Objectivism

[Trialbyfire]

Most activism targets government policy and the private sector for a reason: those are major sites of power. I am active and do volunteer for different organizations. Yet, in my experience, the people I know who read and worship Rand are hardly ever activists. They're usually business people who, again, espouse productivity and competition as if their life depended on it. And as someone else has said, the people I know who love Rand have never been challenged, or targeted as a member of a group, for discrimination.

If you categorize charitable fund raising/donations and voluntary working with handicapped children, to be non-activist, then I personally fall within the non-activist category and a Rand reader.

 

Having said that, with reference to Objectivism, why do people do "good"? Are the reasons 100% altruistic or are these personal needs being met, even to the level of feeling you're doing the "right" thing, just a different aspect of self-interest? Something to consider. In this, I embrace Objectivism, since I do personally get something from my charitable/voluntary works, in that it feels like the "right" thing to do. As expressed to another member, when I do something that feels "right", it's like there's a bell inside of me that rings, acknowledging that it's the "right" thing to do, being true to my core values.

 

No. They don't write the curriculum. In Canada, experts at provincial levels write the curriculum. And right now, depending on which province you live, you either have curriculum aiming at critical thinking or curriculum aimed at producing flexible autonomous workers.

Perhaps curriculum isn't the most appropriate word to use. Selection of a large percentage of courses and electives, including direction, whether academic, trade or art, is within the control of Secondary school students, reliant on what grade you're in.

 

You've just exemplified with dexterity the problem with Rand. Really, we're going to isolate, out of the 13-17% people who live in poverty (in Canada that's people who earn less then 15 000 a year), the 33% which are single parents to say that... what? It is such a miniscule population that they don't matter? Compound that with the fact that in the rental market, single mothers, people with mental or physical disabilities, people of color and the elderlies are all at a disadvantage (regardless of their income unless they are very rich) and you've proven my point: only people who have unquestioned privilege fail to see the problem with Rand's individualism. And again, excluding populations, in an argument about equality, is far from being objective. If you really believe it is objective, please clarify how it could be.

What I did, was to illustrate that the example you used, affects a little over 4% of the population. No system can accommodate for everyone. It's not possible.

 

You failed to address the choice that single mothers can make, which is either to adopt out or to have an abortion. Keeping your child is a choice, whether it's prolife which could either be religion or prolife based or just plain wanting to keep the child. Regardless of any of the above reasons, it's all done with some self-interest in mind.

 

I linked the two questions because they bring forth the challenges of international immigration. Are we really free to change ourselves that easily? What to make of the doctor from war-thorn Sudan who finds him.herself driving a cab in the streets of Montreal?

I applaud the Sudanese who got out of an untenable situation through choice and then chose to find some form of employment, rather than subsist on governmental hand-outs. If their employment isn't sufficient to live alone, what about the potential choice of living with others, hence reducing their output for living expenses?

Also, I was wondering: do you think my grandfather 'chose' to be a soldier?

While his choices appeared to be limited, as represented by your post, he did make a choice.

[Joe Normal]

Here are my problems with objectivism:

 

1. People can't be heroic. They can certainly do heroic acts, but it's impossible to be heroic all the time. People are limited, weak, flawed, and basically animals with some reasoning ability and intelligence grafted on top. We aren't heroes.

 

If you look at it, where are the Randian heroes in the real world? There aren't any. Great businessmen are often fat smoking addicts, or unscrupulous double-dealers. Most superb athletes are embarrassingly flawed off the pitch or court. As for our best political leaders...ahahaha. Even saintly old Nelson Mandela presided over record increases in crime, HIV, and financial deterioration, Ghandi saw India break apart and hundreds of thousands massacred etc.

 

Greatness can be achieved in action and talent, but not in character.

 

2. Having individual happiness as the sole moral goal goes against survival and human nature. We evolved to have *group* survival as the sole goal of the species, not individual survival. Human morality inherently has a collectivist component, that is why individuals sometimes perform sacrificial acts for the benefit of the group e.g. during disasters or wars. A group of 1000 perfectly selfish people will generally lose out to a group of 1000 people who cooperate to further group interests where necessary. Furthermore, the best way to achieve personal happiness is to help others to some extent, not to live entirely selfishly. Do you know any 100% selfish people who are happy and life nice, well-balanced lives? I don't.

 

So, Rand's conception of morality goes against millions of years of evolution, and against observation and experience in the real world.

 

3. Reason as the only absolute also goes against reality and logic. As Hume pointed out, reason is and can only be the slave of the passions. It is not our reason that makes us enjoy tasty food, it is a pure emotion. Ditto with falling in love, creating great art & culture, telling jokes and so on. Reason is simply a tool which tells us how to do understand and do things. It does not tell us *what* to do, it does not make us *want* X over Y, or vice versa. Emotions do that. Ironically despite heavily criticizing Kant, Rand falls into the trap of thinking reason alone can make value judgements, the same error Kant made.

 

I agree with most of her other observations on individualism and productive achievement, and the evils of collectivism in most cases. I just think her philosophy is contradicted by both logic and our observations of the real world. It is quite possible to have a logically coherent, evidence-based, realistic philosophy of individualism, high achievment, and even narcissism, but Objectivism isn't it IMO.

