# Ayn Rand for Dummies **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [November 2, 2009, 6:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ayn-rand-for-dummies/516078 "2009-11-02T18:16:16Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 11
**Author:** ![flonks](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/3ab097/32.png) [@flonks](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/flonks)\ **Post date:** [November 8, 2009, 7:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ayn-rand-for-dummies/516078/201 "2009-11-08T19:10:40Z")
4 pages already and nobody has yet tossed this one into the discussion? > [@](#): > > “There are two novels that can change a bookish fourteen-year old’s life: The Lord of the Rings and Atlas Shrugged. One is a childish fantasy that often engenders a lifelong obsession with its unbelievable heroes, leading to an emotionally stunted, socially crippled adulthood, unable to deal with the real world. The other, of course, involves orcs.” Source unknown to me. ---
**Author:** ![haymarketmartyr](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/35a633/32.png) [@haymarketmartyr](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/haymarketmartyr)\ **Post date:** [November 8, 2009, 7:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ayn-rand-for-dummies/516078/202 "2009-11-08T19:27:40Z")
I think that is John Rogers. One of the best things said by anyone whose name is not Oscar Wilde. ---
**Author:** ![msmith537](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/d9b06d/32.png) [@msmith537](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/msmith537)\ **Post date:** [November 8, 2009, 9:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ayn-rand-for-dummies/516078/203 "2009-11-08T21:01:19Z")
> [@haymarketmartyr](#): > > This is the best title for a thread I have seen in a long long time. AYN RAND FOR DUMMIES. In four words it describes perfectly both the subject and who is taken in my the pseudo philosophy. Really well done. So what would be an pseudo philosophy for “smart people”? ---
**Author:** ![The\_Hamster\_King](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/8edcca/32.png) [@The\_Hamster\_King](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Hamster_King)\ **Post date:** [November 8, 2009, 10:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ayn-rand-for-dummies/516078/204 "2009-11-08T22:08:05Z")
> [@msmith537](#): > > So what would be an pseudo philosophy for “smart people”? Poststructuralism. ---
**Author:** ![flonks](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/3ab097/32.png) [@flonks](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/flonks)\ **Post date:** [November 8, 2009, 10:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ayn-rand-for-dummies/516078/205 "2009-11-08T22:28:14Z")
> [@The\_Hamster\_King](#): > > Poststructuralism. I didn’t know this one, but it sounds very much like post-modernism, which was [severly critized by Alan Sokal](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fashionable_Nonsense). Very nice book. As a response to the question above: most of the Works by Joseph Stiglitz, [for example this one](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Making_Globalization_Work). ---
**Author:** ![Sam\_Stone](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ecccb3/32.png) [@Sam\_Stone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sam_Stone)\ **Post date:** [November 8, 2009, 11:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ayn-rand-for-dummies/516078/206 "2009-11-08T23:46:20Z")
Atlas Shrugged is not nearly the best-selling book of all time. However, it is one of the most influential books in America. In 1991, the Book-of-the-Month club asked its members to rate the most influential books they had ever read. The Bible came in at #1, and Atlas Shrugged at #2. It appears regularly on other lists of the most influential books. As for overall sales, it certainly went through a long period where it didn’t sell all _that_ many per year, but in this decade its sales have been steadily climbing. In 2008, it sold over 200,000 copies. In 2007, it sold 185,000 copies. This year, it’s on pace to sell over 500,000 copies. Its sales rank on [Amazon.com](http://Amazon.com) is currently #149, which is pretty impressive for a 50 year old book. In addition, two new biographies of Rand are big sellers, and a favorable documentary of her life was nominated for an Oscar for best documetary a couple of years ago. The movie adaptation of Atlas Shrugged is apparently in the works, with Charlize Theron and Angelina Jolie being considered for the part of Dagny Taggart. If that movie gets made, expect sales of Atlas Shrugged to take off again. Like her or not, it’s indisputable that she’s a very important force in American political discourse. ---
