1. It's a wish-fulfillment fantasy.... A figure like John Galt reaches into deep places inside yourself, and produces intense feelings....
2. It's possible to dissociate a book from its politics... as the conservative grows up and reads more (and better) conservative books, her politics hopefully separate a bit from Rand's extreme and insane Objectivism, even as she retains a great fondness for the books.
3. There are too few works of art in popular culture that have conservative values...
4. Rand's work does get at a crucial truth that almost everyone misses.... Free enterprise is key to human flourishing.... Most defenses of free market capitalism are typically made in a utilitarian lens.... The whole truth takes into account that part of our human nature is a deep drive to find meaning through work, productivity, and even creativity, and that the free enterprise system enables this.... This means that, much like democracy, capitalism is a deeply morally righteous system. This discourse is almost never heard in contemporary society, certainly not in the realm of culture... And I think this is a key reason why so many experience [Rand's] books as a revelation, despite all their shortcomings.
२५ जुलै, २०१४
A conservative who hates Ayn Rand — because he loves Christianity — gives 4 reasons — nice reasons — why other conservatives love her.
Eschewing the usual insults about the heartlessness and greed of Rand-lovers, Pascal-Emmanuel Gobry lists:
याची सदस्यत्व घ्या:
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पोस्ट्स
६८ टिप्पण्या:
As a conservative with libertarian underpinning, I have never wanted to read Rand. I can't really explain this. I think at least in part that it comes from my preference for reading for entertainment, and polemic rarely promises that.
Of course, there is also the fact that, as a conservative with libertarian underpinning, when somebody tells me I should do something, I'm inclined to do the opposite.
Number 4 for me. I was 18 when Atlas Shrugged came out, and it changed my way of looking at the world. Using reason instead of emotion. I didn't love Ayn Rand, but I liked the way she thought.
This means that, much like democracy, capitalism is a deeply morally righteous system.
Actually, democracy is overrated, capitalism, not so much.
One of my Lefty Catholic FB friends posted as an April Fool's joke: "Pope says it's time to take philosophy of Ayn Rand seriously".
While I didn't respond, I thought to myself of the philosophers behind the resurgence of post Vatican II theology: Kant, Hegel, Marx, Nietzsche, Heidegger, Schleirmacher, etc.
Is the integration of any of these guys into Christian theology an easy task? Weren't some of these philosophers as opposed to Christianity & religion in general as was Rand? Yet a Randian theology is seen as a joke, but Liberation Theology has endowed chairs at Pontifical universities. What sense does that make?
And, for all you traditionalists out there, don't go all "Well, that's the problem with modern theology isn't it?" Well, no. That Aristotelian physics & metaphysics were so integrated into Catholic theology that it's the default language of the Church (e.g. "transubstantiation") is a testament to the syncretic brilliance of Medieval Scholasticism. Aristotle doesn't "just fit" with Christianity, either, as any Franciscan Nominalist will be happy to tell you.
The key to political righteousness is the equalv
protection of life, liberty and property. Governments are iether protectors or they are bought by the wolves that we need protection against.
The key ingrediant comes down to good lawyers in trial courts with 12 unintimidated jurors. That system alone is what keeps the wolves restrained.
I was 18 when Atlas Shrugged came out, and it changed my way of looking at the world. Using reason instead of emotion.
For which this quote is extremely relevant:
“There are two novels that can transform a bookish 14-year-kld’s life: The Lord of the Rings and Atlas Shrugged. One is a childish daydream that can lead to an emotionally stunted, socially crippled adulthood in which large chunks of the day are spent inventing ways to make real life more like a fantasy novel. The other is a book about orcs.”
"They're lame human beings" is an option also,….
I am annoyed by the self-conscious use of "she".
I find it much more exclusive than "he" which was understood by the not easily offended to be applicable to either sex or gender or whatever.
Sorry about that minor complaint, but I've been grumpy for most of the week.
