Ayn Rand

[uh Clem]

Narz, read Barbara Branden's The Passion of Ayn Rand. I always recommend it when discussions like this come up. The actual human being that Branden writes about is vastly more interesting than the iconic cult figure she became.

(Especially with those idiotic 'pronouncements': Smoking is good! Pollution is good! Men with facial hair are evil!)

Since her death, the 'official' version of Objectivism has descended into a self-parody that's genuinely funny in an unintentional sort of way. For instance, the Ayn Rand Institute has released several essays over the past year or so urging the Bush administration to make sure they kill as many Arabs as possible when they invade Iraq.

And ditto for all the other Mideast countries we invade. Needless to say, the ARI calls for invading lots of other Mideast countries. Needless to say, all of this is at the expense of the US taxpayer. Needless to say, the folks at ARI aren't exactly lining up to be in combat.

Statism is bad except when it's good.


__________________
They hate us because of our Freedom Fries.

[Ming]

OK guys... you've had your fun. Stay on topic, and stop spamming this thread.

[Az]

Since I haven't read any of her books, I cannot criticize her views, simply because I don't know what they are.

[Alinestra Covelia]

I read Atlas Shrugged and found it to be an interesting piece. It was clearly written during a time when fear of Communism was very high, and it puts forward several arguments against the spread of Communism and why America needs to safeguard against it.

However, much of the arguments are, I feel, just as extreme as the Communist arguments, just in a different direction. She argues against Socialism, Communism, and then goes on to attack federal government, all forms of aid, apprenticeship, positive discrimination, non-veneration of currency, and the reliance of Asian cultures on soy products (!).

Her message seems to get garbled. At times it looks to me like she is arguing against Communism, and this translates into an overemphasis on individualism... The Great Man can do it, and needs no help from anybody else and anybody who asks for any help is a Weak Fool.

Rearden asks the question "Who taught me to be the success I am?" in response to his brother asking for help and instruction.

Well, not everybody in a society can be super-men, who run super-industries, and (according to Rand) are the sole enjoyers of super-sex. Rand's proposed solution appears to be for the elite to sequester themselves away in an escapist's fantasy land in the mountains (perhaps Aquinas' "City on the hill"?) but she offers no convincing solution as to what to do with the other 99.99% of the population apart from "let them eat cake... or each other".

But on the whole, definitely a good read and entertaining for the light it casts for a bygone age. Nowadays, Communism is no longer regarded with the same feasibility as before. I would argue that the death of Communism has also led to the diminunition of Rand's works.

[JohnT]

I, too, liked Atlas Shrugged, especially when you compare this against her background of coming under the thumb of the Communists in Russia before she was able to defect in... 1926, I think. It's not a very well written book, but in its own odd way I find it a very passionate sort of book. Where else are you going to find a 3 page speech on the morality of money?

It is odd that people like Solzhenytsen (sp!) and Baryshinokov (sp!) get accepted by the American liberal establishment as "poor souls who needed to escape to express their art", but Rand doesn't get any of that faux sympathy, though it is more true in her case than of the other two.

She did a pretty decent job of exposing the horrors and vacuousness of communism, but did a poor job in formulating a response to it that has any basis in the world we live in. Rand's worldview doesn't include uncertainty, lack of knowledge, or the simple fact that not all people agree on the facts... I wonder if she ever gave thought to the philosophical implications of the Uncertainty Principle, Godel's Incompleteness Theorem, or chaos theory?

Fortunately for her opponents, she was quite a megalomaniacal loon - in a weirdly apt analogy, sort of the Rasputin of the Right. She openly had an affair with her assistant, and convinced both her husband and his wife that it was the "right" thing to do under her philosophy of Objectivism. In the 1950s and 1960s, she had a cadre of students and syncopaths who were hers to spread the philosophy around... among whom you can include the name of Alan Greenspan. Yes, that Alan Greenspan. I don't know if you can call it a "cult", but perhaps its just how you define the word - her philosophy seems too easy to shake. But the fact that she was who she was destroyed her effectiveness, and her organization membership plummeted throughout the rest of her life.

In short: she exposed the weakness of the communists and other extreme collectives of the Left (and Right, too) but failed to come up with a comprehensive philosophy that will work in the world that we live in.

[monolith94]

"I always thought there was something sexy about Emily Dickinson though."
Dude, you should read Billy Collins' poem "Undressing Emily Dickinson".


I don't think I could ever be a fan of the Randster - I'm too much of a humanist. Like petrarch, I'm the biggest humanist of our time, bar none.

monolith94
"A classic is a book that everybody talks about, but nobody likes"
-Mark Twain

[Wraith]

--"Narz, read Barbara Branden's The Passion of Ayn Rand."

