Ayn Rand

Discussion in 'Political Opinions & Beliefs' started by JohnConstantine, Sep 24, 2012.

  1. JohnConstantine

    JohnConstantine Active Member

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    Ayn Rand

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    First I'll just say I'm approaching this from a position of near total ignorance (open invitation for a jab there), and I'm slightly dismayed that I haven't heard of this woman before. But that's the great thing about the world, there's no end to the fascination.

    So I'm just wondering if anyone has read her books, what they think of her and so on.

    So far it seems she propagates the rather schismatic philosophy (objectivism) of ultimate selfishness and repudiates altruism. She defines altruism as doing yourself or someone of high value to you a disservice in order to benefit someone else of little to no value to you. So you could look at that as a form of moral loyalty to yourself and those you hold dear. The problem is, and where it seems to take a rather sinister turn (depending on what school you're from) is she applies this idea to how we treat the mentally and physically handicapped; suggesting that too much money and time is spent trying to give the disadvantaged the same attention or opportunity while inevitably taking away from the brightest and the most gifted in society, the people "we most depend upon."

    I watched a Q and A in which she also riled feminists with the notion that a woman should not be president. When asked could she ever she a woman as president, she responded that she wouldn't vote for a woman and the idea of a female commander and chief of the army was "unthinkable", but she would support female representation elsewhere within the government.

    Despite these, or maybe because of these controversial views within the early 90's one of her books "Atlas Shrugged" became the second most popular book in America after the Bible.

    Could this be because Americans wanted to reconcile their material ambitions with a philosophy which positively encouraged selfishness?


    "If any civilization is to survive, it is the morality of altruism that men have to reject."
    Ayn Rand
     
  2. Johnny-C

    Johnny-C Well-Known Member

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    All that woman did was work to justify being a narcissist.
     
  3. JohnConstantine

    JohnConstantine Active Member

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    Indeed, you could well be right. But why so popular, was it that at the time, America in particular wanted to justify narcissism?
     
  4. Johnny-C

    Johnny-C Well-Known Member

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    In every era, there are those who are poised to be fooled or simply entertained.
     
  5. Trumanp

    Trumanp Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    She was also a hypocrite, took social security as she got older, as well as medicare, as she found out that the for profit healthcare system took too much of her book royalties to pay for her health care time went by.

    http://mariopiperni.com/hypocrisy/the-hypocrisy-of-ayn-rand.php

    Not too shocking then that one of her biggest fans, Paul Ryan, has also ponied up to the national hand out buffet at times too, and was in fact a beneficiary of Social Security before he turned 18.
     
  6. JohnConstantine

    JohnConstantine Active Member

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    I'll take that as a yes. Although many people, seem to cite her ideas as dangerous, they on face value must appeal the our natural solipsistic inclinations. It's seems as though during the height of her popularity (after her death) was in time with maybe some disillusionment with the 80's attainment rush and boundless ambitions whether the state's or the people's. Almost as if the people got a much needed boost to vindicate the ascendency via supreme selfishness during that time. On top of justifying narcissism you could say she justifies reaganite capitalism, as well as a "us and them" philosophy.

    Though I'm not sure, like I said haven't read the books, have you?
     
  7. JohnConstantine

    JohnConstantine Active Member

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    That's interesting.
     
  8. SpaceCricket79

    SpaceCricket79 New Member Past Donor

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    She's irrelevant, why she's popular is beyond me. Just a fringe writer who deserves none of her influence.
     
  9. Trumanp

    Trumanp Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    Relevancy is in the eye of the beholder. When you consider we have had a generation of Americans who lived the Gordon Gecko "greed is good" mantra, the fascination with Ayn Rand isn't so shocking.

    It will take time to undo the damage done to America by people like Ayn Rand, and fictional portrayal of greedy bastards. Humankind was set back decades by these individuals.
     
  10. junius. fils

    junius. fils New Member

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    Rand not only praises sociopathic selfishness, she's BOOOOOOORING.
     
  11. Johnny-C

    Johnny-C Well-Known Member

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    I haven't read her stuff; but I known of people who have read her books, and I'm sure that I would not label her views as being good for this society.
     
  12. Johnny-C

    Johnny-C Well-Known Member

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    One avid reader I know, ripped "Atlas Shrugged" to shreds... and dislikes Rand's values quite a lot.
     
