [@3trew](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/3trew)\ **Post date:** [April 26, 2011, 7:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-the-watchmans-rorschach-was-an-ayn-rand-objectivist-i-never-knew/579720/11 "2011-04-26T07:13:36Z")
> [@Miller](#): > > Well, there’s the way he knowingly and repeatedly violates the law… Well, it’s not THE law, it’s just A law. The one about breaking and entering, and, ok, the one about assault, and the Keene act, and a few more, and probably a lot of other ones, but they’re not THE law, they’re just a large number of really well drafted laws which form the legal framework of the society in which he works, that he happened to break, but that totally doesn’t count because he isn’t breaking THE law, which is… hard to articulate, but he knows it when he sees it, even though it’s probably not actually written down anywhere, let alone passed as an actual law, and he hasn’t broken it, so he’s totally a law and order guy, and anyone who points out all of those broken laws or any of that disorder behind him is just a dupe who’s probably in for a visit some night, hrrrm. ---
**Author:** ![Peremensoe](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/ce7236/32.png) [@Peremensoe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Peremensoe)\ **Post date:** [April 26, 2011, 7:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-the-watchmans-rorschach-was-an-ayn-rand-objectivist-i-never-knew/579720/12 "2011-04-26T07:34:37Z")
> [@Sage\_Rat](#): > > If Moore intended Rorschach to be Objectivist, then I’d vote that he doesn’t understand Objectivism. (Of course, that’s true of basically everyone so far as I can tell. There are many reasons to think that Objectivism is less than brilliant, but I’ll be darned if I’ve ever seen anyone argue them.) Only Ayn Rand and, temporarily, Nathaniel Branden could understand Objectivism. Everyone else can only be a Student of Objectivism. ---
**Author:** ![Kobal2](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kobal2/32/20_2.png) [@Kobal2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kobal2)\ **Post date:** [April 26, 2011, 7:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-the-watchmans-rorschach-was-an-ayn-rand-objectivist-i-never-knew/579720/13 "2011-04-26T07:50:52Z")
I don’t know nothing about no objectivism, but I always considered Rorschach as a sort of Nietzschean superhuman - or at least I’m sure he would consider himself such. Unbound by conventional laws and moralities, dismisses any concept of other-world, found his own path to perfection, made his own values, followed them to the bitter end. No compromises, never compromises. He’s a triumph of the Will all right. Inhuman, necessarily. The only thing that truly (and, perhaps, irredeemably) distinguishes him from Nietzsche’s fantasy was that he realized himself in and through sheer hatred of the world rather than love of it. It’s not quite clear to me \*why \*Rorschach does what he does however, I’m not even sure he really knows himself. He certainly seems to despise the people he works to protect (and the people he works with) almost as much as he does the people the fingers of whom he breaks for a living. So why give a fuck, why try and protect them ? Besides the fact that he’s crazier than a treeful of monkeys on nitrous oxide I mean. ---
**Author:** ![MrDibble](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mrdibble/32/114_2.png) [@MrDibble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrDibble)\ **Post date:** [April 26, 2011, 8:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-the-watchmans-rorschach-was-an-ayn-rand-objectivist-i-never-knew/579720/14 "2011-04-26T08:15:41Z")
> [@Kobal2](#): > > I don’t know nothing about no objectivism, but I always considered Rorschach as a sort of Nietzschean superhuman - or at least I’m sure he would consider himself such. Naah, that’s Ozymandias. ---
**Author:** ![Sage\_Rat](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sage_rat/32/399_2.png) [@Sage\_Rat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sage_Rat)\ **Post date:** [April 26, 2011, 9:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-the-watchmans-rorschach-was-an-ayn-rand-objectivist-i-never-knew/579720/15 "2011-04-26T09:20:25Z")
> [@spark240](#): > > Only Ayn Rand and, temporarily, Nathaniel Branden could understand Objectivism. Everyone else can only be a Student of Objectivism. Every opinion in the world is best understood by the person whose opinion it is, than the people they tell. Your statement tries to imply that somehow other people have been able to avoid this fact of life. ---
**Author:** ![Marley23](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@Marley23](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Marley23)\ **Post date:** [April 26, 2011, 10:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-the-watchmans-rorschach-was-an-ayn-rand-objectivist-i-never-knew/579720/16 "2011-04-26T10:25:14Z")
> [@The\_Other\_Waldo\_Pepper](#): > > Not sure where you got that. It’s possible I was stupidly misled by the sign, but I thought he was coming from the perspective that God had abandoned humanity for its sinfulness, not that God didn’t exist. But maybe I should reread the book again. ---
**Author:** ![BigT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bigt/32/12044_2.png) [@BigT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BigT)\ **Post date:** [April 26, 2011, 12:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-the-watchmans-rorschach-was-an-ayn-rand-objectivist-i-never-knew/579720/17 "2011-04-26T12:21:42Z")
> [@Sage\_Rat](#): > > Every opinion in the world is best understood by the person whose opinion it is, than the people they tell. Your statement tries to imply that somehow other people have been able to avoid this fact of life. An opinion is not a philosophy. What he’s saying is that she did such a poor job articulating her philosophy that it takes a lot of study to find out what she means rather than what she said. The reason people misunderstand Objectivism is that it isn’t consistent. Depending on which part you read, you can come up with diametrically opposite conclusions on how you are supposed to act. Even true Randians don’t seem to be able to agree on how they are supposed to act. ---
**Author:** ![Marley23](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@Marley23](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Marley23)\ **Post date:** [April 26, 2011, 12:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-the-watchmans-rorschach-was-an-ayn-rand-objectivist-i-never-knew/579720/18 "2011-04-26T12:39:00Z")
> [@Miller](#): > > Possibly from his tendency to [wander around with a placard that said, “The End is Near.”](http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_G9DZYfKIKok/SZBRa1ev12I/AAAAAAAAADA/_fwI8tJCK20/s400/Rorschach+Unsmasked.jpg) But I think that was just a disguise - he wasn’t wearing his face at the time. I saw that as his day job, not as a disguise. I thought he really did feel the end was nigh, and there was good reason to. ---
**Author:** ![Peremensoe](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/ce7236/32.png) [@Peremensoe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Peremensoe)\ **Post date:** [April 26, 2011, 12:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-the-watchmans-rorschach-was-an-ayn-rand-objectivist-i-never-knew/579720/19 "2011-04-26T12:53:52Z")
It’s kind of a doctrinal point among her “students” that it takes lesser mortals years of work to begin to grasp the profound truths that flowed naturally to the mind of Rand (and Branden, by some accounts, but only during the time he was her lover). _They_ were the actual Objectivists, the ones gifted with the clarity and strength of character to live like mythic heroes. The rest of us could but _study_ and aspire, though adopting her tastes from facial hair on men (none) to music (Rachmaninoff) evidently helps. ---
**Author:** ![Capitaine\_Zombie](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/e95f7d/32.png) [@Capitaine\_Zombie](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Capitaine_Zombie)\ **Post date:** [April 26, 2011, 1:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-the-watchmans-rorschach-was-an-ayn-rand-objectivist-i-never-knew/579720/20 "2011-04-26T13:54:20Z")
> [@MrDibble](#): > > Naah, that’s Ozymandias. Nope, that’s the Comedian. He’s the only one dancing around the edge of the Abyss. All the others are trying to save humankind. [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-the-watchmans-rorschach-was-an-ayn-rand-objectivist-i-never-knew/579720.md?page=2)