Ayn Rand

[Strike For The South]

Will someone explain the obessison with this B-grade "philosipher" to me

How anyone in the west can see her amoral pursuit of materialism as something to be emulated is beyond

She wants to be part of the bugeroise so bad it HURTS

[Lemur]

It's also passing strange that she has become a luminary for a political group that generally identifies with traditional values, given that she was violently anti-christian. Strange stuff.

[naut]

Will someone explain the obessison with this B-grade "philosipher" to me

Whenever someone has told or suggested that I read Atlas Shrugged I feel the urge to end their existence....

[a completely inoffensive name]

Will someone explain the obessison with this B-grade "philosipher" to me

How anyone in the west can see her amoral pursuit of materialism as something to be emulated is beyond

She wants to be part of the bugeroise so bad it HURTS

Because people are selfish and want to justify their selfish actions. As long as you act under the banner of Ayn Rand's motto of let people work things out for themselves, you can feel good about stomping on them because, hey, obviously they didn't work hard enough.

[Major Robert Dump]

Wait, didn't you say Atlas Shrugged was going to be the best movie ever? Or was that sarcasm? Texans are hard to read when they aren't drunk.

[gaelic cowboy]

Will someone explain the obessison with this B-grade "philosipher" to me

How anyone in the west can see her amoral pursuit of materialism as something to be emulated is beyond

She wants to be part of the bugeroise so bad it HURTS

I would say it's because she beguiled and bewitched a few men who ended up being important people later on Alan Greespan being the most damaging of all them I would say.

Also as has been pointed out the majority of her views are diametrically opposed to the people who big her up today tis confusing indeed.

[lars573]

It's also passing strange that she has become a luminary for a political group that generally identifies with traditional values, given that she was violently anti-christian. Strange stuff.

Naw her worst crime is seducing Steve Ditko to her way of thinking.

[Adrian II]

I have no idea why people would parrot her idiotic views. What I do know is that she was a horrifically bad writer. Like Psychonaut said, anybody who suggests that her novels are a good read should be summarily executed and left in a ditch.

AII

[PanzerJaeger]

Will someone please explain the obsession among newly enlightened college kids and pseudo intellectuals with Ayn Rand? This is, at least, the third thread about this woman we've had in Backroom alone, and none of them have been from fans - and that trend isn't limited to the .org. It's kind of like how every 13 year old 'conservative' who wants to be like his daddy feels the need to take Marx apart on an internet forum, as if it has never been done before.

[Strike For The South]

Will someone please explain the obsession among newly enlightened college kids and pseudo intellectuals with Ayn Rand?

Let the record show I was an arrogant pseudo intellectual before college.

This is, at least, the third thread about this woman we've had in Backroom alone, and none of them have been from fans - and that trend isn't limited to the .org. It's kind of like how every 13 year old 'conservative' who wants to be like his daddy feels the need to take Marx apart on an internet forum, as if it has never been done before.

U Mad Bro?

[Lemur]

Will someone please explain the obsession among newly enlightened college kids and pseudo intellectuals with Ayn Rand?

Maybe it has something to do with the fact that politicians are crafting social-engineering schemes based on her theories? That would tend to excite the natives.

If a serving politico publicly declared his allegiance to the writing of L. Ron Hubbard or Karl Marx, it would be fair game to drag their rotting corpses out and demonstrate how empty their philosophies were. In this case, we have a group of politicians who not only admire Rand but are basing their ideology on Gault's Gulch. So Rand is relevant and a fair target.

[Crazed Rabbit]

That (the newsweek article quoted in the link) is a stupid article;

Rand viewed the capitalists, not the workers, as the producers of all wealth, and the workers, not the capitalists, as useless parasites.....

That's wrong. Straight up, completely wrong about her philosophy. Now, if that's so very wrong, can we trust the author to know what they're talking about in the rest of the article?

He is also invoking Rand's almost theological certainty that when a government punishes the strong to reward the weak, it must invariably collapse. That is the crisis his Path to Prosperity seeks to avert.

Viewed as an effort to reduce the debt, Ryan's plan makes little sense. Many of its proposals either have nothing to do with reducing deficits (repealing the financial-reform bill loathed by Wall Street) or actually increase deficits (making the Bush tax cuts permanent). It relies heavily on distant, phantasmal cuts....

Add some conspiracy theory stuff and more financial ignorance and there you have it.