I've read that one, but do keep in mind the source. It's nowhere near an unbiased account.

--"For instance, the Ayn Rand Institute "

Heh. That's the problem. You can ignore them. Peikoff seems to be a complete loon. The Objectivist Center is a much better presentation of her philosophy.

--"all forms of aid, apprenticeship, "

She certainly does not argue against all forms of aid. Several times in the book the main movers help each other out. Always for their own benefit, but the help is still there. She certainly wasn't at all opposed to things like apprenticeships, either. Consider how Dagny and Fransico both got their starts. What she objects to is giving aid to people who will do nothing but waste it.

--"Well, not everybody in a society can be super-men,"

Nor is it necessary. Atlas Shrugged went to the extremes in the presentation for story purposes. There were people that were not on the super-men level that still did great (the driver of the first train of the John Galt line, for instance, as well as Dagny's assistant). The story of Atlas Shrugged was when the looters were taking over in total, though, which is why so many were portrayed at such extremes.

--"Yes, that Alan Greenspan."

He's not following her philosophy much at all, however. Unless he's trying to pull a d'Anconia, but he's been there a bit too long for that to be likely.

Wraith
"The smallest minority on earth is the individual. Those who deny individual rights, cannot claim to be defenders of minorities."
-- Ayn Rand

[Rex Little]

I read Atlas Shrugged over 30 years ago, and it remains my favorite book of all time.

Great as Rand's books were, as a person she was more than a little flawed. For someone whose writing glorified independent thought, she tolerated none of it in her associates. Anyone in her inner circle who disagreed with her on anything got drummed out, including Greenspan and several others who later achieved some prominence. That's why the group had become (as Clem put it) a parody of itself even while she was alive. Leonard Peikoff (whom Wraith described above ) made a career out of being Rand's chief yes-man.

She openly had an affair with her assistant

You state this as fact; do you have a source? His version was that she wanted such an affair, but he refused. That seems realistic to me; she was 20 years older than him. Her version was that it was all a lie.

[catullus]

Originally posted by Rex Little
...Great as Rand's books were, as a person she was more than a little flawed. For someone whose writing glorified independent thought, she tolerated none of it in her associates. Anyone in her inner circle who disagreed with her on anything got drummed out...

So what?
That's a logical consequence of her philosophy. She was in her right to diss them, as they were in their right to oppose her. Let the strongest win.
It quite follows the logic.
Of course, anyone trying to found a society on those ideals is mad. Not that anyone didn't try. Saddam Hussein, for example, is building his state on the same idea: Let the one with most resources use them at his own will. And be prepared to be opposed.

C.

[Wraith]

--"Saddam Hussein, for example, is building his state on the same idea:"

I hate it when people make blanket condemnations of things they quite clearly do not understand, but it happens rather a lot with Objectivism.
Saddam is quite clearly what Rand defined in Atlas Shrugged as a looter. He generates no wealth, he merely steals it from others. He is exactly the kind of person she despised and that her philosophy condemns.

Wraith
"A crime is the violation of the right(s) of other men by force (or fraud). It is only the initiation of physical force against others- i.e., the recourse to violence- that can be classified as a crime in a free society (as distinguished from a civil wrong). Ideas, in a free society, are not a crime- and neither can they serve as the justification of a crime. "
-- Ayn Rand

[gunkulator]

"I hate it when people make blanket condemnations of things they quite clearly do not understand, but it happens rather a lot with Objectivism."

... which ought to tell you something about the whole philosophy. Those who disagree with it or interpret it differently are often simply dismissed as irrational or just not smart enough to understand its inherent correctness.

[edit for silly grammer mistake]

[JohnT]

Rex: "You state this as fact; do you have a source? His version was that she wanted such an affair, but he refused. That seems realistic to me; she was 20 years older than him. Her version was that it was all a lie."

Here is the very cover blurb on Nathaniel's biography My Years with Ayn Rand:

"The shocking story of the intimate relationship between a literary genius and a young man 25 years her junior - a relationship that over 18 years went from student and teacher, to friends, to colleagues and partners, to lovers, and ultimately, to adversaries. A memoir that reveals the truth behind the myths. A story only one man can tell."

Not so fast! His wife Barbara had a few words of her own.

[orange]

:shudder: Devil incarnate

[Ted Striker]

Ayn Rand is the most overrated, selfish ***** in the history of the world.

[monolith94]

"Several times in the book the main movers help each other out. Always for their own benefit, but the help is still there."

Oh how selfless of them...
What's her opinion of the christmas spirit?