  13. dadoalex

    dadoalex Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    Readers of Rand fall into three basic categories.

    People like me who read it for a grade. I found it to be a thousand pages of self indulgent tripe. The entire book could have been reduced to 30 pages and not lost a thing.

    AND

    People who 'heard' of it and study it to justify their own personal view. A "bible" of sorts.

    AND

    People who are curious about the "buzz" and read it out of curiosity. I think few of these ever finish the book.

    As a literary work it is noxious at best. As a philosophy it is everything bad about humanity.
     
  14. JohnConstantine

    JohnConstantine Active Member

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    I must say you are only feeding my curiosity. It really is disconcerting that I don't know of her, turns out she's a juggernaut, though certainly doesn't have the sway she has in America here in the UK.

    The paradox however has to lie with the encouragement of achievement and so on. So many lateral thinkers, entrepreneurs, in places like silicon valley for example - a hub of new technology - cite Rand as an inspiration. I mean, I assume the Rand heroes are not the symbiotic money men, but more the inventors like Steve Jobs?

    Though personally I'm much more inclined to agree with Confucius who is right in saying happiness and material are not coupled.
     
  15. Marlowe

    Marlowe New Member

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    Ayn Rand , ? Ehem . - I too confess NOT having read any of her books, except watched a Movie - The Fountainhead , story line I've long ago forgotten.- movie was easily forgotten.

    IMO - she was clever enough to recognise what suckers she was dealing with . However Its' far more interesting what others think of her and how she affects US politics , which comes across as a comedy this side of the pond.

    This was July 2011 " The Alarming Revival of Ayn Rand: The Right's Weirdest Idol of Them All"

    The Republican Party’s slapstick search for a leader would be heartwarming and sidesplitting, but for the tragic knowledge that one of these scrambling midgets will collect tens of millions of votes in the presidential election of 2012. Never have so many amounted to so little, talked so much rubbish, dreamed of an office so far above their abilities. Blood pressures rose among party elders when Donald Trump, marginally Republican and one of the greatest fools in the solar system, momentarily tossed his hairpiece into the ring and became the instant favorite.

    The GOP dilemma — a golden opportunity to rule but nothing to say and no one to say it — is so desperate that my instinct is to help them sort it out. Could we make a start, at least, by dismissing candidates who called for President Obama’s birth certificate or raised the specter of Sharia law in America, followed briskly off the stage by lunatics who dismiss global warming as a socialist plot?

    That would leave plenty of unbalanced extremists still in the running, yet reduce the stench of sheer evil and madness. The “birther” and Sharia cults reek of cheesy talk-radio racism; climate-change denial is a stranger faith yet, a political assault on basic science that insults a ground squirrel’s intelligence and casually threatens the survival of life on earth.

    http://www.alternet.org/story/15167...n_rand:_the_right's_weirdest_idol_of_them_all


    Now in - August 30, 2012 Ayn Rand: A force in the 2012 election?

    STILLWATER — The selection of Paul Ryan as the Republican vice presidential candidate has brought to the surface the prominence of Ayn Rand as the idealist of a prominent group of U.S. political figures.

    Ryan has remarked, “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. And the fight we are in here … is a fight between individualism versus collectivism.”

    Interestingly, Alan Greenspan, our previous chairman of the Federal Reserve System, wrote in his recent book “Ayn Rand became a stabilizing force in my life. … By the time … Nixon campaigned for the presidency in 1968 … I had decided to … advance free-market capitalism as an insider, rather than as a critical pamphleteer.”

    Ayn Rand literally stood beside him as he took the oath of office as chairman of the Nixon Council of Economic Advisors. Ayn Rand was his model. Greenspan was one of the leaders who led the movement to deregulate banks and other businesses, and thus contributed to our present recession.

    And apparently, according to his 2009 public statements, Ayn Rand is Paul Ryan’s idealist mentor for shaping public policy. It has become rather common knowledge that Grover Norquist, the pusher of no tax increase pledges in Congress, is committed to the same idealist philosopher.

    And it is obvious that the so-called Tea Party, supporting Paul Ryan, is inspired by the Ayn Rand idealism. Other national figures who are devotees of Ayn Rand include Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, Congressman Ron Paul of Texas and his son, Sen. Rand Paul of Tennessee.