I'm no objectivist, but her book did foreshadow certain things;

TO START WITH, shouldn’t it be called the “better-seller list”? I suppose that doesn’t quite sing, but how can you have more than one best seller at a time?
...
What troubles me most, though, is the unfairness. Some writers, no matter how accomplished, have virtually no chance of gaining the readership they deserve. When’s the last time you bought a book by a contemporary poet who wasn’t a personal friend? With the partial exceptions of Seamus Heaney, Billy Collins, and a few others, even the most wonderful poet is lucky to sell a thousand copies of a collection that might have taken a decade to produce. The heart sinks.
...
Is nothing to be done? As it happens, I do have a solution to the heartbreak of the best-seller list. It’s really quite simple and doesn’t involve changing how the list is reported or structured. All we need do to enrich our American culture and literature is adopt this rule: A writer can only be on the best-seller list once.

CR

[Lemur]

That (the newsweek article quoted in the link) is a stupid article;

Fine, but the link between Rand and Ryan is real, and articulated by the man himself.

"The reason I got involved in public service, by and large, if I had to credit one thinker, one person, it would be Ayn Rand," Ryan said at a D.C. gathering four years ago honoring the author of "Atlas Shrugged" and "The Fountainhead."

Surely having the putative intellectual leader of a political party openly declaring his idolatry of Ayn Rand makes the gray dame of I-got-mine-Jack philosophy lite relevant and fair game?

[Crazed Rabbit]

Sure, Ayn Rand is relevant and fair game. I'm not saying otherwise.

But it's the "in" thing among a lot of folks to trash her and her philosophy, and that leads to a lot of stupidly written things, like the linked article.

And if she led to a guy like Paul Ryan, who seems like he actually wants to fix the huge looming financial problems, getting involved in politics than that's a credit to her.

CR

[Ironside]

That's wrong. Straight up, completely wrong about her philosophy. Now, if that's so very wrong, can we trust the author to know what they're talking about in the rest of the article?

CR

Haven't red the book, but from what I picked up, isn't Atlas Shrugged pretty much that there's only a few producing members left in society, who then moves into Gault's Gulch, making the rest of US burn because of the remaining non-producing looters (aka the rest of the population) fail at everything?

I've searched bit and Gault's Gulch pretty much resembles a post-scarcity communist community (but with private property and enlightened self interest, so it's completely different). Might be wrong here due to missing critical details, since the net isn't that covering.

And if she led to a guy like Paul Ryan, who seems like he actually wants to fix the huge looming financial problems, getting involved in politics than that's a credit to her.

CR

Now I'm a bit unfamiliar with Paul Ryan, but wanting to fix things using ideologically driven methods without data support, might not always be the best solution.

[Samurai Waki]

That depends on if you actually believe Paul Ryan is really interested in fixing financial woes-- Politicians say a lot of things...

[Lemur]

That's wrong. Straight up, completely wrong about her philosophy.

Wait, so Ayn Rand didn't divide society into producers and parasites? She didn't invert the communist formula in a dierct and simple-minded manner? News to me. Not defending the article, but producers and parasites seems like a simple but apt summary of the Randian worldview. Now let's all skip off to Gault Gulch!

[Crazed Rabbit]

For cripes sake, she didn't say the workers were parasites. Lots of government people, and those living on the dole (maybe? I don't remember the particulars) - a major difference from workers. The linked article insists she called workers parasites.

Haven't red the book, but from what I picked up,

By osmosis? Were you standing near the book a lot?

CR

[jirisys]

By osmosis? Were you standing near the book a lot?

CR

No, he picked it up.

~Jirisys ()

[Populus Romanus]

No, he picked it up.

The book or information?

[a completely inoffensive name]

And if she led to a guy like Paul Ryan, who seems like he actually wants to fix the huge looming financial problems, getting involved in politics than that's a credit to her.

CR

Paul Ryan is a joke. Come on guys, this is day 1 material. Both Paul Ryan and Ron Paul want to remove the large debt problems but Ron Paul actually has a plan consistent with today's expectations. Paul Ryan made a bill saying if we told all the medicare patients to fend for themselves, then we can save soooo much more money.

He is a right wing extremist, pure and simple. It isn't him wanting to solve the problem of large debt, it's him trying to solve the problem of the US not being an Ayn Rand novel. Big difference.

[HoreTore]

I highly object to some random and irrelevant fiction writers name being associated with people with actual intellectual ability like Karl Marx(who is usually mentioned along with people like Adam Smith).

The comparison to L Ron Hubbard is decent though.

[Adrian II]

For cripes sake, she didn't say the workers were parasites. Lots of government people, and those living on the dole (maybe? I don't remember the particulars)

Read Roark's pathetic courtroom speech, says it all. It's condensed Nietzsche, but with no Nietzsche in it. Like apple juice made from one drop of apple essence, a liter of water and seven spoonfuls of sugar.

