BS: Ayn Rand

Subject: BS: Ayn Rand
From: Skivee
Date: 21 Jan 12 - 03:00 AM

Ayn Rand: Forward looking author, or mean harpy who poisoned the intellectual landscape with her terrible prose, and pinched viewpoints?

Subject: RE: BS: Ayn Rand
From: Joe Offer
Date: 21 Jan 12 - 03:45 AM

If you look on Ayn Rand as food for thought, she has great value. If you see her work as infallible doctrine, that would be problematic. Unfortunately, she has reached infallible status in some circles in modern times.

-Joe-

Subject: RE: BS: Ayn Rand
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 21 Jan 12 - 04:53 AM

Would probably make good compost.

Subject: RE: BS: Ayn Rand
From: Little Hawk
Date: 21 Jan 12 - 05:48 AM

I tend toward the latter view, skivee, but I can't say for sure. I've never been able to stomach reading more than half a chapter of her prose.

Subject: RE: BS: Ayn Rand
From: DMcG
Date: 21 Jan 12 - 06:44 AM

Very dangerous because her views, as far as I've read them, pretty much boil down to do what you want, because there's no reason to do otherwise. And that's a position that's easily used by anyone to exploit anyone else.

Subject: RE: BS: Ayn Rand
From: number 6
Date: 21 Jan 12 - 08:32 AM

Ayn Rand and Karl Marx ..... outdated and in the past .... we are now in the 21st century, we cannot keep trying to apply and argue their philosophies, idealogies and politics if we want to continue forward.

biLL

Subject: RE: BS: Ayn Rand
From: Deckman
Date: 21 Jan 12 - 09:26 AM

I find it very interesting that her name surfaces again. She shook us all up in the 1950's, and perhaps because of the current political clmate in america ... here we go again? bob(deckman)nelson

Subject: RE: BS: Ayn Rand
From: Rapparee
Date: 21 Jan 12 - 09:28 AM

Unreadable, megalomaniacal, selfish, Ubermensch dribble pretending to the cloak of a philosophy and literature combining the worst of Crowley and Hitler. Her time is long past, if it ever was.

Subject: RE: BS: Ayn Rand
From: Greg F.
Date: 21 Jan 12 - 10:29 AM

Ayn Rand..... outdated and in the past

Tell it to the Tea Potty

Subject: RE: BS: Ayn Rand
From: Bee-dubya-ell
Date: 21 Jan 12 - 10:42 AM

Enlightened self-interest does not exist in the real world, only in Ms Rand's books. Her protagonists are idealizations of how elites would behave if they were sane. In the real world, most of them would gladly be slave-owners if it were still legal.

Subject: RE: BS: Ayn Rand
From: DMcG
Date: 21 Jan 12 - 11:16 AM

Self-interest, certainly, but I found very little 'enlightened' about it.

Subject: RE: BS: Ayn Rand
From: SINSULL
Date: 21 Jan 12 - 11:34 AM

We The Living, Atlas Shrugged, The Fountainhead, The Night of January 16, Anthem...I read them all and thoroughly enjoyed the plots and the characters although they are all rather one-sided and always "right". Some of the prose is painful - John Galt's 23 pages of tedium stands out.
She made me think. She was the among the first to make me question all those years of Catholic school indoctrination.
She was certainly a crank in her old age. I remember a radio interview during which calls were taken, The first call was from a young woman who objected to Ayn's harsh treatment of those who can't help themselves - handicapped, mentally ill, etc. Ayn was off and running mainly on a theme of "How dare you question ME, you silly girl." It was disappointing.
Her personal life was in my opinion a mess. She used her philosophy to justify an ongoing affair with her protegee (Brandon somebody) insisting on his wife's agreement. Each wrote a biography of Rand'slife and their parts - nobody comes out of them unscathed.
Her philosophical writings are, in my opinion, pure tedium. Turgid, repetitive, claptrap. One thing I find fascinating about it all is her claim that each man has to act according to his own conscience and his his own best interestes followed by the accusation of stupidity if you disagree with her.
As to the slaveowners post - non violence is an ongoing theme in Rand's writings. No one has the right to harm another. So I don't see slaveowners in the group. Certainly workers are way down in the pecking order and in her mind totally dependent on the creative producer for life, food, housing.
By the way, in Atlas Shrugged her opinion of folk music is less than enthusiastic. LOL

Subject: RE: BS: Ayn Rand
From: GUEST,HiLo
Date: 21 Jan 12 - 11:56 AM

Awful writing, shallow thinking, huge ego..had her fifteen minutes of fame....14 minutes too long, I think. I doubt anyone takes her seriously any more.

