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I've been an atheist for several years now, but I used to spend a lot of my time learning about different philosophies and religions. I'm pretty settled on atheism, but I still find several atheist philosophies interesting.

I would like to know, from those who read Ayn Rand's work, what you think of her philosophy. Here are some of my questions.

• Did she find something exceptional for her time?
• Does her work seem dated, or does it remain relevant?
• How much of her language suggests inherent problems with her ideas, and how much just fits with the times?
• What would you say are the key points of her philosophy?
• Is John Galt's speech worth reading?
• Should I read the entirety of Atlas Shrugged, We the Living, etc.?
• How similar are her opinions to those of more modern atheist authors like Christopher Hitchens and Sam Harris?
• Does sexism taint her philosophy much, is it salvageable, or is it not really sexist? Why?
• Do her expressed views and reasons seem exceptionally natural or fantastic? Why?
• If you've watched Atlas Shrugged Parts 1 or 2, how do those compare to the book?
• Which of Ayn Rand's concerns turned out to be well-founded, and which turned out to be irrelevant or wrong? How and why?

Edit: Please post enough information to prove that you read at least some of her work.

Very boring stuff and she was way overrated.
That is all.

Quote from: "AllPurposeAtheist"Very boring stuff and she was way overrated.
That is all.

What quality of her work indicates that she was overrated? Do you have particular examples, i.e. quotes?

Nope. I spent as little time possible reading Rand. I've read enough in my life to determine I don't want to read more of her drivel.
Stienbeck is much better and a hell of a lot more entertaining.

Quote from: "AllPurposeAtheist"Nope. I spent as little time possible reading Rand. I've read enough in my life to determine I don't want to read more of her drivel.
Stienbeck is much better and a hell of a lot more entertaining.

Thanks for your opinion, although I would have preferred that with evidence. Please note that I updated the OP to specifically request proof that you've read Ayn Rand's work.

I haven't read her, but I've read about her. Jewish Ayn Rand grew up in the USSR and developed her rabid pro-capitalist views within that context. In a sense, it was a rebellion against the communism she grew up with. In her perfect world, the strong deserved to rule and the weak deserved servitude, kind of like the Sith. She's not widely taken seriously as a writer outside of radical libertarian circles, but she's known for the novel Atlas Shrugged. In Atlas Shrugged the noble capitalist must rise above the masses who would hold him down. Republican Paul Ryan, former VP candidate, was said to have been fascinated with this book from an early age.

I had to read Anthem in highschool, and if that's the last of her work I ever read that'd be just fine with me.

I do not always agree with them, but I'd say Rational Wiki pinned her down pretty well (//http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Ayn_Rand). (Which is to say, she was really full of it.)

You're probably not going to find much in depth analysis of Rand's work around here.  She's not very well thought of by folks around here even the ones who've actually read her.  FWIW, Gault's speech is redundant in the extreme, it's hard to think about trains from a modern perspective, movies are hardly ever as good as the books, and 'crony capitalism' was and is a valid concern.

My problem with her was she responded to extreme-socialism with extreme-capitalism... I don't believe extreme-any-ism is the best political course. To answer a few of the questions...

Did she find something exceptional for her time?: No I wouldn't say so. Let the strong be the strongest and the poor fend for themselves is actually the most prominent political ideology since the beginning of civilization.

How similar are her opinions to those of more modern atheist authors like Christopher Hitchens and Sam Harris?: Very little. I cannot speak to Christopher Hitchens as well as Harris, but those two both tend to lean more towards theistic and scientific philosophy rather than political philosophy. Harris I would assume would completely reject almost all of her ideological standpoints due to his liking of Buddhist philosophy. Hitchens was a conservative IIRC, but I don't believe he was that radical.

Do her expressed views and reasons seem exceptionally natural or fantastic? Why? I would say her ideas were actually rather natural; again it was ideology that is pretty much the majority of human civilization.

Note: I haven't read any of her books, but I have listened to interviews with her & her life story. I think she was an intelligent woman who came to the wrong conclusions as a result of the culture she grew up in (in her radical rejection of communism) and turned her into a rather hateful and selfish woman who was a complete hypocrite later on in receiving government "hand-outs". I am not a fan of hers in the least because every bit of her philosophy that I have seen runs contradictory to mine.

Edit: Oh, and anyone who can say this instantly gets on my, "Even if you were Albert Einstein, you could go fuck yourself" list.

Quote""They didn't have any rights to the land, and there was no reason for anyone to grant them rights which they had not conceived and were not using. What was it that they were fighting for, when they opposed white men on this continent? For their wish to continue a primitive existence, their 'right' to keep part of the earth untouched, unused and not even as property, but just keep everybody out so that you will live practically like an animal, or a few caves above it. Any white person who brings the element of civilization has the right to take over this continent."

Quote from: "Hijiri Byakuren"I do not always agree with them, but I'd say Rational Wiki pinned her down pretty well (//http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Ayn_Rand). (Which is to say, she was really full of it.)

Thanks for the link. It's somewhat funny and mildly informative, although it has negative bias that the facts don't fully explain.

Quote from: "Shiranu"How similar are her opinions to those of more modern atheist authors like Christopher Hitchens and Sam Harris?: Very little. I cannot speak to Christopher Hitchens as well as Harris, but those two both tend to lean more towards theistic and scientific philosophy rather than political philosophy. Harris I would assume would completely reject almost all of her ideological standpoints due to his liking of Buddhist philosophy. Hitchens was a conservative IIRC, but I don't believe he was that radical.

I've read only a little of Ayn Rand's work, but I read Sam Harris's books The End of Faith, Letter to a Christian Nation, and Free Will. Sam Harris's particular ideas didn't seem the same as Ayn Rand's, and the "rational" approach of Ayn Rand seems contrary to the implications of neuroscientific research. That said, I noticed that some of Rand's assertions in The Virtue of Selfishness make a lot more sense when thought of as oddly-worded game-theory/evolutionary scenarios. Modern authors like Sam Harris and Richard Dawkins use game theory, or scenarios that fit well with game theory, to describe why some courses of action are more desirable than others.

Quote from: "Shiranu"Edit: Oh, and anyone who can say this instantly gets on my, "Even if you were Albert Einstein, you could go fuck yourself" list.

Quote""They didn't have any rights to the land, and there was no reason for anyone to grant them rights which they had not conceived and were not using. What was it that they were fighting for, when they opposed white men on this continent? For their wish to continue a primitive existence, their 'right' to keep part of the earth untouched, unused and not even as property, but just keep everybody out so that you will live practically like an animal, or a few caves above it. Any white person who brings the element of civilization has the right to take over this continent."

I acknowledge that is a horrible thing to say, but I would also like to point out that many social reforms happened during her lifetime that discourage people of today from saying such things. I would also ask the same question here as with sexism: is racism/ethnocentrism a core part of her philosophy, can her ideas be salvaged from it, or is it not an issue with regard to her other ideas?

Read Atlas Shrugged after being told it was Satan's plan for the future by a wacko conspiracy theorist. Led me to study her for a bit.

She was a conniving, self promoting, selfish user of people who blew through vast amounts of money and ended up on social security and medicare after lung cancer surgery, due to her heavy smoking. She was a bitch. That is all.

Quote from: "SkepticOfMyOwnMind"

Quote from: "AllPurposeAtheist"Nope. I spent as little time possible reading Rand. I've read enough in my life to determine I don't want to read more of her drivel.
Stienbeck is much better and a hell of a lot more entertaining.

Thanks for your opinion, although I would have preferred that with evidence. Please note that I updated the OP to specifically request proof that you've read Ayn Rand's work.

Good luck making demands we read Rand before commenting. You're free to express any silliness you like here as am I and anyone else.
It's a tad like starting a thread about jumping from the 40th floor of the Empire State Building. Don't post unless you have in fact jumped from there.. :wink:

I just read Atlas Shrugged and The Fountainhead.  While I disagreed with some of what she wrote, I did get some ideas out of what she wrote.  I think the biggest idea of hers was that people should be able to be all that they could be, without government interference.  The other idea is that the government interferes too much.

She is way too much in favor of the upper class.  Even while showing examples of people from the poor and middle classes being held back by the ruling elite.  In her world view, all boats floated on the tide when the rich got richer.   Or social Darwinism took affect and rid us of those who wouldn't work.  Kind of contradictory in my opinion.

Still, the idea of letting those with good ideas get ahead without government interference appeals to me.  The example would be how Tucker, in the movie "Tucker," had to fight government interference egged on by the major automobile manufacturer's.  I don't know how much of that movie was true or not, but I have seen the government do things which seem to be heavily influenced by the rich.  

As far as her atheism, I don't remember it being a big factor in the books I read.  I do seem to recall a negative feeling towards those with religious power, using it for personal gain in the political arena.  

Her female characters were strong women, who wanted to be accepted for their abilities.  I don't see this as being sexist.  Seems to me that if men are allowed to achieve all that they can, then women ought to be able to do so too.  And I agree with Rand that women should be allowed to fuck who they want to fuck.  Ain't none of my business.    I guess that makes me and Rand sexist though.

I would say what I read of her works struck me as science fiction.  Her books were more entertaining than Karl Marx and supply a radical counterpoint to his views.  As far as recommending them, I would only recommend them to someone studying politics or to get an historical view of how people were thinking in her time.

The biggest thing that bothered me is that her work is ponderous, inflating a story to about a thousand pages that could be told in half that. John Galt's speech is like 60 pages. I've seen it condensed to a single page. She apparently never learned the meaning of the word "brevity".

Quote from: "SkepticOfMyOwnMind"I've been an atheist for several years now, but I used to spend a lot of my time learning about different philosophies and religions. I'm pretty settled on atheism, but I still find several atheist philosophies interesting.

I would like to know, from those who read Ayn Rand's work, what you think of her philosophy. Here are some of my questions.

• Did she find something exceptional for her time?
• Does her work seem dated, or does it remain relevant?
• How much of her language suggests inherent problems with her ideas, and how much just fits with the times?
• What would you say are the key points of her philosophy?
• Is John Galt's speech worth reading?
• Should I read the entirety of Atlas Shrugged, We the Living, etc.?
• How similar are her opinions to those of more modern atheist authors like Christopher Hitchens and Sam Harris?
• Does sexism taint her philosophy much, is it salvageable, or is it not really sexist? Why?
• Do her expressed views and reasons seem exceptionally natural or fantastic? Why?
• If you've watched Atlas Shrugged Parts 1 or 2, how do those compare to the book?
• Which of Ayn Rand's concerns turned out to be well-founded, and which turned out to be irrelevant or wrong? How and why?

Edit: Please post enough information to prove that you read at least some of her work.

Ayn Rand was nothing more than a wonk for conservatives that wanted to enslave the worker and funnel all the profits to the top 1% of the very rich. There was nothing innovative or even new about her work. Basically she copied all of her ideas from various peoples of the time. Her ANGLE was to appeal to a certain type of Anarchist, we now call them "libertarians". The idea that a person can bennifit from a governmnet but not pay for it is her basic tennet. This idea only works for the top 1%. It depends on the creativity, labor and efforts of people who work for slave wages and are foolish enough to vote against their own interst ala people who vote republican or conservative.
Sociolgy teachs that there are a limited ammount of resources. The conservatives want to concentrate those resources as much as they can to the top 1%. Since they have been successful in doing so to a great extent they resist change using propaganda, fear, and lies, to sway ignorant uninformed single issue voters to vote their way and against the interest of those voters. Denegrating education, public education, limiting access to vote, slandering minorities and portraying them as villians, usurping the constitution and the federal government, using bumper sticker mentality slogans like: "family values" and "welfare queens", slandering workers and unions, making false claims that the government is stealing your individual rights when at the same time they deny minorities gays and women their civil rights, waging a war against nature, are just some of the hallmarks of the Ayn Rand movement. It falls in lock step line with the conservatives.
Ayn Rand is a contradiction in logic. You cannot say that you are for freedom of everyone when infact you are for limiting competition, denying equal opportunity, and not paying for your share of the benefits of a government that you utilize.
It is not a philosophy of true freedom. It is a philosophy of elitism and protectionism.
Throughout my 55 years I have witnessed the Ayn Rands revising history, promoting pseudo-science and totally misleading people.
Lets just take one result of the Ayn Rands:
The Brookings institute was formed to be a think tank to address major issues of the USA and the world. It was independent of political party and it's members are experts in their field. It doesn't and never did have a political agenda. It weighs everything in accordance with TRUE science, REAL history, and the strictest interpretation of the Constitution and rule of law. It addresses everything form economics to global warming. It uses facts that are independently varified. It only offers an opinion when a conclussion can be reached. It doesn't allow for compromise. All of its results are pure and unaltered.
The Heritage Foundation (Ayn Rand was a founding member) uses spin and propaganda to usurp the Brookings Institute. It's sole purpose is damage control, to weaken and confuse the FACTS produced by the Brookings institute.
One such example is the tax base. The Brookings Institute found that the wider the tax base the better the economy. The bigger the middle class the better off the nation. The best way to acheive such a tax base was to help and promote education to lift up the poor and disadvantaged and to tax the wealthy at a fair rate more inline with fairness.
The Heritage Foundation tried to limit and obscure that finding by producing the "trickle down effect", claiming that deregulating everything would lead to greater wealth. What they didn't say is that the greater wealth only falls into the hands of the top 1%.
Scott Ryan has exposed Ayn Rand and her lack of objectivism, the fact that she is nothing more than a propagandist. The fact that she leaves out important details in her papers that would and do totally counter her philosophy and economic ideals.
He is one of many that have tested her theories and found them to be nothing more than conservative propaganda.

Quote from: "stromboli"She was a conniving, self promoting, selfish user of people who blew through vast amounts of money and ended up on social security and medicare after lung cancer surgery, due to her heavy smoking. She was a bitch.

She was self absorbed and intolerant to the point that she would throw members of her weekly discussion group out for having an idea she didn't like.  She was an obsessed person reacting to her childhood experiences with communism by developing an economic fantasy at the opposite end of the spectrum.  

She did develop a following, as misguided people often do.  One of the groupies at her weekly meetings was Alan Greenspan, whose reaction to the banking shenanigans that resulted in millions of homes being lost at the hands of crooked bankers was, "Oh my, I thought rich bankers were honest enough to be trusted without the need for regulations."  Such beliefs might make sense in a perfect world.  Rand envisioned her own Utopia, which was intolerant of anyone else's version of Utopia.  Her economic philosophy might even work if she actually lived in a utopia.

Having said that, I did very much enjoy Atlas Shrugged, not as a piece of great literature that points the way to economic enlightenment, but as fantasy science fiction.  Instead of pitting good against evil, she pitted smart against stupid, with the smart being synonymous with honest (good) and the stupid synonymous with dishonest (evil).

As for the OP, I'm not going to go quote mining through books that I've read.  The OP can read books about Rand on his own and form his own opinions about her.  This forum is not meant to be a substitute for the Library of Congress.  We're just a bunch of atheists.

Quote from: "SkepticOfMyOwnMind"I've been an atheist for several years now, but I used to spend a lot of my time learning about different philosophies and religions. I'm pretty settled on atheism, but I still find several atheist philosophies interesting.

I would like to know, from those who read Ayn Rand's work, what you think of her philosophy. Here are some of my questions.

I've read most of her stuff, though it's been awhile. I've become less enamored of her work in the last twenty years, but I think I can still be fair.

Quote from: "SkepticOfMyOwnMind"*Did she find something exceptional for her time?

She put some ideas into a framework that most people weren't familiar with.

Quote from: "SkepticOfMyOwnMind"

• Does her work seem dated, or does it remain relevant?

Her novels are more outdated than her nonfiction.

Quote from: "SkepticOfMyOwnMind"

• How much of her language suggests inherent problems with her ideas, and how much just fits with the times?

She was fond of using peculiar defintions (which philosophers are wont to do) that were very easy to take out of context. To be fair, she was clear about what she meant in her work; but if you call selfishness a virtue and altruism a sin, you're begging to be taken out of context. That's not the only problem, but I would say it's the content of her work more than the times.

Quote from: "SkepticOfMyOwnMind"

• What would you say are the key points of her philosophy?

Reality is real, we perceive something that exists, consciousness is the faculty by which we do so. She makes a lot of hay from the Law of Identity. From this she derives some epistemology. She concludes that survival is a basic instinct, reason is how humans survive, so reason is the highest good and morality can be derived by reason. Choosing not to think is very bad. Freedom is necessary. Selfishness is defined as pursuing rational self-interest, so it's good. Capitalism is the best economic system. Altruism is defined as self-sacrifice with no benefit to yourself, so it's bad.

Quote from: "SkepticOfMyOwnMind"

• Is John Galt's speech worth reading?

You'll only know once you've read it. The book is huge, I'm sure you can wade through just the speech.

Quote from: "SkepticOfMyOwnMind"

• Should I read the entirety of Atlas Shrugged, We the Living, etc.?

If you like the speech, you'll like those.

Quote from: "SkepticOfMyOwnMind"

• How similar are her opinions to those of more modern atheist authors like Christopher Hitchens and Sam Harris?

Not very, they're all rationalists, but Hitchens and Harris fall within mainstream economic and political views.

Quote from: "SkepticOfMyOwnMind"

• Do her expressed views and reasons seem exceptionally natural or fantastic? Why?

Thinking she can derive an 'ought' from an 'is' is a basic mistake. Her terms are confusing. She was unaware that altruism is an evolved trait intrinsic to human nature, or that her heroes came off as intellectual sociopaths.

Quote from: "SkepticOfMyOwnMind"

• If you've watched Atlas Shrugged Parts 1 or 2, how do those compare to the book?

I saw the first one. I thought it was reasonably close.

Quote from: "SkepticOfMyOwnMind"

• Which of Ayn Rand's concerns turned out to be well-founded, and which turned out to be irrelevant or wrong? How and why?

We've managed to muddle along on our middle path (so far, at least) without falling into communistic dystopia.

Quote from: "SkepticOfMyOwnMind"Edit: Please post enough information to prove that you read at least some of her work.

I hope that was helpful.

Quote from: "SkepticOfMyOwnMind"

• Did she find something exceptional for her time?

Was "I got mine, screw you" exceptional?  Not in the least.  "MINE!" is as old as hominids.  Maybe as old as brains.

Not a big fan of her Objectivism thing, but I like these 2 speeches.

You have to change https to http and get rid of feature extensions for those YouTube links to work.

[youtube:20zdavqm]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I4JWE7mp8nI[/youtube:20zdavqm]

[youtube:20zdavqm]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H0yUjMklVuI[/youtube:20zdavqm]

You're asking for a difficult answer, because her critics have seldom read any of her writings.  Seriously, not only have many of her critics not read her writings, many of those in turn refuse to do so.  Their criticisms are based on reading criticisms written by others who haven't read the source material either.

For a good indication of whether or not the critic has read the original source material instead of third hand criticism, look for phrases such as "a wonk for conservatives" or "I got mine, screw you" or "wanted to enslave the worker and funnel all the profits to the top 1% of the very rich" or "for limiting competition, denying equal opportunity, and not paying for your share".  If you see phrases like those, you aren't dealing with someone who studied what Rand actually wrote, but instead studied what critics have said, those critics having studied critics who studied critics who didn't read the original material.

Still, there are a few critics who actually have read the source material.  There are three separate criticisms that can be made of Rand, but strangely her critics seem unable to criticize just one of them at a time but constantly switch back and forth.  One can criticize her as a person, her as an author, or the philosophy she created.  But if you are in a discussion about the merits or cons of the philosophy you will get people piping in saying "and she can't write" or "she took Social Security".  One is a literary criticism, the other a personal criticism, neither of which have anything to do with the philosophy.

Quote from: "SkepticOfMyOwnMind"

• Did she find something exceptional for her time?
• Does her work seem dated, or does it remain relevant?
• How much of her language suggests inherent problems with her ideas, and how much just fits with the times?
• What would you say are the key points of her philosophy?
• Is John Galt's speech worth reading?
• Should I read the entirety of Atlas Shrugged, We the Living, etc.?
• How similar are her opinions to those of more modern atheist authors like Christopher Hitchens and Sam Harris?
• Does sexism taint her philosophy much, is it salvageable, or is it not really sexist? Why?
• Do her expressed views and reasons seem exceptionally natural or fantastic? Why?
• If you've watched Atlas Shrugged Parts 1 or 2, how do those compare to the book?
• Which of Ayn Rand's concerns turned out to be well-founded, and which turned out to be irrelevant or wrong? How and why?

Is it dated?  Well, one can say the same of works of literature such as "1984" or "Brave New World".  On the other hand, even with there being inaccuracies in how the author failed to predict exactly how the future turned out there are still valuable themes in the works.

I do not see sexism in her novels.  Even the third hand critics have a tough time finding it, you have to go down to the fifth hand critics.

The thing that disappointed me about the movies is that the cast changed between films.  I was curious how a novel set with railroads as the dominant technology could be adapted to the modern world.

Should you read the books?  That's up to you.  Do you want to know what is written in them?  If you do, then you probably want to read the books.

Most fans of Rand skip over the Galt speech and read it after they've read the book.  The problem with discussing the speech is that it was a very bad thing to do from a literary point of view, but the reason to read it is for the philosophical point of view.

Quote from: "Jason_Harvestdancer"You're asking for a difficult answer, because her critics have seldom read any of her writings.  Seriously, not only have many of her critics not read her writings, many of those in turn refuse to do so.  Their criticisms are based on reading criticisms written by others who haven't read the source material either.

For a good indication of whether or not the critic has read the original source material instead of third hand criticism, look for phrases such as "a wonk for conservatives" or "I got mine, screw you" or "wanted to enslave the worker and funnel all the profits to the top 1% of the very rich" or "for limiting competition, denying equal opportunity, and not paying for your share".  If you see phrases like those, you aren't dealing with someone who studied what Rand actually wrote, but instead studied what critics have said, those critics having studied critics who studied critics who didn't read the original material.

Still, there are a few critics who actually have read the source material.  There are three separate criticisms that can be made of Rand, but strangely her critics seem unable to criticize just one of them at a time but constantly switch back and forth.  One can criticize her as a person, her as an author, or the philosophy she created.  But if you are in a discussion about the merits or cons of the philosophy you will get people piping in saying "and she can't write" or "she took Social Security".  One is a literary criticism, the other a personal criticism, neither of which have anything to do with the philosophy.

Quote from: "SkepticOfMyOwnMind"

• Did she find something exceptional for her time?
• Does her work seem dated, or does it remain relevant?
• How much of her language suggests inherent problems with her ideas, and how much just fits with the times?
• What would you say are the key points of her philosophy?
• Is John Galt's speech worth reading?
• Should I read the entirety of Atlas Shrugged, We the Living, etc.?
• How similar are her opinions to those of more modern atheist authors like Christopher Hitchens and Sam Harris?
• Does sexism taint her philosophy much, is it salvageable, or is it not really sexist? Why?
• Do her expressed views and reasons seem exceptionally natural or fantastic? Why?
• If you've watched Atlas Shrugged Parts 1 or 2, how do those compare to the book?
• Which of Ayn Rand's concerns turned out to be well-founded, and which turned out to be irrelevant or wrong? How and why?

Is it dated?  Well, one can say the same of works of literature such as "1984" or "Brave New World".  On the other hand, even with there being inaccuracies in how the author failed to predict exactly how the future turned out there are still valuable themes in the works.

I do not see sexism in her novels.  Even the third hand critics have a tough time finding it, you have to go down to the fifth hand critics.

The thing that disappointed me about the movies is that the cast changed between films.  I was curious how a novel set with railroads as the dominant technology could be adapted to the modern world.

Should you read the books?  That's up to you.  Do you want to know what is written in them?  If you do, then you probably want to read the books.

Most fans of Rand skip over the Galt speech and read it after they've read the book.  The problem with discussing the speech is that it was a very bad thing to do from a literary point of view, but the reason to read it is for the philosophical point of view.

Bullshit! She was a conservative wonk and you know it. She thought anyone that was poor was lazy. She catagorized all minorities as the lazy poor that deserved their situation.

Quote from: "mykcob4"Bullshit! She was a conservative wonk and you know it. She thought anyone that was poor was lazy. She catagorized all minorities as the lazy poor that deserved their situation.

See, this is the kind of writing one would expect from a person whose knowledge of Rand comes entirely from third hand sources with no actual exposure to her writing.

Do you know know what Ayn Rand said about racism?

Are you familiar with the character of Cherryl Brooks?

Are you familiar with her criticisms of conservatism?

Or did your third hand sources not cover those topics?

Ayn Rand was a clever racist

bybill kramer .
 


 
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If by clever you mean she was able to dupe racists into thinking their racism isn't racism. Ayn Rand was a racist in the same way Glenn Beck is a racist.

She knew she couldn't argue against the fundamental evil that is racism, so she attempted to cloak white supremacy in an economic philosophy and people like her have found it useful to do the same thing ever since.

She was the Glenn Beck/Karl Rove/Lee Atwater of her time, trying to use language to justify a white supremacist ideology. Her ideas are still popular with many, including her namesake Rand Paul.

