# Ayn Rand's philosophy on the middle and working classes **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [February 11, 2009, 4:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ayn-rands-philosophy-on-the-middle-and-working-classes/485381 "2009-02-11T16:26:02Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 12
**Author:** ![Bryan\_Ekers](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bryan_ekers/32/183_2.png) [@Bryan\_Ekers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bryan_Ekers)\ **Post date:** [February 14, 2009, 10:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ayn-rands-philosophy-on-the-middle-and-working-classes/485381/221 "2009-02-14T10:27:32Z")
> [@Guinastasia](#): > > Attention, SDMB Posters, would Mr. Godwin please report to the Great Debates Forum? Once again, would Mr. Godwin please report to the Great Debates forum at this time? Talk about reflexive. Mentioning Nazis in an Ayn Rand thread isn’t at all hyperbolic, especially in light of Toohey’s speech in _Fountainhead_ in which Rand goes to great lengths to dismiss fascism _and_ communism because they both seek to replace individual reason with the collective (the first by the individual submitting to the whim of the race, the second to the whim of the state). Anyway, of _course_ human have instincts. ---
**Author:** ![elucidator](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/8edcca/32.png) [@elucidator](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elucidator)\ **Post date:** [February 14, 2009, 3:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ayn-rands-philosophy-on-the-middle-and-working-classes/485381/222 "2009-02-14T15:41:12Z")
> [@Madgolf](#): > > The destruction of a life is a VERY simple act. Gravity can do it and most gravity, if so inclined (get it?), will readily admit it. Introducing a complicated coverup of the destruction has nothing to do with the SIMPLE act of destruction… This makes no sense. Since when, and on what planet, does gravity “admit” anything? And “most gravity…will readily admit…”? Which is to say, some gravity will _not_ admit? Gravity can lie? If your intent is to wring a confession from me that I have no idea what you’re on about, I do so stipulate: I have no idea, none _whatsoever_, what the Bleeding Og you are talking about. > [@](#): > > …Bang! Because a 1991 survey by the Library of Congress found Atlas Shrugged to be second in influence only to the Bible, FWIW… Cite? Perhaps my Google-fu is weak, but all I can find is bald references without sources, save for here: [http://www.teachersparadise.com/ency/en/wikipedia/a/at/atlas\_shrugged.html](http://www.teachersparadise.com/ency/en/wikipedia/a/at/atlas_shrugged.html) which offers a footnoted citation that leads to a defunct page. You can find oodles and oodles of “…as recently as 1991, a survey by the Library of Congress…” but no actual sources. Get right on that, won’t you? > [@](#): > > …I cannot defend an entire philosophy anymore than I can defend half the definitions I use to defend my own appreciation of said philosophy… Mmmm, yes. Dully noted. > [@](#): > > …Reason brought me these things and I protect the concept of reason even if it means offending your definition or anyone else’s definition. You are entitled to your own definitions, just as we are entitled to snicker derisively. I think even gravity will admit that. ---
**Author:** ![XT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/xt/32/456_2.png) [@XT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/XT)\ **Post date:** [February 14, 2009, 3:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ayn-rands-philosophy-on-the-middle-and-working-classes/485381/223 "2009-02-14T15:46:51Z")
[QUOTE=Bryan Ekers] Anyway, of course human have instincts. [/QUOTE] Name a few, if you would…or at least hum the tune… [QUOTE=martu] It has been a while since I have read it and I can’t remember which Rand hero finished the book having chosen to do menial labour can you remind me? [/QUOTE] None of them (though in AS Eddie chooses to go his own way and continue to work as a clerk instead of Joining Galt et al…however he wasn’t really one of the ‘hero’ characters. Several of the other minor characters also will be doing menial work, or at least not be running companies while smoking stoagies lit on the back of the peasantry). These ARE fiction books after all, and by and large in fiction (of any genre) the main characters generally end up coming out on top. The point of course is that during the book neither of the main characters in AS or FH associate any stigma or negative connotation to working menial jobs. They don’t consider them beneath their dignity or anything like that…in fact, both take PRIDE in their work. Since the question was about how Rand felt about the working classes I’d say this gives a pretty good indication. I’d also say that she was no big fan of inherited wealth based on her portrayal in an unflattering light of several people who had inherited their parents business and wasted or squandered the money (folks like James Taggert). Rand was all about talent, no matter where it came from. If your father was a street sweeper and you were a genius and you used your talent and drive to better yourself then you deserved the fruits of your abilities and labor. If your daddy was Mr. Warbucks and you squandered his fortune then you also got what you deserved. So…I asked you a question which you basically threw back on me and I have answered it. Now…could you answer my original question to you? If you haven’t read the books in years and don’t remember then you can always retract your original statement that prompted my initial question to you. -XT ---