Subject: RE: BS: Ayn Rand
From: Neil D
Date: 21 Jan 12 - 12:05 PM

Except for 90% of the Republican Party.

Subject: RE: BS: Ayn Rand
From: Bill D
Date: 21 Jan 12 - 12:22 PM

She lives on, channeled by a senator in Kentucky.....

Subject: RE: BS: Ayn Rand
From: wysiwyg
Date: 21 Jan 12 - 12:27 PM

Good to have read her in my yoot and had that in the mix.

~S~

Subject: RE: BS: Ayn Rand
From: Little Hawk
Date: 21 Jan 12 - 12:41 PM

I think there is such a thing as enlightened self-interest, but it's rather rare. A truly wise person is aware enough to see that their own self-interest is coincident with the interests of others. That is, what will benefit those around one will also benefit oneself...in the long run. The best solution is one that benefits all parties. One has to have attained a good deal of maturity and also be of excellent character and also respect and value others to arrive at that awareness.

As I said, such people are rather rare.

Our present social order caters not to such people, but to the rich, clever, and ruthless. I found Ayn Rand's philosophical musings to be primitive, cartoon-like, and virtually unreadable.


Bill D - Is it Ron Paul you're referring to? I don't know if he is genuinely a disciple of Ayn Rand, but I find most of what he says sensible, straightforward, courageous, and well worth listening to...whereas I find Ayn Rand's writing utterly unpalatable.

Subject: RE: BS: Ayn Rand
From: Don Firth
Date: 21 Jan 12 - 03:29 PM

Two charges that are often leveled at Ayn Rand are that she was a gawdawful writer and that she was a shallow thinker.

Not so on either count. She wrote quite well by any standards of literary ability. Just because one may not like what she wrote does not mean that she didn't write well.

And her efforts at putting together a cohesive philosophy were downright Herculean. She delved deeply into formal philosophy beginning with the basics of Plato and Aristotle and moving on through the Renaissance philosophers (with a very good, incisive dissertation on where Thomas Aquinas blew it in his attempt to use Aristotelian logic to prove the existence of God), up through Hobbes, Locke, Kant, Russell, and perhaps stopping a bit too long at Frederick Nietzsche.

But as Susan says above, "Good to have read her in my yoot and had that in the mix."

There was a time, early on, when I found Ayn Rand's writings the very thing that I needed. At about the time I was getting grief from some of the other students—and a few members of the faculty—at the U. of W. School of Music over my particular musical interests ("When are you going to stop messing around with those cowboy songs and take your music studies seriously?"), I read The Fountainhead. Very much to the point!

It happens to be a very good novel. By any standards.

Later, when I read her subsequent stuff, and especially her non-fiction (The Virtue of Selfishness, Capitalism, the Unknown Ideal), AND took a lecture course, "The Basic Principles of Objectivism," from Nathaniel Brandon, it began to sink in that, although a great deal of what she said was right on the money, it had a number of fatal flaws. The main one was that the world did NOT work the way she thought it did.

Where the Ayn Rand movement (her "inner circle," anyway) began to come unglued was when, out of one side of her mouth she would (rightly) tell people to use their own rational powers and decide things for themselves rather than accept without question what others tell them, then out of the other, she would "repudiate" and expel members of her inner circle for having the audacity to question anything she said.

Unfortunately, there are no Capitalist Heroes, at least as she envisioned them, in the Real World. Going to see a Congressman with a valise full of money is NOT "free-market Capitalism!" Her heroes did not do that. But that's business as usual, these days.

Ron Paul? That man scares the hell out of me, especially since there are so many people who don't know where he's coming from and think he's the bee's knees. He's keeping his mouth shut these days (except for behind-the-hand comments to the "right" people), but in the past, he's made his philosophical and economic ideas quite plain.

Don't make the mistake of underestimating the influence of Ayn Rand, especially now.

Don Firth

P. S.   Take a look at photos of a Tea Party rally sometime and note the number of placards with Ayn Rand quotes on them. Like I say, scares the hell out of me!!

