I don’t remember the chapter you speak about at all. But in general, she definitely is at her best when describing the impact of a socialist/communist mindset on productive activity. The perverse incentives set up by it end up stifling productive activity pretty thoroughly. I personally think she did a pretty good job of foretelling the downfall of the Soviet Union as well. (Yes, I recognise that there were many other strains on the Soviet Union without which it may not have fallen quite so far. It would still have gone pretty low though) Perhaps that’s what leads her to consider the opposite extreme as an ideal.
I’m very interested, bldysabba, but some have been studying her a lot longer than I have, so I admit I am a bit nervous to jump in too much. The truth is, I read more than I post in Great Debates, and having no formal education in philosophy at all, I do worry sometimes that I am misinterpreting some of what I read. That’s the thing though…in this case, it seems she speaks very plainly about her ideas, and yet both sides seem to misunderstand her. Gives me a complex, that maybe I’M the only one misunderstanding her.
Nah. I’d say it’s the usual situation where the loudest voices on both sides drown out the middle. It’s a good thing that (largely) hasn’t happened in this thread, although there certainly were indications it might.
Also, I don’t think a formal education in philosophy is required at all to be able to evaluate an argument or present a cogent one in turn. I think my posts already make it clear that I agree with you about her ideas, which I think are badly misrepresented, especially by her critics (that I’ve noticed at least), and given how much ad hominem there is, and how poorly those misrepresentations are backed up (witness some of the early posts in this thread), we really should feel more comfortable in dismissing them. (I say this rather blithely, but I’ve often felt worried about speaking my mind about Ayn Rand too. Still speak it though 
)
Well, I certainly appreciated your contributions. It has been an informative thread for me.
I’m here to say one nice, OT thing about Ayn Rand: she liked Fredric Brown (even if not for the same reasons most of us like him), who wrote Martians Go Home
Brown also wrote the immortal:
“The last man on Earth sat alone in a room. There was a knock on the door…”
Shivers. Every time.
Well, this one is pretty human
as is this one, for completely different reasons
Okay, those aren’t real, right? At least the second one sounds completely bogus.
But what’s “human” about “apologist for the weak”? That sounds pretty damn antagonistic, callous and misanthropic.
Specifically, because the naivete is so charming.
Depends on what one means by ‘weak’. If by weak, we mean, lacking the values that some of us think are crucial…strength in the face of adversity, courage, willingness to fight…then, yeah, I can see why one shouldn’t be making apologies for a man who is weak in that way.
If you think weak means those who are unfortunate, poor, disabled…then I agree that her comment comes off as callous.
I have my doubts as to whether Rand was capable of drawing, or inclined to draw, that distinction.
Well, we could fashion any number of alternate definitions that make the comment acceptable among decent people. Perhaps she meant murderers (people weak in ethical or moral practices); Phil Donahue was apologizing for murderers.
A huge problem with her agenda (it cannot remotely be called a philosophy) is the two dimensional simplicity of it. There are looters and moochers! Donahue is an apologist for them! This doesn’t sound any different to me than someone like Rush Limbaugh suggesting that black people are genetically inferior since they live in poverty; that they care less about their children since they fund schools so poorly… They lack strength in the face of adversity or willingness to fight. It’s inherent in their constitutions.
I hope you all realize that the New Yorker link was a satire by John Hodgman, not Rand’s own words.
Hodgman? Not Poe?
I didn’t click the link, but those quotes are certainly…over the top!
She had a thing about weakness, for sure, though.
“The word “We” is as lime poured over men, which sets and hardens to stone, and crushes all beneath it, and that which is white and that which is black are lost equally in the grey of it. It is the word by which the depraved steal the virtue of the good, by which the weak steal the might of the strong, by which the fools steal the wisdom of the sages. "
ETA: Hentor, I don’t know why people often bring up a racist analogy when they are trying to convince me of something. It never works that way with me. I don’t care how Rush Limbaugh twists facts to say that blacks are inferior, it is clear as crystal to me that weak doesn’t always mean poor and unlucky. For many people, including me, it conjures up visions of cowardice. As a matter of fact, the poor and unlucky and disabled are often referred to as strong and courageous.
The last bit, and especially the reference to 2013 had some bells ringing, but it was played too straight. I even checked around but eventually figured it may be true. <hangs head in shame>
The problem is that according to Rand’s philosophy, as long as they aren’t beaten down by the weak/moochers, the strong will succeed on their own merits. There are those in society who due to bad-luck and disability won’t succeed no matter how strong their character. Those are the people that Rand seems to ignore.
Hmm. Well I sure wouldn’t have made the analogy if I was talking to someone else! I would have chosen some other group for whom the effects of systematic intergenerational disadvantage are confused with inherently characterological qualities by conservatives. You have caught my hypocrisy.
Honest to god, I have no idea what you are talking about. I don’t think you are a hypocrite, nor did I imply anything at all about hypocrisy. The idea that you are a hypocrite never occurred to me.