**Author:** ![XT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/xt/32/456_2.png) [@XT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/XT)\ **Post date:** [February 14, 2009, 4:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ayn-rands-philosophy-on-the-middle-and-working-classes/485381/224 "2009-02-14T16:02:23Z")
[QUOTE=Guinastasia] xtisme, no, what I meant was, pain=avoiding. You aren’t going to leave your hand there on the stove. You’re going to find someway to avoid it. Perhaps in the wilderness, it would be if something touched YOU, and you found it painful-that would be a better example-a bee sting. [/QUOTE] I’m sure no one want’s to keep up this hijack (I’m also failing to see what instinct has to do with this thread), but you have totally lost me so I thought I’d just ask. Pain/avoiding is not a programmed response. It’s a LEARNED response. If we were born with the knowledge that fire hurts, and if we (as a species) make a programmed response to it (say, when burned, we all turned around in a circle clockwise and said ‘SomBitch! YIP YIP YIP!’)…THAT would be an instinct. Instead, we have to play with the pretty fire, get burned and THEN we figure out that it’s hope. Same with the bee sting. Humans aren’t born with the knowledge that bee’s sting…we have to learn that as well. An example of an instinct would be 'see bright blue frog and avoid it because the inborn response is that ‘this is bad’. In humans the response (in the wild) would be…lets try and eat it and see what happens. Unless someone is along to TELL us that we shouldn’t do that…which again would be a learned response. I can’t think of anything all humans do that is the same (the mark of an instinct is that all or most members of a species is born with the response, maybe having to have it shown to them to pick up the local variant) that isn’t a reflex or automatic response (like getting hit in the knee by a hammer or breathing). I’m sure there might be some vestigial quasi-instincts rolling around in our brains, but by and large humanities great strength is that we DON’T have many (or any) real programming…we have to learn everything. The closest I can think of is perhaps an instinct for speech or communication…however, we all go about learning communication in different ways so it’s not, afaik, a TRUE instinct, at least not as I was taught that term. IIRC, studies of children who, for one reason or another weren’t taught speech or communication shows that at some point they can never learn properly…which sort of shows how tenuous the programming is these days. Anyway, I’ll leave it at that…just wanted to give a bit longer response than my earlier, iPod responses, now that I’m back in my hotel room. -XT ---
**Author:** ![MichaelQReilly](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/df705f/32.png) [@MichaelQReilly](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MichaelQReilly)\ **Post date:** [February 14, 2009, 4:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ayn-rands-philosophy-on-the-middle-and-working-classes/485381/225 "2009-02-14T16:27:31Z")
I agree with **XT** that pain reflexes aren’t really instincts. Instincts certainly do exist in humans though. Anyone who’s “really needed to get some” can attest to that. [Here](http://www.bbc.co.uk/science/humanbody/tv/humaninstinct/) is a link to a BBC site on human instincts. ---
**Author:** ![kaylasdad99](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kaylasdad99/32/3398_2.png) [@kaylasdad99](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kaylasdad99)\ **Post date:** [February 14, 2009, 4:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ayn-rands-philosophy-on-the-middle-and-working-classes/485381/226 "2009-02-14T16:55:09Z")
> [@elucidator](#): > > You are entitled to your own definitions, just as we are entitled to snicker derisively. I think even gravity will admit that. Wouldn’t that be _levity_, then? ---
**Author:** ![elucidator](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/8edcca/32.png) [@elucidator](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elucidator)\ **Post date:** [February 14, 2009, 4:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ayn-rands-philosophy-on-the-middle-and-working-classes/485381/227 "2009-02-14T16:56:22Z")
I think the “urge to merge” occurs at a level so fundamental it gets down way below “instinct”. I would point more to babies and their instinctive urge to imitate, to babble, and to interpret facial expressions. I don’t exactly regret the hijack I seem to have inspired, but stand by my point, which is that Ms Rand’s “philosophy” is centered around ideal beings who bear little, if any, resemblance to actual human beings. I mean, its all very well for geniuses like\*\* XT\*\* and myself, but what about the rest of you poor dumb _schmucks_? Perhaps if we could get gravity to testify on the subject, get an authoritative view… ---