For anyone confronted with an Ayn Rand sycophant, there's really no need to debate them on their adolescent beliefs. Simply direct these people to her essay "Racism" (not linked to because I could only find it available on rightwing and white supremacist websites like Stormfront).
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Here are some excerpts from her essay:


Racism is the lowest, most crudely primitive form of collectivism... Racism is a doctrine of, by and for brutes.  It is a barnyard or stock-farm version of collectivism, appropriate to a mentality that differentiates between various breeds of animals, but not between animals and men.

the celebrity who starts his autobiography with a detailed account of his family history -- all these are samples of racism, the atavvistic manifestations of a doctrine whose full expression is the tribal warfare of prehistorical savages, the wholesale slaughter of Nazi Germany, the atrocities of today's so-called "newly-emerging nations."

 Obama's book "Dreams of my Father" is like Nazi Germany, according to Ayn Rand. It's a barnyard stock-farm version of collectivism. It's for animals, not men. And anyone else who cares about their family history... according to Rand, you're a Nazi too.
Just as there is no such thing as a collective or racial mind, so there is no such thing as a collective or racial achievement.  There are only individual minds and individual achievements -- and a culture is not the anonymous product of undifferentiated masses, but the sum of the intellectual achievements of individual men.

 The Civil Rights movement wasn't a group achievement. It was an achievement thanks to men like LBJ, a paternalistic achievement by Great Men, not the barnyard beasts... according to Ayn Rand.
Observe the hysterical intensity of the Southern racists; observe also that racism is much more prevalent among the poor white trash than among their intellectual betters.

 "Poor white trash?" Totally not racist, right Ayn?
There is only one antidote to racism: the philosophy of individualism and its politico-economic corollary, laissez-faire capitalism.

 There's your Glenn Beck: disguising rightwing racism as an economic philosophy.
It is capitalism that gave mankind its first steps toward freedom and a rational way of life.  It is capitalism that broke through national and racial barriers, by means of free trade.
 
 Of slaves from Africa to the colonies, Ayn?
It is capitalism that abolished serfdom and slavery in all the civilized countries of the world.  It is the capitalist North that destroyed the slavery of the agrarian-feudal South in the United States.


 No Ayn, it was the government that abolished the capitalist slave trade. And in many ways, not even the US government at that, although I'm sure Rand would have found the religious beliefs underpinning much of the abolition movement to be revolting and fascistic.
The persecution of Negroes in the South was and is truly disgraceful... Today, that problem is growing worse...

 Diversified schools are much worse than slavery, according to Ayn Rand.
This accumulation of contradictions, of short-sighted pragmatism, of cynical contempt for principles, of outrageous irrationality, has now reached its climax in the new demands of the Negro leaders... Racial quotas have been one of the worst evils of racist regimes.  There were racial quotas in the universities of Czarist Russia, in the population of Russia's major cities, etc.


 The totalitarianism and fascism Ayn Rand escaped from was bad, but these demands by blacks are the "climax" of it all. Blacks in the Civil Rights movement who were fighting for equality and diversity in schools... they're not just like the worst racist totalitarian regimes, they're much much worse - according to Ayn Rand. That sounds like a sensible, totally not racist basis upon which to form a political philosophy, right?
It does not merely demand special privileges on racial grounds -- it demands that white men be penalized for the sins of their ancestors. It demands that a white laborer be refused a job because his grandfather may have practiced racial discrimination.

 OK Ayn, we've heard that one before. The poor white people are being persecuted by decent folks demanding our schools be diversified. And the Civil Rights movement will prevent whites from getting jobs they deserve. We get it. We've heard that before from the White Citizens Councils.
That absurdly evil policy is destroying the moral base of the Negroes' fight.  Their case rested on the principle of individual rights. If they demand the violation of the rights of others, they negate and forfeit their own.

 If blacks demand diversified schools, they forfeit their rights? Wow. Gee, I wonder where that kind of nonsensical hatred for blacks comes from?
A man's rights are not violated by a private individual's refusal to deal with him.  Racism is an evil, irrational and morally contemptible doctrine -- but doctrines cannot be forbidden or prescribed by law.

 Obviously Rand Paul read this essay and agrees. But actually, you're wrong Ayn. When restaurants kick blacks and Jews out of their establishments, that is an infringement of rights. And we're not dialing the clock back on that one no matter how much your namesake Rand Paul wants to.
the Negroes -- are now in the vanguard of the destruction of these rights.


 Sound the Tea Party trumpets. The blacks are leading the charge in taking away your rights... according to the Ayn Rand sycophants.
There's no reason to engage a Tea Partier or a Libertarian in a discussion as to the legitimacy of Ayn Rand's thinking.

Just point them to her hateful ignorant essay on racism and tell them to get back to you. It's just white supremacy disguised as an economic philosophy. That's all it is. It's just rightwing strategists doing what they always do, using the things they know they're guilt of (racism) to demonize their opponents - destroying language so that it's that much more difficult to have a reasonable discussion.

Ayn Rand's thinking is merely a dog whistle for racists. It's just a philosophy for people who are tired of being called racists because their beliefs are racist. It has been for decades, and it's time to stop pretending it's anything else.

Quote from: "Jmpty"Ayn Rand was a clever racist

bybill kramer .
 


 
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If by clever you mean she was able to dupe racists into thinking their racism isn't racism. Ayn Rand was a racist in the same way Glenn Beck is a racist.

She knew she couldn't argue against the fundamental evil that is racism, so she attempted to cloak white supremacy in an economic philosophy and people like her have found it useful to do the same thing ever since.

She was the Glenn Beck/Karl Rove/Lee Atwater of her time, trying to use language to justify a white supremacist ideology. Her ideas are still popular with many, including her namesake Rand Paul.

For anyone confronted with an Ayn Rand sycophant, there's really no need to debate them on their adolescent beliefs. Simply direct these people to her essay "Racism" (not linked to because I could only find it available on rightwing and white supremacist websites like Stormfront).
.



Here are some excerpts from her essay:


Racism is the lowest, most crudely primitive form of collectivism... Racism is a doctrine of, by and for brutes.  It is a barnyard or stock-farm version of collectivism, appropriate to a mentality that differentiates between various breeds of animals, but not between animals and men.

the celebrity who starts his autobiography with a detailed account of his family history -- all these are samples of racism, the atavvistic manifestations of a doctrine whose full expression is the tribal warfare of prehistorical savages, the wholesale slaughter of Nazi Germany, the atrocities of today's so-called "newly-emerging nations."

 Obama's book "Dreams of my Father" is like Nazi Germany, according to Ayn Rand. It's a barnyard stock-farm version of collectivism. It's for animals, not men. And anyone else who cares about their family history... according to Rand, you're a Nazi too.
Just as there is no such thing as a collective or racial mind, so there is no such thing as a collective or racial achievement.  There are only individual minds and individual achievements -- and a culture is not the anonymous product of undifferentiated masses, but the sum of the intellectual achievements of individual men.

 The Civil Rights movement wasn't a group achievement. It was an achievement thanks to men like LBJ, a paternalistic achievement by Great Men, not the barnyard beasts... according to Ayn Rand.
Observe the hysterical intensity of the Southern racists; observe also that racism is much more prevalent among the poor white trash than among their intellectual betters.

 "Poor white trash?" Totally not racist, right Ayn?
There is only one antidote to racism: the philosophy of individualism and its politico-economic corollary, laissez-faire capitalism.

 There's your Glenn Beck: disguising rightwing racism as an economic philosophy.
It is capitalism that gave mankind its first steps toward freedom and a rational way of life.  It is capitalism that broke through national and racial barriers, by means of free trade.
 
 Of slaves from Africa to the colonies, Ayn?
It is capitalism that abolished serfdom and slavery in all the civilized countries of the world.  It is the capitalist North that destroyed the slavery of the agrarian-feudal South in the United States.


 No Ayn, it was the government that abolished the capitalist slave trade. And in many ways, not even the US government at that, although I'm sure Rand would have found the religious beliefs underpinning much of the abolition movement to be revolting and fascistic.
The persecution of Negroes in the South was and is truly disgraceful... Today, that problem is growing worse...

 Diversified schools are much worse than slavery, according to Ayn Rand.
This accumulation of contradictions, of short-sighted pragmatism, of cynical contempt for principles, of outrageous irrationality, has now reached its climax in the new demands of the Negro leaders... Racial quotas have been one of the worst evils of racist regimes.  There were racial quotas in the universities of Czarist Russia, in the population of Russia's major cities, etc.


 The totalitarianism and fascism Ayn Rand escaped from was bad, but these demands by blacks are the "climax" of it all. Blacks in the Civil Rights movement who were fighting for equality and diversity in schools... they're not just like the worst racist totalitarian regimes, they're much much worse - according to Ayn Rand. That sounds like a sensible, totally not racist basis upon which to form a political philosophy, right?
It does not merely demand special privileges on racial grounds -- it demands that white men be penalized for the sins of their ancestors. It demands that a white laborer be refused a job because his grandfather may have practiced racial discrimination.

 OK Ayn, we've heard that one before. The poor white people are being persecuted by decent folks demanding our schools be diversified. And the Civil Rights movement will prevent whites from getting jobs they deserve. We get it. We've heard that before from the White Citizens Councils.
That absurdly evil policy is destroying the moral base of the Negroes' fight.  Their case rested on the principle of individual rights. If they demand the violation of the rights of others, they negate and forfeit their own.

 If blacks demand diversified schools, they forfeit their rights? Wow. Gee, I wonder where that kind of nonsensical hatred for blacks comes from?
A man's rights are not violated by a private individual's refusal to deal with him.  Racism is an evil, irrational and morally contemptible doctrine -- but doctrines cannot be forbidden or prescribed by law.

 Obviously Rand Paul read this essay and agrees. But actually, you're wrong Ayn. When restaurants kick blacks and Jews out of their establishments, that is an infringement of rights. And we're not dialing the clock back on that one no matter how much your namesake Rand Paul wants to.
the Negroes -- are now in the vanguard of the destruction of these rights.


 Sound the Tea Party trumpets. The blacks are leading the charge in taking away your rights... according to the Ayn Rand sycophants.
There's no reason to engage a Tea Partier or a Libertarian in a discussion as to the legitimacy of Ayn Rand's thinking.

Just point them to her hateful ignorant essay on racism and tell them to get back to you. It's just white supremacy disguised as an economic philosophy. That's all it is. It's just rightwing strategists doing what they always do, using the things they know they're guilt of (racism) to demonize their opponents - destroying language so that it's that much more difficult to have a reasonable discussion.

Ayn Rand's thinking is merely a dog whistle for racists. It's just a philosophy for people who are tired of being called racists because their beliefs are racist. It has been for decades, and it's time to stop pretending it's anything else.

That is the best description of Ayn Rand I have ever read. Conservatives, tea partiers all take her cue to disguise their racism in a cloak of spin and propaganda. It's like the phrase "I'm not a racist, some of my friends are niggers." It's like the Bush appologist that lie in your face and promote corporate corruption.
This idea that Ayn Rand is a true libertarian is bunk. This idea that libertarians are anything but, as someone on the board spelled out "I've got mine screw you" is bunk. The whole libertarian ideology is filled with contridictions to reality. Ayn Rand was the author of those contridictions. She justifies a whole slew of corrupt corporate greed claiming it as individualism. It's NOT 3rd or second hand cirtiques, thats just spin. Ayn Rand may be the most anti-constitutional anti-American that ever put pen to paper. She's an economic classist, an economic racist. Nothing more and nothing less!

Some of the mistakes that Ayn Rand made:

(1) Equating racism with collectivism: the only evidence provided is that in both cases, people were asked to fill in forms about their ancestry.

No, racism and collectivism are two different concepts. They might have some overlapped, but so do trains and cars, yet no one mistakes one for the other.

(2) that capitalism rewards productive ability and hard work.

Not really. (a) It doesn't explain why a hard working nurse makes $30,000 and a guy knowing how to swing a bat makes $5,000,000 playing baseball. (b) It doesn't account for hardworking people losing their jobs in a downturn, or hard working entrepeneurs losing their business. (c) Also, we all have different abilities, and hard work doesn't necessarily translate that into wealth.

(3) She believed that government means interference, allowing racism/collectivism to grow.

No, not really. Without government, bullying, intimidation and ''might is right'' will proliferate.

(4) She opposed affirmative action on the basis of (1), (2) and (3).

She makes the identity that history = genetics, and therefore advocates that we forget all about history, IOW, forget about the 200 years that whites have kept blacks in slavery, and another 100 years in segregation denying their constitutional rights.

Sorry, but Ayn Rand is a basket case of logic going awry.

I never read anything about her, and from reading the above two posts I won't.  8-)  Solitary

Jmpty's post pretty well validates The Whit's assertion.  "A clever racist" is the type of code which those saying they are really talking in code which infuriates me.  She said what she said, and regardless of her hypocrisy, claiming she is speaking in code is bullshit.  

Jmpty wrote in part:

QuoteFor anyone confronted with an Ayn Rand sycophant, there's really no need to debate them on their adolescent beliefs. Simply direct these people to her essay "Racism" (not linked to because I could only find it available on rightwing and white supremacist websites like Stormfront).

I had no trouble finding her essay.  

Here is her essay from the well known rightwing white supremacist website YouTube if you want to listen to it.
[youtube:lbq9ypek]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MdeI9NfbfT8[/youtube:lbq9ypek]

If you would like to read it, it is here at: //http://alexpeak.com/twr/racism/

While I don't agree with all of Ayn Rand's views, I hate how many represent those views.  And it doesn't matter if she was a rightwing racist with sexist views, what she wrote or said should stand on their own merit.  The rest are just ad hominem attacks which seeks to discredit what is said by discrediting the speaker.  

I am not against those who disagree with Ayn Rand's views in expressing their thoughts.  But, resorting to lying, race bating, and ad hominem attacks, I am against.

Back to the subject, sort of, people can and should learn from different philosophers and philosophies.  No one has ever and I doubt ever will, have all of the answers to all of the issues.  We can learn much from people with differing views, but not if we go into discussions with them having closed minds.  As atheists we often complain about the lack of valid logic arguments amongst the religious.  But, some atheists see no problem with using the same logically invalid arguments when it comes to politics.  Not only is it seen through easily by most, but just angers those who you might want to sway.  

That's the way I see it.

Quote from: "Solitary"I never read anything about her, and from reading the above two posts I won't.  8-)  Solitary

You've missed nothing.

Quote(2) that capitalism rewards productive ability and hard work.

Not really. (a) It doesn't explain why a hard working nurse makes $30,000 and a guy knowing how to swing a bat makes $5,000,000 playing baseball. (b) It doesn't account for hardworking people losing their jobs in a downturn, or hard working entrepeneurs losing their business. (c) Also, we all have different abilities, and hard work doesn't necessarily translate that into wealth.

I'm not a big Rand fan but what you've described here is awfully close to the labor theory of value.  Hard work in and of itself isn't supposed to translate into wealth according to rand.  Creating perceived value is what turns into wealth.  The guy who can hit MLB pitchers is much harder to find than a nurse so the value is in scarcity as long as people still like to watch baseball.  Gold sells for a lot more than aluminum even though aluminum is much more useful for the same reason.  

Working hard is only worth the value the work creates for the general public in a given set of circumstances.  Hardworking buggy whip makers were all put out of business too.

Quote from: "Jmpty"Ayn Rand was a clever racist

bybill kramer .
 


 
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Obama's book "Dreams of my Father" is like Nazi Germany, according to Ayn Rand. It's a barnyard stock-farm version of collectivism. It's for animals, not men. And anyone else who cares about their family history... according to Rand, you're a Nazi too.
Just as there is no such thing as a collective or racial mind, so there is no such thing as a collective or racial achievement.  There are only individual minds and individual achievements -- and a culture is not the anonymous product of undifferentiated masses, but the sum of the intellectual achievements of individual men.

I very seriously doubt that Ayn Rand, who died in 1982, read a book published in 2004.

These many criticisms of Rand do validate my assertion that her critics are unfamiliar with her works.  Between mykcob4, jumpty, and josephpalazzo we now have three critics who have never read the source material and only know third hand criticisms.  And their criticisms, richly informed from having read criticisms instead of source material, were enough to confince Solitary that she isn't worth reading.  That's exactly what the critics want.

"Clever racist" is code for "I want to accuse you of racism but have absolutely positively nothing by which to justify my accusation."  Look at the threads about Obama and Obama/Syria to see josephpalazzo finding lots of clever racists who are using the clever code words "Obama is Bush 2.0" to disguise their racism when attacking Obama.

I made myself familiar with Rand after reading her book and read up on her politics and her life. My view on her is largely literary- my degree is in English Lit- and to me she is a bombastic blowhard who over argues every point ad infinitum; a competent writer doesn't need 60 pages, a la John Galt's speech, to impart a political philosophy.

Most people I am aware of who espouse Ayn Rand from a political standpoint, are capitalists who already have their fortune, earned 90% of the time by their parents or grandparents. These are not self made entrepreneurs, as is Richard Branson or Elon Musk. Richard Branson, besides being an atheist, is a humanitarian. Elon Musk is also a humanitarian. I see nothing in Rand's work but self-involved capitalistic lust for power. Everything about her life speaks of manipulation and using the people around her to further her own ends. This is not a person who I would want as a role model for my children. You can argue Libertarian viewpoints all you want, but Rand is no way a poster child for any cause I'd be a part of.

mykcob4, jumpty, and josephpalazzo take note of stromboli's post.  It is an example of a good refutation of Ayn Rand.  No lies, no second hand information, just the truth as stromboli sees it.  Well done stromboli!  =D>

Quote from: "LikelyToBreak"mykcob4, jumpty, and josephpalazzo take note of stromboli's post.  It is an example of a good refutation of Ayn Rand.  No lies, no second hand information, just the truth as stromboli sees it.  Well done stromboli!  =D>

So says the conspiracy theorist.

Quote from: "mykcob4"

Quote from: "LikelyToBreak"mykcob4, jumpty, and josephpalazzo take note of stromboli's post.  It is an example of a good refutation of Ayn Rand.  No lies, no second hand information, just the truth as stromboli sees it.  Well done stromboli!  =D>

So says the conspiracy theorist.

LOL.

Especially that stromboli expressed just about the same line as we did.

After reading " The Fountainhead" and "Anthem," I saw no redeeming value in her work that would cause me to read another word by her. That's about as in depth a review as you'll get from me, as other people are much more eloquent at summarizing her views.

Calling Rand a philosopher is almost an insult to the word. I mostly find her work and ideas to be garbage.

Her 'focusing' concept with regards to free will: Completely fucking retarded.

Her political stances: Was a completely immoral asshole on several accounts, with the Native American quote earlier being one of the more obscene.

Overall, she is very skippable. I honestly can't see what you'd be missing. If you want to see a great atheist philosopher with great insights, forethpught and lastability, Hume is a great example.

Quote from: "GurrenLagann"Calling Rand a philosopher is almost an insult to the word. I mostly find her work and ideas to be garbage.

Her 'focusing' concept with regards to free will: Completely fucking retarded.

Her political stances: Was a completely immoral asshole on several accounts, with the Native American quote earlier being one of the more obscene.

Overall, she is very skippable. I honestly can't see what you'd be missing. If you want to see a great atheist philosopher with great insights, forethpught and lastability, Hume is a great example.

Them fighting words.

Better watch out for the devoted fans of Rand on this forum who will no doubt accuse you of being unfamiliar with her works, and that you've never read the source material and only know third-hand criticism.

 :P

Examples of unhelpful comments:[spoil:3r6q59yo]

Quote from: "stromboli"Read Atlas Shrugged after being told it was Satan's plan for the future by a wacko conspiracy theorist. Led me to study her for a bit.

She was a conniving, self promoting, selfish user of people who blew through vast amounts of money and ended up on social security and medicare after lung cancer surgery, due to her heavy smoking. She was a bitch. That is all.

Quote from: "AllPurposeAtheist"Very boring stuff and she was way overrated.
That is all.

Quote from: "mykcob4"Ayn Rand was nothing more than a wonk for conservatives that wanted to enslave the worker and funnel all the profits to the top 1% of the very rich. There was nothing innovative or even new about her work. Basically she copied all of her ideas from various peoples of the time. Her ANGLE was to appeal to a certain type of Anarchist, we now call them "libertarians". The idea that a person can bennifit from a governmnet but not pay for it is her basic tennet. This idea only works for the top 1%. It depends on the creativity, labor and efforts of people who work for slave wages and are foolish enough to vote against their own interst ala people who vote republican or conservative.
Sociolgy teachs that there are a limited ammount of resources. The conservatives want to concentrate those resources as much as they can to the top 1%. Since they have been successful in doing so to a great extent they resist change using propaganda, fear, and lies, to sway ignorant uninformed single issue voters to vote their way and against the interest of those voters. Denegrating education, public education, limiting access to vote, slandering minorities and portraying them as villians, usurping the constitution and the federal government, using bumper sticker mentality slogans like: "family values" and "welfare queens", slandering workers and unions, making false claims that the government is stealing your individual rights when at the same time they deny minorities gays and women their civil rights, waging a war against nature, are just some of the hallmarks of the Ayn Rand movement. It falls in lock step line with the conservatives.
Ayn Rand is a contradiction in logic. You cannot say that you are for freedom of everyone when infact you are for limiting competition, denying equal opportunity, and not paying for your share of the benefits of a government that you utilize.
It is not a philosophy of true freedom. It is a philosophy of elitism and protectionism.
Throughout my 55 years I have witnessed the Ayn Rands revising history, promoting pseudo-science and totally misleading people.
Lets just take one result of the Ayn Rands:
The Brookings institute was formed to be a think tank to address major issues of the USA and the world. It was independent of political party and it's members are experts in their field. It doesn't and never did have a political agenda. It weighs everything in accordance with TRUE science, REAL history, and the strictest interpretation of the Constitution and rule of law. It addresses everything form economics to global warming. It uses facts that are independently varified. It only offers an opinion when a conclussion can be reached. It doesn't allow for compromise. All of its results are pure and unaltered.
The Heritage Foundation (Ayn Rand was a founding member) uses spin and propaganda to usurp the Brookings Institute. It's sole purpose is damage control, to weaken and confuse the FACTS produced by the Brookings institute.
One such example is the tax base. The Brookings Institute found that the wider the tax base the better the economy. The bigger the middle class the better off the nation. The best way to acheive such a tax base was to help and promote education to lift up the poor and disadvantaged and to tax the wealthy at a fair rate more inline with fairness.
The Heritage Foundation tried to limit and obscure that finding by producing the "trickle down effect", claiming that deregulating everything would lead to greater wealth. What they didn't say is that the greater wealth only falls into the hands of the top 1%.
Scott Ryan has exposed Ayn Rand and her lack of objectivism, the fact that she is nothing more than a propagandist. The fact that she leaves out important details in her papers that would and do totally counter her philosophy and economic ideals.
He is one of many that have tested her theories and found them to be nothing more than conservative propaganda.

Quote from: "Colanth"

Quote from: "SkepticOfMyOwnMind"

• Did she find something exceptional for her time?

Was "I got mine, screw you" exceptional?  Not in the least.  "MINE!" is as old as hominids.  Maybe as old as brains.

Quote from: "josephpalazzo"

Quote from: "Solitary"I never read anything about her, and from reading the above two posts I won't.  8-)  Solitary

You've missed nothing.

Quote from: "stromboli"I made myself familiar with Rand after reading her book and read up on her politics and her life. My view on her is largely literary- my degree is in English Lit- and to me she is a bombastic blowhard who over argues every point ad infinitum; a competent writer doesn't need 60 pages, a la John Galt's speech, to impart a political philosophy.

Most people I am aware of who espouse Ayn Rand from a political standpoint, are capitalists who already have their fortune, earned 90% of the time by their parents or grandparents. These are not self made entrepreneurs, as is Richard Branson or Elon Musk. Richard Branson, besides being an atheist, is a humanitarian. Elon Musk is also a humanitarian. I see nothing in Rand's work but self-involved capitalistic lust for power. Everything about her life speaks of manipulation and using the people around her to further her own ends. This is not a person who I would want as a role model for my children. You can argue Libertarian viewpoints all you want, but Rand is no way a poster child for any cause I'd be a part of.

Quote from: "Jmpty"After reading " The Fountainhead" and "Anthem," I saw no redeeming value in her work that would cause me to read another word by her. That's about as in depth a review as you'll get from me, as other people are much more eloquent at summarizing her views.

Quote from: "GurrenLagann"Calling Rand a philosopher is almost an insult to the word. I mostly find her work and ideas to be garbage.

Her 'focusing' concept with regards to free will: Completely fucking retarded.

Her political stances: Was a completely immoral asshole on several accounts, with the Native American quote earlier being one of the more obscene.

Overall, she is very skippable. I honestly can't see what you'd be missing. If you want to see a great atheist philosopher with great insights, forethpught and lastability, Hume is a great example.

[/spoil:3r6q59yo]
Examples of helpful comments:[spoil:3r6q59yo]

Quote from: "Mister Agenda"

Quote from: "SkepticOfMyOwnMind"I've been an atheist for several years now, but I used to spend a lot of my time learning about different philosophies and religions. I'm pretty settled on atheism, but I still find several atheist philosophies interesting.

I would like to know, from those who read Ayn Rand's work, what you think of her philosophy. Here are some of my questions.

I've read most of her stuff, though it's been awhile. I've become less enamored of her work in the last twenty years, but I think I can still be fair.

Quote from: "SkepticOfMyOwnMind"*Did she find something exceptional for her time?

She put some ideas into a framework that most people weren't familiar with.

Quote from: "SkepticOfMyOwnMind"[/li]
[li]Does her work seem dated, or does it remain relevant?

Her novels are more outdated than her nonfiction.