Subject: RE: BS: Ayn Rand
From: Deckman
Date: 21 Jan 12 - 04:08 PM

Don ... I find your comments quite "objective." In fact, should you choose to form a cult of like minded people, I woud suggest that you call the new (old) belief system ... "objectivism"... bad bad bob

Subject: RE: BS: Ayn Rand
From: catspaw49
Date: 21 Jan 12 - 04:48 PM

Thanks for a great post Sins.

Spaw

Subject: RE: BS: Ayn Rand
From: Greg F.
Date: 21 Jan 12 - 04:57 PM

I doubt anyone takes her seriously any more.

I take it you ain't been watchin' the news? Or been listen' to the Repub candidates?

Subject: RE: BS: Ayn Rand
From: Rapparee
Date: 21 Jan 12 - 05:46 PM

She kinda lost me when she had Nathaniel Brandon banned from the Nathaniel Brandon Institute because he was no longer romantically interested in her.

Subject: RE: BS: Ayn Rand
From: Rapparee
Date: 21 Jan 12 - 05:53 PM

If you doubt Rand's influence, consider that Nathaniel Branden was one of, if not the, founders of the philosophy of self-esteem. There is no problem with self-esteem, but in many ways it's gotten out of hand.

Subject: RE: BS: Ayn Rand
From: GUEST,josepp
Date: 21 Jan 12 - 05:55 PM

////Is it Ron Paul you're referring to? I don't know if he is genuinely a disciple of Ayn Rand////

He named his son after her. That has to count for something.

Subject: RE: BS: Ayn Rand
From: Bill D
Date: 21 Jan 12 - 05:57 PM

"Bill D - Is it Ron Paul you're referring to? "

..well, Ron is responsible...but he is only a congressman from, Texas. His son, named ummmmm..'Rand' is now senator. They 'loosely' follow Ayn, with all sorts of Libertarian ideas stuffed in to suit their politics of the moment.
Several analysts have said that Ron is only a 'Republican' for convenience to operate in a major party and to give Rand a leg up toward an eventual run for president. THAT is scary...

Subject: RE: BS: Ayn Rand
From: Little Hawk
Date: 21 Jan 12 - 06:08 PM

I see.

Well, Ayn Rand scares me, but Ron Paul doesn't. (shrug) I agree with a great deal of what he says...not everything...but a lot of it. I don't necessarily work on "guilt by association", so I'm not going to write him off because he likes some of what Ayn Rand had to say.

Don, I found your 03:29 PM post about Ayn Rand very interesting. Could you elaborate some on your statement that "although a great deal of what she said was right on the money, it had a number of fatal flaws. The main one was that the world did NOT work the way she thought it did."

Not having read more than a fragment of her writings, I'd be interested to hear what more you have to say about that.

Subject: RE: BS: Ayn Rand
From: Jack the Sailor
Date: 21 Jan 12 - 10:30 PM

Ron Paul is ignorant, arrogant, and completely confident in a boatload of dangerous ideas. He has a growing following. Other than that he is not dangerous.

Subject: RE: BS: Ayn Rand
From: Neil D
Date: 22 Jan 12 - 12:24 AM

Actually, Rand Paul is not named after Ayn Rand. His given name is Randall and he went by Randy until his wife started calling him Rand.

Subject: RE: BS: Ayn Rand
From: GUEST,Guest from Sanity
Date: 22 Jan 12 - 04:00 AM

Who cares?? jeez, its just a book....I know people who never read her at all, and they don't even relate to her rap...and don't even want to know, or care!
They sure play a mean ax, though!

GfS

Subject: RE: BS: Ayn Rand
From: Allan C.
Date: 22 Jan 12 - 10:12 AM

"I been Ayn Randed, nearly branded
Communist, 'cause I'm left-handed.
That's the hand I use, well, never mind!"

This seems to me to be the one place she fit best.

Subject: RE: BS: Ayn Rand
From: Jack the Sailor
Date: 22 Jan 12 - 10:40 AM

"Actually, Rand Paul is not named after Ayn Rand. His given name is Randall and he went by Randy until his wife started calling him Rand."

Actually that is the story from Randall. Who did not participate in his own naming. And who is a politician.

