Forever 21 Sets New Fashion Trend: Shirts With Ayn Rand Quotes
The following story is sure to warm the hearts of free market advocates.
Forever 21, an apparel store that targets young Americans, looks as if it is trying to cash in on the newest campus trend: Libertarianism.
Forever 21 has a penchant for releasing controversial clothing, but a recent muscle tee emblazoned with the words of Ayn Rand seems puzzling for the fashion line targeted towards teens.
The “Unstoppable Muscle Tee,” priced at $11.80, bears a quote from the author and philospher, framed as a motivational statement:
“The question isn’t who is going to let me, it’s who is going to stop me.” — Ayn Rand
The quote refers to Rand’s capitalist-based theory of objectivism — that the moral purpose of life is rational self interest — a concept we highly doubt is taught in high school classrooms or discussed among teen lunchroom conversations. And it’s not much of a theory to stand by for an age group that still financially relies on their parents.
The idea of idolizing a contentious figure is reminiscent of the famed Ernesto ‘Che’ Guevara t-shirts, made popular by the counterculture of the late 1960s. The t-shirt is now one of the most common shirts found on college campuses, often donned by young people who have no idea what the communist revolutionary symbolized–but check out that heroic-looking dude in the cool hat!
Forever 21 Is Now Selling a Shirt With an Ayn Rand Quote On It (Time Newsfeed)
Comments
“…sure to warm the hearts of free market advocates.”
Perhaps, but I fear that, like the Che shirts, this too will be worn by young people who have no idea of its true meaning.
Hopefully we won’t start seeing these at those ‘enlightened’ student protests that seek to silence anyone who disagrees with them.
One problem with libertarianism is that this is a tee shirt Che would have been happy to wear.
Yes, it is a problem if you have no concept of context.
Who is going to stop me from smoking dope, or who is going to stop me from personally killing hundreds of people? Yeah, very little difference in those two statements.
See someone wearing a Che t-shirt and you can ask “Why do you want to kill gays? Do you always advocate killing people who disagree with you? If you disagree with me on a point should I be killed? What if I held the same position and if advocated killing you if you have a different position from me.
You would be surprised by the number of gay men I’ve said “Why do you want to kill gays” and have them surprised to find out that Che considered gays, by their very nature, to be counter-revolutionary examples of the hedonist west and deserving of death.
And – you do realize that Ayn Rand was not a libertarian. She did not respect the libertarian movement. She did not consider them to have a properly grounded philosophy to take up the defense of individualism and capitalism.