Quote from: "SkepticOfMyOwnMind"[/li]
[li]How much of her language suggests inherent problems with her ideas, and how much just fits with the times?

She was fond of using peculiar defintions (which philosophers are wont to do) that were very easy to take out of context. To be fair, she was clear about what she meant in her work; but if you call selfishness a virtue and altruism a sin, you're begging to be taken out of context. That's not the only problem, but I would say it's the content of her work more than the times.

Quote from: "SkepticOfMyOwnMind"[/li]
[li]What would you say are the key points of her philosophy?

Reality is real, we perceive something that exists, consciousness is the faculty by which we do so. She makes a lot of hay from the Law of Identity. From this she derives some epistemology. She concludes that survival is a basic instinct, reason is how humans survive, so reason is the highest good and morality can be derived by reason. Choosing not to think is very bad. Freedom is necessary. Selfishness is defined as pursuing rational self-interest, so it's good. Capitalism is the best economic system. Altruism is defined as self-sacrifice with no benefit to yourself, so it's bad.

Quote from: "SkepticOfMyOwnMind"[/li]
[li]Is John Galt's speech worth reading?

You'll only know once you've read it. The book is huge, I'm sure you can wade through just the speech.

Quote from: "SkepticOfMyOwnMind"[/li]
[li]Should I read the entirety of Atlas Shrugged, We the Living, etc.?

If you like the speech, you'll like those.

Quote from: "SkepticOfMyOwnMind"[/li]
[li]How similar are her opinions to those of more modern atheist authors like Christopher Hitchens and Sam Harris?

Not very, they're all rationalists, but Hitchens and Harris fall within mainstream economic and political views.

Quote from: "SkepticOfMyOwnMind"[/li]
[li]Do her expressed views and reasons seem exceptionally natural or fantastic? Why?

Thinking she can derive an 'ought' from an 'is' is a basic mistake. Her terms are confusing. She was unaware that altruism is an evolved trait intrinsic to human nature, or that her heroes came off as intellectual sociopaths.

Quote from: "SkepticOfMyOwnMind"[/li]
[li]If you've watched Atlas Shrugged Parts 1 or 2, how do those compare to the book?

I saw the first one. I thought it was reasonably close.

Quote from: "SkepticOfMyOwnMind"[/li]
[li]Which of Ayn Rand's concerns turned out to be well-founded, and which turned out to be irrelevant or wrong? How and why?

We've managed to muddle along on our middle path (so far, at least) without falling into communistic dystopia.

Quote from: "SkepticOfMyOwnMind"Edit: Please post enough information to prove that you read at least some of her work.

I hope that was helpful.

Quote from: "ParaGoomba Slayer"Writer posted a YouTube video (//http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I4JWE7mp8nI)

Writer posted a YouTube video (//http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H0yUjMklVuI)

Not a big fan of her Objectivism thing, but I like these 2 speeches.

Quote from: "LikelyToBreak"Jmpty's post pretty well validates The Whit's assertion.  "A clever racist" is the type of code which those saying they are really talking in code which infuriates me.  She said what she said, and regardless of her hypocrisy, claiming she is speaking in code is bullshit.  

Jmpty wrote in part:

QuoteFor anyone confronted with an Ayn Rand sycophant, there's really no need to debate them on their adolescent beliefs. Simply direct these people to her essay "Racism" (not linked to because I could only find it available on rightwing and white supremacist websites like Stormfront).

I had no trouble finding her essay.  

Here is her essay from the well known rightwing white supremacist website YouTube if you want to listen to it.
[youtube:3r6q59yo]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MdeI9NfbfT8[/youtube:3r6q59yo]

If you would like to read it, it is here at: //http://alexpeak.com/twr/racism/

While I don't agree with all of Ayn Rand's views, I hate how many represent those views.  And it doesn't matter if she was a rightwing racist with sexist views, what she wrote or said should stand on their own merit.  The rest are just ad hominem attacks which seeks to discredit what is said by discrediting the speaker.  

I am not against those who disagree with Ayn Rand's views in expressing their thoughts.  But, resorting to lying, race bating, and ad hominem attacks, I am against.

Back to the subject, sort of, people can and should learn from different philosophers and philosophies.  No one has ever and I doubt ever will, have all of the answers to all of the issues.  We can learn much from people with differing views, but not if we go into discussions with them having closed minds.  As atheists we often complain about the lack of valid logic arguments amongst the religious.  But, some atheists see no problem with using the same logically invalid arguments when it comes to politics.  Not only is it seen through easily by most, but just angers those who you might want to sway.  

That's the way I see it.

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Quote from: "stromboli"I made myself familiar with Rand after reading her book and read up on her politics and her life. My view on her is largely literary- my degree is in English Lit- and to me she is a bombastic blowhard who over argues every point ad infinitum; a competent writer doesn't need 60 pages, a la John Galt's speech, to impart a political philosophy.

Stromboli, about the language issue:

• Real trends in word and sentence length (//http://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/?p=3534)
• Word lengths are optimized for efficient communication (//http://www.pnas.org/content/108/9/3526.long)

[/li][/list]

Simply put, language evolves to be more straightforward and succinct over time. It shouldn't be surprising that a book from 50+ years ago explained something in 60 pages that only needs 20. Additionally, Ayn Rand didn't have access to automated spell-checkers, readability analysis tools, or a search engine thesaurus.

Jmpty, your last comment was badly formatted. Would you please fix the formatting, separating the quotes into BBCode quote blocks?
[spoil:3r6q59yo]

Quote from: "Jmpty"Ayn Rand was a clever racist

bybill kramer .
 


 
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If by clever you mean she was able to dupe racists into thinking their racism isn't racism. Ayn Rand was a racist in the same way Glenn Beck is a racist.

She knew she couldn't argue against the fundamental evil that is racism, so she attempted to cloak white supremacy in an economic philosophy and people like her have found it useful to do the same thing ever since.

She was the Glenn Beck/Karl Rove/Lee Atwater of her time, trying to use language to justify a white supremacist ideology. Her ideas are still popular with many, including her namesake Rand Paul.

For anyone confronted with an Ayn Rand sycophant, there's really no need to debate them on their adolescent beliefs. Simply direct these people to her essay "Racism" (not linked to because I could only find it available on rightwing and white supremacist websites like Stormfront).
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Here are some excerpts from her essay:


Racism is the lowest, most crudely primitive form of collectivism... Racism is a doctrine of, by and for brutes.  It is a barnyard or stock-farm version of collectivism, appropriate to a mentality that differentiates between various breeds of animals, but not between animals and men.

the celebrity who starts his autobiography with a detailed account of his family history -- all these are samples of racism, the atavvistic manifestations of a doctrine whose full expression is the tribal warfare of prehistorical savages, the wholesale slaughter of Nazi Germany, the atrocities of today's so-called "newly-emerging nations."

 Obama's book "Dreams of my Father" is like Nazi Germany, according to Ayn Rand. It's a barnyard stock-farm version of collectivism. It's for animals, not men. And anyone else who cares about their family history... according to Rand, you're a Nazi too.
Just as there is no such thing as a collective or racial mind, so there is no such thing as a collective or racial achievement.  There are only individual minds and individual achievements -- and a culture is not the anonymous product of undifferentiated masses, but the sum of the intellectual achievements of individual men.

 The Civil Rights movement wasn't a group achievement. It was an achievement thanks to men like LBJ, a paternalistic achievement by Great Men, not the barnyard beasts... according to Ayn Rand.
Observe the hysterical intensity of the Southern racists; observe also that racism is much more prevalent among the poor white trash than among their intellectual betters.

 "Poor white trash?" Totally not racist, right Ayn?
There is only one antidote to racism: the philosophy of individualism and its politico-economic corollary, laissez-faire capitalism.

 There's your Glenn Beck: disguising rightwing racism as an economic philosophy.
It is capitalism that gave mankind its first steps toward freedom and a rational way of life.  It is capitalism that broke through national and racial barriers, by means of free trade.
 
 Of slaves from Africa to the colonies, Ayn?
It is capitalism that abolished serfdom and slavery in all the civilized countries of the world.  It is the capitalist North that destroyed the slavery of the agrarian-feudal South in the United States.


 No Ayn, it was the government that abolished the capitalist slave trade. And in many ways, not even the US government at that, although I'm sure Rand would have found the religious beliefs underpinning much of the abolition movement to be revolting and fascistic.
The persecution of Negroes in the South was and is truly disgraceful... Today, that problem is growing worse...

 Diversified schools are much worse than slavery, according to Ayn Rand.
This accumulation of contradictions, of short-sighted pragmatism, of cynical contempt for principles, of outrageous irrationality, has now reached its climax in the new demands of the Negro leaders... Racial quotas have been one of the worst evils of racist regimes.  There were racial quotas in the universities of Czarist Russia, in the population of Russia's major cities, etc.


 The totalitarianism and fascism Ayn Rand escaped from was bad, but these demands by blacks are the "climax" of it all. Blacks in the Civil Rights movement who were fighting for equality and diversity in schools... they're not just like the worst racist totalitarian regimes, they're much much worse - according to Ayn Rand. That sounds like a sensible, totally not racist basis upon which to form a political philosophy, right?
It does not merely demand special privileges on racial grounds -- it demands that white men be penalized for the sins of their ancestors. It demands that a white laborer be refused a job because his grandfather may have practiced racial discrimination.

 OK Ayn, we've heard that one before. The poor white people are being persecuted by decent folks demanding our schools be diversified. And the Civil Rights movement will prevent whites from getting jobs they deserve. We get it. We've heard that before from the White Citizens Councils.
That absurdly evil policy is destroying the moral base of the Negroes' fight.  Their case rested on the principle of individual rights. If they demand the violation of the rights of others, they negate and forfeit their own.

 If blacks demand diversified schools, they forfeit their rights? Wow. Gee, I wonder where that kind of nonsensical hatred for blacks comes from?
A man's rights are not violated by a private individual's refusal to deal with him.  Racism is an evil, irrational and morally contemptible doctrine -- but doctrines cannot be forbidden or prescribed by law.

 Obviously Rand Paul read this essay and agrees. But actually, you're wrong Ayn. When restaurants kick blacks and Jews out of their establishments, that is an infringement of rights. And we're not dialing the clock back on that one no matter how much your namesake Rand Paul wants to.
the Negroes -- are now in the vanguard of the destruction of these rights.


 Sound the Tea Party trumpets. The blacks are leading the charge in taking away your rights... according to the Ayn Rand sycophants.
There's no reason to engage a Tea Partier or a Libertarian in a discussion as to the legitimacy of Ayn Rand's thinking.

Just point them to her hateful ignorant essay on racism and tell them to get back to you. It's just white supremacy disguised as an economic philosophy. That's all it is. It's just rightwing strategists doing what they always do, using the things they know they're guilt of (racism) to demonize their opponents - destroying language so that it's that much more difficult to have a reasonable discussion.

Ayn Rand's thinking is merely a dog whistle for racists. It's just a philosophy for people who are tired of being called racists because their beliefs are racist. It has been for decades, and it's time to stop pretending it's anything else.

[/spoil:3r6q59yo]

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Quote from: "Jason_Harvestdancer"For a good indication of whether or not the critic has read the original source material instead of third hand criticism, look for phrases such as "a wonk for conservatives" or "I got mine, screw you"

Sorry, but I was forced to read Rand by my father (who also escaped from Communism, but disagreed with Rand), and all I got from her works was "I got mine, screw you".  Maybe because that's how she thought, and it showed in her works.

Skeptic of my own mind, if you don't like my posts, don't read them. Who are you to judge what is "helpful?"

Quote from: "SkepticOfMyOwnMind"Did she find something exceptional for her time?

It wasn't the intent to "find something" but to integrate and present a complete worldview and philosophy for living.  She actually never accomplished this by herself in her lifetime, because it was never her goal to be regarded as a philosopher.  Instead she wanted to deliver a plot and theme that SHOWED people and gave them a sense of what her philosophy would look like in action in the minds and hearts of her main characters (referred to as her "sense of life").  She wanted to create achievable heroes (as opposed to heroes like Superman, etc...) for all people at all levels of ability.  Ayn Rand wanted to be a writer, and in that she succeeded.

It wasn't until as recent as 1991 that Leonard Peikoff actually compiled the body of work (using old lecture material) contained in Ayn Rand's fiction and non-fiction into a comprehensive presentation of Objectivism.  If you want to cut to the chase just read Leonard Peikoff's, "Objectivism: The Philosophy of Ayn Rand"

Quote from: "SkepticOfMyOwnMind"Does her work seem dated, or does it remain relevant?

Depends on which context you ask the question in.  In Academia her work has never been relevant, but in the general population and in politics her work remains relevant.  In the general population her fiction is often cited as among the most influential books published in the 20th century.  In politics republicans and libertarians are drawn to the political/free-market portions of her ideas.  The reason they are attracted to it is because Christianity is incompatible with (and fails to advocate) Capitalism.

Quote from: "SkepticOfMyOwnMind"How much of her language suggests inherent problems with her ideas, and how much just fits with the times?

Being of Russian descent her language was a barrier that a lot of people can't work past when they're exposed to her writing.  A lot of the things she wrote in her non-fiction contain words like "evil" and "altruist" and seemingly sexist references to "Men" or "Man" etc... a lot of words are commonly misunderstood or misrepresented when people talk about Objectivism.  Selfishness is a big one too.

Quote from: "SkepticOfMyOwnMind"What would you say are the key points of her philosophy?

Instead of copy/pasting this I think a link would serve best.
http://www.aynrand.org/site/PageServer? ... vism_intro (http://www.aynrand.org/site/PageServer?pagename=objectivism_intro)

Quote from: "SkepticOfMyOwnMind"Is John Galt's speech worth reading?

John Galt's speech takes place at the climax of Atlas Shrugged.  It would be of no benefit at all to read John Galt's speech for the first time without reading the book and understanding the plot of the book.  Further, your understanding and comprehension of it would be better if you understand some of the non-fiction first.

Quote from: "SkepticOfMyOwnMind"Should I read the entirety of Atlas Shrugged, We the Living, etc.?

If for no other reason than the fact that many millions of other people have been exposed to them, and to better satisfy your own obvious curiosity.  In my opinion these are literary classics, and reading books is good for you. :)

Quote from: "SkepticOfMyOwnMind"How similar are her opinions to those of more modern atheist authors like Christopher Hitchens and Sam Harris?

In both cases Ayn Rand would have argued that neither of these men are completely consistent in their worldviews, but you can easily point out similarities.  Sam Harris recently published some blog posts about self-defense and concealed carry... and Objectivism would identify with this because of the right to self-defense.

Quote from: "SkepticOfMyOwnMind"Does sexism taint her philosophy much, is it salvageable, or is it not really sexist? Why?

Again, this is one of the language barriers that most people are more willing to use as ammunition to dismiss her than attempt to understand.  All instances of "Man" specifically are really about "Man-kind."  She did this intentionally because she viewed feminism as a form of collectivism.  Individualism was enough for her, and while perhaps a little disconnected from the reality of society it reveals she was ahead of her time in her view of men and women as equals, as individuals.  This is where the fiction can help.  Understanding the relationships between the romanticized characters in her novels I think gives a better insight into the issue.  There weren't stereo-typically female roles or male roles, and in a way she does depict a "glass ceiling" atmosphere around Dagney Taggart at Taggart Transcontinental as she highlights how incompetent the decision makers above her are throughout Atlas Shrugged.

Quote from: "SkepticOfMyOwnMind"Do her expressed views and reasons seem exceptionally natural or fantastic? Why?

I'm pretty bias on this one.  

Quote from: "SkepticOfMyOwnMind"If you've watched Atlas Shrugged Parts 1 or 2, how do those compare to the book?

They really can't compete unfortunately.  As the book as spread viral over the course of 50+ years and continues to sell more copies every year... the movies fail to deliver the same impact.  There is too much important character development that the movies simply don't have room for.  As a long time Objectivist I wanted the movie version to be more in the format of how "Roots" was done.  I think that given the time constraints on movie production it is impossible to do the book justice... and the box office sales and reviews are showing that.  Overall it is positive though because it gives exposure to Objectivism and has drawn a lot of curiosity.

Quote from: "SkepticOfMyOwnMind"Which of Ayn Rand's concerns turned out to be well-founded, and which turned out to be irrelevant or wrong? How and why?

Given how rampant Crony Capitalism is now, the concerns she depicted in Atlas Shrugged about the sway of politicians to lend favors arbitrarily directly correlates to the governments ability to pick and choose winners and losers depending on who receives bail-outs, or who is except from the expensive health-care legislation.

Her depiction in Atlas Shrugged of how a "state of emergency" can be manipulated by politicians to grab power directly correlates to the over-reaction of the country to terrorism and the patriot act.

As the incentive for young people to become doctors continues to decline, since being a doctor isn't really a profitable career choice... but has become enslavement to legal pressures, insurance companies, and political pressures... healthcare will continue to decline in quality as it rises in price.  This will be the equivalent of "the men of the mind going on strike" or simply opting not to be doctors anymore.

Now... tell me a little about why you're curious for opinions on Ayn Rand?  You'll find (as you have here) that most of those who are vocal are critics of Ayn Rand.

Quote from: "Jmpty"Skeptic of my own mind, if you don't like my posts, don't read them. Who are you to judge what is "helpful?"

If my judgments aren't applied to any legal process that could affect your rights or the expression thereof, what do you care how I judge your posts?

That aside, I wrote the OP. I requested information about Ayn Rand's writings based on factual evidence from her works. You're allowed to post what you want, but it would be courteous to post your genuine opinion, along with factual evidence to back it up. It would also be courteous for you to make your writing more readable instead of placing the burden on your readers. When you place the burden on your readers, you also decrease the chance that they'll understand you.

Quote from: "lumpymunk"Given how rampant Crony Capitalism is now, the concerns she depicted in Atlas Shrugged about the sway of politicians to lend favors arbitrarily directly correlates to the governments ability to pick and choose winners and losers depending on who receives bail-outs, or who is except from the expensive health-care legislation.

Her depiction in Atlas Shrugged of how a "state of emergency" can be manipulated by politicians to grab power directly correlates to the over-reaction of the country to terrorism and the patriot act.

This is consistent with Atlas Shrugged: Part 1 (//http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0480239/?ref_=sr_1) and reality, which makes Rand's book seem more interesting. It's also evidence that you paid some attention to her works. Thank you for your reply, lumpymunk.

Quote from: "lumpymunk"Instead of copy/pasting this I think a link would serve best.
http://www.aynrand.org/site/PageServer? ... vism_intro (http://www.aynrand.org/site/PageServer?pagename=objectivism_intro)

I think I get the first three at a basic level, with potential, yet addressable caveats. The capitalism part may demand a much more stringent emphasis on individualism than most corporations have - potentially converting "normal" corporations with investors into cooperatives where each individual truly works for their own benefit. As-is, corporate executives have excessive amounts of unearned power and wealth. They use this wealth to turn the lower class into de facto slaves to the upper class, so the poor never (or rarely) have the opportunity to work for their own benefit.

Quote from: "lumpymunk"Again, this is one of the language barriers that most people are more willing to use as ammunition to dismiss her than attempt to understand.  All instances of "Man" specifically are really about "Man-kind."  She did this intentionally because she viewed feminism as a form of collectivism.  Individualism was enough for her, and while perhaps a little disconnected from the reality of society it reveals she was ahead of her time in her view of men and women as equals, as individuals.  This is where the fiction can help.  Understanding the relationships between the romanticized characters in her novels I think gives a better insight into the issue.  There weren't stereo-typically female roles or male roles, and in a way she does depict a "glass ceiling" atmosphere around Dagney Taggart at Taggart Transcontinental as she highlights how incompetent the decision makers above her are throughout Atlas Shrugged.

English-speakers from older times often express sex-neutral ideas in sexist language, so I understood that could be the case here. I'm glad to hear she wasn't sexist against women, and that is further confirmed by her views on abortion given in ParaGoomba Slayer's posted videos (yes, people, some women are sexist against women).

Quote from: "lumpymunk"I'm pretty bias on this one.

I think I know what you mean, and I will reword the question to accommodate that. Do you think Ayn Rand's ideas fit well with the natural state of the world (are practical), or do you think her ideas are difficult to apply or unfinished?

Quote from: "lumpymunk"In my opinion these are literary classics, and reading books is good for you. :)

I was the kid who got awkward stares for beating all the other smart kids at reading comprehension tests.  8-)

Quote from: "lumpymunk"It wasn't until as recent as 1991 that Leonard Peikoff actually compiled the body of work (using old lecture material) contained in Ayn Rand's fiction and non-fiction into a comprehensive presentation of Objectivism.  If you want to cut to the chase just read Leonard Peikoff's, "Objectivism: The Philosophy of Ayn Rand"

I'm partway through The Virtue of Selfishness (//http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Virtue_of_Selfishness), and I intend to read more Ayn Rand books if I feel like it's worth my time.

Quote from: "lumpymunk"As the incentive for young people to become doctors continues to decline, since being a doctor isn't really a profitable career choice... but has become enslavement to legal pressures, insurance companies, and political pressures... healthcare will continue to decline in quality as it rises in price.  This will be the equivalent of "the men of the mind going on strike" or simply opting not to be doctors anymore.

Couldn't machines like IBM's Watson (//http://www-03.ibm.com/innovation/us/watson/watson_in_healthcare.shtml) pick up the weight?

Quote from: "lumpymunk"Now... tell me a little about why you're curious for opinions on Ayn Rand?  You'll find (as you have here) that most of those who are vocal are critics of Ayn Rand.

I follow many atheist pages on Facebook, some of which occasionally post a meme describing Ayn Rand as an atheist. I hadn't looked into Ayn Rand more thoroughly before, but the little I've learned indicates that she deeply considered the implications of a naturalistic, atheistic worldview with regard to politics and morality. Her approach, while not strictly mathematical or scientific, indicates a deeper understanding of social interaction between individuals in a manner consistent with game theory.

I don't know for sure whether that's the case, but I would like to find out. If her work does indeed follow that pattern, then I may be interested in reading, outlining, and possibly expanding upon it.

My problem with Ayn Rand is that she has a simplistic world view.

She believes in these imaginary groups of classes where in she labels the groups she politically disagrees with as "leeches", and those that agree as some sort of innovative minds. Her philosophy is extreme and broad in it's approach to world problems, believing that every problem can be solved by capitalism and free markets, much in the way that Marxism believes that all problems can be solved with communism. It just doesn't work that way in the world. Sometimes it is in fact, true that a sector of the economy will run more effective if there is less government intervention. But sometimes it's the exact opposite, and the market produces huge volumes of waste and unethical practices that a consumer has no way out of dealing with, unless a governing body does something. It's a balancing act to find out how much the government should or shouldn't be involved, but to always have one solution or another is just plain idiotic, and this seems to be Rands approach to things.

For all of her fancying herself as a great intellectual she tended to be very broad and unimaginative for my taste. Yes, she understood some concepts that most people couldn't but then again, she also feel victim to becoming a dogmatist that believed she had the final ideology to all of humanities problems, just like a fucking religious fanatic. Her fanaticism and pathological rationalizing of her own sociopathic tendencies are what I think turn most people off her work.

I'm not saying Rand was wrong about everything or that her being a bit of cunt is an argument against her work. I'm just saying that she wasn't really much of a philosopher. More than anything, she just made a blind dogma in her own image that demanded belief in her creeds, and called it a philosophy.

Quote from: "JamesTheUnjust"My problem with Ayn Rand is that she has a simplistic world view.

She believes in these imaginary groups of classes where in she labels the groups she politically disagrees with as "leeches", and those that agree as some sort of innovative minds. Her philosophy is extreme and broad in it's approach to world problems, believing that every problem can be solved by capitalism and free markets, much in the way that Marxism believes that all problems can be solved with communism. It just doesn't work that way in the world. Sometimes it is in fact, true that a sector of the economy will run more effective if there is less government intervention. But sometimes it's the exact opposite, and the market produces huge volumes of waste and unethical practices that a consumer has no way out of dealing with, unless a governing body does something. It's a balancing act to find out how much the government should or shouldn't be involved, but to always have one solution or another is just plain idiotic, and this seems to be Rands approach to things.

For all of her fancying herself as a great intellectual she tended to be very broad and unimaginative for my taste. Yes, she understood some concepts that most people couldn't but then again, she also feel victim to becoming a dogmatist that believed she had the final ideology to all of humanities problems, just like a fucking religious fanatic. Her fanaticism and pathological rationalizing of her own sociopathic tendencies are what I think turn most people off her work.

I'm not saying Rand was wrong about everything or that her being a bit of cunt is an argument against her work. I'm just saying that she wasn't really much of a philosopher. More than anything, she just made a blind dogma in her own image that demanded belief in her creeds, and called it a philosophy.

^ well put. I have seen Rand characterized as a capitalist, a Nazi, a Libertarian, a racist and a number of other labels. My overall take on her is much like the above. She simplistically characterizes issues as black and white that aren't, and is totally unsympathetic to any competing view. I don't think her "philosophy" is dangerous, just incomplete and self centered.

@James

Good post.

Quote from: "SkepticOfMyOwnMind"The capitalism part may demand a much more stringent emphasis on individualism than most corporations have - potentially converting "normal" corporations with investors into cooperatives where each individual truly works for their own benefit. As-is, corporate executives have excessive amounts of unearned power and wealth. They use this wealth to turn the lower class into de facto slaves to the upper class, so the poor never (or rarely) have the opportunity to work for their own benefit.