    History is replete with idealist philosophers promoting revolution in politics and government. Everyone is acquainted with Karl Marx’s lengthy and rambling writings that Lenin and Stalin of Russia and Mao of China were guided by in establishing new political and economic systems.

    Marx even predicted the fading of government organization, as his ideals came into play. However, in both Russia and China, cruel, vicious political systems came into existence that destroyed millions of lives and imposed hardships on the general population.

    Or, one can reflect on the Nazi system in Germany based on Mein Kampf, or the Fascist system in Italy. Attempts at putting idealist systems in place have been very costly, even deadly, to general populations.

    Are we facing another idealist effort that could be extremely costly to the general population of the United States? Let’s examine the Ayn Rand idealist philosophy that through her writings and organized efforts have influenced a large number of Americans.



    READ MORE :

    http://www.edmondsun.com/opinion/x2039223471/Ayn-Rand-A-force-in-the-2012-election



    ...ENJOY
     
  16. Marlowe

    Marlowe New Member

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    duplicate deleted.
     
  17. Gorn Captain

    Gorn Captain Banned

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    I always find libertarians who dream of "becoming John Galt, letting the Statists go to hell, and setting up the Free Individual Paradise".....

    to be only slightly less realistic and less successful, as the guys who read "Fear & Loathing In Las Vegas"....and head to LV with a trunk-full of drugs and alcohol and think they're going to write the great American novel.....and instead end up with a bad hangover, a maxx'ed out credit card, or if unlucky a night or two (or more) in the Clark County jail.
     
  18. hiimjered

    hiimjered Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    People will work harder to get rewards for themselves and their loved ones than they will work to benefit some "collective". When everyone keeps the results of their own work, they work harder and are far more productive. A society where people are allowed to keep what they produce is naturally more productive than one where everything that is produced is distributed fairly.

    As Obama said, "A rising tide lifts all boats." A more productive society increases the quality of life of all of the members of the society. A individualist society is more productive, therefore an individualist society is the most beneficial for everyone.
     
  19. Ex-lib

    Ex-lib Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    Yea. Reminds me of someone who might write books and describe a philosophy that when you breathe you take oxygen from someone else, therefore, since oxygen is the most important/immediate asset for the human being, to be altruistic, you must commit suicide.

    Some of that is true, and it all makes some kind of sense, but overall it is a waste of time.

    It reminds me of Liberal logic. It makes sense on the surface, if you are really, REALLY trying to see sense in it, but at its core it is logical and common-sense jibberish.
     
  20. Ex-lib

    Ex-lib Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    If only the liberals understood this.
     
  21. saintmichaeldefendthem

    saintmichaeldefendthem New Member Past Donor

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    I don't remember Obama saying this and I certainly know he doesn't believe it.
     
  22. Bain

    Bain New Member

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    I love how passionate she was about individualism. She urged men to hold themselves and their lives as their highest values, and to live by the code of the free individual: self-reliance, integrity, rationality, productive effort. No one should shrug her off as all bad. Keep in mind she was a product of her time. She has my all time favorite quote: The question isn't who is going to let me; it's who is going to stop me.


    I can say the same for Karl Marx. I loved learning about Marxism in school.

    I don't know if Americans were trying to reconcile their material ambitions or not. I do know that material ambitions got America into the 21'st century. Altruism did not get us where we are. Good or bad it is selfishness that has made progress.
     
  23. Trumanp

    Trumanp Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    I would disagree with that. It was a collectivism style of thought process that made Americans stand up against Hilter and the other aggressors of WW2. It was America standing together collectively that helped bring down walls in Berlin and achieve changes in Russia by outlasting them.

    There was no one individual in America that helped stand up for our rights in any wars. It's always been Americans defending America. There's no I in army.

    Yes, there needs to be some leadership involved, but that doesn't make them any better than the rest of us.
     
  24. Dr. Righteous

    Dr. Righteous Well-Known Member

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    You don't have the slightest idea what her beliefs were.
     
  25. dadoalex

    dadoalex Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    But that is not the end result of your "utopia."

    The end result of your "Utopia" is the late 1800's when Standard Oil and other monopolies had to be broken up because of their destructive impact on the country as a whole. When you appeal to the basest of human instincts your get responses from the basest of humans.
     

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