Subject: RE: BS: Ayn Rand
From: GUEST,Hi Lo
Date: 22 Jan 12 - 10:51 AM

I said in my earlier post that I thought Ayn Rand was a bad writer and a shallow thinker. It seems to have been assumed that I have this opinion because I dislike her politics. Not so..What I dislike is her Aesthetic....she is a bad writer (by most standards) and that is why she does not appeal to me. Although she read widely in the field of Philosophy, she managed to misunderstand and, therefore, misinterpret most of it.. Most critics and lovers of literature would not rate her very highly. As for her politics..shallow...look who now takes it up.

Subject: RE: BS: Ayn Rand
From: Little Hawk
Date: 22 Jan 12 - 10:55 AM

In other words, Jack, you wish he had been named after Ayn Rand, because that would help make him more of a "bad guy" from your political point of view, so you WILL not accept any explanation other than that he WAS named after Ayn Rand? (even if it's not true)

Well, that's how wishful thinking works. You want it to be so...it therefore must be so. He doesn't know where his own name came from. You do. Uh-huh.

Subject: RE: BS: Ayn Rand
From: GUEST,999
Date: 22 Jan 12 - 11:20 AM

Ayn Rand was shaped by the course of her life. I detest her views, but don't anyone think her influence has stopped. Every year there are essay contests that offer money prizes--in US, UK, Canada and I suspect NZ and Australia, too. The Ayn Rand Institute [ARI] works out of Irvine California. It's a non profit (and non prophet if y'ask me) set up.

Do you know what your kids are reading?

Subject: RE: BS: Ayn Rand
From: Little Hawk
Date: 22 Jan 12 - 11:24 AM

All I know is, I tried reading "The Fountainhead" when I was in high school, and it made my flesh crawl. I've seldom experienced such revulsion while reading a book. So I didn't get too far with it. It sure made me wonder why so many other people were into reading her books.

Subject: RE: BS: Ayn Rand
From: Jack the Sailor
Date: 22 Jan 12 - 12:01 PM

Yeah little Hawk. That's pretty profound coming from someone as anti politics as you. You only take the word of politicians who say some things you agree with? When I first encountered Ron Paul he was promoting Rand, since then he has backed off quite a bit. The story was reported quite widely that he had named his son after Rand. To my knowledge Ron Paul, the person who allegedly did this deed, has never denied it. Being called Rand, and the association with Ayn Rand and that association with his father was a big part of the name recognition that enabled Rand to run for Senate.

Then Rand Paul had to appeal to more moderate voters to win and this video comes out. It is convenient to invoke Ayn Rand while becoming famous. Less so later. Rand Paul is a politician. Politicians say what is going to put them in the best light.

Rand Paul's story may be so. So may be the story that was going around about Ron Paul for years which he has never denied. It is more than possible that Ron Paul chose "Randall" as a name because of the Ayn Rand connection. Consider that Randall Paul puts "Rand Paul" on his posters. He puts the "private" nickname that his wife gave him on his posters and uses that name as his "brand" rather than his actual name. So he is using the association with Rand as his brand, while still denying it. In US politics we call that a "dog whistle."

Subject: RE: BS: Ayn Rand
From: Jack the Sailor
Date: 22 Jan 12 - 12:22 PM

Little Hawk.

Which Little Hawk am I speaking to? The one who pretends he is monkey and doesn't fling shit or the one who flings shit and pretends to be my psychiatrist? Stick to the subject. Keep your dime store psychoanalysis to yourself. Keep in mind the policy against personal attacks.

I don't think it makes him a "bad guy" to call his kid "Rand." I think he is bad for the country because I think that his economic policies are reckless, selfish and not at all based on reality as is Ayn Rand's "philosophy" It all amounts to flattering greedy people and selling them excuses for their once they have theirs not wanting to pay back society for benefits of society they have received. Only the willfully ignorant would not accept the fact that Ron Paul is a disciple of Ayn Rand even if he had named his son Ghandi.

I don't WISH anything. Rand Paul acted proud of the association with Ayn Rand, until it became inconvenient. He acted AS IF it were true until then. Then when it became a negative, he didn't. He told another story. He is a politician. Saying "Actually" about anything a politician says in his own interest needs to be taken with a grain of salt.

Neil D. I don't know who you are. But when we start taking the statements of politicians, even statements about themselves, as indisputable facts, we have trouble.