My brain has a weird Ayn Rand defense mechanism. So far I have managed to lose three copies of "Atlas Shrugged" before getting past page 250...
There are two typical ways to respond to a person who strives to make a reasoned defense of Atlas Shrugged. One is to respond to reason with reason - ask what it is they like, and see if you can make a reasoned argument against it. But this is the high road, available only if you can attain such effort as is needed to employ reason.
Barring that, the other option is typically to repeat some tired aphorism like a comparison to Tolkien, followed by an argument by assertion, and then a whimsical smirk as if something profound were actually said.
As I've grown older, I've let go of most of Objectivism, but I still like reading the two large novels, Fountainhead and Atlas Shrugged. As for Galt, he was never my favorite. I always gravitated to Dagny Taggart and Hank Rearden. These days, of course, I always feel like Eddie Willers.
I do appreciate the unstinting defense of free markets, that is for sure.
A more practical (or perhaps a less moral) reason for liking Ayn Rand (or parts of her stuff) - Being as she was a good hater, she knew her enemies very well. The best parts of her books are her descriptions of the political/bureaucratic/crony leftist class, its motivations and behaviors. She was really good at pinning these insects to the cork and pulling out their internal organs.
She knew them so well she could be a prophet. An example - She was the first to identify the "watermelon" movement in one of her late essays. This was back when environmentalism wasn't a partisan or ideological matter. She predicted that socialism was stymied by the failure of its original purpose, to improve the material circumstances of the working class, as this political theory could, unfortunately, be measured and experimentally falsified. So in order to continue the justification of socialist means, ends had to be found that were much less tangible and falsifiable.
Her writing sucks, that's the problem. She beats the drum too hard.
Political novels tend to be "childish daydreams", until their fans kill you.
And they aren't usually great literature. "Uncle Toms Cabin" and Eugene Sue's "The Wandering Jew" (quite important to 19th century European "liberal" propaganda) are pretty clumsy potboilers.
Arguably the most influential political novel of all time was Chernyshevsky's "What Is to Be Done?". Its only about 1/2 as long as some of Rands, but less readable, IMHO.
Rands books are in this tradition. Being Russian even her literary style is in this tradition, in parts anyway.
Ayn Rand was a brilliant philosopher but a bad fiction writer.
#4 seems the best one.
I'm no conservative - and my libertarianism is of a deeply non-Objectivist sort, drawing on Hayek and Mises and Nozick - but Rand's enthusiasm for free markets is refreshing.
Even if she was a terrible writer, by purely novelistic standards.
(Semi-contra YoungHegelian, I'd say there's no obviously significant problem with Kant's philosophy or ethics, either from a free-market libertarian or Christian standpoint.
After all, the Categorical Imperative is essentially just the Golden Rule.
Nietzsche? Well, I don't comprehend any of his influence on modern Catholic theology, but then Nietzsche is pretty nebulous in most cases.
[And I say this as someone who's read his entire non-posthumous corpus and enjoyed doing so, both from the literary and philosophical perspectives.
At least the man could write and think, which is more than I can affirm of Heidegger, who's impenetrable. ]
The idea of a Christian theology basing itself on Nietzsche at any level is ... baffling.)
Anthem is certainly Rand's shortest and most readable novel.
@buwaya,
Being Russian even her literary style is in this tradition, in parts anyway.
Excellent point & post. How Russian Rand was in spirit gets glossed over because, well, she wrote in English in America, But in her style, her deep rooted antipathies, and her personal life, she was, indeed, very Russian.
Donna B. said...
I am annoyed by the self-conscious use of "she".
I generally stop reading as soon as a writer demonstrates a preference for shallow pop-feminist stunts over proper writing.
Sorry about that minor complaint, but I've been grumpy for most of the week.
Carry on.
