Otherwise known as the Der Trihs definition. 
Joyce had an artistic purpose, not a political/ideological one, and thus is far more forgivable.
Right, but do you find it of such literary or philosophic merit that the burden is on the educational system to justify not teaching it? Because I really think those who think it should be a part of the curriculum need to make the argument why.
I agree that it doesn’t seem inherently evil. Saying so is substantiveless rhetoric.
I had a high school English class that gave us the option of reading Anthem, 1984, or Brave New World for a lesson on dystopian literature. I don’t actually remember which one I ended up doing my report on, but I’ve since read all three. Two of them are must read classic works of literature. One of them is not.
That isn’t a philosophy, that is a slogan. And not an accurate one. Ayn Rand was a miserable self-centered nasty prick to people who knew her.
Locke’s philosophy was the pursuit of life, liberty and property, and then explained exactly why in a logical fashion. Jefferson substituted “happiness” so as not to appear so crass.
Happiness is a passing thing, like enjoying family and a good meal at Christmas with no fights. Anyone who expects to be happy all the time is loopy.
Most of us have serious, difficult and challenging things to do before we become worm food.
I’m not against happiness, by all means enjoy it when it is there. But the happiest people I know are severely mentally challenged special needs people who are around family constantly. And they have really bad days and weeks too.
My own happiness if fine when it happens, but it isn’t a moral achievement, it is a passing emotion. A moral achievement is an accomplishment on behalf of another. Like getting black people the right to vote, or gay people the right to marry. Helping a client win a case. Doing something for myself is providing for a need or indulging a desire. Anyone who thinks happiness is getting food, shelter, clothing, sex or entertainment as a moral achievement utterly lacks an understanding of morality, which is empathy for others.
I think his meaning is, “It’s not an assumption; it’s objective experienced fact.”
I think he’s wrong, of course; I understand Rand well enough to know I don’t agree with her. I’ve read some of her non-fiction books, such as The Ayn Rand Reader, (a collection of essays) where she attempts to present her opinions in clear, non-allegorical language. She succeeds in making herself quite clear. She doesn’t succeed in being in the least convincing to the vast majority of us who’ve looked into her viewpoints.
Of course, Randian libertarianism is almost as famous as idealistic communism for sponsoring “No True Scotsman” defenses. Any time anyone points out a valid objection, Rand’s defenders are quick to say, “That’s not what she meant.”
And, no. That doesn’t cut the mustard. It is what she meant, and it is weasel tripe.
I’ve always loved Flatland. May I tell you what I was doing at midnight on Dec. 30, 1999? I was reading Flatland. (Part II of that book begins, “It was the last day but one of the 1999th year of our era…”)
I’ve always detested Plato’s Republic. The fact that he has to base his society on deliberately lying to the populace (!) is repugnant. (I give him just a tiny slice of credit for his being ashamed of it.)
I’ve never read More’s Utopia. I have read Looking Backward, and largely enjoyed it.
I read Walden II, and thought it was a load of bollocks. Skinner depicts the kind of “land of the blind” that a one-eyed man could become king of overnight. A world where everyone is conditioned to avoid confrontation and aggression? What a fucking ripe peach! Some kid is going to trip and stumble, and accidentally hit one of his classmates – and realize how incredibly empowering it is. Bingo: Hitler II.
(National Lampoon brutalized it in its parody, “Buchenwald II.”)
No, I see no reason it needs to be taught for literary reasons. I’m not a literary critic, I just know what I like. I had to read The Fountainhead and Tess of the d’Urbervilles, among others, in my senior year HS English class. I liked the former better than the latter, but that’s just me. Thomas Hardy isn’t my cup of tea.
I would put AR’s stuff in the realm of popular fiction. Not unlike Leon Uris or James Mitchener. I think the folks who insist her writing is “terrible” are reacting more to their dislike of her philosophy than her prose. Although I do admit that the speeches are too heavy handed for a good work of fiction. Still, you can skip them (as I think most people do) without losing anything of the story.
Yes. You’re right about this.