AII

[PanzerJaeger]

Maybe it has something to do with the fact that politicians are crafting social-engineering schemes based on her theories? That would tend to excite the natives.

I'm not sure that a liberal commentator saying the Ryan plan is based on Rand's theories equates to the Ryan plan actually being based on Rand's theories.

If a serving politico publicly declared his allegiance to the writing of L. Ron Hubbard or Karl Marx, it would be fair game to drag their rotting corpses out and demonstrate how empty their philosophies were. In this case, we have a group of politicians who not only admire Rand but are basing their ideology on Gault's Gulch. So Rand is relevant and a fair target.

It's just so Glenn Beck - pick an admired historical figure and personally disparage him/her. I mean, do the libblog copy/pasters really think anyone is going to change their opinion of her ideas because she collected Social Security? And then there's this thread, which doesn't even pretend to offer anything other than insults. It's beyond tiring.

[Ironside]

By osmosis? Were you standing near the book a lot?

CR

Yes, through Internet osmosis. You might even heard about this Internet thingy. Things are talked about there and you can red about that.

Please, since you claim to have some decent info on her philosophy and might have red the book, you could correct me if you wish.

The abolishment of the state and starting to live in communities is text book examples of pure communism though. How simular the rest about Galt's Gush is depends a lot of the details, which are a bit lacking on the net.

[Lemur]

I'm not sure that a liberal commentator saying the Ryan plan is based on Rand's theories equates to the Ryan plan actually being based on Rand's theories.

I pronounce you guilty of thread-skimming.

And then there's this thread, which doesn't even pretend to offer anything other than insults. It's beyond tiring.

Which just goes to prove something I've been saying for years -- the Org needs a fainting couch.

[Crazed Rabbit]

Read Roark's pathetic courtroom speech, says it all. It's condensed Nietzsche, but with no Nietzsche in it. Like apple juice made from one drop of apple essence, a liter of water and seven spoonfuls of sugar.

AII

I admit that when I skipped ahead and saw that the whole speech was 50 pages, I skipped it.

The main thing I remember is her theory of objectivism, as summarized in my head (Don't give anything to anybody without compensation, and don't use force to take anything for yourself or someone else.) I think there's something about working only for yourself in there too, but it's been several years and the details didn't seem worth remembering.

Please, since you claim to have some decent info on her philosophy and might have red the book, you could correct me if you wish.

The abolishment of the state and starting to live in communities is text book examples of pure communism though.

The looters mentioned are the people who work for the state, who loot by passing laws seizing companies for the state to devour in order to survive a few more years, or by high taxation, handouts to favored companies that couldn't compete otherwise.

The Galt's Gulch is Rand's vision of an objectivist utopia.

CR

[Ironside]

The looters mentioned are the people who work for the state, who loot by passing laws seizing companies for the state to devour in order to survive a few more years, or by high taxation, handouts to favored companies that couldn't compete otherwise.

Would you say that the theme in the book for the workers after the collapse are to remove the looters and create a new society or do they need the ones from Galt's Gulch to do it? Or are those in Galt's Gulch caring about what happens to the workers?

I would say that the post collapse society tells most of what value she did put on the workers.

The Galt's Gulch is Rand's vision of an objectivist utopia.

CR

I was more thinking on what it resembles.

For example, capitalism doesn't really function even in a semi-post scarcity society, since everyone got enough to live well and easy access to work with gives an income. Captilalism starts to become superficial.

Does social class exist there or did it die out through the selection? Who does the dirty jobs (sewage maintenance, garbage man)?
Does "From each according to his ability, to each according to his needs" apply there or not?
I picked up that crime doesn't exist there. Is it because everyone is working on self-enlightened interest or something else? White collar crime exist due to short sighted self interest, so I doubt you can get away from that even in a wealthy society.

[Fragony]

Whenever someone has told or suggested that I read Atlas Shrugged I feel the urge to end their existence....

It is still a classic that had an impact so I wanted to read it, wasn't so bad imho. Bit like a modern day 'Utopia'.

[lars573]

I highly object to some random and irrelevant fiction writers name being associated with people with actual intellectual ability like Karl Marx(who is usually mentioned along with people like Adam Smith).

The comparison to L Ron Hubbard is decent though.

20th century philosophers (or philosopher wannabes) dress their manifestos in novel form. Hubbard, Rand, Heinlein they all did it (although Heinlein's probably the best writer of the three). It's a modern version of the Socratic dialogue. You wrap your ideas about how society, the state, and the person should deport themselves in a work of fiction to make it easier for the reader to digest. And thus greatly broaden it's appeal. Read Heinlein's Starship Troopers and tell me it's not a manifesto of Heinlein's views on how society and it's military should operate.