The problem with corporations right now is how protected the decision makers are, thanks to the way things are structured legally.  Corporations are not individuals, and philosophically how they can be construed as such is the root of most of the problems.  This wouldn't exist without government passing laws giving them this legal status.  Trying to look at corporations as they exist now and drawing any inferences about what form they would take under the environment Objectivism advocates only drops the context.

Quote from: "SkepticOfMyOwnMind"Do you think Ayn Rand's ideas fit well with the natural state of the world (are practical), or do you think her ideas are difficult to apply or unfinished?

The objectivist response is that not only are they practical but mandatory.   Mandatory in the sense that "In order to achieve happiness on earth as a human being you must behave in certain ways."  This question is tackled in detail in the books "Philosophy: Who needs it?" and "For the New Intellectual."  These are a series of lectures that talk about the importance of philosophy in every day life.  Each are about the same length as Virtue of Selfishness.

Quote from: "SkepticOfMyOwnMind"Couldn't machines like IBM's Watson pick up the weight?

Certainly, to an extent...  What happens when the machine misdiagnoses a patient or two and a stream of legal battles attack the software developers to the point where (as is the case for being a doctor) the liability is so great that it no longer becomes an attractive career choice?  What will be the regulatory backlash of such a misdiagnosis?  How long before incompetant politicians begin passing laws to "fix" it?

How soon before they put some code in there that engages in essentially the same defensive medicine most doctors engage in now overprescribing anti-biotics to avoid legal trouble?

Quote from: "JamesTheUnjust"It's a balancing act to find out how much the government should or shouldn't be involved, but to always have one solution or another is just plain idiotic, and this seems to be Rands approach to things.

Mounds of literature more than make the case that government "meddling" is the root cause of all problems that the government then attempts to go back and "fix" after blaming "the market" which it poisoned in the first place.  The "great recession" was a perfect example.  This isn't an attack on Objectivism specifically though, in order to do that you'll need to attack the principles upon which objectivisms political theory is grounded.  It covers more than just Capitalism.  Individual Rights, Limited Government, and Objective Laws are also components of Objectivist politics.

http://www.atlassociety.org/objectivist_politics (http://www.atlassociety.org/objectivist_politics)

Quote from: "JamesTheUnjust"Her philosophy is extreme and broad in it's approach to world problems, believing that every problem can be solved by capitalism and free markets, much in the way that Marxism believes that all problems can be solved with communism.

My first answer to you shows this to be incorrect.  Capitalism is just a piece of it.  Individualism is much more fundamental, and capitalism is the just application of individualism on a national scale.  Objectivism attempts to build its political philosophy off of its moral philosophy, and treats it as an extension of ethics, metaphysics, and epistemology.  Some countries explicitly do not endorse individualism, just like some countries explicitly endorse false conceptions of metaphysics (mysticism) and epistemology (faith).  Objectivism is not so shallow as to prescribe "sprinkle a little capitalism on it" to fix everything.

While Objectivism promotes capitalism, that aspect of it has really been given too much attention simply because that's the bit other ideologies agree with.  Republicans will promote Ayn Rand as a justification for Capitalism but ignore the more fundamental components of the philosophy that "lead up to" Objectivism's endorsement of Capitalism.  That contradiction is made perfectly clear when you consider "selfless charitable Christians" (Republicans) who attempt to promote a value-for-value based economic system of greed and selfishness.  The two are incompatible... but you never hear about any other aspects of Objectivism because the exposure is limited to that little bit.

Quote from: "JamesTheUnjust"It's a balancing act to find out how much the government should or shouldn't be involved, but to always have one solution or another is just plain idiotic, and this seems to be Rands approach to things.

Quote from: "lumpymunk"Mounds of literature more than make the case that government "meddling" is the root cause of all problems that the government then attempts to go back and "fix" after blaming "the market" which it poisoned in the first place.  The "great recession" was a perfect example.  This isn't an attack on Objectivism specifically though, in order to do that you'll need to attack the principles upon which objectivisms political theory is grounded.  It covers more than just Capitalism.  Individual Rights, Limited Government, and Objective Laws are also components of Objectivist politics.

There's also numerous economists that see Randian approaches to economic issues as being half-baked at best and destructive at worst. Most market failures have zero to do with government and more to do with foolish business practices that work in the short run, only to result in massive contraction eventually. It's all good until the holiday is finally over, and then business want to blame some outside party -- a party which they routinely come crawling to fix their mess. This isn't to say the government has never created a mess on their own, or that they've never made a problem worse. My only complaint is when business men never take the responsibility from within their own corner of the private sector and acknowledge that some business practices are in fact, extremely short sided and reckless.

QuoteMy first answer to you shows this to be incorrect.  Capitalism is just a piece of it.  Individualism is much more fundamental, and capitalism is the just application of individualism on a national scale.  Objectivism attempts to build its political philosophy off of its moral philosophy, and treats it as an extension of ethics, metaphysics, and epistemology.  Some countries explicitly do not endorse individualism, just like some countries explicitly endorse false conceptions of metaphysics (mysticism) and epistemology (faith).  Objectivism is not so shallow as to prescribe "sprinkle a little capitalism on it" to fix everything.

While Objectivism promotes capitalism, that aspect of it has really been given too much attention simply because that's the bit other ideologies agree with.  Republicans will promote Ayn Rand as a justification for Capitalism but ignore the more fundamental components of the philosophy that "lead up to" Objectivism's endorsement of Capitalism.  That contradiction is made perfectly clear when you consider "selfless charitable Christians" (Republicans) who attempt to promote a value-for-value based economic system of greed and selfishness.  The two are incompatible... but you never hear about any other aspects of Objectivism because the exposure is limited to that little bit.

Objectivism is just libertarian minarchism with half-baked metaphysics and repulsive ethics. There's nothing in Ayn Rands advocacy that is at all original. This is why so many libertarians and anarcho-capitalists loved her work, while she had nothing but strong contempt for them. It was because at the core of libertarianism is the advocacy for enhancing other life style through more free economies.  Ayn Rand could not have been less interested in this idea. She was far more interested in putting people in what she felt was their rightful, lowly places, where in she was superior to all, while being free of all responsibility of societal issues that may effect someone else.

All political philosophies have wonderful sounding principles. Conservatives talk about less government and rant and rave about freedom, but their actions seem to tell a hypocritically different story the moment you look at their policy. You have to look beyond the PR of a ideology and ask yourself what the relationship is between ones principles... and ones behavior. Kinda like when Christians talk about religious freedom but advocate all kinds of clear theocratic policy. Sometimes people use pretty words and slogans to draw people into an ideology, all the while having an underlying motive with an extremely questionable set of ethics.

The difference between conservatives, liberals, and libertarians may have as much to do with their moral intuitions as their ideology.

http://www.plosone.org/article/info:doi ... ne.0042366 (http://www.plosone.org/article/info:doi/10.1371/journal.pone.0042366)

"As predicted by intuitionist theories concerning the origins of moral reasoning, libertarian values showed convergent relationships with libertarian emotional dispositions and social preferences. Our findings add to a growing recognition of the role of personality differences in the organization of political attitudes."--Jonathan Haidt

The short of it: An evaluation in regard to Moral Foundations theory (care/no harm, fairness/no cheating, liberty/no oppression, loyalty/no betrayal, authority/no subversion, sanctity/no degradation), people who identify as libertarian scored high on the liberty measure, and as low or lower on the other measures compared to liberals and conservatives. Liberals value the first two more highly and the last four less than conservatives. Conservatives value them roughly equally, which puts them significantly lower than liberals regarding care and fairness.

Predictably (this is my interpretation), liberals tend to think that people who don't value care and fairness as much as they do are selfish and unjust, conservatives think people who don't value loyalty, authority, and sanctity as much as they do are out to undermine society; and the libertarians say 'a pox on both your houses, why can't you just leave people alone if they're not hurting anyone?'.

This would explain why libertarians are a fairly representative cross-section of society rather than just a bunch of people who 'got theirs'. They aren't libertarians because of perceived advantage (many of them could take advantage of available beneifits), but because they have a 'libertarian personality'.

Quote from: "JamesTheUnjust"Most market failures have zero to do with government and more to do with foolish business practices that work in the short run, only to result in massive contraction eventually.

Without getting off topic, this could have an entire forum dedicated to it.  It's understood there are different viewpoints.

Quote from: "JamesTheUnjust"There's nothing in Ayn Rands advocacy that is at all original.

Ayn Rand was the first to identify the logical fallacy of the stolen concept... which entails attempting to use a concept while denying the validity of its genetic roots.  Essentially this is the inverse of begging the question.  She describes this in an Introduction to Objectivist Epistemology.

In addition, it isn't always in the presentation of a "new idea" that makes a philosopher original.  Most of the time originality comes in the way those ideas are presented (argued), integrated differently, or extended in ways previously not done.  This was Ayn Rand's primary achievement.

Ayn Rand's attempt was to present philosophy in a coherent way from start to finish (metaphysics, epistemology, ethics, politics, aesthetics), to determine where one must begin if one wants to understand philosophy, and proceed from there without contradiction.  We could have a separate debate on whether she achieved this, but I wouldn't be willing to engage with anyone who isn't well read on how she attempted this integration.

QuoteThis is why so many libertarians and anarcho-capitalists loved her work, while she had nothing but strong contempt for them. It was because at the core of libertarianism is the advocacy for enhancing other life style through more free economies. Ayn Rand could not have been less interested in this idea.

Actually the reason is because in Ayn Rand's view, political philosophy is not possible without ethics, just as ethics is not possible without epistemology and metaphysics.  The idea of a philosophical viewpoint that was void of coherent metaphysics and epistemology can not produce a coherent political philosophy.  Any attempt to probe into the underpinnings of libertarianism or anarcho-capitalism collapses just like Christianity does in that there are so many sects that "build into" those political philosophies.

Another way to put it is, Ayn Rand didn't view these political philosophies as "substantive" or "sufficient" to accomplish their intended purpose because they lacked the philosophical underpinnings that an Objectivist understanding of politics brings with it.

Quote from: "JamesTheUnjust"Conservatives talk about less government and rant and rave about freedom, but their actions seem to tell a hypocritically different story the moment you look at their policy.

Ayn Rand would agree with your criticism.

Also if you're interested (probably not) you could check out...

http://www.aynrandmyths.com/ (http://www.aynrandmyths.com/)

...helps to be informed about the subject you hold such strong opinions about.

The stolen concept fallacy was not a new concept, just giving a new name to Aristotle"s Reaffirmation through denial.

Argument is pretty straight forward.

Quote from: "Delicious"I offer you the reason why the reaffirmation through denial is a precursor to, but is not the same as, the stolen concept. The reaffirmation through denial involves me trying to disprove something by an argument which already assumes the existence of said thing. So, the usual example is the psychologist who tries to disprove the consciousness as an illusion of a bunch of chemicals in the brain. However, an illusion assumes someone is having the wool pulled over their eyes - i.e. it assumes some exists to be fooled.

Now, the stolen concept does more than this. When I commit this fallacy, I am not necessarily trying to disprove something via the assumed existence of it (though it may be what I do), but rather, I am attempting to affirm the application of a concept in a way that disproves its antecedents. Now, whereas the reaffirmation relies on accepting the existence of the concept itself to deny it, the stolen concept takes on the wider fallacy, of eradicating the very meaning of the concept when you try to cut it off from its conceptual ties. The classification of the reaffirmation requires grasping that you cannot contradict yourself; the stolen concept requires grasping that all knowledge is hierarchical and integrated.

//http://forum.objectivismonline.com/index.php?showtopic=14592&p=197699

You can also skip down and read part 4 in this link.
http://classics.mit.edu/Aristotle/metaphysics.4.iv.html (http://classics.mit.edu/Aristotle/metaphysics.4.iv.html)

When you cut and paste others words, you should at least give them credit. You should perhaps read "Metaphysics" by Aristotle yourself, and then comment on how it differs from Rand.

I edited it all nice and pretty for you Jmpty.  Forgive me for not wasting too much time trying to reply to your banal unanalytical contributions.

Man, some people get so testy when they get caught pretending to know stuff.

Still off topic.  Check.
Still unwilling to actually discuss why your attempt to disprove the originality of the stolen concept fallacy failed.  Check.

Predictably worthless.

Ignoratio elenchi.

Unfortunately, this thread has devolved into a pissing contest.

Will the mods please close this thread?

Thank you.

Easier still, just delete all of jmpty's off-topic trolling.

Thanks,

Quote from: "lumpymunk"Easier still, just delete all of jmpty's off-topic trolling.

Thanks,

Well, I won't just sit here and be insulted. I'm going to sit over there instead. Please continue.

Quote from: "josephpalazzo"Unfortunately, this thread has devolved into a pissing contest.

Will the mods please close this thread?

Thank you.

While I appreciate the responses from several of the posters in this thread, I would like to leave this thread open for future comments.

The main issue just appears to be the unfriendly exchange between lumpymunk and Jmpty, both of whom have contributed a substantial number of posts on these forums.

@lumpymunk, @Jmpty: Please concern yourselves with the content of one another's posts rather than the style or attitude. When the style or attitude becomes an issue, please simply let the other know what the issue is, then move on. If the other person continues to be unfriendly or unhelpful, feel free to pretend they don't exist. If they are genuinely and consistently aggressive, feel free to report them.

I'm not a mod, and I don't expect control over your actions. However, I hope you both intend to remain civil.

Quote from: "SkepticOfMyOwnMind"I've been an atheist for several years now, but I used to spend a lot of my time learning about different philosophies and religions. I'm pretty settled on atheism, but I still find several atheist philosophies interesting.

I would like to know, from those who read Ayn Rand's work, what you think of her philosophy. Here are some of my questions.

• Did she find something exceptional for her time?
• Does her work seem dated, or does it remain relevant?
• How much of her language suggests inherent problems with her ideas, and how much just fits with the times?
• What would you say are the key points of her philosophy?
• Is John Galt's speech worth reading?
• Should I read the entirety of Atlas Shrugged, We the Living, etc.?
• How similar are her opinions to those of more modern atheist authors like Christopher Hitchens and Sam Harris?
• Does sexism taint her philosophy much, is it salvageable, or is it not really sexist? Why?
• Do her expressed views and reasons seem exceptionally natural or fantastic? Why?
• If you've watched Atlas Shrugged Parts 1 or 2, how do those compare to the book?
• Which of Ayn Rand's concerns turned out to be well-founded, and which turned out to be irrelevant or wrong? How and why?

Edit: Please post enough information to prove that you read at least some of her work.

Um don't ask questions and set up demands. If you want our opinions, let us answer.

Her problem is the same thing any religious or political ideology suffers from. We are a diverse species, and as such "my way is the best way" is a stupid position because what may work for one person, or may work at a moment in time, may not work all the time in all contexts. Ayn had a very simplistic "sink or swim" attitude. But evolution isn't about either/ or propositions. Economies are much more complex than "one size fits all". "Fuck you I got mine" may work for the individual, or those with money and power, but it can be very cruel to the less fortunate.

Quote from: "Brian37"Her problem is the same thing any religious or political ideology suffers from. We are a diverse species, and as such "my way is the best way" is a stupid position because what may work for one person, or may work at a moment in time, may not work all the time in all contexts.

You missed all of the content in Objectivism about individual value systems and how those can be unique for individuals and at the same time objectively arrived at from individual to individual.  Objectivism does not prescribe specific actions, like ceremonial rites, as "the way."  Objectivism identifies that human beings, by nature, have specific needs and can take actions that either prolong/promote their lives or shorten/destroy their lives.

Source material for you.
http://aynrandlexicon.com/lexicon/values.html (http://aynrandlexicon.com/lexicon/values.html)

QuoteAyn had a very simplistic "sink or swim" attitude. But evolution isn't about either/ or propositions.

Survival of the Fittest is actually exactly a "sink or swim" situation... EITHER you run faster than the cheetah chasing you OR you die.

...although Objectivism holds that human beings are responsible for achieving their own values, and do not have the right to place claim on the lives of other individuals for achieving those values for them.  The complexity comes in the knowledge that human beings form complex relationships and can aid others without sacrificing ones own values (free from contradiction).

Example:  I go over to my grandmothers house and help her do some yard work because she's elderly.  I'm not sacrificing anything because I've placed an extremely high value (Love) for my grandmother.  Lets say I forgo hanging out with some friends who I also value (friendship), but I've prioritized my grandmother over my friends.  This is completely consistent with Objectivism.  I'm not "sacrificing" time with my friends, I'm preferring time with family.

QuoteEconomies are much more complex than "one size fits all". "Fuck you I got mine" may work for the individual, or those with money and power, but it can be very cruel to the less fortunate.

It's also been proven to be the most effective means of raising the less fortunate out of the cruelty of poverty.

Confusing reason with "the reasonable"
 
I have said that Ayn Rand was a great champion of reason, a passionate champion of the human mind -- and a total adversary of any form of irrationalism or any form of what she called mysticism. I say "of what she called mysticism," because I do not really think she understood mysticism very well -- I know she never studied the subject -- and irrationalism and mysticism are not really synonymous, as they are treated in Atlas Shrugged. That gets me a little off my track, however. A discussion of mysticism outside the Randian framework will have to wait for some other occasion. I will only state for the record that I am not prepared to say, as Rand was, that anyone who might describe him- or herself as a "mystic" is to be dismissed as a crackpot or a charlatan.

Reason is at once a faculty and a process of identifying and integrating the data present or given in awareness. Reason means integration in accordance with the law of noncontradiction. If you think of it in these terms -- as a process of noncontradictory integration -- it's difficult to imagine how anyone could be opposed to it.

Here is the problem: There is a difference between reason as a process and what any person or any group of people, at any time in history, may regard as "the reasonable." This is a distinction that very few people are able to keep clear. We all exist in history, not just in some timeless vacuum, and probably none of us can entirely escape contemporary notions of "the reasonable." It's always important to remember that reason or rationality, on the one hand, and what people may regard as "the reasonable," on the other hand, don't mean the same thing.

The consequence of failing to make this distinction, and this is markedly apparent in the case of Ayn Rand, is that if someone disagrees with your notion of "the reasonable," it can feel very appropriate to accuse him or her of being "irrational" or "against reason."

If you read her books, or her essays in The Objectivist, or if you listen to her lectures, you will notice with what frequency and ease she branded any viewpoint she did not share as not merely mistaken but "irrational" or "mystical." In other words, anything that challenged her particular model of reality was not merely wrong but "irrational" and "mystical" -- to say nothing, of course, of its being "evil," another word she loved to use with extraordinary frequency.

No doubt every thinker has to be understood, at least in part, in terms of what the thinker is reacting against, that is, the historical context in which the thinker's work begins. Ayn Rand was born in Russia: a mystical country in the very worst sense of the word, a country that never really passed through the Age of Reason or the Enlightenment in the way that Western Europe did. Ayn Rand herself was not only a relentless rationalist, she was profoundly secular, profoundly in love with this world, in a way that I personally can only applaud. Yet the problem is that she became very quick on the draw in response to anything that even had the superficial appearance of irrationalism, by which I mean, of anything that did not fit her particular understanding of "the reasonable."

With regard to science, this led to an odd kind of scientific conservatism, a suspicion of novelty, an indifference -- this is only a slight exaggeration -- to anything more recent than the work of Sir Isaac Newton. I remember being astonished to hear her say one day, "After all, the theory of evolution is only a hypothesis." I asked her, "You mean you seriously doubt that more complex life forms -- including humans -- evolved from less complex life forms?" She shrugged and responded, "I'm really not prepared to say," or words to that effect. I do not mean to imply that she wanted to substitute for the theory of evolution the religious belief that we are all God's creation; but there was definitely something about the concept of evolution that made her uncomfortable.

Like many other people, she was enormously opposed to any consideration of the possible validity of telepathy, ESP, or other psi phenomenon. The evidence that was accumulating to suggest that there was something here at least worthy of serious scientific study did not interest her; she did not feel any obligation to look into the subject; she was convinced it was all a fraud. It did not fit her model of reality. When an astronaut attempted during a flight to the moon to conduct a telepathic experiment, she commented on the effort with scorn -- even the attempt to explore the subject was contemptible in her opinion. Now I have no wish to argue, in this context, for or against the reality of nonordinary forms of awareness or any other related phenomenon. That is not my point. My point is the extent to which she had a closed mind on the subject, with no interest in discovering for herself why so many distinguished scientists had become convinced that such matters are eminently worthy of study.

Another example -- less controversial -- involves hypnosis. I became interested in hypnosis in 1960. I began reading books on the subject and mastering the basic principles of the art. Now this generated a problem because on the one hand Ayn Rand knew, or believed she knew, that hypnosis was a fraud with no basis in reality; on the other hand, in 1960 Nathaniel Branden was the closest thing on earth to John Galt. And John Galt could hardly be dabbling in irrationalism. So this produced some very curious conversations between us. She was not yet prepared, as she was later, to announce that I was crazy, corrupt, and depraved. At the same time, she firmly believed that hypnosis was irrational nonsense. I persevered in my studies and learned that the human mind was capable of all kinds of processes beyond what I had previously believed. My efforts to reach Ayn on this subject were generally futile and I soon abandoned the attempt. And to tell the truth, during the time I was still with her, I lost some of my enthusiasm for hypnosis. I regained it after our break and that is when my serious experimenting in that field began and the real growth of my understanding of the possibilities of working with altered states of consciousness.

I could give many more examples of how Ayn Rand's particular view of "the reasonable" became intellectually restrictive. Instead, to those of you who are her admirers, I will simply say: Do not be in a hurry to dismiss observations or data as false, irrational, or "mystical," because they do not easily fit into your current model of reality. It may be the case that you need to expand your model. One of the functions of reason is to alert us to just such a possibility.

It would have been wonderful, given how much many of us respected and admired Ayn Rand, if she had encouraged us to develop a more open-minded attitude and to be less attached to a model of reality that might be in need of revision. But that was not her way. Quite the contrary. Other people's model of reality might be in need of revision. Never hers. Not in any fundamental sense. Reason, she was convinced, had established that for all time. In encouraging among her followers the belief that she enjoyed a monopoly on reason and the rational, she created for herself a very special kind of power, the power to fling anyone who disagreed with her about anything into the abyss of "the irrational" -- and that was a place we were all naturally eager to avoid.

 Encouraging repression
 Now let's turn to another very important issue in the Randian philosophy: the relationship between reason and emotion. Emotions, Rand said again and again, are not tools of cognition. True enough, they are not. Emotions, she said, proceed from value judgments, conscious or subconscious, which they do in the sense that I wrote about in The Psychology of Self-Esteem and The Disowned Self. Emotions always reflect assessments of one kind or another, as others besides Rand and myself have pointed out.
We must be guided by our conscious mind, Rand insisted; we must not follow our emotions blindly. Following our emotions blindly is undesirable and dangerous: Who can argue with that? Applying the advice to be guided by our mind isn't always as simple as it sounds. Such counsel does not adequately deal with the possibility that in a particular situation feelings might reflect a more correct assessment of reality than conscious beliefs or, to say the same thing another way, that the subconscious mind might be right while the conscious mind was mistaken. I can think of many occasions in my own life when I refused to listen to my feelings and followed instead my conscious beliefs -- which happened to be wrong -- with disastrous results. If I had listened to my emotions more carefully, and not been so willing to ignore and repress them, my thinking -- and my life -- would have advanced far more satisfactorily.

A clash between mind and emotions is a clash between two assessments, one of which is conscious, the other might not be. It is not invariably the case that the conscious assessment is superior to the subconscious one; that needs to be checked out. The point is not that we follow the voice of emotion or feeling blindly, it means only that we don't dismiss our feelings and emotions so quickly; we try to understand what they may be telling us; we don't simply repress, rather we try to resolve the conflict between reason and feeling. We strive for harmony, for integration. We don't simply slash away the pieces of ourselves that don't fit our notion of the good or the right or the rational.

The solution for people who seem over preoccupied with feelings is not the renunciation of feelings but rather greater respect for reason, thinking, and the intellect. What is needed is not a renunciation of emotion but a better balance between emotion and thinking. Thinking needs to be added to the situation, emotion does not need to be subtracted from the situation.

Admittedly there are times when we have to act on the best of our conscious knowledge, and children will pay more attention to our conscious knowledge and convictions, even when it's hard, even when it does violence to some of our feelings -- because there is not time to work the problem out. But those are, in effect, emergency situations. It's not a way of life.

I wrote The Disowned Self to address myself to this problem. In a way, that book is written in code. On one level, it's a book about the problem of self-alienation and a deeper discussion of the relationship of reason and emotion than I had offered in The Psychology of Self-Esteem. But on another level, it's a book written to my former students at Nathaniel Branden Institute, an attempt to get them to rethink the ideas about the relationship of mind and emotion they might have acquired from Ayn Rand or me, and thereby I hoped to undo some of the harm I might have done in the past when I shared and advocated Rand's views in this matter. If you read the book that I wrote with my wife Devers The Romantic Love Question and Answer Book, you will find that approach carried still further.

In the days of my association with Ayn Rand, we heard over and over again the accusation that we are against feelings, against emotions. And we would say in all good faith, "What are you talking about? We celebrate human passion. All the characters in the novels have powerful emotions, powerful passions. They feel far more deeply about things than does the average person. How can you possibly say that we are against feeling and emotion?"