**Author:** ![Hentor\_the\_Barbarian](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/8edcca/32.png) [@Hentor\_the\_Barbarian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hentor_the_Barbarian)\ **Post date:** [November 9, 2009, 12:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ayn-rand-for-dummies/516078/207 "2009-11-09T00:01:23Z")
**Sam Stone** , I am enjoined from responding to you by **tomndebb’s** recent edict. Do not equate my lack of response as assent. ---
**Author:** ![elucidator](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/8edcca/32.png) [@elucidator](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elucidator)\ **Post date:** [November 9, 2009, 12:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ayn-rand-for-dummies/516078/208 "2009-11-09T00:19:52Z")
Perhaps so, but they’ll be facing the daunting comparisons to Travolta’s _Battlefield Earth_. I understand that Forest Whitaker still wakes up screaming… ---
**Author:** ![Hentor\_the\_Barbarian](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/8edcca/32.png) [@Hentor\_the\_Barbarian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hentor_the_Barbarian)\ **Post date:** [November 9, 2009, 1:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ayn-rand-for-dummies/516078/209 "2009-11-09T01:03:30Z")
Guys, guys! Ixnay on the alkingtay about ookbay alesay. It is the thread topic that dares not speak its name, because it is not of interest to **omndebbtay**. ---
**Author:** ![The\_Piranha\_Brothers](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/aca169/32.png) [@The\_Piranha\_Brothers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Piranha_Brothers)\ **Post date:** [November 9, 2009, 2:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ayn-rand-for-dummies/516078/210 "2009-11-09T14:35:44Z")
> [@msmith537](#): > > So what would be an pseudo philosophy for “smart people”? Well - yes! ---
**Author:** ![LonesomePolecat](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/a88e57/32.png) [@LonesomePolecat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LonesomePolecat)\ **Post date:** [November 9, 2009, 3:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ayn-rand-for-dummies/516078/211 "2009-11-09T15:10:42Z")
> [@Sam\_Stone](#): > > Atlas Shrugged is not nearly the best-selling book of all time. However, it is one of the most influential books in America. In 1991, the Book-of-the-Month club asked its members to rate the most influential books they had ever read. The Bible came in at #1, and Atlas Shrugged at #2. It appears regularly on other lists of the most influential books. But IIRC it was a very distant second, and followed closely by Anne Morrow Lindbergh’s _Gift from the Sea_ and L. Ron Hubbard’s _Dianetics_. This is not exactly good company. ---
**Author:** ![wmfellows](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/c2a13f/32.png) [@wmfellows](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wmfellows)\ **Post date:** [November 9, 2009, 3:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ayn-rand-for-dummies/516078/212 "2009-11-09T15:15:42Z")
> [@The\_Piranha\_Brothers](#): > > I think the book’s (ill deserved) popularity is caused by the fact that it feeds, justifies, corresponds to and rationalises the existing, slightly paranoid feelings that some people in the USA already have. There is something to that. In perusing Rand books - never finished any, unreadable to my tastes - I had a queer sense of reading liberal free market thought being lensed through a totalitarian, even communist mode of thinking. The idealised proles replaced by the idealised man of industry. ---
**Author:** ![Damuri\_Ajashi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/898d66/32.png) [@Damuri\_Ajashi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Damuri_Ajashi)\ **Post date:** [November 9, 2009, 3:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ayn-rand-for-dummies/516078/213 "2009-11-09T15:39:57Z")
> [@Nzinga\_Seated](#): > > Anyone feel like breaking down Ayn Rand’s philosophy for me? I would really like to figure her out, but most of her stuff tends to sail over my head, and I need someone to really break her down as if they are talking to a child. Anyone want to take a shot at it? > > I tried to read Atlas Shrugged and was lost half the time. I’m going to try it again, but I was hoping for a little help before I dive back in. > > I have already been roundly laughed at by several people for not being able to grasp it, so I am already jaded to that response. No one need even bother. If you want some raw material for the “philosophy of Objectivism” I would focus on the last 100 pages of Atlas Shrugged (John Galt speaks), the rest of the book paints people who follow her philosophy as good and pure and everyone else as evil leeches. Its a bit rambling, repetitive and hard to follow and could probably have been condensed into 15 pages without losing anything but shipping costs but that is where you will find her philosophy if you want to call it that. My take is that Ayn Rand gives license to immoral people to act immorally. ---