There are two typical ways to respond to a person who strives to make a reasoned defense of Atlas Shrugged. One is to respond to reason with reason - ask what it is they like, and see if you can make a reasoned argument against it. But this is the high road, available only if you can attain such effort as is needed to employ reason.
The only problem with this statement is that it is impossible to make a "reasoned defense" of Atlas Shrugged and Objectivism. Defenses of Rand's ridiculous philosophy are based purely on faith and intellectual immaturity. It is equivalent to trying to reason with a young earth creationist or a believer in astrology.
The only reasonable responses to childish beliefs held by adults is ridicule or pity.
Mayn Keimpf! The power of Ayn Rand remains a grade B sick mind control for teutonic literalists everywhere.
And Rand is the ultimate hypocrite. Late in life she acquiesced to accepting Medicare and Social Security. I guess you just don't need the government until you do.
What buwaya (11:51) said. John Galt leaves me cold, for the most part. (How do you stay awake through that Goldawful 40-plus-page monstrosity of a radio address?) But the machinations of the various "moochers" are another matter, and they differ from reality mainly in degree, not kind.
These "reason" fans are too emotive for my taste.
I consumed the Fountainhead when I was 15 and Roark made a real impression. I also devoured Anthem. I never made it past page 20 of Atlas Shrugged. I still think the Fountainhead and Anthem are great books for thinking about the value of the individual and the danger of the collective. And unlike 1984 and Brave New World, they don't just warn of the dangers of collectivism; they posit a way to break free.
Still, the true libertarian author for me is Robert Heinlein, who did a lot less speechifying and a lot more illustration of how one can live the libertarian life.
I should probably re-read AS some time - I have a lot ahead of it on my queue - and see how I receive it now. It -is- a long novel, but I find nearly any novel of that period hard to get through, so that isn't saying much. I remember Galt's speech at the end being interminable. (Figuratively speaking, of course.) Then again, that's where the philosophy is laid out as plainly and in as concentrated a form as Rand ever would, so I'm tempted to just re-read that part and skip the story.
Galt himself is a Mary Sue, so it's hard to get excited for his character. (Dagny and Hank were indeed easier to identify with. Sometimes I even see where Dr. Stadler is coming from, all too terribly well.) In general, the story doesn't grab the thalamus quite like a novel you "can't put down". You feel like you have to carry it, like a suitcase.
I sometimes wonder how Rand might have explored other possible characters. What if, for example, someone had chosen freely to use his own wealth to help the poor, simply because he delighted in it? Rather than because someone else told him it was moral? How might she have viewed that?
Ann: is that really true, or is it more of a love for that turn of phrase? :-) And who exactly are you referring to as "'reason' fans"?
I've seen Rand foes criticize Rand fans as being too cold. And I've seen said foes use reason to criticize the philosophy, and I've also seen them try and fail to use said reason. (Freder, for example, continues to be unable to give anything beyond ad hominems and arguments by repetition. If I had to pick between Objectivism and otherwise by each side's supporters...)
I honestly can't pick out your referent, although I remember you describing Atlas as a "sloshy melodrama", and might infer that you don't much care for the philosophy under it... I also remember a crowd of libertarians driving you out of a room most unceremoniously. But you also don't walk any one well-tread road either.
Objectivism does seem to have a knack for putting people off even if they utter the right shibboleths. In the past, I tried to use it to come to various conclusions, and the result was more often some O-adherent saying "that's wrong" than "that's right". In the long run, about all I could do is appreciate the unfettered defense of capitalism, and tolerate the rest. But this story is not yet over.
#4 is the main thing for me. Capitalism is morally the right thing to do, forget the "invisible hand" argument. It's the right thing to do and Communism is the evil thing to do.
Period, end of story.
From what I've seen on other forums, the conservative base of the GOP loves Rand because her philosophy goes over their head.
They only know that she defended capitalism as a moral good, so they cherry-pick that.
They ignore Rand's views on religion, on sex, on military interventionism and on the military-industrial complex (e.g., "Project X" in "Atlas Shrugged").
