Rand’s heroes must continually fight against “parasites”, “looters”, and “moochers” who demand the benefits of the heroes’ labor. Edward Younkins describes Atlas Shrugged as “an apocalyptic vision of the last stages of conflict between two classes of humanity — the looters and the non-looters. The looters are proponents of high taxation, big labor, government ownership, government spending, government planning, regulation, and redistribution.”[34]
Galt’s gulch is where they went to get away from society, right?
You can say that my description is a simplification but you can’t say that it’s not accurate since that is what actually happend in the book.
I’m saying it has nothing to do with your original assertion:
“given the fact that plenty of other authors made a lot lot lot more money than she did, we have no choice but to declare Rand an utter failure, in terms of her “message””
Please quote her statement that other writers should not make more money than she did, in the society that we actually live in.
You said it was “her terms”. Please quote where she stated that as her terms. Not what you think her terms might have been, but what her terms actually were.
Libertarianism is a meritocracy where the most talented rise to the top, correct? The success of a book is measured by three things, right? Academic reception, public reception and sales, right? Rand failed on all three accounts. As a philosopher she succeeded brilliantly. Probably the most well know philosopher of the 20th century to the average lay person on the street. Doesn’t save the fact that her books are failures when stacked up against the other top 10 authors of her decade. In fact, she is know for being a horrible author, not a good one. It is her ideas people like.
Well, let’s assume, arguendo, that is true. The obvious question to ask would be: do we live in a Libertarian society?
If we don’t, then why would we apply the rules* of a Libertarian society to one that is not Libertarian? Imagine a communist society and asking why prices don’t rise and fall with market demand. Well, in that society, prices are not tied to market forces.
*rules that you claim exist in a Libertarian society, but that I am only accepting conditionally to see if they would apply in this situation.
that would be a very reasonable reply if we were applying it to a more humble person than Rand.
truth be told, i’m just being contrary because i dislike Rand. but on the other side of the coin, she was rather arrogant, had an INCREDIBLY high opinion of herself and her writings, so it is kind of amusing to me that here, years after, the only people who defend her are die hard fans and to everyone else, she is a joke.
My point is that you don’t have to read everything Marx wrote to spot the flaws in communism. And you don’t have to read everything Rand wrote in order to spot the flaws in objectivism.
That’s what we in the trades call a No True Scotsman fallacy.
How do you determine who the “die hard fans” are, other than people who “defend” her? Alternatively, some of us like to fight ignorance, regardless of what we are a fan of. I am not fan of Ann Coulter, but if you came in here just being “contrary because you don’t like Ann Coulter”, I would correct any mistakes I thought you made regarding her statements or beliefs.
Except we’re not talking about flaws in Objectivism. We’re talking about who takes out the garbage in Galt’s Gulch.
Do you apply the same standard to, say, A Christmas Carol? What a bunch of crap-- everyone knows there are no such things as ghosts!
Ayn Rand was quite clear* that her fictional writing was not meant to be a refection of the world as it actually is. She was not a Naturalistic writer, and had no intention of being one.
*which you might know if you actually read anything she wrote, as opposed to opining on a subject you yourself claim to be ignorant of.
1- Rand had an incredibly high opinion of her writings. whereas academics, universally, pan her writings as far as their literary (not philosophical) value.
2- Nobody much defends her but her fans. She is not a noted philosopher among academics. Her impact maybe but not her actual ideas.
which reminds me, who does take out the trash? how do they get paid? what if i dont want to pay someone and it sits in front of my yard and annoys people. saying she didn’t talk about such trivial details is not the same as explaining the flaws. in fact, saying, oh, she is a naturalistic writer kind of indicates there is no good answer. the flaw remains.
but we are not talking about a purely fictional work with no bearing on life, are we? she is making a statement, right?
You do have to know what Objectivism is though, right? Right? Do you? I’ll be the first to admit that Rand’s ideas have flaws, and some of those flaws are big. If you want I would be happy to discuss them. I’m no Objectivist. But I know what those flaws are because I know what the ideas are. You have absolutely no clue what Rand has written, what her philosophy is, yet you feel comfortable criticising it simply because of how other people who already dislike it have paraphrased it. And I can tell you that most, if not all of the ‘criticism’ that I see of her work is utterly ridiculous and made without any effort to understand or place in context the things that they criticise. In an earlier thread I challenged people who were paraphrasing thus to back up what they said with cites, and I got zip. At least you’re honest enough to admit that you haven’t read anything she’s written. I suspect most of the so called critics haven’t done so either.
Not that I necessarily agree with the nonsense about how a book’s success is measured, but below I’ve quoted how the book has performed overall. I personally don’t think she’s a horrible author at all. She’s not great, but there’s nothing terrible about her writing, and when I first read Atlas Shrugged, it was the ‘mystery’ behind why the world was breaking down that kept me reading. I really was quite engaged by it. It was only after I’d finished the book that I started paying attention to how some of her ‘villains’ resembled real life politicians in my country and the populist policies they were always keen to announce. Admittedly, I still haven’t read the A is A speech
And yet, I watched part of that interview and found that it only reinforced the view of her that I had from previous discussions, from reading summaries of her materials, from talking to other people who have read them. I saw not a damned thing that contradicted anything I have come to expect from her.
So get over yourself. You can either actually address what I’ve said and what is wrong with it, correcting it in the context of what you know of the novel, or…
You can laugh and dismiss it with content free comments such as the above, which on it’s own has no value. But I guess that’s the point, isn’t it? You get to dismiss my point as saying that I don’t know what I’m talking about without actually showing that you know what you’re talking about.
I answered the actual OP…and from the perspective of someone who has READ THE FUCKING BOOK. But sure, if you want me to pick apart your little out of the ass and haven’t read the book plot holes, here:
They produce their own electricity, they have their own water, their own oil and they produce their own food. They are also near a rail line. This is 1930’s America when we didn’t have spy satelites everywhere, now were there a lot of air plane flights and it’s basically in a sparsely populated part of Colorado. All of this is happening when society (in the book) is in a long, slow decline and the PTB have other things to worry about than looking for something they don’t know exists. Oh, and they have a magical ray shield overhead that can shoot down unwanted planes and stuff.
You see, your attempt to find plot holes in a book you never read (but you did hear an interview and no doubt slept at a Holiday Inn Express sometime in the last year) is just a side tract that everyone was ignoring. I figured you’d get a hint at how silly it was when I replied to your first post by quoting you saying you hadn’t read the book, but you just couldn’t get it. Even if it was spot on it has zero relevance to the actual OP of this thread, and is simply your way of shitting on the thread, like so many. Most likely, I’ll get a warning for being so harsh because you shitting on the thread won’t rise to the level where the Mods take note, but this will (‘er, huh? What’s the problem with shitting on the thread? I mean, it’s about Rand and Atlas Shrugged, right?’ ).
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