Reading and listening to libertarians talk about their philosophy and gush about Ayn Rand they came across as slightly fascist to me. I then saw a program about Ayn Rand on C-SPAN which had interviews of her. It seems like her followers exagerate and distort what she says.
Rand wrote in the 40’s and technology has changed a lot since then. These libertarians bug me with their supposed “scientific objectivism.” How can you be scientific without being objective?
Redundant and repetative.
Shouldn’t the scientifically objective think cars are garbage since planes were doing 400+ mph in the 40’s.
I proposed making accounting mandatory in high school on a libertarian board and they jumped all over me. Mandatory contradicts libertarianism apparently. Maybe we should stop making school mandatory.
>>Well, I never had a Rand stage, but I did go through the process of believing in some equally stupid things during the halycon days of my youth. Is that good enough?
Well, ITR, yeah, I guess so - you did also answer my question, after all.
And, hey, Tapioca, great quote also in answer to my question. I went through my first Ayn Rand orgy while I was taking muscle relaxers for my back - it didn’t hit me at the time that she used words like “concretizes”.
Ah, well, can’t we allow someone who is trying to express powerful and unusual ideas some great leeway in writing cheesy novels to do it? I mean, look at Tolkien - he wrote cheesy novels and everybody loves him now - and didn’t even express anything. Call me what you will, I still think Francisco d’Anconia’s speech about money is a pretty impressive achievement.
I think Rand is pretentious and, essentially, heartless. I think her “philsophies” are something for weak people to cling on to. Her work reads like something that is about to drown in its own reflection. But to hell with what I say. In Tobias Wolf’s new novel, Old School, there is a hillarious (fictional) account of a boy’s obsession with her until she visits his school and he realizes what she really stands is. Old School is a great read, if only for that.
I read several of her books during my Rand stage - actually I think We the Living is her strongest fiction work (and shortest). It’s less about her doctrine of unemotional existence and more about the struggle against communism.
My impression is that one of the biggest knocks against her was the hypocrisy with which she lived her own life - despite her claims for moral absolutism, she evidently carried on an affair with a subordinate while both of them were married to other people.
I agree. I read Anthem, I’m kind of ashamed to say, back in high school because I learned that Rush2112 was based on it. I kind of liked it. But then I tried The Fountainhead and Atlas Shrugged and just lost interest.
Crafter_Man, I assume you mean LaVeyan Satanism. Christian scholar Os Guiness referred to LaVeyan as Randians in black robes L
Napier- Nathaniel Branden’s first book on his relationship & fallout with Rand- JUDGEMENT NIGHT. It’s been revised & is available under another title. I haven’t read it yet.