The critics were right. Here is my evidence: When we counsel parents, we always tell them, in effect: "Remember, your children will pay more attention to what you do than what you say. No teaching is as powerful as the teaching of the example. It isn't the sermons you deliver that your children will remember, but the way you act and live." Now apply that same principle to fiction, because the analogy fits perfectly. On the one hand, there are Rand's abstract statements concerning the relationship of mind and emotion; on the other hand, there is the behavior of her characters, the way her characters deal with their feelings.

If, in page after page of The Fountainhead and Atlas Shrugged, you show someone being heroic by ruthlessly setting feelings aside, and if you show someone being rotten and depraved by, in effect, diving headlong into his feelings and emotions, and if that is one of your dominant methods of characterization, repeated again and again, then it doesn't matter what you profess, in abstract philosophy, about the relationship of reason and emotion. You have taught people: repress, repress, repress.

If you want to know the means by which they were taught, notwithstanding all the celebrations of passion in Ayn Rand's books, study the scenes in The Fountainhead that deal with Roark's way of responding to his own suffering, study the ruthlessness toward their own feelings and emotions exhibited by the heroes and heroine of Atlas Shrugged, and study also consistent way in which villains are characterized in terms of following their feelings. And understand the power of role models to shape beliefs.

When admirers of Ayn Rand seek my services professionally, they often come with the secret hope, rarely acknowledged in words, that with Nathaniel Branden they will at last become the masters of repression needed to fulfill the dream of becoming an ideal objectivist. When I tell them, usually fairly early in our relationship, that one of their chief problems is that they are out of touch with their feelings and emotions, cut off from them and oblivious, and that they need to learn how to listen more to their inner signals, to listen to their emotions, they often exhibit a glazed shock and disorientation. I guess I should admit that seeing their reaction is a real pleasure to me, one of the special treats of my profession you might say, and I do hope you will understand that I am acknowledging this with complete affection and good will and without any intention of sarcasm. The truth is, seeing their confusion and dismay, that it's hard to keep from smiling a little.

One of the first things I need to convey to them is that when they deny and disown their feelings and emotions, they really subvert and sabotage their ability to think clearly -- because they cut off access to too much vital information. This is one of my central themes in The Disowned Self. No one can be integrated, no one can function harmoniously, no one can think clearly and effectively about the deep issues of life who is oblivious to the internal signals, manifested as feelings and emotions, rising from within the organism. My formula for this is: "Feel deeply to think clearly." It seems, however, to take a long time -- for objectivists and nonobjectivists alike -- to understand that fully. Most of us have been encouraged to deny and repress who we are, to disown our feelings, to disown important aspects of the self, almost from the day we were born. The road back to selfhood usually entails a good deal of struggle and courage.

I know a lot of men and women who, in the name of idealism, in the name of lofty beliefs, crucify their bodies, crucify their feelings, and crucify their emotional life, in order to live up to that which they call their values. Just like the followers of one religion or another who, absorbed in some particular vision of what they think human beings can be or should be, leave the human beings they actually are in a very bad place: a place of neglect and even damnation. However, and this is a theme I shall return to later, no one ever grew or evolved by disowning and damning what he or she is. We can begin to grow only after we have accepted who we are and what we are and where we are right now. And no one was ever motivated to rise to glory by the pronouncement that he or she is rotten.

It's often been observed that the Bible says many contradictory things and so if anyone tries to argue that the Bible holds a particular position, it's very easy for someone who disagrees to quote conflicting evidence. It's been said that you can prove almost anything by quoting the Bible. The situation with Ayn Rand is not entirely different. Right now someone could quote passages from The Fountainhead or Atlas Shrugged that would clearly conflict with and contradict what I am saying about the messages contained in those works. They would not be wrong, given that the works contain contradictory messages. Nathaniel Branden of 1960 could quote lots of passages to dispute at least some of the points I am making here. He did, too. That doesn't change the fact that if you really study what the story is saying, if you pay attention to what the actions of the characters are saying, and if you pay attention to the characterizations, you will find abundant evidence to support my observation that the work encourages emotional repression and self-disowning.

Notice further -- and this is especially true of Atlas Shrugged -- how rarely you find the heroes and heroine talking to each other on a simple, human level without launching into philosophical sermons, so that personal experience always ends up being subordinated to philosophical abstractions. You can find this tendency even in the love scene between Galt and Dagny in the underground tunnels of Taggart Transcontinental, where we are given a brief moment of the intimately personal between them, and then, almost immediately after sexual intimacy, Galt is talking like a philosopher again. I have reason to believe that Galt has a great many imitators around the country and it's driving spouses and partners crazy!

The effect of Rand's approach in this area, then, is very often to deepen her readers' sense of self-alienation. That was obviously not Rand's intention; nonetheless it is easy enough to show how often it has been the effect of her work on her admirers -- not only self-alienation, but also alienation from the world around us. Now it is probably inevitable that any person who thinks independently will experience some sense of alienation relative to the modern world. That is not what I am talking about. I am talking about alienation exalted to the status of a high-level virtue. And how might a reader draw that inference from Ayn Rand? I will answer in the following way.

In preparation for this presentation, I re-read the opening chapter of The Fountainhead. It really is a great book. I noticed something in the first chapter I never noticed before. Consider these facts: The hero has just been expelled from school, he is the victim of injustice, he is misunderstood by virtually everyone, and he himself tends to find other people puzzling and incomprehensible. He is alone; he has no friends. There is no one with whom he can share his inner life or values. So far, with the possible exception of being expelled from school, this could be a fairly accurate description of the state of the overwhelming majority of adolescents. There is one big difference: Howard Roark gives no indication of being bothered by any of it. He is serenely happy within himself. For average teenagers, this condition is agony. They read The Fountainhead and see this condition, not as a problem to be solved, but as a condition they must learn to be happy about -- as Roark is. All done without drugs! What a wish-fulfillment that would be! What a dream come true! Don't bother learning to understand anyone. Don't bother working at making yourself better understood. Don't try to see whether you can close the gap of your alienation from others, at least from some others, just struggle for Roark's serenity -- which Rand never tells you how to achieve. This is an example of how The Fountainhead could be at once a source of great inspiration and a source of great guilt, for all those who do not know how to reach Roark's state.

In Atlas Shrugged, admittedly, Rand does acknowledge that we are social beings with legitimate social needs. For many of us, our first introduction to Ayn Rand's philosophy was through The Fountainhead, and that book makes an impression not easily lost

 Encouraging moralizing
 
Another aspect of her philosophy that I would like to talk about -- one of the hazards -- is the appalling moralism that Ayn Rand herself practiced and that so many of her followers also practice. I don't know of anyone other than the Church fathers in the Dark Ages who used the word "evil" quite so often as Ayn Rand.

Of all the accusations of her critics, surely the most ludicrous is the accusation that Ayn Rand encourages people to do just what they please. If there's anything in this world Ayn did not do, it was to encourage people to do what they please. If there is anything she was not, it was an advocate of hedonism.

She may have taught that "Man's Life" is the standard of morality and your own life is its purpose, but the path she advocated to the fulfillment of your life was a severely disciplined one. She left many of her readers with the clear impression that life is a tightrope and that it is all too easy to fall off into moral depravity. In other words, on the one hand she preached a morality of joy, personal happiness, and individual fulfillment; on the other hand, she was a master at scaring the hell out of you if you respected and admired her and wanted to apply her philosophy to your own life.

She used to say to me, "I don't know anything about psychology, Nathaniel." I wish I had taken her more seriously. She was right; she knew next to nothing about psychology. What neither of us understood, however, was how disastrous an omission that is in a philosopher in general and a moralist in particular. The most devastating single omission in her system and the one that causes most of the trouble for her followers is the absence of any real appreciation of human psychology and, more specifically, of developmental psychology, of how human beings evolve and become what they are and of how they can change.

So, you are left with this sort of picture of your life. You either choose to be rational or you don't. You're honest or you're not. You choose the right values or you don't. You like the kind of art Rand admires or your soul is in big trouble. For evidence of this last point, read her essays on esthetics (Rand, 1970). Her followers are left in a dreadful position: If their responses aren't "the right ones," what are they to do? How are they to change? No answer from Ayn Rand. Here is the tragedy: Her followers' own love and admiration for her and her work become turned into the means of their self-repudiation and self-torture. I have seen a good deal of that, and it saddens me more than I can say.

Let's suppose a person has done something that he or she knows to be wrong, immoral, unjust, or unreasonable: instead of acknowledging the wrong, instead of simply regretting the action and then seeking, compassionately, to understand why the action was taken and asking where was I coming from? and what need was I trying in my own twisted way to satisfy? -- instead of asking such questions, the person is encouraged to brand the behavior as evil and is given no useful advice on where to go from there. You don't teach people to be moral by teaching them self-contempt as a virtue.

Enormous importance is attached in Rand's writings to the virtue of justice. I think one of the most important things she has to say about justice is that we shouldn't think of justice only in terms of punishing the guilty but also in terms of rewarding and appreciating the good. I think her emphasis on this point is enormously important.

To look on the dark side, however, part of her vision of justice is urging you to instant contempt for anyone who deviates from reason or morality or what is defined as reason or morality. Errors of knowledge may be forgiven, she says, but not errors of morality. Even if what people are doing is wrong, even if errors of morality are involved, even if what people are doing is irrational, you do not lead people to virtue by contempt. You do not make people better by telling them they are despicable. It just doesn't work. It doesn't work when religion tries it and it doesn't work when objectivism tries it.

If someone has done something so horrendous that you want to tell him or her that the action is despicable, go ahead. If you want to tell someone he is a rotten son-of-a-bitch, go ahead. If you want to call someone a scoundrel, go ahead. I don't deny that there are times when that is a thoroughly appropriate response. What I do deny is that it is an effective strategy for inspiring moral change or improvement.

The great, glaring gap in just about all ethical systems of which I have knowledge, even when many of the particular values and virtues they advocate may be laudable, is the absence of a technology to assist people in getting there, an effective means for acquiring these values and virtues, a realistic path people can follow. That is the great missing step in most religions and philosophies. And this is where psychology comes in: One of the tasks of psychology is to provide a technology for facilitating the process of becoming a rational, moral human being.

You can tell people that it's a virtue to be rational, productive, or just, but, if they have not already arrived at that stage of awareness and development on their own, objectivism does not tell them how to get there. It does tell you you're rotten if you fail to get there.

Ayn Rand admirers come to me and say, "All of her characters are so ambitious. I'm thirty years old and I don't know what to do with my life. I don't know what I want to make of myself. I earn a living, I know I could be better than I am, I know I could be more productive or creative, and I'm not. I'm rotten. What can I do?" I've heard some version of this quite often. I've heard it a lot from some very intelligent men and women who are properly concerned they they have many capacities they are not using, and who long for something more -- which is healthy and desirable, but the self-blame and self-hatred is not and it's very, very common.

The question for me is: How come you don't have the motivation to do more? How come so little seems worth doing? In what way, in what twisted way, perhaps, might you be trying to take care of yourself by your procrastination, by your inertia, by your lack of ambition? Let's try to understand what needs you're struggling to satisfy. Let's try to understand where you're coming from.

That is an approach I learned only after my break with Ayn Rand. It is very foreign to the approach I learned in my early years with her. And it's very foreign to just about every objectivist I've ever met. However, if we are to assist people to become more self-actualized, that approach is absolutely essential. We are all of us organisms trying to survive. We are all of us organisms trying in our own way to use our abilities and capacities to satisfy our needs. Sometimes the paths we choose are pretty terrible, and sometimes the consequences are pretty awful for ourselves and others. Until and unless we are willing to try to understand where people are coming from, what they are trying to accomplish, and what model of reality they're operating form -- such that they don't see themselves as having better alternatives, we cannot assist anyone to reach the moral vision that objectivism holds as a possibility for human beings.

It's not quite true to say that I didn't understand this until after my break with Rand. This approach is already present in The Psychology of Self-Esteem, most of which was written during my years with her. I will say instead that I learned to practice this approach far more competently only after the break, only after I disassociated myself from her obsessive moralism and moralizing.

So here in Ayn Rand's work is an ethical philosophy with a great vision of human possibilities, but no technology to help people get there, and a lot of messages encouraging self-condemnation when they fail to get there.

Her readers come to me and they say; "Boy, it was so great. I read her books and I got rid of the guilt that the Church laid on me. I got rid of the guilt over sex. Or wanting to make money." "Why have you come to see me?", I ask. "Well, now I'm guilty about something else. I'm not as good as John Galt. Sometimes I'm not even sure I'm as good as Eddie Willers," they respond.

Rand might respond, "But these people are guilty of pretentiousness and grandiosity!" Sure they are, at least some of the time. Although when you tell people, as Rand did, that one of the marks of virtue is to value the perfection of your soul above all things, not your happiness, not your enjoyment of life, not the joyful fulfillment of your positive possibilities, but the perfection of your soul, aren't you helping to set people up for just this kind of nonsense?

A man came to me a little while ago for psychotherapy. He was involved in a love affair with a woman. He was happy with her. She was happy with him. But he had a problem; he wasn't convinced she was worthy of him -- he wasn't convinced she was "enough." And why not? Because, although she worked for a living, her life was not organized around some activity comparable to building railroads. "She isn't a Dagny Taggart." The fact that he was happy with her seemed to matter less to him than the fact that she didn't live up to a certain notion of what the ideal woman was supposed to be like.

If he had said, "I'm worried about our future because, although I enjoy her right now, I don't know whether or not there's enough intellectual stimulation there," that would have been a different question entirely and a far more understandable one. What was bothering him was not his own misgivings but a voice inside him, a voice which he identified as the voice of Ayn Rand, saying "She's not Dagny Taggart." When I began by gently pointing out to him that he wasn't John Galt, it didn't make him feel any better -- it made him feel worse!

I recall a story I once read by a psychiatrist, a story about a tribe that has a rather unusual way of dealing with moral wrongdoers or lawbreakers. Such a person, when his or her infraction is discovered, is not reproached or condemned but is brought into the center of the village square -- and the whole tribe gathers around. Everyone who has ever known this person since the day he or she was born steps forward, one by one, and talks about anything and everything good this person has ever been known to have done. The speakers aren't allowed to exaggerate or make mountains out of molehills; they have to be realistic, truthful, factual. And the person just sits there, listening, as one by one people talk about all the good things this person has done in the course of his or her life. Sometimes, the process takes several days. When it's over, the person is released and everyone goes home and there is no discussion of the offense -- and there is almost no repetition of offenses (Zunin, 1970).

In the objectivist frame of reference there is the assumption, made explicit in John Galt's speech in Atlas Shrugged, and dramatized throughout the novel in any number of ways, that the most natural, reasonable, appropriate response to immoral or wrong behavior is contempt and moral condemnation. Psychologists know that that response tends to increase the probability that that kind of behavior will be repeated. This is an example of what I mean by the difference between a vision of desirable behavior and the development of an appropriate psychological technology that would inspire people to practice it.

 Conflating sacrifice and benevolence
 
Now let us move on to still another aspect of the Rand philosophy that entails a great contribution, on the one hand, and a serious omission, on the other. I have already stressed that in the objectivist ethics a human being is regarded as an end in him- or herself and exists properly for his or her own sake, neither sacrificing self to others nor sacrificing others to self. The practice of human sacrifice is wrong, said Rand, no matter by whom it is practiced. She was an advocate of what we may call enlightened selfishness or enlightened self-interest. Needless to say, this is a viewpoint that I support unreservedly.

I noted earlier that, when we want to understand a thinker, it's generally useful to understand what that person may be reacting against. I believe that in desire to expose the evil of the notion that self-sacrifice is a virtue and in her indignation at the very idea of treating human beings as objects of sacrifice, she presented her case for rational self-interest or rational selfishness in a way that neglected a very important part of human experience. To be precise, she didn't neglect it totally; but she did not deal with it adequately, did not give it the attention it deserves.

I am referring to the principle of benevolence, mutual helpfulness and mutual aid between human beings. I believe it is a virtue to support life. I believe it is a virtue to assist those who are struggling for life. I believe it is a virtue to seek to alleviate suffering. None of this entails the notion of self-sacrifice. I am not saying that we should place the interests of others above our own. I am not saying that our primary moral obligation is to alleviate the pain of others. I am not saying that we do not have the right to place our own interests first. I am saying that the principle of benevolence and mutual aid is entirely compatible with an ethic of self-interest and more: An ethic of self-interest logically must advocate the principle of benevolence and mutual aid.

Given that we live in society, and given that misfortune or tragedy can strike any one of us, it is clearly in our self-interest to live in a world in which human beings deal with one another in a spirit of mutual benevolence and helpfulness. Could anyone seriously argue that the principle of mutual aid does not have survival value?

I am not talking about "mutual aid" coercively orchestrated by a government. I am talking about the private, voluntary actions of individual men and women functioning on their own initiative and by their own standards. By treating the issue of help to others almost entirely in the context of self-sacrifice and/or in the context of government coercion, Rand largely neglects a vast area of human experience to which neither of these considerations apply. And the consequence for too many of her followers is an obliviousness to the simple virtues of kindness, generosity, and mutual aid, all of which clearly and demonstrably have biological utility, meaning: survival value.

There are too many immature, narcissistic individuals whose thinking stops at the point of hearing that they have no obligation to sacrifice themselves to others. True enough, they don't. Is there nothing else to be said on the subject of help to others? I think there is and I think so precisely on the basis of the objectivist standard of ethics: man's/woman's life and well-being.

Would you believe that sometimes in therapy clients speak to me with guilt of their desire to be helpful and kind to others? I am not talking about manipulative do-gooders. I am talking about persons genuinely motivated by benevolence and good will, but who wonder whether they are "good objectivists."

"Have I ever said that charity and help to others is wrong or undesirable?," Rand might demand. No, she hasn't; neither has she spoken very much about their value, beyond declaring that they are not the essence of life -- and of course they are not the essence of life. They are a part of life, however, and sometimes an important part of life, and it is misleading to allow for people to believe otherwise.

 Overemphasizing the role of philosophical premises
 
I have already mentioned that there is one great missing element in the objectivist system, namely, a theory of psychology, or, more precisely, an understanding of psychology. Rand held the view that human beings can be understood exclusively in terms of their premises, that is, in terms of their basic philosophical beliefs, along with their free will choices. This view is grossly inadequate to the complexity of the actual facts. It is, further, a view that flies totally in the face of so much that we know today about how the mind operates.

Many factors contribute to who we become as human beings: our genes, our maturation, our unique biological potentials and limitations, our life experiences and the conclusions we draw from them, the knowledge and information available to us, and, of course, our premises or philosophical beliefs, and the thinking we choose to do or not to do. And even this list is an oversimplification. The truth, is we are far from understanding everything that goes into shaping the persons we become, and it is arrogant and stupid to imagine that we do.

Among the many unfortunate consequences of believing that we are the product only of our premises and that our premises are chiefly the product of the thinking we have done or failed to do is a powerful inclination, on the one hand, to regard as immoral anyone who arrives at conclusions different from our own, and, on the other hand, an inclination to believe that people who voice the same beliefs as we do are people with whom we naturally have a lot in common. I remember, at Nathaniel Branden Institute, seeing people marry on the grounds of believing that a shared enthusiasm for objectivism was enough to make them compatible; I also remember the unhappiness that followed. Professing the same philosophical convictions is hardly enough to guarantee the success of a marriage and not even enough to guarantee the success of a friendship: Many other psychological factors are necessary.

Our souls are more than our philosophies -- and certainly more than our conscious philosophies. Just as we need to know more than a human being's philosophical beliefs in order to understand that human being; so, we need to know more than a society's or culture's philosophical beliefs to understand the events of a given historical period. Of course, the philosophical ideas of a society or a culture play a powerful role in determining the flow of events. Other factors, however, are always involved, which one would never guess from reading Ayn Rand. One factor that many thinkers beside Ayn Rand tend to ignore in their studies of history are the psychologies or personalities of the political and military leaders. Different people, with different psychologies or personalities, at the same moment in history might act differently -- with profoundly different historical consequences. There is no time here to explore this theme in detail, beyond saying that the objectivist method of historical interpretation is guilty of the same gross oversimplification that is manifest at the level of explaining individual behavior.

One of the unfortunate consequences of this over simplification is that most students of objectivism are pathetically helpless when faced with the task of carrying their ideas into the real world and seeking to implement them. They do not know what to do, most of the time. Objectivism has not prepared them. There is too much about the real world, about social and political institutions, and about human psychology, of which they have no knowledge.

 Encouraging dogmatism
 
Ayn always insisted that her philosophy was an integrated whole, that it was entirely self-consistent, and that one could not reasonably pick elements of her philosophy and discard others. In effect, she declared, "It's all or nothing." Now this is a rather curious view, if you think about it. What she was saying, translated into simple English, is: Everything I have to say in the field of philosophy is true, absolutely true, and therefore any departure necessarily leads you into error. Don't try to mix your irrational fantasies with my immutable truths. This insistence turned Ayn Rand's philosophy, for all practical purposes, into dogmatic religion, and many of her followers chose that path.

The true believers might respond by saying, "How can you call it dogmatic religion when we can prove every one of Ayn Rand's propositions?!" My answer to that is, "The hell you can!" Prior to our break, Ayn Rand credited me with understanding her philosophy better than any other person alive -- and not merely better, but far better. I know what we were in a position to prove, I know where the gaps are. And so can anyone else -- by careful, critical reading. It's not all that difficult or complicated.

This may sound like a trivial example of what I mean, but it's an example that has always annoyed me personally. I would love to hear some loyal follower of Ayn Rand try to argue logically and rationally for her belief that no woman should aspire to be president of the United States. This was one of Rand's more embarrassing lapses. If we are to champion the independent, critical mind, then the philosophy of objectivism can hardly be exempt from judgment. Ayn Rand made mistakes. That merely proves she was human. The job of her admirers, however, is to be willing to see them and to correct them.

Sometimes, when her admirers begin to grasp their mistakes, they become enraged. They turn against everything she had to say. They feel betrayed, like children who discover that their parents are not omnipotent and omniscient. That's another hazard to which I'd like to draw your attention.

Ayn Rand might turn over in her grave to hear me say it, but she really did have the right to be wrong sometimes. No need for us to become hysterical about it or to behave like petulant eight-year-olds. Growing up means being able to see our parents realistically. Growing up relative to Ayn Rand means being able to see her realistically -- to see the greatness and to see the shortcomings. If we see only the greatness and deny the shortcomings or if we see only the shortcomings and deny the greatness, we remain blind.

She has so much that is truly marvelous to offer us. So much wisdom, insight, and inspiration. So much clarification. Let us say "thank you" for that, acknowledge the errors and mistakes when we see them, and proceed on our own path -- realizing that, ultimately, each of us has to make the journey alone, anyway.

Nathaniel Branden, circa 1983

Quote from: "lumpymunk"

Quote from: "Brian37"Her problem is the same thing any religious or political ideology suffers from. We are a diverse species, and as such "my way is the best way" is a stupid position because what may work for one person, or may work at a moment in time, may not work all the time in all contexts.

You missed all of the content in Objectivism about individual value systems and how those can be unique for individuals and at the same time objectively arrived at from individual to individual.  Objectivism does not prescribe specific actions, like ceremonial rites, as "the way."  Objectivism identifies that human beings, by nature, have specific needs and can take actions that either prolong/promote their lives or shorten/destroy their lives.

Source material for you.
http://aynrandlexicon.com/lexicon/values.html (http://aynrandlexicon.com/lexicon/values.html)

QuoteAyn had a very simplistic "sink or swim" attitude. But evolution isn't about either/ or propositions.

Survival of the Fittest is actually exactly a "sink or swim" situation... EITHER you run faster than the cheetah chasing you OR you die.

...although Objectivism holds that human beings are responsible for achieving their own values, and do not have the right to place claim on the lives of other individuals for achieving those values for them.  The complexity comes in the knowledge that human beings form complex relationships and can aid others without sacrificing ones own values (free from contradiction).

Example:  I go over to my grandmothers house and help her do some yard work because she's elderly.  I'm not sacrificing anything because I've placed an extremely high value (Love) for my grandmother.  Lets say I forgo hanging out with some friends who I also value (friendship), but I've prioritized my grandmother over my friends.  This is completely consistent with Objectivism.  I'm not "sacrificing" time with my friends, I'm preferring time with family.

QuoteEconomies are much more complex than "one size fits all". "Fuck you I got mine" may work for the individual, or those with money and power, but it can be very cruel to the less fortunate.

It's also been proven to be the most effective means of raising the less fortunate out of the cruelty of poverty.

Fuck you. So if that is the case, then the fact that Gadaffi fucked his population for 40 years must be good because a revolution resulted.

I think you miss the difference between motivation(reasonable inequity) and "fuck you I got mine". Ayn Rand was "fuck you I got mine".

Humans are part of an ecosystem, not above it. If you are going to argue that "cruel to be kind" works, then all you are arguing is might makes right. AND I agree that can work. But that does not equal morality.

So the real issue since both the top and bottom die, what do we appeal to as a species? When I ask this question, the answer I always get reflects the convenient narcissism of the person offering up their own utopia.

QuoteSurvival of the Fittest is actually exactly a "sink or swim" situation... EITHER you run faster than the cheetah chasing you OR you die.

How shallow a perspective.

Yes that does happen, but it is not the law of evolution, merely one aspect of it.