Instead, they Scotch-tape Rand's views on capitalism to Christian fundamentalism and interventionist militarism.
Unfortunately, no matter how much Scotch tape they use, those things don't stick together well.
Freder - your endless mockery of conservatives will have it's comeuppance.
The biggest mistake re Rand is to think of her works as philosophical. She mean them to be, to a degree, but only to a degree. She herself wasn't really a philosopher. She had a set of beliefs or opinions on various matters, that for some reason she felt she had to justify in a consistent structure.
Being a conservative I can't understand why, truly. Some sort of megalomania maybe. Or I guess it was some sort of lack she felt in not having a philosophical structure to oppose to what she saw as an internally consistent socialist philosophy.
A futile attempt.
They are really political works. It is their political influence that makes them significant.
Few people took her philosophy seriously, and for the most part these were very marginal people.
Complaints about her philosophy are useless and quite beside the point.
"Ann: is that really true, or is it more of a love for that turn of phrase? :-) And who exactly are you referring to as "'reason' fans"?"
It's really true and one of my deepest beliefs. Of course, my deepest belief is that people don't really believe what they say they believe. Puzzle that out.
The only reasonable responses to childish beliefs held by adults is ridicule or pity.
I'd think you'd be used to the pity and ridcule by now.
Alex said...
Freder - your endless mockery of conservatives will have it's comeuppance.
Oh. He was mocking? All this time I've been laughing at him.
[The proposition: 'these "reason" fans are too emotive for my taste' is] really true and one of my deepest beliefs. Of course, my deepest belief is that people don't really believe what they say they believe. Puzzle that out.
Sure, I'll bite - do you believe people, in essence, feel what they feel, and then construct moral arguments to rationalize those feelings?
It's amusing to me how those who dislike Rand the most act as though she remains an existential threat to their very sanity.
Crack might be interested in this by the same author:
http://theweek.com/article/index/263057/the-christian-case-for-reparations
(And yes, I saw the irony, ha ha, clever, moving on.)
"And because she rejects my beloved superstitions!"--reason number 5, omitted*
*Basically the same reason "liberals" (and by "liberals," I mean of course "tax-happy, coercion-addicted, power-tripping State-cultists."
Ann, are you Fen?
Why is it that people don't get the fact that the book is fictional? In fact it's science fiction. Entertaining? I thought so.
Does it have message of self reliance and individualism? Yes. But in the end it's not a book to live your life by. It's a book to read and feel good about because it lets you imagine a world where people get what they deserve.
A college economics professor recommended that I read Atlas Shrugged and it turned me from liberal to conservative and helped me to take personal responsibility for me life. That took awhile but once I owned myself, then I was able to surrender myself. You can't surrender what you don't own. C.S. Lewis's Mere Christianity helped me with that process. It makes perfect sense to me in hindsight and I know other Christians who had a similar experience.
I still recommend Atlas Shrugged to people who I think might have their eyes opened by it. But that's not many. I've never thought of her as a great writer but a great philosopher. I have a corporate lawyer friend who works in an industry that is heavily regulated by the government and she is reading it for the first time and can't believe how prescient it was/is.
Ayn Rand believed the greatest philosopher was Aristotle. She found Kant's philosphy undermining of man's REASON, his pursuit of happiness and self interest (The Virture of Selfishness). Objectivism was designed to be a way to seize the day, allowing everyone to pursue their dreams and develop their talents (and fortunes) as best they were able. Self determination and capitalism, in a land founded on the fundamental principles of the American Dream, was what Ms. Rand believed could go a long way to cure the ills of this world.
Hegelian:
There's a video of Buckley calling Liberation Theology a kind of 'baptised Marxism.'
Very few people will read and understand The Critique Of Pure Reason, The Science Of Logic, or seem to get what a radical revaluation of all values would mean.