Subject: RE: BS: Ayn Rand
From: MarkS
Date: 22 Jan 12 - 12:28 PM

Another brain right up there with Jeremy Bentham. (Who?)

Subject: RE: BS: Ayn Rand
From: Skivee
Date: 22 Jan 12 - 12:54 PM

When I was in high school various members of the self-identifying "intellectual crowd" were going on about The Fountainhead and Atlas Shrugged. I was too busy reading science fiction to give here a try.
I always kept a little note tucked into the back of my read to read them.
In 2000, a copy of The Fountainhead practically fell into my lap and I dove in. I am so sorry that I will never get those days back. Her needlessly dense sentences and overblown mean philosophies made me weep for the trees that died to make her books.
Her character speak in unrealistic long-winded compounded sentences, congratulating themselves on their assumed inherent superiority.
I, for one, would not prefer to live in one of Mr. Roarck's building, or be in business with John Galt...wankers.

Subject: RE: BS: Ayn Rand
From: Greg F.
Date: 22 Jan 12 - 01:32 PM

Well, Ayn Rand scares me, but Ron Paul doesn't.

Well Ron Paul sure as hell SHOULD scare you. He's a lunatic.

He warns that the United Nations is going to enforce land use regulations in the U.S. leading to a U.N. dictatorship. He believes that the U.S. government has installed chemmical tracking agents in $100 bills to allow the Feds to keep track of American citizens. He claims Martin Luther King was a pedophile, that Israeli agents bombed the World Trade Center, that Race War is imminent. He opposes the Civil Rights Act of 1964, fer chrissakes. Pick up a few back issues of the "Ron Paul Newsletter".

The man is out of touch with reality. He belongs in an asylum, not the White House.

Subject: RE: BS: Ayn Rand
From: Skivee
Date: 22 Jan 12 - 01:44 PM

So, would Ayn Rand vote for Ron Paul?

Subject: RE: BS: Ayn Rand
From: GUEST,Guest from Sanity
Date: 22 Jan 12 - 01:52 PM

Jack the Sailor: "Only the willfully ignorant would not accept the fact that Ron Paul is a disciple of Ayn Rand even if he had named his son Ghandi."

...and Ghandi, was a disciple, and devotee of Leo Tolstoy. TRUE STORY..Look it up!...and while you're reading(if you do), read some Tolstoy. He's got a GREAT little book called "Walk In the Light, While There Is Light, and Other Short Stories"...He is WONDERFUL!! He spits in the milk of Ayn Rand!!!...and far more relevant!

GfS

Subject: RE: BS: Ayn Rand
From: number 6
Date: 22 Jan 12 - 01:58 PM

I was named after William the Conqueror. I'm a monarchist.

wiLLiam

Subject: RE: BS: Ayn Rand
From: GUEST,Guest from Sanity
Date: 22 Jan 12 - 02:01 PM

..and I was named after an angel with a big sword!....Me?, I only got a ball-point sword!.....but it cuts REAL fine!!

GfS

Subject: RE: BS: Ayn Rand
From: Jack the Sailor
Date: 22 Jan 12 - 02:35 PM

That is how I have always thought of you:

as compensating for a very tiny sword,

Or as someone dumb enough to try to cut with a pen,

Or as someone who writes on their computer screen with a pen an then complains when others don't "get" the resulting gibberish.

Subject: RE: BS: Ayn Rand
From: GUEST
Date: 22 Jan 12 - 02:45 PM

So, gentlemen, this relates to Ayn rand in what way? Just wondering.

Subject: RE: BS: Ayn Rand
From: GUEST,skivee
Date: 22 Jan 12 - 02:46 PM

above is me. Just lost my cookie

Subject: RE: BS: Ayn Rand
From: Deckman
Date: 22 Jan 12 - 02:47 PM

GEEZE LOUSE! Having read most of her books back when I was in school, I was looking forward to following this thread. But now that I see all the vitrol that's been posted, I think I'll just go out in the garden and eat worms ... it would be more fun!

Subject: RE: BS: Ayn Rand
From: Skivee
Date: 22 Jan 12 - 02:52 PM

So, Bob, is that an an example of Randian self-determinationism?

Subject: RE: BS: Ayn Rand
From: Deckman
Date: 22 Jan 12 - 03:09 PM

Actually ... it's an example of my disgust when threads go bad.