For example. Two guys meet at a bar. One of them is 250lb ripped and muscle bound. The other guy is frumpy and fat 140lb guy. The fat guy spills a beer on the fit guy. The fit guy takes offense and starts a fight with him. The fat guy prior to the conflict has fucked and had 3 kids. The fit guy doesn't have any. The fit guy tries to throw a punch, but the fat guy with kids, pulls out a gun and kills the fit guy who has not had kids.

Evolution IS NOT about "survival of the fittest", it is merely about getting to the point of reproduction.

Jmpty, while the article you posted does give a great (probably the best) first-hand insight into Ayn Rand as a person from the viewpoint of someone she was romantically involved with at one time, it does nothing to speak to Objectivism as a philosophy.

Viewpoints like, "no woman should aspire to be president of the United States" is not contained anywhere in Peikoff's "Objectivism: The Philosophy of Ayn Rand."  Nor is it contained anywhere in the non-fiction she wrote in Op-Eds and Articles.  Really the article is valuable for people who want to understand Ayn Rand as a person, from a historical perspective as an influential figure.

Nowhere in the philosophy are you required to immediately slap labels like "irrational", "mystic", or "evil" on things that don't seem reasonable.  In "An Introduction to Objectivist Epistemology" precision of identification through a deliberate process of focusing ones consciousness is described as the method for determining "the reasonable" and rational.

I don't believe the point of this thread is to pass judgment on Ayn Rand... although I think Nathaniel Brandon does so in possibly the most genuine and gentlest way.  I've also read a lot of Nathaniel's books and he's written a lot of great material that is consistent with Objectivism from the view point of a psychologist.

Quote from: "Brian37"Evolution IS NOT about "survival of the fittest", it is merely about getting to the point of reproduction.

I didn't say evolution is ABOUT survival of the fittest, I said it was easily an either/or situation.  Alternatives always exist... I didn't really consider the comment that controversial or profound.  Maybe a bit snarky on my part.

Quotebut it is not the law of evolution,

I didn't say it was the "law of evolution."  I didn't even imply it.  The "either/or" alternative is easily applicable though, which is why I disagreed with you.

QuoteHumans are part of an ecosystem, not above it.

I really don't understand what point I've made that you're offering this up as a counter argument for.  I agree with you.

QuoteIf you are going to argue that "cruel to be kind" works

Again, what point have I made that you're offering this up as a counter for?

You'll have to be a little more detailed and a little less "fuck you"  [-X if you want an intelligent conversation.

Quote from: "lumpymunk"Jmpty, while the article you posted does give a great (probably the best) first-hand insight into Ayn Rand as a person from the viewpoint of someone she was romantically involved with at one time, it does nothing to speak to Objectivism as a philosophy.

Viewpoints like, "no woman should aspire to be president of the United States" is not contained anywhere in Peikoff's "Objectivism: The Philosophy of Ayn Rand."  Nor is it contained anywhere in the non-fiction she wrote in Op-Eds and Articles.  Really the article is valuable for people who want to understand Ayn Rand as a person, from a historical perspective as an influential figure.

Nowhere in the philosophy are you required to immediately slap labels like "irrational", "mystic", or "evil" on things that don't seem reasonable.  In "An Introduction to Objectivist Epistemology" precision of identification through a deliberate process of focusing ones consciousness is described as the method for determining "the reasonable" and rational.

I don't believe the point of this thread is to pass judgment on Ayn Rand... although I think Nathaniel Brandon does so in possibly the most genuine and gentlest way.  I've also read a lot of Nathaniel's books and he's written a lot of great material that is consistent with Objectivism from the view point of a psychologist.

Ayn Rand appeals to the selfish side of all ideology. Once you think a pattern works for everyone else, and delude yourself that is a cure, you can lead other humans into the same delusion and stupidity you have swallowed.

Quote from: "Brian37"Ayn Rand appeals to the selfish side of all ideology.

I'd be willing to wager a significant sum that you don't even understand what the word "selfish" meant to Ayn Rand.

Also note the thread was looking for "preferably informed" opinions.

Quote from: "lumpymunk"

Quote from: "Brian37"Ayn Rand appeals to the selfish side of all ideology.

I'd be willing to wager a significant sum that you don't even understand what the word "selfish" meant to Ayn Rand.

Also note the thread was looking for "preferably informed" opinions.

How seriously should I take someone who thought social security was evil but didn't give up her own SS checks?

She knew quite well what selfishness was, and like any political hack, she was simply out to sell books and make money.

Quote from: "lumpymunk"

Quote from: "Brian37"Ayn Rand appeals to the selfish side of all ideology.

I'd be willing to wager a significant sum that you don't even understand what the word "selfish" meant to Ayn Rand.

Also note the thread was looking for "preferably informed" opinions.

Any argument that uses "this is the best way" doesn't know shit about evolution or even economies.

Evolution is diverse, and since human's are diverse as well, "one size fits all" does not work in economics.

"Preferably informed", translation "agree with me".

Fuck any person that thinks starvation is a good motivator. I find no morality in that attitude whatso ever. Ayn Rand was simply the atheist version of Ann Coulter. Political punditry sells books and makes the author rich, but that is all it does. It sucks money from the stupid people that swallow their bullshit.

lumpy seems to be missing that I was trying to illustrate.

Take Bill O'Reilly for example. He's always talking about how he doesn't want gays to be married in order to "save" the union of marriage. Now, do you think that's true? Probably not. You probably know like the rest of us that he's looking for an excuse to justify his bigoted attitude towards. He could give less than a fuck about marriage; he's been divorced twice.

Another example would be the War on Drugs. Do you think that conservatives really care about drug addiction? I'm sure you think that it's just a counter culture measure to go after young people that tend to not vote as right-wingers would want them to, and that the program is their way of "sticking it to the hippies!".

It's really no different with Ayn Rand. When she talks about how she doesn't want to pay for social programs because she thinks they are not beneficial, what she's really saying is, they are not beneficial because they had no value to her personally. She didn't like those programs not because she thought another way would be better, but because she didn't give a fuck about society, and only wanted more for herself. All she did was take her ideology and wrap it up in a nice little package with a bow on top, in order to sell her sociopathy to the public.

The books she wrote were about trying to make it out as though everybody was a scoundrel like she was, and that she wasn't alone in her selfish. That's why her books central theme is having narcissistic assholes that take and take and take as being heroes, and people that are struggling to survive as mere losers. She didn't care who's body you had to step over in order to make a buck, and needed a way to justify what we would otherwise label as narcissism and wreckless sociopathy.

Quote from: "Brian37"

Quote from: "lumpymunk"Jmpty, while the article you posted does give a great (probably the best) first-hand insight into Ayn Rand as a person from the viewpoint of someone she was romantically involved with at one time, it does nothing to speak to Objectivism as a philosophy.

Viewpoints like, "no woman should aspire to be president of the United States" is not contained anywhere in Peikoff's "Objectivism: The Philosophy of Ayn Rand."  Nor is it contained anywhere in the non-fiction she wrote in Op-Eds and Articles.  Really the article is valuable for people who want to understand Ayn Rand as a person, from a historical perspective as an influential figure.

Nowhere in the philosophy are you required to immediately slap labels like "irrational", "mystic", or "evil" on things that don't seem reasonable.  In "An Introduction to Objectivist Epistemology" precision of identification through a deliberate process of focusing ones consciousness is described as the method for determining "the reasonable" and rational.

I don't believe the point of this thread is to pass judgment on Ayn Rand... although I think Nathaniel Brandon does so in possibly the most genuine and gentlest way.  I've also read a lot of Nathaniel's books and he's written a lot of great material that is consistent with Objectivism from the view point of a psychologist.

Ayn Rand appeals to the selfish side of all ideology. Once you think a pattern works for everyone else, and delude yourself that is a cure, you can lead other humans into the same delusion and stupidity you have swallowed.

She appeals to the naive that see flaws in the current system but are not sure what to do about it. Her solution is to throw the baby out with the bath water and make everyone into simplistic fanatics like herself.

Quote from: "Brian37"

Quote from: "lumpymunk"

Quote from: "Brian37"Ayn Rand appeals to the selfish side of all ideology.

I'd be willing to wager a significant sum that you don't even understand what the word "selfish" meant to Ayn Rand.

Also note the thread was looking for "preferably informed" opinions.

How seriously should I take someone who thought social security was evil but didn't give up her own SS checks?

She knew quite well what selfishness was, and like any political hack, she was simply out to sell books and make money.

Bingo.

Her fans want to ignore this hypocrisy and call it a red-herring. It proves the bitch was only an advocate for capitalism when she was benefiting from it, and when she was cut down by the cruelty of her own sword, she quickly started "leeching" off a liberal program.

This is from one of my favorite modern philosophers, Massimo pigliucci , who chairs the philosophy dept. at CUNY.
 

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1NQl ... PuUug/edit (https://docs.google.com/document/d/1NQlsRkQcgj-9_8SfmMdRCfFjwksYpvRMFv0QO1PuUug/edit)

Quote from: "JamesTheUnjust"Bingo.

Her fans want to ignore this hypocrisy and call it a red-herring. It proves the bitch was only an advocate for capitalism when she was benefiting from it, and when she was cut down by the cruelty of her own sword, she quickly started "leeching" off a liberal program.

Quote from: "JamesTheUnjust"When she talks about how she doesn't want to pay for social programs because she thinks they are not beneficial, what she's really saying is, they are not beneficial because they had no value to her personally. She didn't like those programs not because she thought another way would be better, but because she didn't give a fuck about society, and only wanted more for herself. All she did was take her ideology and wrap it up in a nice little package with a bow on top, in order to sell her sociopathy to the public.

Provide a citation for this to backup your "interpretation?"  All you've done is show you hold a strong uninformed opinion about something you haven't even attempted to understand.

Rand commented that people who are forced to fund government programs are not immoral for taking the benefits for which they paid.

Quote from: "Ayn Rand"...the victims, who opposed such laws, have a clear right to any refund of their own money —and they would not advance the cause of freedom if they left their money unclaimed, for the benefit of the welfare-state administration.

See... the argument breaks down entirely under the slightest scrutiny.

QuoteThe Myth: Ayn Rand violated her own philosophy by collecting social security.

The Answer: This is the same as claiming that if you are against robbery, and you were one of Bernie Madoff's victims, you violate your principles by putting in a claim for partial restitution.

She addressed a similar issue in her article "The Question of Scholarships," The Objectivist, June, 1966. From that article:

"Many students of Objectivism are troubled by a certain kind of moral dilemma confronting them in today's society. We are frequently asked the questions: "Is it morally proper to accept scholarships, private or public?" and: "Is it morally proper for an advocate of capitalism to accept a government research grant or a government job?" (more mid way down the page)

http://www.aynrandmyths.com/ (http://www.aynrandmyths.com/)

I can provide citations all day long about the subject that backup this justification, can't you come up with one source?

http://aynrandlexicon.com/lexicon/gover ... ships.html (http://aynrandlexicon.com/lexicon/government_grants_and_scholarships.html)
Contrast http://aynrandlexicon.com/lexicon/indiv ... ights.html (http://aynrandlexicon.com/lexicon/individual_rights.html)
With http://aynrandlexicon.com/lexicon/colle ... ights.html (http://aynrandlexicon.com/lexicon/collective_rights.html)
and http://aynrandlexicon.com/lexicon/property_rights.html (http://aynrandlexicon.com/lexicon/property_rights.html)
also the role of government http://aynrandlexicon.com/lexicon/government.html (http://aynrandlexicon.com/lexicon/government.html)

Quote from: "Jmpty"This is from one of my favorite modern philosophers, Massimo pigliucci , who chairs the philosophy dept. at CUNY.
 

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1NQl ... PuUug/edit (https://docs.google.com/document/d/1NQlsRkQcgj-9_8SfmMdRCfFjwksYpvRMFv0QO1PuUug/edit)

...and midway down on the first page.

QuoteFirst and foremost, obviously this isn't going to be a scholarly analysis of Objectivism.

 :rollin:

How about just googling "I disagree with Ayn Rand" and you'll find more of the same?

Still reading, pretty standard type of "analysis" if you can even call it that.

Step 1: Mistate a premise.
Step 2: Quote something from fiction
Step 3: Attack a non-premise in a fictional book and consider this a "dismantling"

QuoteShe writes in Atlas Shrugged that "An axiom is a proposition that defeats its opponents by the fact that they have to accept it and use it in the process of any attempt to deny it." Wrong. An axiom is an assumption from which the discussion begins. It can (and should) be examined and/or challenged if the deductive consequences of the axiom(s) entail logical contradictions or any other rationally unacceptable conclusions.

What a joke.

In his "analysis" of Objectivist Epistomology he makes no mention of the fundamental process that gives Objectivism it's name... Concept Formation.  This pertains to how concepts are formed in the mind and what qualifies them as objective.

QuoteFor a philosophy named Objectivism, epistemology is foundational, since the possibility of objective knowledge is an inherently epistemological question. In this regard, Rand and her followers are surprisingly ambiguous. For instance, conscious of the obvious fact that human beings continually make errors of judgment, observation and reasoning, they agree that one cannot actually be certain of any proposition one utters. Oh? From when, then, comes any claim of objective knowledge? Well, as Leonard Peikoff put it in his Objectivism: The Philosophy of Ayn Rand, any proposition is "certain" if the available evidence supports it, i.e., it is certain within a particular context.

But this is pretty close to wanting your cake and eating it too. Any sensible epistemologist would simply say that said proposition is made more or less probableby the available evidence, and that this judgment may change if the evidence (the "context") changes. No claim of certainty is warranted. The problem, of course, is that rephrased this way the Objectivist idea becomes unsurprising while at the same time undercutting any broad claim to objective knowledge.

Look if you're going to critique something the first rule is being fair to the belief system you're critiquing by accurately representing it.  This is the same type of low-brow uninformed commentary Jmpty could offer.

The misrepresentation doesn't stop.

QuoteAnother positivistic sounding notion in Rand's epistemology is the rejection of emotions as a type of cognition. Indeed, Peikoff went so far as to state that "emotionalism" is synonymous with irrationality (I wonder if he checked with Quine before claiming that something is synonymous with something else). This sort of attitude has been common in philosophy since Plato (read: nothing new in Objectivism), with the notable exception of Hume, who was one of the first philosophers to seriously play up emotions as both a source of certain kinds of knowledge (particularly moral judgment) and as actually guiding reason rather than being controlled by it. Modern philosophy of mind and cognitive science are producing a much more nuanced understanding of the necessary integration of emotional and cognitive functions in the brain, without which, human knowledge and in fact the human condition itself, would not be possible.

Objectivism, like Hume, holds that any given emotional state is the cumulative evaluation of all things held in consciousness (from sense perception to the structure of previously formed concepts) both consciously and unconsciously.  This makes it a reliable source of evaluation, (read: not action) and can be relied on as long as ones philosophy is consistent.  This is not a process of obtaining knowledge about the world (cognition) this is a process of evaluation... it is feedback that gives a person information on their relationship to reality is at any given time.

A really simple example: An ex-Christian atheist might feel a tinge of guilt for having sex "out of wed-lock" because of residual conceptions of morality left-over from being raised in Christianity.  Psychologically this indoctrination is tough to overcome, so its plausible there would be all kinds of "left over" shit when overcoming Christianity.  (...of course other factors can be at play obviously this is very simplistic).  The atheist doesn't engage in cognition or gain new knowledge from this guilt, but becomes aware of an internal contradiction that needs to be worked out by looking at why concepts pertaining to old Christian ethics haven't been revised.

This is explained across several books.
http://aynrandlexicon.com/lexicon/emotions.html (http://aynrandlexicon.com/lexicon/emotions.html)

A good summary quote, "An emotion that clashes with your reason, an emotion that you cannot explain or control, is only the carcass of that stale thinking which you forbade your mind to revise."

QuotePerhaps the most curious part of Rand's epistemology was her contention that sensory perception is valid in an axiomatic sense. Since perception is a physiological function, according to her it comes without error, which led Rand to bizarre statements such as that optical illusions are conceptual errors, not errors of sight — as if "sight" were somehow clearly distinct from the brain's conceptualization of what we see. The reason perception had to be perfect is that Objectivism is a kind of empiricism, relying on the notion that all our knowledge is ultimately based on the senses, just like the classical British empiricists (Hume, Locke and Berkeley) had maintained (though Objectivists actually have a problem with Locke, and presumably Hume, since they acknowledge the imperfection of the senses).

vs.

Quote from: "Ayn Rand"[Man's] senses do not provide him with automatic knowledge in separate snatches independent of context, but only with the material of knowledge, which his mind must learn to integrate. . . . His senses cannot deceive him, . . . physical objects cannot act without causes, . . . his organs of perception are physical and have no volition, no power to invent or to distort . . . the evidence they give him is an absolute, but his mind must learn to understand it, his mind must discover the nature, the causes, the full context of his sensory material, his mind must identify the things that he perceives.

Objectivism also makes an important distinction between sensation and perception.  One of these involves involuntary biological processes (occipital lobe, temporal lobe, parietal lob), the other involves higher mental activities where concept formation occurs (hippocampus, frontal lobe).  Obviously the biology I'm listing is overly-simplistic, but Massimo passes over this distinction and makes Objectivism appear overly simplistic in doing so.

http://aynrandlexicon.com/lexicon/perception.html (http://aynrandlexicon.com/lexicon/perception.html)

That last statement, "his mind must identify the things that he perceives" is expanded on in Introduction to Objectivist Epistemology.  This is the essence of what "consciousness is identification" means.

Yeah, I value what you say SO much more than the chair of the Philosophy dept at CUNY.

"Look if you're going to critique something the first rule is being fair to the belief system you're critiquing by accurately representing it. This is the same type of low-brow uninformed commentary Jmpty could offer."

I guess I should take that as a compliment.

I think you should value what primary sources actually say over what someones misinterpretation of that primary source says.

I've shown you clear misrepresentation.  It's not that Massimo is intentionally misrepresenting Objectivism, it's that he's an academic philosopher.  Academic Philosophers do not study Ayn Rand on a scholarly level.

QuoteFirst and foremost, obviously this isn't going to be a scholarly analysis of Objectivism.

So yea, believe someone who tells you on the first page of what he's writing that it's not a scholarly analysis or read the primary source material I've provided that contradicts his simplistic and unanalytic blog posts.

Doesn't matter to me, as long as the information is available in this thread for other readers I couldn't care less if you choose to be intellectually honest with yourself or not.

"I've shown you clear misrepresentation. It's not that Massimo is intentionally misrepresenting Objectivism, it's that he's an academic philosopher. Academic Philosophers do not study Ayn Rand on a scholarly level."

I wonder why?

I've Posted several scholarly articles critical of Rand, including one by her former partner, and the response is always That it's being misrepresented, or that I need to refer to the "Rand lexicon." I don't think that I am being intellectually dishonest at all.
You are obviously enamored with objectivism. It is my hope that you'll grow out of it.

Quote from: "Jmpty"I've Posted several scholarly articles critical of Rand

 :rollin:

You've made three substantive posts and I've dealt with all three of them.

- Ayn Rand was a Clever Racist. (obviously not scholarly)
You posted the content of a Daily Kos article so that hopefully nobody would google it and realize its some weak pundit with nothing else better to write about.
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2011/04/2 ... er-racist# (http://www.dailykos.com/story/2011/04/24/969838/-Ayn-Rand-was-a-clever-racist#)

- Nathaniel Branden on confusiong Reason with the Reasonable (which doesn't speak to the philosophy of Objectivism, and attacks Ayn Rand as a person on a psychological level, then makes inferences about the philosophy.)

- Masimo Pugliucci, which were 4 short blog posts on Objectivism by an Academic philosopher that plainly stated that his writing was not scholarly.

Quote from: "Jmpty"I've Posted several scholarly articles critical of Rand

Quote from: "Jmpty"Posted several scholarly articles critical of

Quote from: "Jmpty"several scholarly articles

 :rollin:
 :rollin:
 :rollin:

You are the epitome of intellectual bankruptcy.

Grow up.

Quote from: "Jmpty"Grow up.

 :Hangman:

thanks for playing.

Ayn Rand is for children  

George Saunders understands what Rand fans won't: Objectivism is more young adult fantasy than political philosophy
By David Sirota  
 
 
Ayn Rand is for children


With this week's news that Glenn Beck and others are preparing to build libertarian communes and "Going Galt," I figure now is the time to finally refine my theory about those who claim to be Ayn Rand acolytes or who brag that their favorite book is "Fountainhead Shrugged" (they are the same book written twice in order to double Rand's profit, so for brevity, let's just use one name).

Since I first met Objectivists (read: libertarians) in college, my Unified Theory of Rand Groupies posited that they all probably fit into at least one of three groups: those who 1) never grew out of the usual "the world is persecuting me and doesn't see my true genius" phase that momentarily afflicts the typical high schooler 2) think saying "Ayn Rand" in any context makes them sound intelligent, even though they've never actually read her work or 3) have read Rand's work, don't genuinely believe in her ideology as evidenced by their lifestyle/politics, but still say they love her because it serves to make them feel good about their own avarice.

Out of these three groups, the third is probably the most prominent in this, the era defined by the politics of "makers versus takers." After all, these folks purport to adore the free-market triumphalism of "The Fountainhead" and "Atlas Shrugged," haughtily imagine themselves as rugged up-from-the-bootstraps individualists like Howard Roark and John Galt, tell themselves that their greed is patriotic, and thus demonize government and taxation. Yet, most of these same people tend to live their lives in ways that belie their personal mythology.

Typically, they are more than happy to (among other things) drive on taxpayer funded roads; to have their assets defended by government agents (aka police and firefighters); to have their property rights protected by a law enforcement collective known as the judiciary; and to pocket their share of handouts. Some alleged Randian individualists are even willing to decry the social safety net for others but not for themselves, and still others are happy to to vote in Congress for the epitome of what Randianism stands against.


That said, after reading the following nugget from this terrific New York Times writeup of literary giant George Saunders, I discovered a critical hole in my theory (emphasis added):


After he graduated from the School of Mines, Saunders went to work for an oil-exploration company in the jungles of Sumatra...They worked four weeks on and two weeks off and in the down time would be shuttled in helicopters to the nearest city, 40 minutes away, and then from there fly to Singapore.

"I'd been kind of an Ayn Rand guy before that," he said. "And then you go to Asia and you see people who are genuinely poor and genuinely suffering and hadn't gotten there by whining." While on a break in Singapore, walking back to his hotel in the middle of the night, he stopped by an excavation site and "saw these shadows scuttling around in the hole. And then I realized the shadows were old women, working the night shift. Oh, I thought, Ayn Rand doesn't quite account for this."

As Saunders' personal story suggests, my theory about Randists fails in not accounting for the fourth and arguably biggest subgroup of all: those who have never visited the developing world. And when I say "developing world" I'm not talking Tom Friedman-ese by referring to walled off resorts in banana republics or big, wealthy cosmopolitan cities isolated from their otherwise dirt poor nations. I'm referring to the actual dirt poor places outside those resorts and cities where the Tom Friedmans and Rand groupies probably never visit.

Now its true: I've never been much of a Rand fan myself (beyond, of course, the normal momentary dalliance with "Fountainhead Shrugged" during my obligatory 11th grade descent into immature self-pity). Nonetheless, after my three-week voyage to the poorest province in China in 2009 (which you can read about here), I can say with confidence that if you have been to the non-Tom-Friedman developing world – aka the actual developing world – you don't need Saunders' MacArthur Genius-worthy intellect to arrive at his very same conclusion.

My particular trip felt like a journey to a place much like what I imagine 19th century America had been – a place that at once confirmed the worst consequences of a real-world Galt's Gulch (no obvious environmental, public health or workplace safety laws) and proved the idiocy of Rand's overarching ideology (the preternaturally industrious poor in China hardly seemed like blameworthy "takers").

I'm guessing it was the same for Saunders in Singapore, just as I'm guessing it is for Americans who deign to visit the developing world. Simply put, once you actually see laissez faire capitalism and greed-is-good extremism at work, it doesn't look as nice as it sounds in Rand's works. On the contrary, as Saunders implies, it makes "Fountainhead Shrugged" look less like serious treatise than bad young adult fiction, with all the corresponding misguided parables and oversimplified conclusions.

The problem is, for various reasons – some having to do with economics, some having to do with cultural arrogance – relatively few Americans make the kind of trip Saunders made. According to government data, only 30 percent of Americans even possess a passport (which is a very low rate compared to citizens in other industrialized English-speaking countries). Additionally, of those who do, only a fraction use their travel papers to visit parts of the developing world that perfectly spotlight the failures of the Rand vision.

To be sure, a strict Objectivist would probably argue that many developing-world nations don't represent Rand's vision because they are ruled by corrupt governments. But that's not really relevant because many of those places are now defined by Authoritarian Capitalism whereby political freedoms are limited, but Randian free-market extremism most certainly is not. Indeed, as some American CEOs will openly admit, if you want to see a more purely Randian version of a socially darwinist free market than exists in America, head straight across the Pacific Ocean to China.

Put all this together, and I'm officially amending my theory. To be a Rand groupie is to flaunt your immaturity, your ignorance, your desperation to justify greed or your lack of international travel. It is, in other words, to admit your blindness to how so much of the world already lives, and to ignore what America would look like if "Fountainhead Shrugged" was seen as a public policy manual rather than what it really is: a dangerous farce.