I had to run back to British Empiricism and American Pragmatism after a few years of Germanity, without always understanding a good deal of it.
Someone will hear Cornel West give a talk on NPR and find it reasonable enough without thinking the ideas through or knowing the pedigree. Someone else has had green thinking drilled into their heads at school with a healthy dose of movies featuring corporations as bad guys, environmentalists as heroes.
It's part of the furniture, conventional wisdom and the culture in many quarters, and that's enough to earn votes, create a political platform and direct the political economy.
Ayn Rand's Objectivism borrows a lot from Kant and leaves a lot to be desired, and her philosophy attracted many cultish adherents ( I loathe didactic novels), Objectivism may well lead to anarchy, but...
Rand watched her father and her family lose everything to the Communists, which divided the world into the Nomenklatura and everyone else...she knew them well, and she recognized some similar tendencies over here.
It ain't Communism, but I'm fairly convinced that much Center-Left Statist and Left-liberal sentiment leads then to systems which simply fail upon the rocks of human nature and political reality...their ideals impossibly utopian...making governments of experts, false-promising technocrats and top-down faceless bureaucrats and coalitions of activists...claiming a lock on 'science and 'reason.'
These kinds of governments generally aren't responsive nor conducive to maintaining liberty, generally running up debt, and failing eventually. They also can corrode people's will and create twisted incentives and dependency, less opportunity and more 'classism.'
Every individual floating along the river of a 'majority' in a 'pure democracy' should really think twice about politicians who utter such words.
That's what I take from Rand. Communism was a disaster. Liberty matters deeply, but how you define, understand and preserve liberty can matter just as much, and many people will plow right over individual creativity and liberty in pursuit of something else, if not Communism, exactly.
Liberation theology is one example.
My wife in her teens read all of Rand's novels. She confessed to me that at the time she didn't know they had anything to do with philosophy. She thought they were love stories. I confessed that she was right about the love stories, but wrong about knowing nothing about philosophy. She actually got it. Most people are too hung up on politics and miss the most important parts about Rand's novels, which are about esteem and empathy in personal relationships, both friendship and romantic love.
I've always thought that the raging, disdainful criticisms of Rand and her writing go far beyond any legitimate merits of the case. It just occurred to me now that there is a similarity between the treatment of Ayn Rand and Sarah Palin: both women are seen in many circles as simply beyond the pale of serious discussion, hence, there is no need to recognize them, their ideas, or their accomplishments with anything but derision. I smell tribalism and fear.
Ayn Rand attacks something at the heart of religion - original sin and the cult of death. Ultimately, for her, this reglious concept is at the heart of collectivism. Both socialism and religion focus on avoiding success in life. To Rand, both socialism and religion focus on avoiding failure. If I were a Christian, I'd be very wary of Rand as well. But I'm not and I'm a fan. I don't think Rand's objectivism is the perfect way to live life, as she did. But I do believe she challenges each of to erect our own rationally chosen values and then to live the hell out of them. And that last point - choosing our own values and living them - that scares the religious folks and the socialists the most. And that's the biggest reason I'm a Rand fan, even if I disagree with on a few minor points.
Rand was a Russian-Jew who experienced life - and suffered -under the Bolsheviks. This lead her to develop an anti-Bolshevik philosophy, based on the communists successful formula. IOW, an atheistic, universal, and internationalist philosophy, based on the primacy of economics.
Its no accident, that so many ex-leftists go from Communism or Socialism, straight to Rand-ism.
To give Ayn Rand her due, she said she loved America, it's dreams and ideals, as intended by the founders, "passionately". Considering what she fled from, Lenin's and Stalin's Soviet Union and all the horror they were, and what Putin would like to reconstitute, that's quite a testimony. Given a choice, I'd rather live in an "Objectivist" America than a liberal one, as defined by Obama, Clinton, Polosi and Reid. "Looney Tune Liberals", as Limbaugh defines them, will have us all mouthing socialist bromides and living in fear of what "the crowd" thinks. Give me liberty, the right to go my own way, and rise or fall by my own lights, not those blinding me daily with political correctness. Rand saw and knew the dangers of "central control" and had the sense to be a strong voice railing against tyrants who's deprive us of even the most basic of freedoms. The right to think. The right to REASON.
