Objectivism: Do you give a rat's arse?

[:) Smiley]

By the time I had to read Rand for school (around 1999), the Cold War was over for almost ten years and they still had several of the pieces of **** on the curriculum.

That Rand is about the only well known Objectivist ought to be a sign of what sort of ideology this is.

[Agathon]

Originally posted by Harry Tuttle

Rand's real big on passionate love and sex in her books.

And by this you obviously mean "rape".

[Urban Ranger]

Originally posted by Harry Tuttle
Rand's real big on passionate love and sex in her books. She figures you might as well go big if go at all.

Unsuprisingly, seeing that Rand and Nathaniel Branden, her pupil who was 20 years younger than her, had a continuing "love affair" even after he got married.

Originally posted by Harry Tuttle
I also like her comments on cigarettes.

Yeah well, she smoked heavily as well.

[Urban Ranger]

Originally posted by Smiley
That Rand is about the only well known Objectivist ought to be a sign of what sort of ideology this is.

She started this whole thing and her followers licked the ground she walked on.

[Elok]

Yeah, but now they're arguing over which parts of the ground should be licked the most, or something. I know there are at least two factions of Objectivists claiming to possess The Truth, possibly more. I'm not sure if they vary doctrinally in any substantial way, or if it's just an administrative snafu/one group's leader insulted the other's.

[chequita guevara]

My 7th grade History teacher read Rand to us in class.

[Urban Ranger]

Originally posted by Elok
Yeah, but now they're arguing over which parts of the ground should be licked the most, or something. I know there are at least two factions of Objectivists claiming to possess The Truth, possibly more. I'm not sure if they vary doctrinally in any substantial way, or if it's just an administrative snafu/one group's leader insulted the other's.

What, you are keeping an eye on them?

[Imran Siddiqui]

You know, UR, some people do start threads about stuff they know about .

[Harry Tuttle]

Originally posted by Agathon
And by this you obviously mean "rape".

To use her word for it, yes. I'd say the same.

The encounter between Dagny Taggart and John Galt is just that. Problem is, Rand portrays the encounter as something almost animalistic, as if Dagny was "begging" for it. Really bizarre stuff, brazen and raw. That part of the book soiled the story for me.

Her ideas about men and women were feminist in one sense and horridly anti-feminist in others. For instance, Dagny basically runs her railroad as the defacto CEO. She is a pilot, rare in those days. She's confident, self assured, and has smarts beyond any of her peers. That is, until she meets John Galt. At first Galt is seen as the brazen quarry hand. All brawn and the sense of an animal. She is attracted to him, but is repulsed by what he is, a lowly quarry hand. She is supposed to be of the rich elite, still by this point in the story, trying to fit into a world that she isn't really made for. The rape is supposed to be some sort of humbling moment, if you can call it that, and drops her arrogance down a couple of pegs.

In her books women are women, strong, but subserviant to the intellectually stronger male. This is by choice, as she demonstrates over about 500 pages, over and over again, but ultimately it might as well be by design. Her rape by the hands of Galt halfway through the book is an obvious show of this.

In her other stories, such as Anthem, the heroine, an amateur inventor, saves a girl from the "breeding house". This is a more normal fairy tale, as far as the love relationship goes. Thaye at first flirt, then they come to know eachother, and eventually become lovers.

If you've ever caught her biography on PBS or read about her life, her husband was the love of her life. They supposedly had a very romantic relationship.

Given her life story and the fact that she was heavily interested in Hollywood during her early adult life I am not suprised she included the rape in Atlas Shrugged. She wanted to show something raw, and being that it was during the macho era of Hollywood I can see where the "passionate rape" came into being. Take Gone With the Wind for instance. Anyone remember Scarlet's rape? Not very many people see it as a rape, but that is exactly what it is. Afterwards Scarlet is almost happy. Bizarre and sick by our eyes, but back then it was sometimes used.

Not a scene to be admired by any standard, but that is what Rand used to define the characters.

[Urban Ranger]

Originally posted by Imran Siddiqui
You know, UR, some people do start threads about stuff they know about .

Well yeah, it's one of those goals you dream of

[Harry Tuttle]

Originally posted by Elok
Yeah, but now they're arguing over which parts of the ground should be licked the most, or something. I know there are at least two factions of Objectivists claiming to possess The Truth, possibly more. I'm not sure if they vary doctrinally in any substantial way, or if it's just an administrative snafu/one group's leader insulted the other's.

There are a ton of those people flittering about. As I blurted out earlier there is a John Galt Society that likes to invest in gold, just like in the book. They say it is the most stable display of value that exists and upon the eventual collapse it will be their foundation.

Problem is the society is based in Bermuda and is probably a huge scam for idiots who eat Rand with a full mouth.

[BeBMan]

Never heard of her before visiting Poly. What I read here does not make me wish to read her stuff.

[loinburger]

Q: How many Objectivists does it take to screw in a light bulb?

A: As many as Ayn Rand says it takes.

[Harry Tuttle]

Originally posted by BeBro
Never heard of her before visiting Poly. What I read here does not make me wish to read her stuff.

Her main theme in her books is individualism. The hero is always a social outcast of sorts and is always going to be looking into society from outside.

Her first really big book, the Fountainhead, deals with an architect struggling to make his work accepted as the great work it is. The hero is an architectural artist to the utmost, letting his work speak for him, not the other way around.

Anthem is another book, but this time it deals with a post-apocalyptic world where science is stunted and decided uppon by a great council of elders. The hero is an amateur inventor who tries to better society but finds that the leaders of society are more interested in keeping things nice and complacent with them in charge. The hero uses his inventions and discoveries to fight off the govt and society.

She has also written in a few compilations that are in defense of capitalism. Alan Greenspan even submitted a piece for her book Capitalism: The Unknown Deal back in the sixties.

Atlas Shrugged is supposed to be her greatest work, all 700 odd pages of it. It's quasi-modern day and quasi-scifi and deals with hypocrisy, dictators, and basically the "stupid people in large groups" hypothesis. One of the main characters till Galt really arrives on the scene is Hank Rearden, a brilliant mettalurgist who creates a metal that will become the most valued commodity in the world. The powers that be steal his formula away from him "for the common good". It's really involved, but can be actually very interesting if you're strong enough to read through something that can at times mimic a VCR manual.

The story behind her writings is that she escaped from Soviet Russia when she was a teenager. She saw how the Bolsheviks stole from the people and how their propaganda was warping common reality. She hated it and became an avid libertarian thinker. That's why her books read like they do, with the individual fighting against society or just big brother.

Her books are endorsed by the Young Americas Foundation and are usually required reading in high schools, even if they are almost 50 years old. Her thinking even influenced the modern conservative movement's birth during the 50s and 60s.

If you don't like the stories then read them for the intellectual thought. She did happen to influence a good many movements and it might be good to know where they're coming from. But be warned, don't take everything at face value. It's all in the nuance and what isn't said. She may talk about "weapons of mass destruction" and have the occasional factory blown to smithereens by a battleship wielding pirate, but don't sit there and go "where the hell is the US Navy?". Just go with the flow and focus on the argument.

[VetLegion]

Originally posted by BeBro
Never heard of her before visiting Poly. What I read here does not make me wish to read her stuff.

Same here.