**Author:** ![elucidator](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/8edcca/32.png) [@elucidator](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elucidator)\ **Post date:** [February 14, 2009, 4:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ayn-rands-philosophy-on-the-middle-and-working-classes/485381/228 "2009-02-14T16:57:48Z")
> [@kaylasdad99](#): > > Wouldn’t that be _levity_, then? Just so, golf claps proferred. Angels can fly because they take themselves lightly. - G.K. Chesterton ---
**Author:** ![Madgolf](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/d6d6ee/32.png) [@Madgolf](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Madgolf)\ **Post date:** [February 14, 2009, 5:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ayn-rands-philosophy-on-the-middle-and-working-classes/485381/229 "2009-02-14T17:17:54Z")
> [@elucidator](#): > > Perhaps my Google-fu is weak, but all I can find is bald references [http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?sec=health&res=9D0CE7D61339F933A15752C1A967958260](http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?sec=health&res=9D0CE7D61339F933A15752C1A967958260) To do a good Google search, a person puts a few keywords into the Google search box and presses enter If you come up against a dead end it is entirely acceptable to look at another result. ---
**Author:** ![erislover](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/71e660/32.png) [@erislover](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/erislover)\ **Post date:** [February 14, 2009, 5:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ayn-rands-philosophy-on-the-middle-and-working-classes/485381/230 "2009-02-14T17:38:26Z")
> [@xtisme](#): > > Pain/avoiding is not a programmed response. It’s a LEARNED response. Avoiding pain is not a learned response. Knowing that which causes pain and avoiding it before it hurts us is a learned response. ---
**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:** [February 14, 2009, 5:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ayn-rands-philosophy-on-the-middle-and-working-classes/485381/231 "2009-02-14T17:45:53Z")
I’m slightly loathe to enter into this distracting and irrelevant tangent about human instincts. I think much of our behavior is learned. However, just a couple examples of things that appear more instinctual - infant mouthing behavior and infant response to the visual cliff. ---
**Author:** ![elucidator](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/8edcca/32.png) [@elucidator](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elucidator)\ **Post date:** [February 14, 2009, 5:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ayn-rands-philosophy-on-the-middle-and-working-classes/485381/232 "2009-02-14T17:49:44Z")
> [@Madgolf](#): > > [http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?sec=health&res=9D0CE7D61339F933A15752C1A967958260](http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?sec=health&res=9D0CE7D61339F933A15752C1A967958260) > > To do a good Google search, a person puts a few keywords into the Google search box and presses enter If you come up against a dead end it is entirely acceptable to look at another result. That’s as may be. But what you have supplied is simply another quotation referencing the survey, just as any number of others did. The main distinction here is that it offers as source, the Information Analysis System Corporation. Slight problem. Google “Information Analysis System Corporation”. Nada, except! the reference you supplied. In other words, as gravity would testify, the only evidence we have at hand that such an organization exists or ever did exist is this book reviewers offhanded reference to it. I smell urbane legend. ---
**Author:** ![elucidator](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/8edcca/32.png) [@elucidator](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elucidator)\ **Post date:** [February 14, 2009, 5:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ayn-rands-philosophy-on-the-middle-and-working-classes/485381/233 "2009-02-14T17:51:24Z")
> [@Hentor\_the\_Barbarian](#): > > …and infant response to the visual cliff. I was thinking about the same experiment, but didn’t know how to reference it. Have you such? (Great minds think alike, it is said. So, apparently, do ours…) ---
**Author:** ![Bryan\_Ekers](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bryan_ekers/32/183_2.png) [@Bryan\_Ekers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bryan_Ekers)\ **Post date:** [February 14, 2009, 5:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ayn-rands-philosophy-on-the-middle-and-working-classes/485381/234 "2009-02-14T17:53:21Z")
> [@xtisme](#): > > Name a few, if you would…or at least hum the tune… Why, then I’d be exercising a human instinct - talking. Anyway, if you want to relabel such things as “reflexes” as though that proves some point, go ahead. ---