These days, of course, I always feel like Eddie Willers.
I do appreciate the unstinting defense of free markets, that is for sure.
Back when I first got on the Internet (1997 via WebTV), I was faced with coming up with a screen name. You can see which one I selected and I have never used another one.
I knew I didn't have the drive or skill to be one of Rand's Ubermensch, but I sure could admire them and could be a good foot soldier.
Luckily, I did not read Atlas Shrugged until I was 38. (I was a brain-dead liberal up to that point)
By that age, I was mature enough to grasp the truths as they were revealed and not react like some over passionate 18 year old teenager who would later dismiss thier childish beliefs and throw this very worthy philosophical baby out with the bath water.
Any Rand died a Communist on welfare.
Enjoyed everyone’s comments. I read the article as it was featured on Hot Air. It wasn’t very useful. Paul Brinkley succinctly describes the sort of critiques with a smirk of Rand [which Freder was kind enough to give us, after blowing off the dust] that I’ve read for near 40 years now.
Buwaya: “she knew her enemies very well” – many have relooked at her during Obama’s rise because of her powerful attacks on statists. Roger Kimball, read in PJ Media, a critic of Rand was open to a reconsideration
Chrisnavin points are well taken – it is why Rand’s moral defense of capitalism is more compelling than ‘it creates wealth’ – my present course is to try and understand how Buckley as a Catholic uses his morality to defend free markets – so I’ve begun with Burke.
Fandor underlines something I experience from reading Rand as a young man amidst a cynical culture- is a renewed love of America, a nation born from an idea.
Does Ann’s idea of what people say/believe suggest an understanding of what is shared in private and what is professed in public? It is worth puzzling over.
Two asides- I was in a social setting with Rand admirers and this young fellow was also enthusiastic for Ann Coulter who he considered a Dagny like hero. Watching CSpan, during a book signing a man asked Ann to sign his copy of Atlas Shrugged. Were they confused? Hardly. They are indications that my present course will prove fruitful.
Second aside- I last re-read Atlas Shrugged with an eye toward her idea of anti-life. I couldn’t sense how it might manifest in the world. Then global warming landed and they are frighteningly anti-life.
http://www.nationalreview.com/articles/222482/big-sister-watching-you/flashback
I still think Mark Twain talking about Fennimore Cooper is the greatest criticism ever, but apparently significant amounts of folks have liked this over the years as much as I Twain.
"In this fiction everything, everybody, is either all good or all bad, without any of those intermediate shades which, in life, complicate reality and perplex the eye that seeks to probe it truly. This kind of simplifying pattern, of course, gives charm to most primitive story-telling. And, in fact, the somewhat ferro-concrete fairy tale the author pours here is, basically, the old one known as: The War between the Children of Light and the Children of Darkness. In modern dress, it is a class war. Both sides to it are caricatures."
While I will be starting "Everybodys Buckley" in the vein of Welle's Everybodys Shakespeare of course I understand Rand was reaching different folks than Chambers was writing for and so Chambers misses the mark in taking the work so seriously after saying that is the biggest news about it. True beliefs are exposed after many words used.
Oh, and as GinGeR I know a hell of a lot more about H. Roark than any of you could possibly imagine.
I am the one and only true authority as other gingers ain't round these parts.
Lovely redheads ain't got nothing to do with this neither.
"The question becomes chiefly: who is to run that world in whose interests, or perhaps, at best, who can run it more efficiently?"
This is a link to Chambers which is quite interesting indeed.