Foutainhead shrugged. :rollin:

From Rational Wiki:
Quantum physics and relativity

Some Objectivists like David Harriman and Leonard Peikoff actually seem to have a problem with modern physics, especially quantum mechanics due to its probabilistic nature. The breakdown of classical mechanics-style causality at the quantum level doesn't square with Rand's vision of causality. This has led to declarations by Objectivists that modern physics is "corrupted" or "tainted" by a "Kantian influence" and "bad philosophy" in general, in addition to various crank "refutations" of quantum physics and denial of some theories like Relativity (which was Petr Beckmann's specialty).[8]

[edit] Realism in psychology

Rand's notion that we can observe reality directly (known in philosophy as direct or naïve realism) is refuted by the current consensus in neuroscience, psychology, and the cognitive sciences (which accepts various forms of indirect or representative realism). In the cognitive sciences, raw input is called "bottom-up perception" and the way the brain interprets this input is called "top-down perception." The visual, auditory, etc. cortices essentially "reconstruct" the input from their respective sense organs, meaning there is always some element of top-down interpretation of raw stimuli. Thus, we do not experience reality directly but in some sense a perceptual facsimile of reality constructed by the brain. A simple example of this is the fact that the image formed on your eye's retina is upside-down, but the visual cortex flips it right-side up. There are numerous other examples as well, including hallucinations and cognitive illusions.[9]

[edit] Evolution

Ayn Rand also expressed doubts about the validity of the theory of evolution. Indeed, while Objectivism itself shares much in common with Social Darwinism, what she didn't like (that is, that according to the evolutionary theory, there is no real difference between human beings and animals, or that it might dilute or downplay personal responsibility) reminds of other right-wing criticisms of evolution.[10]

While Rand herself was ambivalent about evolution, Objectivists at the Ayn Rand Institute have produced material critical of creationism and supportive of evolution.[11]

[edit] Environmental science

Because the magic of the free market can solve any problem, capitalism cannot cause environmental damage. And even if it did, nobody owns the environment, so caring about it would be immoral! Thus, anti-environmentalism is a common position among Randroids and they promote the usual associated pseudoscience and denialism on issues such as DDT, acid rain, and global warming.[12][13] Rand herself was also known for denying the link between smoking and cancer, then got a good taste of karma after being treated for lung cancer in 1974.

[edit] Strange definitions


""'When I use a word,' Humpty Dumpty said, in rather a scornful tone, 'it means just what I choose it to mean—neither more nor less.'
 

Objectivists commonly take a word, change its meaning to fit their needs, and then complain that no one else is using their definitions. This has often led to confusion in debates, as neither side knew that they were both speaking two different languages.

Some commonly warped words include:
Altruism: The Objectivist definition is "...that man has no right to exist for his own sake, that service to others is the only justification of his existence, and that self-sacrifice is his highest moral duty, virtue and value."[14] It's based mainly upon Auguste Comte's (who coined the term "altruisms") definition of altruism: "Self-sacrifice for the benefit of others."[15] Translated from the jargon, Rand is trying to say that "altruism" is acting like a doormat and only working for others without consideration of one's own needs. Naturally, few people have such a view on life; even fewer do who actually practice it, and at that point only do to get something in return. In normal-speak, altruism is simply acting to benefit humanity. Like most straw men, the "Altruist" movement feared by Randroids cannot defend itself because it doesn't exist. While Comte did advocate something like this ("live for others"), people declined to obey his dictum.
Mercy: Leonard Peikoff defined mercy as "unearned forgiveness." This basically means that if your enemy is on the battlefield, unarmed, and begging for mercy, it would be immoral to let him live. In this sense Objectivism is diametrically opposed to the Christian concept of salvation by unmerited grace.
Reason: This one has actually at least two different meanings in Objectivist writings. One is pretty close to the usual meaning of the term. But Objectivism also argues that you must use your reason in order to be happy, which is kinda like trying to open your garage door with your driver's license. In this second, shifted ethical/political sense, it then roughly means "absence of ethical concerns regarding one's decisions." Outside the Objectivist funhouse, people who have no concern for the ethics of their decisions are called "sociopaths."
Mind: The mind is an essential part of Rand's justification of property rights. Alas, her argumentation is weird (it's basically bad Locke) and ends up bearing almost no relationship with the usual concept of mind. Also, taxation and redistribution are "mind enslavement," apparently. To avoid such peculiar, loaded rhetoric, many other libertarians such as Nozick rather argue in terms of "self-property" than "mind," the idea being the same but less hypocritical.
Evil: Because of the Objectivist ethical system, this word is given a meaning that is at least slightly different from everyday use. But Rand also used it to disparage thinkers she disagreed with, solely on the basis of their philosophical ideas. And then Randians complain that she isn't taken seriously by academia.

[edit] Wacky positions

Many Objectivists, at least during Ayn Rand's lifetime, more than three decades ago, held that cigarette smoking is a moral obligation.[16]

Objectivism's views on art and music tend to reflect Rand's own personal tastes, seriously constructing a philosophical basis in which the art and music Rand liked is moral, while anything else is not. One wonders what some of them think of Rush (the band),[17] whose drummer Neil Peart wrote lyrics inspired by Rand but whose music was clearly not of the type approved by the ever-so-rational Miss Rand, even though she was alive when Rush were making their best, most heroic, and most individualism-celebrating music.[18]

Just for lulz and to confuse people (including her dim-witted intellectual heir), Ayn Rand decided she didn't like libertarians and declared that they plagiarized her ideas when it suited them and besmirched her name when it didn't.

[edit] Criticism

A criticism of Ayn Rand so obvious it's really kind of impressive that anyone follows her is based around a quote we already mentioned above:


""There is one word that is forbidden in this valley: the word 'give.'
 
—Atlas Shrugged  

Again, Ayn Rand holds the position that it is immoral to give, or to receive aid to another of any kind. She explains this in an interview in 1959,[19] where she specifically says that man must not live for others, and that altrusim is immoral.

This can be criticized on several grounds. Firstly, this means that it is immoral to be a child, or to raise a child, since a child requires constant attention and aid from the parents. This probably explains why Rand never had children, and also means that if the human species adopted this, we would be gone after one generation. Another criticism is that we are more-or-less not evolved to think this way. Aside from her strange definition of altruism, Rand would take a low position on evolutionary ethics, which is essentially the idea that we are evolved to act in the interest of the group as much as ourselves. This is why most people, cultures, and ethical systems don't consider self-sacrifice to be immoral, although Randian philosophy says that it is.

A stunning example of this problem, especially if you're Finnish, is the case of Simo Hayha. Hayha was a sniper in the Finnish White Army during the Winter War against the Soviet Red Army who killed 505 enemies, survived temperatures as low as -40C and numerous attempts to kill him both by carpet bombing and by assaults of infantry and mechanized units. The actions of Hayha were instrumental in preventing the Finnish from losing the Winter War, which prevented them from being taken over by the Soviets. When asked to explain actions like these (partly since actions like these happened in Atlas Shrugged) Randroids respond with a rather dehumanizing, and frankly insulting, response that the person is not acting out of group interest, but is instead expecting to survive and is trying to gain self-respect or popularity.[20]

But alas, if he didn't care enough to do such a thing Finland would have gone Red. And ol' Ayn wouldn't have liked that, would she.

[edit] See also
Asshole

I can keep going, if you like.

http://www.std.com/~mhuben/critobj.html (http://www.std.com/~mhuben/critobj.html)

Criticisms of Objectivism (or Ayn Rand).

 Part of the "Critiques of Libertarianism" site.
 http://world.std.com/~mhuben/libindex.html (http://world.std.com/~mhuben/libindex.html)  

Last updated 08/03/10.

Ayn Rand was a truculent, domineering cult-leader, whose Objectivist pseudo-philosophy attempts to ensnare adolescents with heroic fiction about righteous capitalists.


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NEW 9/06:   Ayn Rand Contra Human Nature  Greg S. Nyquist provides perhaps the most extensive criticism of Rand. He finds that her assumptions about human nature do not match scientific knowledge of human nature. A blog based on his book. NEW 9/06:   Blog: Ayn Rand Contra Human Nature  Daniel Barnes has started a blog for the discussion of Greg Nyquist's 'A.R.C.H.N' and other criticisms of objectivism.  The Heirs Of Ayn Rand: Has Objectivism Gone Subjective?  Scott McLemee provides a charitable overview of the history, major factions, and controversies of Objectivism. Useful background for understanding criticisms, without fawning.  Ayn Rand (1905-1982)  Kelley L. Ross' Friesian School biography of Rand, which is strongly critical of some of Rand's philosophical errors.  Mrs Logic And The Law: A Critique Of Ayn Rand's View Of Government.  Nicholas Dykes' anarcho-libertarian criticism of Rand's denuciation of anarchy.  Libertarian Man!  A  John Bergstrom's Attack Cartoons  feature that skewers some common libertarian/objectivist foibles.  The Rights (and Wrongs) of Ayn Rand  Robert Bass concludes that Rand's ambition exceeded her achievement. He effectively shows how all her most important arguments fail. Part of his  Objectivism: Assorted Commentary  page.  Open Letter to Rand  Roy Childs presents an anarcho-libertarian refutation of Rand's minarchist position.  Some Problems with Ayn Rand's Derivation of Ought from Is  by David Friedman. Illuminates a few of the gaping holes in Rand's "logic".  Objectivism and Thomas Jefferson  by Eyler Robert Coates, Sr. Objectivists are taken to task for selective quoting from Jefferson, whose writings give many sound reasons to reject Objectivism. Objectivism and the Corruption of Rationality: A Critique of Ayn Rand's Epistemology     by Scott Ryan. A technical philosophical criticism of Rand, now a book, based largely on the ideas of Brand Blanshard.  Why I Am Not An Objectivist  by Michael Huemer. A philosophical examination of some Objectivist claims by a skeptic coming from a very similar position and using similar methodology.  Critique of "The Objectivist Ethics"  Michael Huemer finds eight fatal flaws in Rand's derivation of objectivist ethics. (That's all?)  FAQ - What's REALLY Wrong With Objectivism?  by Chris Wolf. An explanation of why there is so much cult-like hostility and schism in a philosophy that claims perception of objective truth.  The Benefits and Hazards of the Philosophy of Ayn Rand: A Personal Statement.  Nathaniel Branden details some errors Ayn Rand was prone to. One of several self-aggrandizing discussions of her feet of clay, written conveniently after her death.  The Unlikeliest Cult In History.  Michael Shermer's history and critique of some basic flaws of Objectivism.  What Is Man?  Mark Twain's cynical rebuttal of egoism. Predating Objectivism, it none the less stands Objectivism on its head.  The Stance Of Atlas: An Examination of the Philosophy of Ayn Rand  by Peter F. Erickson. This advertisement for his book claims to patch Objectivism's failings, but his blurb sounds even crankier.  Rand's work: style and quality  by Gary Merrill. Why academics disdain the slipshod work of Rand and her major followers.  TV guide review of "Ayn Rand: A Sense Of Life"  by Ken Fox. A dead-accurate and scathing review both of the movie and Rand's "importance". A lot said in few words.  Liberty Online's review of "Ayn Rand: A Sense Of Life"  by R. W. Bradford. A libertarian critic of Rand decries its propagandistic nature, its lies of omission and commission.  Ayn Rand and the perversion of libertarianism.   Information about Specific Groups: Neo-Tech.  The  Neo-Tech Skeptic FAQ  and a collection of Mike Doughney's posts describing how Neo-Tech is a cult. Part of the  .ex-cult archive  page, which is well worth a visit.  Neo-Tech FAQ  Some of the more obvious dirt on Neo-Tech, which is like a Scientologist's interpretation of Objectivism.  Big Sister is Watching You  by Whittaker Chambers. The 1957 National Review book review of Atlas Shrugged. Wants to be sympathetic, but just can't: the book was just too awful.  Review of "Atlas Shrugged" by Ayn Rand.  Rob Slade's  Internet Review Project  review casts a quizzical eye on the absurdities of Atlas Shrugged. Many amusing comments on this bizarre ideological heroic fantasy.  Synthetic A Priori: An Argument With M.R.M. Parrott  The chapter "Against Objectivism" details several reasons for considering Objectivism a pseudophilosophy. It points out at length how foolishly naive "existence exists" is. An e-book in PDF by  M.R.M. Parrott.   Parodies of Objectivism  by Scott Ryan. Some good parodies of Objectivist language, behavior, and rationalization.  Ethical Egoism  Part of the  Britannica.com  article on ethics, which points out that Rand was hardly original in ethical egoism, that it must be defended in utilitarian terms, and that the claims of ethical egoism fail for very common prisoner's dilemmas.  Axioms and Egoisms  John Hospers points out the errors in axioms such as "non-initiation of force", such as intermediates between consent and force.  Libertarian Follies  Amitai Etzioni makes a communitarian critique of Tibor Machan and the failings of economic models of human behavior.  Mozart was a Red  Murray Rothbard's thinly veiled satirical play about Ayn Rand and her Objectivist merrymakers. It takes one to know one.  Objectivism  Barry Stoller presents a plain-speaking analysis of Objectivism as a supremacy doctrine for people too busy, lazy, or stupid to actually be intellectuals.  Become an Objectivist in Ten Easy Steps (with illustrations)  This one is relatively subtle.  Objectivism: Opposing_Views  The DMOZ Open Directory catalog. A fairly good list of criticisms.  Objectivist Mockery Page  How can I top that self-description? Links to 20 or so mockeries.  Objections to Objectivism  John Ku's excellent critique of Rand's theory of ethics.  The faulty reasoning of Ayn Rand types.  Starts off with a very clever "Rape: The Unknown Ideal" example to demonstrate the "logic" in Ayn Rand's work.  The 25 Most Inappropriate Things An Objectivist Can Say During Sex  Perhaps this is why there are so few children of Objectivists. From  Save The Humans.   Atlas Shrugged 2: One Hour Later  A  Bob the Angry Flower  Classic Literature sequel.  Skepticism of Rationality  Many Objectivists (libertarians too) think that their ideas are more "rational" than those of other people. Let's look at the term.  "Ayn Rand, More Popular than God!" Objectivists Allege!  Jessica Amanda Salmonson presents the facts about this "objective" urban myth. It takes a fantasy novelist to know one....  Objectivism: Who Needs It -- A Warning To Young Readers  Tom Devine emphasizes that "we should never trust a person whose system of thought has a name." A very good rule of thumb.  Ayn Shrugged: A Look At The Work Of Ayn Rand  A harsh review of "Atlas Shrugged" that points out the "weird, pathological agendas and bad writing."  Legal Reasoning After Post-Modern Critiques of Reason  Philosopher Peter Suber provides an easily readable overview of 9 post-enlightenment critiques of reason in this academic article. Should be required reading for Objectivists. NEW 9/06:   The Virtue of Sycophancy (1)  
 The Virtue of Sycophancy (2)   Cringe and Win! - The 5 Most Embarrassing Moments in "PARC"  Daniel Barnes evaluates James Valliant's book "The Passion of Ayn Rand's Critics". NEW 2/07:   The Sociology of the Ayn Rand Cult  Murray Rothbard makes a very convincing case for Objectivism as a cult. It's delightful to see it compared to the communist party. NEW 8/08:   The Madness of King Leonard  Leonard Peikoff appears on Bill O'Reilly's show and rants so appallingly that O'Reilly looks sensible in comparison. NEW 11/08:   Greenspan's breaking away from Objectivism  Why the most famous former Objectivist chose to leave Objectivism. NEW 8/10:   Wealthcare: the Cult of Ayn Rand  Jonanthan Chait's big-picture view of Objectivism's influence after reading the two Rand biographies.

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The links here are to Amazon.com, through their associates program, primarily because of the review information. Books without links are generally out of print, and can often be easily found at  AddAll Used and Out Of Print Search.  Good sites for bargain shopping for sometimes expensive new books are  Online Bookstore Price Comparison  and  AddAll Book Search and Price Comparison.  Both of those list applicable coupons. Another is  BookFinder.com.  
 Albert Ellis "Is Objectivism A Religion?" L. Stuart, 1968.  Peter Erickson  "The Stance of Atlas: An Examination of The Philosophy of Ayn Rand"  Herakles Pub. 1997. Shows some fundamental errors in Rand's philosophy, and identifies some earlier alternatives that are supposedly correct.  Greg S. Nyquist  "Ayn Rand Contra Human Nature"  iUniverse.com, 2001. Perhaps the most extensive criticism of Rand. Finds that her assumptions about human nature do not match scientific knowledge of human nature.  Link to online text!   William F. O'Neill "With Charity Toward None: An Analysis Of Ayn Rand's Philosophy" Littlefield, Adams, 1972.  John W. Robbins "Answer to Ayn Rand : [a critique of the philosophy of objectivism]"  John W. Robbins  "Without a Prayer: Ayn Rand and the Close of Her System"  Apparently a rebuttal from a religious point of view.  Scott Ryan  "Objectivism and the Corruption of Rationality: A Critique of Ayn Rand's Epistemology"  A technical analysis that finds Objectivism to be both incoherent and unoriginal.  Jeff Walker  "The Ayn Rand Cult"  (Open Court 1998). Questions the originality of Rand's ideas, and presents the cult-like organization of Objectivism.
Counter image omitted.

Quote from: "Jmpty"I can keep going, if you like.

I can keep going too.

* http://www.salon.com/2013/01/19/ayn_ran ... _children/ (http://www.salon.com/2013/01/19/ayn_rand_is_for_children/)

Salon.com, home of scholarly philosophical analysis.  Brought to you by Jmpty.

* RationalWiki

The place where pseudo-intellectuals go when they've exhausted google and they still can't prove a point.

Do you read tabloids and claim that it's news?  That is the equivalent of posting all this trash and pretending its "scholarly."

 :lol:  :lol:  :lol:  :lol:  :lol:  :lol:  :lol:

There is plenty of content on the internet for someone looking to not learn or analyze Objectivism.  Keep posting all of the "scholarly articles" you find.

ROFL

#-o

I think we're done.

You've never even begun to think for yourself, keep posting all of your authoritative Salon articles though.

 :Hangman:

Quote from: "lumpymunk"You've never even begun to think for yourself, keep posting all of your authoritative Salon articles though.

 :Hangman:

I generally find Salon to be an informed, yet unjustifiably biased source.

Quote from: "Jmpty""I've shown you clear misrepresentation. It's not that Massimo is intentionally misrepresenting Objectivism, it's that he's an academic philosopher. Academic Philosophers do not study Ayn Rand on a scholarly level."

I wonder why?

I've Posted several scholarly articles critical of Rand, including one by her former partner, and the response is always That it's being misrepresented, or that I need to refer to the "Rand lexicon." I don't think that I am being intellectually dishonest at all.
You are obviously enamored with objectivism. It is my hope that you'll grow out of it.

While I appreciate that you're using sources, it would be better for you to incorporate them by reference,  for the following reasons:

• The text you posted isn't styled, thus making it more difficult to read. (styles emphasize important information, e.g. titles, quotes, and unusual terms)
• It would be much easier to just copy-and-paste a link.
• You're stretching the bounds of fair use (or you're more likely to do so).
• People may be confused into thinking you wrote that rather than another author. Normally, the BBCode "quote" or "spoil" tags would alleviate this issue.
• The length of the copied information forces forum members to scroll much further to reach any post below yours (except the most recent one, if they know how).

You may avoid link rot by posting the entire article, but that may not be as much of an issue if you stick to permalinks when they are available. Additionally, you could label the links with the title and/or author to combat link rot.

Please note that you should describe the relevance of articles you post, or your opinion is likely to be disrespected or ignored. Some (not all) of the articles you posted make sense, but you decrease the reward for effort spent reading your posts by excluding more specific information about their relevance.

Just for your own information SkepticOfMyOwnMind, from a long time Objectivist... this type of treatment is very typical in any discussion of Objectivism (online or in person).  JohnHarvester touched on this earlier.  People are willing to substitute the thinking of uneducated pundits for their own judgments, because thinking for oneself is a lot of work, and considering Objectivism seriously would mean having to deal with the flood of ignorance you've seen me dismantle in this thread.

It's really staggering, the behavior of "rational" Atheists.

Quote from: "lumpymunk"

Quote from: "JamesTheUnjust"Bingo.

Her fans want to ignore this hypocrisy and call it a red-herring. It proves the bitch was only an advocate for capitalism when she was benefiting from it, and when she was cut down by the cruelty of her own sword, she quickly started "leeching" off a liberal program.

Quote from: "JamesTheUnjust"When she talks about how she doesn't want to pay for social programs because she thinks they are not beneficial, what she's really saying is, they are not beneficial because they had no value to her personally. She didn't like those programs not because she thought another way would be better, but because she didn't give a fuck about society, and only wanted more for herself. All she did was take her ideology and wrap it up in a nice little package with a bow on top, in order to sell her sociopathy to the public.

Provide a citation for this to backup your "interpretation?"  All you've done is show you hold a strong uninformed opinion about something you haven't even attempted to understand.

Rand commented that people who are forced to fund government programs are not immoral for taking the benefits for which they paid.

Quote from: "Ayn Rand"...the victims, who opposed such laws, have a clear right to any refund of their own money —and they would not advance the cause of freedom if they left their money unclaimed, for the benefit of the welfare-state administration.

See... the argument breaks down entirely under the slightest scrutiny.

QuoteThe Myth: Ayn Rand violated her own philosophy by collecting social security.

The Answer: This is the same as claiming that if you are against robbery, and you were one of Bernie Madoff's victims, you violate your principles by putting in a claim for partial restitution.

She addressed a similar issue in her article "The Question of Scholarships," The Objectivist, June, 1966. From that article:

"Many students of Objectivism are troubled by a certain kind of moral dilemma confronting them in today's society. We are frequently asked the questions: "Is it morally proper to accept scholarships, private or public?" and: "Is it morally proper for an advocate of capitalism to accept a government research grant or a government job?" (more mid way down the page)

http://www.aynrandmyths.com/ (http://www.aynrandmyths.com/)

I can provide citations all day long about the subject that backup this justification, can't you come up with one source?

http://aynrandlexicon.com/lexicon/gover ... ships.html (http://aynrandlexicon.com/lexicon/government_grants_and_scholarships.html)
Contrast http://aynrandlexicon.com/lexicon/indiv ... ights.html (http://aynrandlexicon.com/lexicon/individual_rights.html)
With http://aynrandlexicon.com/lexicon/colle ... ights.html (http://aynrandlexicon.com/lexicon/collective_rights.html)
and http://aynrandlexicon.com/lexicon/property_rights.html (http://aynrandlexicon.com/lexicon/property_rights.html)
also the role of government http://aynrandlexicon.com/lexicon/government.html (http://aynrandlexicon.com/lexicon/government.html)

Holy shit, you've got to be fucking kidding me on this. She took the money because her medical costs from lung cancer were too expensive for her to pay on her own, so she had to take the money from SSI and Medicare, or else she'd have been up shit creek. Her philosophy of "every man for themselves!" was something that she felt didn't apply to her. It had nothing to do with getting her money back; she needed the money to survive and pay bills.

She stated in many of her books that to accept government money was to be a part of the problem. Over and over again, one will find these denouncements of taking government money... under any circumstances. Yet, it was Rand that ended up taking money from a system she said was for "looters" and "leeches", and that was because she goddamned needed the money in order to save her pitiful life. She knew how hypocritical it was for her to take from the system, which is why she filed under the name Ayn O'Connor instead of her publicly known name - she didn't want anybody to know about her taking from the "evil" social program.

BTW: Rand didn't believe smoking caused lung cancer either. But she did go to a doctor when she became ill with the very cancer she said she couldn't catch. Not once, ever in her life, did the bitch have the guts to apologize to the scientific community, and the public for her statements. Who knows how many people continued smoking because of her influence and maybe would have quit if she had show some intellectual maturity.

You're defending something that can't be defended I'm afraid. But if you want to defend this disgusting hypocrite then fine, I'm not going to try and talk you out of it.

I am not well informed on Rand's views, but perhaps you will be willing to answer what I consider to be some important questions about her philosophy. All logical arguments can be evaluated in terms of two general characteristics. One is the veracity of the axioms/assumptions that are made and the other is if the conclusion(s) of the argument logically follow from the axioms/assumptions. If I can come to understand the axioms that Rand's philosophy starts with in its arguments, then it may be possible for me to assess whether or not I accept those axioms/assumptions and/or if the conclusions follow from the axioms/assumptions.

By axioms/assumptions I mean those claims that she makes that are taken for granted as being true - not backed up by further explanation or argumentation. All logical arguments must begin with such claims or else they will have to devolve into an infinite regression of justifications or will be circular. So what are the core axioms/assumptions of Rand's Objectivist philosophy that she takes as true without further justification?

Quote from: "entropy"I am not well informed on Rand's views, but perhaps you will be willing to answer what I consider to be some important questions about her philosophy. All logical arguments can be evaluated in terms of two general characteristics. One is the veracity of the axioms/assumptions that are made and the other is if the conclusion(s) of the argument logically follow from the axioms/assumptions. If I can come to understand the axioms that Rand's philosophy starts with in its arguments, then it may be possible for me to assess whether or not I accept those axioms/assumptions and/or if the conclusions follow from the axioms/assumptions.

By axioms/assumptions I mean those claims that she makes that are taken for granted as being true - not backed up by further explanation or argumentation. All logical arguments must begin with such claims or else they will have to devolve into an infinite regression of justifications or will be circular. So what are the core axioms/assumptions of Rand's Objectivist philosophy that she takes as true without further justification?

Then you're going to have to get informed on she believed.

