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I used to be confused by Ayn Rand's philosophy, until somebody broke it down for me ("a highbrow justification for acting like a selfish creep"). Now I just consider it stupid and repellent, like the worst traits of cold-blooded conservatism and militant atheism combined into one big heap of unlovable crap. I don't think we need a bash-Ayn-Rand thread or anything; if that happens here, I'll consider it gravy, but let's not try, because there's probably somebody on this board who's a fan of hers.
My question is, does anyone actually take it seriously? I mean, the various feuding Objectivist enclaves have got an "Atlas Shrugged" scholarship, they're wooing philosophy professors and other intellectuals who only get openly laughed at by Asher (and who in turn like to laugh at the Objectivists themselves); they're evidently fighting to join the closest thing there is to a mainstream among the lunatic fringe. What's your impression of their success rate? Do you hear anything about them? I'm especially interested in what our sizable philosopher-geek contingent thinks.
This is a pretty open-ended question here, which is why I didn't bother with a poll. Possible answers include: "I hear all about them, but then I'm in college," "I am/used to be one myself," "Never heard of 'em," and "They're getting a following in France, just like that Le Pen guy." Not to say that the last one is true, but hey, I don't know. I'm just asking 'Poly as the biggest cross-section of global society available to me.
For the record, I started wondering this in my Shakespeare Now class; we're reading Marxist, Deconstructionist, "Queer Theory," Postcolonial, and other literary schools' approach to Shakespeare. Naturally, I wondered why some nutty, dysfunctional worldviews get attention in academic circles and others, such as Objectivism, don't.
I know it's not the relative plausibility of the ideology in question. I'm wading through an article right now, published in a respected New Historicist journal a few years back, that appears to be saying, "Every time anybody in Shakespeare mentions secrets, they're really talking about the vagina. Or if they mention anything else, for that matter. They do not understand the female crotch, ergo they fear it and attempt to repress it in veiled language. You know I'm right because I quote Erasmus saying something kinda like that and we know everybody back then thought the same." So, there's no apparent reason why there shouldn't be a thriving community for "Objectivist literary criticism." They've already got the needlessly complicated language down pat.
My question is, does anyone actually take it seriously? I mean, the various feuding Objectivist enclaves have got an "Atlas Shrugged" scholarship, they're wooing philosophy professors and other intellectuals who only get openly laughed at by Asher (and who in turn like to laugh at the Objectivists themselves); they're evidently fighting to join the closest thing there is to a mainstream among the lunatic fringe. What's your impression of their success rate? Do you hear anything about them? I'm especially interested in what our sizable philosopher-geek contingent thinks.
This is a pretty open-ended question here, which is why I didn't bother with a poll. Possible answers include: "I hear all about them, but then I'm in college," "I am/used to be one myself," "Never heard of 'em," and "They're getting a following in France, just like that Le Pen guy." Not to say that the last one is true, but hey, I don't know. I'm just asking 'Poly as the biggest cross-section of global society available to me.
For the record, I started wondering this in my Shakespeare Now class; we're reading Marxist, Deconstructionist, "Queer Theory," Postcolonial, and other literary schools' approach to Shakespeare. Naturally, I wondered why some nutty, dysfunctional worldviews get attention in academic circles and others, such as Objectivism, don't.
I know it's not the relative plausibility of the ideology in question. I'm wading through an article right now, published in a respected New Historicist journal a few years back, that appears to be saying, "Every time anybody in Shakespeare mentions secrets, they're really talking about the vagina. Or if they mention anything else, for that matter. They do not understand the female crotch, ergo they fear it and attempt to repress it in veiled language. You know I'm right because I quote Erasmus saying something kinda like that and we know everybody back then thought the same." So, there's no apparent reason why there shouldn't be a thriving community for "Objectivist literary criticism." They've already got the needlessly complicated language down pat.
Oh dear, now I had to go and look up "John Galt" on google. Got a wikipedia summary of "Atlas Shrugged." Corporate fatcats went on strike, now the world is ruined!
Harry.
Not to stamp out free speech (it was only one copy) but as a literary comment. 
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