But I think you still misunderstand me. I’m not saying Rand is convincing or correct, or “If only you understood her, you would agree with her”. I’m merely saying that there is nothing in her writing that is worthy of hatred or contempt.
…band name? 
…and this is a pretty good one, too.
I think this is fair. What is contemptuous is what people have made from it.
Hm… Hatred, maybe not. But contempt, yes.
I cited the “train in the tunnel” scene from AS, and, especially, the breakdown, afterward, of who was hurt. That was a wholly contemptible display of cowardice on her part: she refused to address even the possibility that a good person might be the victim of an industrial accident.
I cited the “anti-life principle” from AS, where she tried to write a convincing argument that altruists (say, those who created the modern Social Security system) are “anti-life.” An honest opponent can argue that the SS system doesn’t accomplish what it should, or even that its objectives can never be accomplished by the laws of economics. But to say we’re “anti-life” because we want to provide old-age pensions is…contemptible.
I cited Ellsworth Toohey, in The Fountainhead, who is contemptible because he is written to show Rand’s contempt for others, and in a childish, two-dimensional, cartoonish, straw-man form. No one actually believes what she depicted him believing. (To her credit, she matured, as a writer, between TF and AS, and set aside the “giggling villain” that she had made of Toohey.)
John Mace: I only recently read my first Michener – Hawaii – and I have, in past, read some four or five Leon Uris novels. I think that Ayn Rand is the least literary of these three – but not by a whole damn lot. She fits in their company well enough. All three write in a sort of breathless melodramatic style, and, really, there isn’t anything wrong with it. It’s good page-turning soap opera.
Beats the hell out of Gabriel Garcia Marquez! I read One Hundred Years of Solitude and considered it one hundred hours of utterly wasted time. At least Michener and Uris and Rand have a story to tell!
You think a writer is worthy of contempt because they do not address shades of grey in their works?
Hawaii was OK, but I liked Centennial and The Source much better.
Page turner is a good characterization for all three. You can rank them however you like.
In fact, she did mention that there were innocent children on that train. Rand was often asked about this, but not from your point of view. She was asked why there were innocent children, not why there were not.
She included the innocent because she was not describing a religion-centric universe in which a God punishes only the guilty, and spares the innocent. A society like that in Atlas crushes everyone, guilty and innocent alike. In fact she only mentioned a handful of people on that train, omitting the “masses” of people of indeterminate convictions . . . exactly how it would be in reality. Her point, of course, was simply to show that not everyone aboard was an innocent victim, some were directly or indirectly responsible for the catastrophe awaiting them. For them, Karma.
I thought his land run by philosophers was supposed to be detested and obviously impossible. But Leo Strauss and others have disagreed with me. I thought the point of the whole dialogue was to show that the world is an imperfect place and justice, the topic of discussion and definition, was making the best of it. But what do I know? The bit about the cave and the people only being able to see the shadows of reality has always struck me as a useful analogy to the point that our senses see so little of each of their spectrums that we can only start to infer what reason itself could develop into as its own reality.
If you really want to hear a fantasy allegory about being persecuted by jealous hordes - it’s a lot easier to just listen to a Rush album.
I didn’t say that, of course. I said that it was Rand’s contempt for others, especially a very large majority of the citizenry of western civilization, that makes her work contemptible.
Actually, I agree with you, and shouldn’t have sneered at all of The Republic, only the parts where he actually describes the Republic itself. The analogy of the cave is kind of nifty, and, you’re right, it is analogous to the limitations of our senses. Of course, Plato goes on to suggest that there may be ways around the senses, so that we can sense reality directly, and I think that’s a load.
I had always thought he was describing his Republic as the best possible human society, and one he would like to see come about. I ought to give him credit for not imagining an absolutely flawless utopia, and for having to make some shame-faced concessions to the ugly facts of real human nature. That he might have been trying to demonstrate that the Republic was not a good place never occurred to me. At this point, I do not know; you’ve raised enough doubts in my mind.
I taught Anthem one year, but students said it was poorly written and that they’d rather read a different dystopian novel.