From almost any page of Atlas Shrugged, a voice can be heard, from painful necessity, commanding: “To a gas chamber — go!” From Whittaker Chambers review of Atlas Shrugged
Tenderness anyone?
Is Hillary Clinton Ayn Rand, one of Crack's 400 year old diety's?
Sure sure plausible deniable situations could occur, but for now my truth is Hillary Clinton is Ayn Rand.
"There are ways of dealing with such wickedness, and, in fact, right reason itself enjoins them." --Chambers
Okay looks like I might have made a mistake.
One.
But I haven't read Twain on Cooper yet again so keep your knickers dry.
But the above, quoted from Whittaker Chambers, might just be one of the best sentences ever.
Maybe.
If Gobry's aim was to show empathy, why didn't he scrap reasons 1-3 after he'd written 4? The first three all seem like patronizing allowances for how well-meaning people can develop irrational attachments to worthless blather, and they don't strike me as particularly nice. Only number 4 is anchored in a recognition that there is something of genuine value in Rand's work that might justify a measure of high regard.
I can understand a committed Christian finding Rand's views on personal morality repellent (I don't agree with those views either). And I understand why her writing style is not everyone's cuppa tea, even apart from that insufferable radio speech (though it does give me a chuckle to see her criticized for featuring two-dimensional characters! in a dystopian novel). But that thing Gobry said in #4, that's why she's hated by some, and that's why she's enduringly admired by others. Well, that plus it's fun to watch the haters splutter incoherently.
Levi Starks said...
Why is it that people don't get the fact that the book is fictional? In fact it's science fiction. Entertaining? I thought so.
...
7/25/14, 2:57 PM
Precisely. It has a variety of concepts, but concentrates on those concepts. It's entertaining and thought provoking to play out concepts - especially such expansive concepts such as capitalism, religion, communism, government rule.
Too many take things as literal, particularly when arguing against such things ("we can't afford to go to the restaurant" .."so you want use to starve?!"). Indeed, this is what Atlas Shrugged does, but it is exploring concepts and painting black and white repercussions - because some people are too stupid/distracted/overwhelmed to identify such in the myriad of tasks that we call life.
This is what such books do. It isn't a cookbook; it drives one to apply the concepts to our own lives - what if - to entertain our mind, create focus for our brains.
The frequent complaint that admirers of Ayn Rand's works are immature and childish is tiresome. It is an Alinsky attack to insult rather than debate on the merits.
Such accusations of childishness are pretty surprising because they most often come from the religious right. People who profess a belief in magical beings and yet call those who support individualism and freedom childish are pretty hard to take seriously.
"It's amusing to me how those who dislike Rand the most act as though she remains an existential threat to their very sanity."
No, its that those who see Rand as the tyrannical crackpot she was are fearful of the danger to all of us when those who subscribe to her "virtue of selfishness" lunacy attain positions of power as heads of great corporations and financial institutions, or in government, (e.g., Alan Greenspan, former Chairman of the Fed, ardent Randian and former member of her close inner circle.)
"My wife in her teens read all of Rand's novels. She confessed to me that at the time she didn't know they had anything to do with philosophy. She thought they were love stories."
????!!!!
I guess they can bee seen that way, if one's idea of love requires domination and rape as necessary components of the love affair.
"I confessed that she was right about the love stories...."
Holey Moley!!
In the story, Dagny leaves Hank for John. Pretty much because she considers John to be better than Hank.
Funny, Robert, I thought you liked the kind of rape and domination where the woman was doing it to the man.
Evidently you are not familiar with the romance novel genre. There is a reason they are called "bodice rippers".
Mises once referred to Rand as "the most courageous man in America"
Not bad, given the source
There is no such thing as greed. There is only theft.
"Atlas Shrugged" is one book that influenced me when I was young. The other is "Voyage From Yesteryear" (by Jim Hogan) which I liked much better. There is also the modern version of "Atlas Shrugged" called "The Transhumanist Wager".
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