**Author:** ![Damuri\_Ajashi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/898d66/32.png) [@Damuri\_Ajashi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Damuri_Ajashi)\ **Post date:** [November 9, 2009, 3:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ayn-rand-for-dummies/516078/214 "2009-11-09T15:44:27Z")
> [@winterhawk11](#): > > I’m not a Randroid–I see a lot of faults with Objectivism (especially as it relates to the real world instead of a theoretical black and white Rand-approved reality), but I have never encountered a persuasive argument that rational self-interest (even if broadly defined to mean “self and friends/family”–essentially one’s [Monkeysphere](http://www.cracked.com/article_14990_what-monkeysphere.html)) is anything but a completely logical way to live one’s life. Sacrificing your own values and those you care about out of some misguided sense of altruism doesn’t seem to me to be a very good or happy or moral way to live. But if that is what Objectivism is about, then it doesn’t really say anything new does it? ---
**Author:** ![Damuri\_Ajashi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/898d66/32.png) [@Damuri\_Ajashi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Damuri_Ajashi)\ **Post date:** [November 9, 2009, 3:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ayn-rand-for-dummies/516078/215 "2009-11-09T15:48:30Z")
> [@Sam\_Stone](#): > > News flash: Obnoxious people will always find a justification for their obnoxious behavior. Yeah but they seem to gravitate to Ayn Rand quite a bit. ---
**Author:** ![Damuri\_Ajashi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/898d66/32.png) [@Damuri\_Ajashi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Damuri_Ajashi)\ **Post date:** [November 9, 2009, 3:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ayn-rand-for-dummies/516078/216 "2009-11-09T15:53:13Z")
> [@ragerdude](#): > > I don’t get this at all. Could you explain please? I think he is saying you should inster the word “is” between the words “Rand” and “for” in the title. ---
**Author:** ![John\_Mace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_mace/32/185_2.png) [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)\ **Post date:** [November 9, 2009, 3:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ayn-rand-for-dummies/516078/217 "2009-11-09T15:59:30Z")
It’s amazing how much hostility one finds towards Rand from her critics. If all she is is just a bad writer and childish pseudo-philosopher, why does she generate so much ill feelings? Do people feel that way about Dan Brown? ---
**Author:** ![haymarketmartyr](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/35a633/32.png) [@haymarketmartyr](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/haymarketmartyr)\ **Post date:** [November 9, 2009, 4:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ayn-rand-for-dummies/516078/218 "2009-11-09T16:01:29Z")
Many people hate Rand because of the fascination libertarians have for the work. Dan Brown has spawned no similar political movement so he is nothing to be concerned about. Stephen King sells a hell of a lot of books but the last time I looked he did not advocate a political philosophy which would turn us back of the Gilded Age. Lots of other authors are in the same category. It is the FOLLOWERS and DISCIPLES of Rand and they beliefs they have that are the pimple on the ass of the body politic. ---
**Author:** ![John\_Mace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_mace/32/185_2.png) [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)\ **Post date:** [November 9, 2009, 4:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ayn-rand-for-dummies/516078/219 "2009-11-09T16:05:38Z")
Well, that’s a pretty stupid reason to hate her. But whatever rocks your boat. ---
**Author:** ![haymarketmartyr](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/35a633/32.png) [@haymarketmartyr](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/haymarketmartyr)\ **Post date:** [November 9, 2009, 4:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ayn-rand-for-dummies/516078/220 "2009-11-09T16:20:07Z")
Why is that a “stupid reason”? Ron Paul - the libertarian pin up boy - names his son RAND after her. Most libertarians you talk to think she wrote the equal of the Bible for their way of thinking. Why is that a “stupid reason” not to like what she spawned? [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ayn-rand-for-dummies/516078.md?page=10) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ayn-rand-for-dummies/516078.md?page=12)