**Author:** ![Madgolf](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/d6d6ee/32.png) [@Madgolf](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Madgolf)\ **Post date:** [February 14, 2009, 6:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ayn-rands-philosophy-on-the-middle-and-working-classes/485381/235 "2009-02-14T18:13:06Z")
> [@elucidator](#): > > Slight problem. Google “Information Analysis System Corporation”. Nada. It is wise to check spelling and the use of abbreviations. [http://start.cortera.com/company/research/k3p9lqp1q/information-analysis-systems-corp/](http://start.cortera.com/company/research/k3p9lqp1q/information-analysis-systems-corp/) James Watt started the company in 1973 in Mansfield CT and now it resides in Troy NY. Regarding Shrugged: The article is from 1991 in a real newspaper featuring real companies and the real Library of Congress. Why would Esther Fein make something up like that? Did you see the 1.5 million dollar payout from Sony after a fake movie review last year? The leftists would _love_ to sock it to a Rand supporter for publishing fake information. ---
**Author:** ![XT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/xt/32/456_2.png) [@XT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/XT)\ **Post date:** [February 14, 2009, 6:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ayn-rands-philosophy-on-the-middle-and-working-classes/485381/236 "2009-02-14T18:16:27Z")
You didn’t actually read what I wrote, ehe? Here’s a hint…I didn’t rename speach as a reflex. I don’t think this is going anywhere. Probably past time to bow out…unless something interesting pops up. -XT ---
**Author:** ![Dog80](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/6bbea6/32.png) [@Dog80](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dog80)\ **Post date:** [February 14, 2009, 6:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ayn-rands-philosophy-on-the-middle-and-working-classes/485381/237 "2009-02-14T18:43:13Z")
> [@Madgolf](#): > > Rand wrote often and wrote clearly about the subject of animals surviving solely by brute instinct and man surviving solely by reason. “Virtue of Selfishness” and “The New Intellectual” had chapters devoted to it plus I think a few speeches in Shrugged used the term “brute” in her usual manner. Ok, thanks. Judging by how even today biologists and neurologists haven’t come to a consensus regarding human instincts, I wouldn’t put too much weight on the opinion of a mid 20th century writer. ---
**Author:** ![elucidator](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/8edcca/32.png) [@elucidator](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elucidator)\ **Post date:** [February 14, 2009, 6:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ayn-rands-philosophy-on-the-middle-and-working-classes/485381/238 "2009-02-14T18:52:30Z")
> [@Madgolf](#): > > …James Watt started the company in 1973 in Mansfield CT and now it resides in Troy NY… Nothing in the cite you offered supports this claim. Nothing in the cite you offered supports the claim that this company ever worked in concert with the Library of Congress about anything. Your cite supports the notion that such a company exists. Period. > [@](#): > > …Regarding Shrugged: The article is from 1991 in a real newspaper featuring real companies and the real Library of Congress. Why would Esther Fein make something up like that?.. The reality of the newspaper is not in question. The reality of the Library of Congress is not in question. Nor am I compelled to offer reasons why Esther Fein might fabricate such a claim. Most likely, she did not, she simply referenced something she thought was factual without diligently searching for underlying fact, since the statement is hardly central to her discussion, which is about the poet Anne Sexton. If you look for Library of Congress and _Atlas Shrugged_, you get oodles of references, but nothing (apparently) the lead to a direct citation from said Library. I find that rather odd, don’t you? Why would so many references to such a study still exist, but no direct link to the survey itself? You are welcome to believe it, as you wish. I am only pointing out that, thus far, you cannot substantiate it. ---
**Author:** ![Bryan\_Ekers](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bryan_ekers/32/183_2.png) [@Bryan\_Ekers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bryan_Ekers)\ **Post date:** [February 14, 2009, 6:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ayn-rands-philosophy-on-the-middle-and-working-classes/485381/239 "2009-02-14T18:54:22Z")
> [@xtisme](#): > > You didn’t actually read what I wrote, ehe? Here’s a hint…I didn’t rename speach as a reflex. That you renamed _anything_ as a reflex undercut your credibilty, because redefinition isn’t argument. ---
**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:** [February 14, 2009, 9:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ayn-rands-philosophy-on-the-middle-and-working-classes/485381/240 "2009-02-14T21:20:24Z")
> [@elucidator](#): > > I was thinking about the same experiment, but didn’t know how to reference it. Have you such? > > (Great minds think alike, it is said. So, apparently, do ours…) I would never dare to say that my mind works like yours, **elucidator**. Unfortunately, you and I would do equally well just googling “visual cliff” at this point. I do know that there have been a number of studies that use the visual cliff paradigm. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ayn-rands-philosophy-on-the-middle-and-working-classes/485381.md?page=11) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ayn-rands-philosophy-on-the-middle-and-working-classes/485381.md?page=13)