I wouldn't recommend the piece of shit marathon fiction that she wrote. You'd be better to read something like The New Intellectual or The Virtue of Selfishness. There you will find a more philosophical approach to her ideas and more importantly, how she herself justified what she believed - they are shorter reads too.

If you want to understand what free market libertarians/anarchists believe then you might try Ludwig Von Mises, Murray Rothbard, or David Frieddman.

Quote from: "JamesTheUnjust"Then you're going to have to get informed on she believed.

That's what I'm trying to do by asking the questions in my post. It should be easy for someone who is well-informed on Ayn Rand's philosophy to post what the core axioms (assumptions without further justification) of her philosophy are.

Quote from: "JamesTheUnjust"Holy shit, you've got to be fucking kidding me on this. She took the money because her medical costs from lung cancer were too expensive for her to pay on her own, so she had to take the money from SSI and Medicare, or else she'd have been up shit creek.

The problem you have with this is that when Ayn Rand died her estate was worth in excess of a million dollars.  If she was so poor and unable to pay for the treatment how was her estate worth so much?

See once you step out of the fantasy created by all of the hatred and vitriol of uneducated pundits the truth isn't that hard to find.

QuoteShe stated in many of her books that to accept government money was to be a part of the problem. Over and over again, one will find these denouncements of taking government money... under any circumstances.

Provide citations for these fictitious quotations.  I've given you plenty of first hand source material that contradicts what you're stating.  

You can either...
A) provide source material that is contrary to what I've posted and justify your position or
B) ignore reality and remain highly opinionated and uneducated. (we both know you've already chosen option B)

QuoteShe knew how hypocritical it was for her to take from the system, which is why she filed under the name Ayn O'Connor instead of her publicly known name - she didn't want anybody to know about her taking from the "evil" social program.

I've responded to this already, but I'll summarize again for you anyway.

O'Connor was Ayn Rand's married name (Married to Frank O'Connor).  When filing for benefits you're obligated to use your real name, not a Pen name.  Do you believe Mark Twain, when signing legal documents of any kind, would have used his pen name?  Nope.... he would have signed as Samuel Clemens.  Similarly, Alice O'Connor was Ayn Rand's legal name.  (Ann is likely either a shortening of the name Alice, or a misunderstanding on the Clerk's part on the spelling of the name Ayn).

As I pointed out, Ayn Rand quite rationally justified this as restitution from a lifelong of government confiscation through taxation of her royalties from movies and books.

QuoteBTW: Rand didn't believe smoking caused lung cancer either. But she did go to a doctor when she became ill with the very cancer she said she couldn't catch.

It isn't really that surprising that someone who lived in that time believed this.  It's especially not surprising the an Author/Philosopher (Read: Non-Scientist) would believe this.  Big tobacco fought the surgeon general for years on having to advertise health concerns on their products.  There used to be commercials for smoking like there are for Alcohol now, promoting the image that everyone doing it was having a good time etc... and historically the practice of smoking dates back to before 5000 BC.

So I'll point out a few final things.

* It's intellectually dishonest for you to engage in historical bias in judging the actions of a historical figure based on the knowledge we have in the present.

* Your invalid attack on Ayn Rand says nothing about the philosophy.

* Your lack of education on the subject, and your link-spamming the invalid arguments of other uneducated pundits that have already been covered in this thread borders on trolling.

Quote from: "entropy"So what are the core axioms/assumptions of Rand's Objectivist philosophy that she takes as true without further justification?

Axioms are different than premises or presuppositions.

Quote from: "Ayn Rand"An axiomatic concept is the identification of a primary fact of reality, which cannot be analyzed, i.e., reduced to other facts or broken into component parts. It is implicit in all facts and in all knowledge. It is the fundamentally given and directly perceived or experienced, which requires no proof or explanation, but on which all proofs and explanations rest.

More to read:
http://aynrandlexicon.com/lexicon/axioms.html (http://aynrandlexicon.com/lexicon/axioms.html)

Existence, Identity, Consciousness.

In Objectivism, these prevent the "infinite regress" you were talking about.  Objectivism builds everything from this basis about epistemology, ethics, and politics.

A few "premises" that are indirectly related...

It's kind of important to understand how different Philosophy is viewed by Objectivists.  It's not done as some detached academic research projet... philosophy for Objectivists is mandatory for living a human life.
http://aynrandlexicon.com/lexicon/philosophy.html (http://aynrandlexicon.com/lexicon/philosophy.html)

The Benevolent Universe Premise (has nothing to do with the cosmos)
http://aynrandlexicon.com/lexicon/benev ... emise.html (http://aynrandlexicon.com/lexicon/benevolent_universe_premise.html)

Free Will.  (Really its very weak determinism, you basically have one choice in life.  To think or not to think, and the rest will proceed from that.)
http://aynrandlexicon.com/lexicon/free_will.html (http://aynrandlexicon.com/lexicon/free_will.html)

The Mind-Body Dichotomy is rejected.
http://aynrandlexicon.com/lexicon/soul- ... otomy.html (http://aynrandlexicon.com/lexicon/soul-body_dichotomy.html)

The Analytic-Synthetic Dichotomy is rejected.
http://aynrandlexicon.com/lexicon/analy ... otomy.html (http://aynrandlexicon.com/lexicon/analytic-synthetic_dichotomy.html)

None all of these are "axioms" but could qualify as a premises at some point if you were trying to figure out where an Objectivist was coming from.

Quote from: "lumpymunk"

Quote from: "entropy"So what are the core axioms/assumptions of Rand's Objectivist philosophy that she takes as true without further justification?

Axioms are different than premises or presuppositions.

Quote from: "Ayn Rand"An axiomatic concept is the identification of a primary fact of reality, which cannot be analyzed, i.e., reduced to other facts or broken into component parts. It is implicit in all facts and in all knowledge. It is the fundamentally given and directly perceived or experienced, which requires no proof or explanation, but on which all proofs and explanations rest.

Thanks for the links. I'll be checking those out. Perusing them should give me a sense of whether or not looking deeper into Objectivism will feel worthwhile for me.

I was using the term "axiom" in a very common way - as how you see it defined in the dictionary and Wikipedia.

Ayn Rand was a political hack out to sell books just like Ann Coulter.

Quote from: "lumpymunk"The problem you have with this is that when Ayn Rand died her estate was worth in excess of a million dollars.  If she was so poor and unable to pay for the treatment how was her estate worth so much?

No, her attorney friend convinced her that her book sales would not be enough to pay for her medical costs. People can go flat out broke from medical bills pretty quickly, and it's likely that her friend understood this -- you apparently don't. At the very least paying out of pocket would have resulted in ruining her financially, as cancer treatments back then were extremely expensive. I don't know about her estate being worth a million dollars but it wouldn't surprise me. Michael Jackson was piss poor broke before he died and then once he was dead, everything he had touched became worth hundreds of millions of dollars, so you've proved nothing really with that statement. Celebrities and their former property are worth way more in death than alive... it's common knowledge.

You really are grasping at straws to defend this womans hypocrisy.. It's pitiful, to be honest.

QuoteSee once you step out of the fantasy created by all of the hatred and vitriol of uneducated pundits the truth isn't that hard to find.

I'd tell you that once you stop being a fan boy and look at this case like you would anything else, maybe you'll actually learn something of value.

QuoteProvide citations for these fictitious quotations.  I've given you plenty of first hand source material that contradicts what you're stating.  

Are you fucking serious? You're starting to sound more and more like when you read Rand's work you decided to be selective about what you would and wouldn't remember. Anybody, that knows anything about anything, concerning Ayn Rand's beliefs, would know that she has made countless statements about people who are on any kind of public assistance are "leeches, looters, mooches, thieves, thugs, parasites, and bums".

It's true Rand had her justifications for people like her taking benefits but it's also true that Rand's mind was often a war zone of competing ideas, much like a religious loon. She once talked about how a military draft is wrong because it's government force, but at the same believed that Vietnam draft dodgers should be prosecuted because they would fight the USSR. Read that again to yourself and try not to laugh at what a contradiction that it is.

She has made these statements and you know it but are playing all dumb like you don't know what I'm talking about so that I'll go on an wild goose chase to provide something you're already aware of. I've been the internet to long to fall for that old trick and frankly, it's something I'd expect from a Christian apologist.

QuoteA) provide source material that is contrary to what I've posted and justify your position or

Get a fucking a grip. I'm not going to fall this cheap game you think I'm a sucker enough to play. Asking me to prove Rand believed that people on public assistance are part of the problem, is like a Christian asking me to prove the Jesus stated he was the son of god -- don't waste my time with that shit.

QuoteAs I pointed out, Ayn Rand quite rationally justified this as restitution from a lifelong of government confiscation through taxation of her royalties from movies and books.

Ah, so what Rand believes is what is moral... thanks for clearing that up. It's too bad that Rand is still a fucking hypocrite. She took money and contributed to the problem she stated was "evil". And more importantly it's not just that she was a hypocrite, she also proved that her own principles fail; even for her they did. Accept it or not she needed that money and was given back WAY fucking more than he paid in to cover her medical bills, so your rationalization doesn't work, and she's still a fucking hypocritical bitch that by own standards is a "mooch".

QuoteIt isn't really that surprising that someone who lived in that time believed this.  It's especially not surprising the an Author/Philosopher (Read: Non-Scientist) would believe this. .

So then why did she open her fucking mouth? Oh yeah, she liked to talk out of her ass like fanatic.

Quote* It's intellectually dishonest for you to engage in historical bias in judging the actions of a historical figure based on the knowledge we have in the present.

:roll:

Quote* Your invalid attack on Ayn Rand says nothing about the philosophy.

Go back and read my first post in this thread. Then come back and read this. Then shut the fuck-up.

viewtopic.php?f=33&t=2551&start=30 (http://atheistforums.com/viewtopic.php?f=33&t=2551&start=30)

Quote* Your lack of education on the subject, and your link-spamming the invalid arguments of other uneducated pundits that have already been covered in this thread borders on trolling.

Trolling? You've been the one that has done nothing but tap dance around the issues, throw up distractions to cover up your bad memory of your own guru, and repeatedly launched attacks at others. It's like talking to an apologist. But if you were trying to get me to lose my temper then I'm afraid you've failed. You still look like a fan boy that is too blind to see that your fucking hero didn't know it all, and that the ethics were questionable.

Now, you've wasted enough of my time.

Reading John Galt's speech, I think the gist isn't "lol money is awesome," but "We should only give help to people who really deserve it." She's really just arguing against people who say that we have to help EVERYBODY, including the people who don't deserve anybody's help. These people are more common than you think. Her writing is really more about virtue than it is about money, and the bankers who worship her books while begging for bailouts tend to forget this.

Quote from: "zarus tathra"Reading John Galt's speech, I think the gist isn't "lol money is awesome," but "We should only give help to people who really deserve it." She's really just arguing against people who say that we have to help EVERYBODY, including the people who don't deserve anybody's help. These people are more common than you think. Her writing is really more about virtue than it is about money, and the bankers who worship her books while begging for bailouts tend to forget this.

The emphasis shouldn't be placed on the amount of people you're forced to "help" but that you're being forced to do it.

Not...

Quotewe have to help EVERYBODY

...but...

Quotewe have to help everybody

Quote from: "JamesTheUnjust"People can go flat out broke from medical bills pretty quickly

All the more reason to use the money that the state stole from her throughout her life.

QuoteYou really are grasping at straws to defend this womans hypocrisy.. It's pitiful, to be honest.

I'm grasping at primary source citations and evidence, you're grasping at straws because you have no evidence to grasp at.

QuoteAre you fucking serious? You're starting to sound more and more like when you read Rand's work you decided to be selective about what you would and wouldn't remember. Anybody, that knows anything about anything, concerning Ayn Rand's beliefs, would know that she has made countless statements about people who are on any kind of public assistance are "leeches, looters, mooches, thieves, thugs, parasites, and bums".

So provide the citations that prove her to be a hypocrite.  With "countless statements" I'm sure you can come up with one instead of writing paragraph upon paragraph trying to squirm out of the fact that you've been cornered on an uneducated belief you hold.

 :rollin:

QuoteShe once talked about how a military draft is wrong because it's government force, but at the same believed that Vietnam draft dodgers should be prosecuted because they would fight the USSR.

Citation please.
I have them... easy to find...
http://aynrandlexicon.com/lexicon/draft.html (http://aynrandlexicon.com/lexicon/draft.html)
...and another...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=pl ... NTfuDkFTXo (http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=LNTfuDkFTXo)

Where are yours?

QuoteShe has made these statements and you know it but are playing all dumb like you don't know what I'm talking about so that I'll go on an wild goose chase to provide something you're already aware of.

Nope, I genuinely know you're full of shit, and I'd love to rip apart any "evidence" you think you can produce.  More importantly, I want to point out how uneducated you are about the subject.  It's working out pretty well so far.

QuoteI'm not going to fall this cheap game you think I'm a sucker enough to play.

Yea, because providing evidence for your beliefs is a fools game?  I can almost see your squirming as you wrote this.

 :rollin:

QuoteAsking me to prove Rand believed that people on public assistance are part of the problem, is like a Christian asking me to prove the Jesus stated he was the son of god -- don't waste my time with that shit.

It's such an easy task, yet you spend 15 minutes replying to a stranger on the internet instead of 5 minutes to prove something that you claim is so easy to prove.  It's pretty easy to see through your bullshit.

1) Because I actually have studied the material for a very long time and I know you're wrong.
2) Because either way you're still going to hold your ignorant opinion... right or wrong.

QuoteAccept it or not she needed that money and was given back WAY fucking more than he paid in to cover her medical bills, so your rationalization doesn't work, and she's still a fucking hypocritical bitch that by own standards is a "mooch".

1) You have zero knowledge of the costs incurred for her treatment.
2) You have zero knowledge of the taxes and royalties collected over her lifetime.

...yet you have absolute knowledge that it was imbalanced in her favor.

Proof?

 :rollin:

QuoteTrolling? You've been the one that has done nothing but tap dance around the issues

I've responded to every criticism in this thread, and every troll.  I've confronted the issues directly.

Quoterepeatedly launched attacks at others.

You only feel attacked when I point out that you're uneducated on the subject because it goes so contrary to the strength of the opinion you hold on the subject.  Prove you're worthy of your strong opinion and prove any of the bullshit you've said with actual evidence.

With citations

QuoteIt's like talking to an apologist. But if you were trying to get me to lose my temper then I'm afraid you've failed.

You can keep your temper, I'm after your credibility.

 :rollin:

James, don't waste your breath on this tool. It's like talking to a wall. Or a theist. I apologize to any wall that I've offended by this post.

You should be apologizing to scholarly articles.

Quote from: "Jmpty"James, don't waste your breath on this tool. It's like talking to a wall. Or a theist. I apologize to any wall that I've offended by this post.

Don't sweat it, he's an amateur compared to some of the other assholes I've dealt with.

No matter what kind of ideologue you're arguing with it's important to stop responding once things get redundant. Once that happens, you risk getting burned out and frustrated from going around in circles, and in my experience that's when people start acting like children with their arguments. So you're best to just bow out gracefully and let the asshole talk to themselves, while you move onto something more productive.

Cheers. :wink:

Quote from: "lumpymunk"

Quote from: "JamesTheUnjust"People can go flat out broke from medical bills pretty quickly

All the more reason to use the money that the state stole from her throughout her life.

QuoteYou really are grasping at straws to defend this womans hypocrisy.. It's pitiful, to be honest.

I'm grasping at primary source citations and evidence, you're grasping at straws because you have no evidence to grasp at.

QuoteAre you fucking serious? You're starting to sound more and more like when you read Rand's work you decided to be selective about what you would and wouldn't remember. Anybody, that knows anything about anything, concerning Ayn Rand's beliefs, would know that she has made countless statements about people who are on any kind of public assistance are "leeches, looters, mooches, thieves, thugs, parasites, and bums".

So provide the citations that prove her to be a hypocrite.  With "countless statements" I'm sure you can come up with one instead of writing paragraph upon paragraph trying to squirm out of the fact that you've been cornered on an uneducated belief you hold.

 :rollin:

QuoteShe once talked about how a military draft is wrong because it's government force, but at the same believed that Vietnam draft dodgers should be prosecuted because they would fight the USSR.

Citation please.
I have them... easy to find...
http://aynrandlexicon.com/lexicon/draft.html (http://aynrandlexicon.com/lexicon/draft.html)
...and another...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=pl ... NTfuDkFTXo (http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=LNTfuDkFTXo)

Where are yours?

QuoteShe has made these statements and you know it but are playing all dumb like you don't know what I'm talking about so that I'll go on an wild goose chase to provide something you're already aware of.

Nope, I genuinely know you're full of shit, and I'd love to rip apart any "evidence" you think you can produce.  More importantly, I want to point out how uneducated you are about the subject.  It's working out pretty well so far.

QuoteI'm not going to fall this cheap game you think I'm a sucker enough to play.

Yea, because providing evidence for your beliefs is a fools game?  I can almost see your squirming as you wrote this.

 :rollin:

QuoteAsking me to prove Rand believed that people on public assistance are part of the problem, is like a Christian asking me to prove the Jesus stated he was the son of god -- don't waste my time with that shit.

It's such an easy task, yet you spend 15 minutes replying to a stranger on the internet instead of 5 minutes to prove something that you claim is so easy to prove.  It's pretty easy to see through your bullshit.

1) Because I actually have studied the material for a very long time and I know you're wrong.
2) Because either way you're still going to hold your ignorant opinion... right or wrong.

QuoteAccept it or not she needed that money and was given back WAY fucking more than he paid in to cover her medical bills, so your rationalization doesn't work, and she's still a fucking hypocritical bitch that by own standards is a "mooch".

1) You have zero knowledge of the costs incurred for her treatment.
2) You have zero knowledge of the taxes and royalties collected over her lifetime.

...yet you have absolute knowledge that it was imbalanced in her favor.

Proof?

 :rollin:

QuoteTrolling? You've been the one that has done nothing but tap dance around the issues

I've responded to every criticism in this thread, and every troll.  I've confronted the issues directly.

Quoterepeatedly launched attacks at others.

You only feel attacked when I point out that you're uneducated on the subject because it goes so contrary to the strength of the opinion you hold on the subject.  Prove you're worthy of your strong opinion and prove any of the bullshit you've said with actual evidence.

With citations

QuoteIt's like talking to an apologist. But if you were trying to get me to lose my temper then I'm afraid you've failed.

You can keep your temper, I'm after your credibility.

 :rollin:

So I guess you decided to finally act like a jerk off and show your true colors - I knew it was just a matter of time. Now everybody can see how justified I was in not wasting my time playing your game of Linky vs Linky. I was well aware that you just wanted to draw me in and have a pissing contest, but now you've got just piss on yourself.

How entertaining. :popcorn:

I'm a jerk off for asking you to support your childish bandwagon opinion with an ounce of evidence.

 #-o

QuoteLinky vs Linky

You mean providing evidence and supporting argumentation.

 #-o

(//http://t.qkme.me/3q9w2m.jpg)

Quote from: "Brian37"

Quote from: "lumpymunk"

Quote from: "Brian37"Ayn Rand appeals to the selfish side of all ideology.

I'd be willing to wager a significant sum that you don't even understand what the word "selfish" meant to Ayn Rand.

Also note the thread was looking for "preferably informed" opinions.

How seriously should I take someone who thought social security was evil but didn't give up her own SS checks?

She knew quite well what selfishness was, and like any political hack, she was simply out to sell books and make money.

There is an explanation for that, but I prefer to quote something I wrote on page 2 of this thread.

QuoteStill, there are a few critics who actually have read the source material. There are three separate criticisms that can be made of Rand, but strangely her critics seem unable to criticize just one of them at a time but constantly switch back and forth. One can criticize her as a person, her as an author, or the philosophy she created. But if you are in a discussion about the merits or cons of the philosophy you will get people piping in saying "and she can't write" or "she took Social Security". One is a literary criticism, the other a personal criticism, neither of which have anything to do with the philosophy.

Quote from: "Jason_Harvestdancer"Still, there are a few critics who actually have read the source material.

Unfortunately, "few" seems to be the most important word in that statement. Most of the negative critics in this thread did not read her work (or were unwilling to provide evidence of such, which makes their criticisms irrelevant), and I doubt many of them even watched "Atlas Shrugged: Part I". The only person who showed significant understanding of her writings liked Ayn Rand's philosophy, and less informed, neutral people posted evidence that casts Ayn Rand's philosophy in a relatively positive light.

I think much more useful information can be gleaned from discussion in a historical context, but I have concluded that I will finish reading "The Virtue of Selfishness", then move on to "Objectivism: The Philosophy of Ayn Rand" and "Atlas Shrugged". I understand that the historical context in which Ayn Rand wrote would deprive her of certain facts (that mind-reading is literally possible via brain scans (//http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nsjDnYxJ0bo), nature and human interests are highly interconnected, adaptable, and flexible, and that the stronger U.S. government would help give rise to the Internet (//http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9hIQjrMHTv4), among others). Even so, she caught on to some key ideas that have been scientifically and/or mathematically validated - morality is objective and independent of all religions, there is something fundamentally wrong with helping those who can't/won't (ever/often) help themselves or others, benefits and costs should be considered in relation to the specific people who benefit/pay rather than undefined or vaguely/ambiguously defined entities, etc.

Quote from: "SkepticOfMyOwnMind"

Quote from: "Jason_Harvestdancer"Still, there are a few critics who actually have read the source material.

Unfortunately, "few" seems to be the most important word in that statement. Most of the negative critics in this thread did not read her work (or were unwilling to provide evidence of such, which makes their criticisms irrelevant), and I doubt many of them even watched "Atlas Shrugged: Part I". The only person who showed significant understanding of her writings liked Ayn Rand's philosophy, and less informed, neutral people posted evidence that casts Ayn Rand's philosophy in a relatively positive light.

I think much more useful information can be gleaned from discussion in a historical context, but I have concluded that I will finish reading "The Virtue of Selfishness", then move on to "Objectivism: The Philosophy of Ayn Rand" and "Atlas Shrugged". I understand that the historical context in which Ayn Rand wrote would deprive her of certain facts (that mind-reading is literally possible via brain scans (//http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nsjDnYxJ0bo), nature and human interests are highly interconnected, adaptable, and flexible, and that the stronger U.S. government would help give rise to the Internet (//http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9hIQjrMHTv4), among others). Even so, she caught on to some key ideas that have been scientifically and/or mathematically validated - morality is objective and independent of all religions, there is something fundamentally wrong with helping those who can't/won't (ever/often) help themselves or others, benefits and costs should be considered in relation to the specific people who benefit/pay rather than undefined or vaguely/ambiguously defined entities, etc.

Ideology and religion are the same monster, they conflict with diverse reality. Ayn Rand was simply a political hack out to sell books like Ann Coulter. Neither of them were interested in problem solving.

Quote from: "Brian37"Ideology and religion are the same monster

Quote from: "Alan Greenspan"Well, remember that what an ideology is, is a conceptual framework with the way people deal with reality. Everyone has one. You have to — to exist, you need an ideology. The question is whether it is accurate or not.

If you refuse to identify it, nobody else will be able to force you to think.  You've essentially demonstrated in this thread that you're nothing more than a child throwing a tantrum kicking and screaming, "You can't make me think!"

[youtube:29tszq72]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t0CyunRUJmc[/youtube:29tszq72]

Wanted to hop on the Rand-bashing wagon.

Quote from: "Brian37"

Quote from: "SkepticOfMyOwnMind"

Quote from: "Jason_Harvestdancer"Still, there are a few critics who actually have read the source material.

Unfortunately, "few" seems to be the most important word in that statement. Most of the negative critics in this thread did not read her work (or were unwilling to provide evidence of such, which makes their criticisms irrelevant), and I doubt many of them even watched "Atlas Shrugged: Part I". The only person who showed significant understanding of her writings liked Ayn Rand's philosophy, and less informed, neutral people posted evidence that casts Ayn Rand's philosophy in a relatively positive light.

I think much more useful information can be gleaned from discussion in a historical context, but I have concluded that I will finish reading "The Virtue of Selfishness", then move on to "Objectivism: The Philosophy of Ayn Rand" and "Atlas Shrugged". I understand that the historical context in which Ayn Rand wrote would deprive her of certain facts (that mind-reading is literally possible via brain scans (//http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nsjDnYxJ0bo), nature and human interests are highly interconnected, adaptable, and flexible, and that the stronger U.S. government would help give rise to the Internet (//http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9hIQjrMHTv4), among others). Even so, she caught on to some key ideas that have been scientifically and/or mathematically validated - morality is objective and independent of all religions, there is something fundamentally wrong with helping those who can't/won't (ever/often) help themselves or others, benefits and costs should be considered in relation to the specific people who benefit/pay rather than undefined or vaguely/ambiguously defined entities, etc.

Ideology and religion are the same monster, they conflict with diverse reality. Ayn Rand was simply a political hack out to sell books like Ann Coulter. Neither of them were interested in problem solving.

What are your beliefs?  What are your  beliefs about science?  Economics?  Politics?  Morality?

That is your ideology.

Think about it.  Even if your ideology is unique to you, it is your ideology and you have one.

Even if your ideology is nothing more complex than "what's in it for me?" (and I once debated a guy who had that exact ideology - and he was a life-long Democrat who hated libertarians) it is still your ideology.

(//http://imgs.xkcd.com/comics/ayn_random.png)