I’ve watched a couple of the clips from Donahue and have read Atlas Shrugged and have suggested it to others. I do think she is rather “pound you over the head repeatedly” in her beliefs and while I think that her characters are cardboard cut-outs of who real people are, I find comfort in the concept that being good at what you do and being rewarded for it is ok. That you can choose to live your life enthusiastic about your achievements, passionate about your successes and diligent with your failures. We live in a world where if you tell a woman she is beautiful, she will point out her flaws. That there is no “I in Team.” Heck, there is even a poster for it. I’m very thin, too thin actually and my mother in law said to me “I hate you, you are so thin.” I like to think I live in a world where my response could have been “Fuck you, lay off the wine.” But we don’t. I work with a girl that has a tremendous body, she works out diligently, she can not appreciate what she has accomplished and only sees where she fails. The best, fastest dealer we have is not appreciated by our management or rewarded in any way, she is treated exactly the same as the worst dealer. Mothers are expected to give up their lives and interests in favor of their childrens, read any thread here, you will see it.
I take her philosophy to encourage me to be the best at whatever it is I do. To be able to celebrate in a way that is healthy. To look at my healthy child and say “I made that!” with the knowledge that I did and the pride in the effort it took to do so.
I watch the show Heroes. My favorite character is Hiro, not because he’s the funny one, but because he is the only one on the show that has a tremendous gift and is excited about it. He isn’t asking that it be taken away, he embraces it. Embracing the good in you and in myself, knowing that the street sweeper that is the best street sweeper in the world can hold his head up to anyone else in the world and have personal value.
She can be a complete blockhead, but I read her and it gives me hope that there will never again be a company that will purchase, frame and laud the statement “There is no I in Team.”
If you are asking for a link to a philosophical debate where someone took that exact position then no, I can not provide such a link.
However, if you don’t have to read very many political threads before you become aware of a virulent leftest presence on these boards whose attitude is exactly that: Anyone who is rich or successful is by virtue of that fact evil and that society should be encouraged to take from them what they have earned and give it to those it deems “less fortunate”. They are textbook examples of what Rand means by an “Altruist”.
I gave an example in an earlier post: suppose I have a night to myself, decide to go rent a DVD, and go back to my apartment and watch it alone. This is an action performed purely to benefit myself. According to the Rand quote cited by Gorsnak, this action would be regarded by most people in society (subscribing as they do to the ethics of altruism) as evil. But that is absurd. I doubt if you would find more than a radical fringe of people who would characterize this action as evil. Barring Peter Singer, I also don’t know of any system of philosophical ethics that would characterize this action as evil, either. Virtually nobody thinks this way. And so I stand by my characterization of Rand’s arguments as involving strawmen.
It’s hard to avoid a debate on this (even though we are in GQ, not GD), but the nature of some of the questions (e.g., what do professional philosophers think of Rand) asked in the OP can’t really be answered without providing opinions and arguments. So I guess that is by way of an apology/explanation for having argumentative posts.
Crank.net separates their candidates into the following categories: fringe, cranky, crankier, crankiest and illucid. The Ayn Rand institute is… “fringe”.
The Cambridge Dictionary of Philosophy does not mention Ayn Rand.
Critics of fiction note that Ayn Rand beats the reader over the head with the most contrived cardboard characters, but grant that her work may have some philosophical value. Philosophers note that she uses straw-man arguments, but demure in judging Rand’s literary qualities. Neither will inveigh upon her economics.
Economists note that any argument for libertarianism better have at least a passing notion of market failure. But maybe Rand’s work has some philosophical or literary merit.
I don’t usually click on adverts, but the one that says “Dr. Seuss meets Ayn Rand” was just too much!
“This book is a cross between Dr. Seuss and Ayn Rand’s Atlas Shrugged,” writes the publisher. Younger children will enjoy the rhyming verse and beautiful, full-color illustrations on every page, while older children and adults will enjoy the strong message that speaks in favor of free markets and against excessive government regulation, bureaucracy, and taxation."
Bleh. Based on the sample, at least, the verse doesn’t scan very well.
I also see a Google ad down there for an “Ayn Rand Dating Service”. The only reason THAT isn’t a horrifying thought is that, for Randites, I imagine that sex is likely to consist of spouting monologues at each other, ala Hank Reardon and Dagny Taggart. Unlikely to produce little Randites.