 

Personally I find some of the classical Roman & Greek philosophies to be much better for this e.g. Epicurianism, Stoicism etc.

Edited February 10, 2010 by Joe Normal

[Joe Normal]

Rand has the most appeal to young adults who think they should be in charge more and are wondering how much crap they are going to have to take in life. It would be convenient to pretend like you're Howard Roark and don't care about anything or anyone except your own creations. He's a charicature and couldn't function in any world except the one Rand created. I honestly wonder if the rape scene in the Fountainhead isn't all you need to read to understand what she really wanted out of life.

 

Lol.

 

A couple of amusing anecdotes about Rand. She was a smoking addict. So much for rationality and productive activity - she couldn't even exercise willpower to avoid something that was clearly weakening her faculties.

 

She also had an affair with one of her students, despite being married. So much for morality, rationality, and principles.

 

Basically if Rand herself couldn't live by her own principles, it shows what an unrealistic philosophy it is.

[Joe Normal]

Alan Greenspan's hands off approach ended up with the largest investment banks crashing and begging for government intervention after they turned the mortgage market into a sophisticated casino comprised of high risk futures

 

True but the followup was very much not 'hands off' - they were bailed out with massive public debt, rather than allowed to fail en masse, so it was not a laissez faire approach. Laissez-faire also advocates not using central banks to control interest rates. Greenspan was in charge for almost 2 decades, and he wasn't even in office in 2007-2009. The financial crisis has affected many countries worldwide (e.g. Kazakhstan also had a giant property bubble - was that Greenspan or Lehman's fault too? lol), so clearly it cannot have been a phenomenon with US-specific causes. Europe does not follow laissez faire and there is just as bad a crisis, if not worse, on that continent. Also, one does not judge a policy on the results of 2 years. Bigger busts would be worthwhile if the booms more than make up for it. North Korea hasn't suffered from the financial crisis, that does not mean it's a model worth emulating.

 

Laissez-faire may well be a poor economic philosophy, but the financial crisis (which affected countries that were not laissez faire - even the US was not following anything close to laissez faire policies in most areas) in no way demonstrates that one way or the other. Given that the two biggest depressions of the last century in advanced economies were the USA in the 1930s and Japan in the 1990s, and both had massive government spending programs and Keynesian policies implemented, I'd say the evidence is hardly conclusive.

 

Correlation is not the same as causation. Citing one correlation is hardly any basis for an argument, especially when the exact opposite correlation has been present in contradictory examples from the past.

 

The only factors financial crises consistently have in common are high leverage, lots of speculation, and fractional reserve banking systems. Crises and depressions have occured under laissez-faire regimes (US 19th century), Keynesian textbook orthodoxy (Japan 1990s), a mix of the two (US 1929-1940), and everything in between. Trying to oversimplify to suit a political agenda is dumb whether it's you or some clueless Randroid doing it.

[Joe Normal]

the investment practices that caused the crash were totally legal and they were legal because of laissez faire enthusiasts championing deregulation.

 

So how come there were crashes in the past? Why was there a depression and crash in the 1930s after FDR had brought in lots of regulation? Why was there a crash in 1973-74, or 1990-91? How come countries like Belgium, Italy, or Japan, which never deregulated at all, had a financial crash too? Basically you are promoting a simplistic explanation which does not fit in to the experience in all the other heavily regulated countries and banking systems which also crashed. In the UK the left-wing government a few years ago specifically set up a new super-regulatory body to oversee the whole financial sector. It didn't stop the bubble or subsequent crash from happening even worse than in the USA. On that logic one could argue that the more regulated environments were *worse*. But since I have no political axe to grind here, I would just say it demonstrates that heavier or lighter regulation were not the main causes of the crisis.

[Joe Normal]

If there had been more regulation of the banking industry the investment banks wouldnt have collapsed and there wouldnt have been a liquidity crisis requiring a trillion dollar infusion...

 

Why wouldn't there have been a crisis? if Lehman and Bear Stearns had been conservative, there were still trillions of dollars of losses on normal real estate mortgages that were nothing to do with investment banks. There were still tens of millions of people with no home equity who bought properties at massively overvalued prices and would go delinquent regardless of how heavily regulated the banking sector was. Washington Mutual did not go under because of CDOs, it went under because of *bad real estate loans* during a housing bubble.

 

You are trying to make out that this was an investment banking issue. It wasn't, it was a real estate bubble issue. That's why countries with virtually no investment banking to speak of, like Ireland, Belgium, Greece, Latvia etc also got hosed.

 

Maybe if you actually looked outside the USA for a second, you might get a better idea of what actually went on?

[OldEurope]

Rand has the most appeal to young adults who think they should be in charge more and are wondering how much crap they are going to have to take in life. It would be convenient to pretend like you're Howard Roark and don't care about anything or anyone except your own creations. He's a charicature and couldn't function in any world except the one Rand created. I honestly wonder if the rape scene in the Fountainhead isn't all you need to read to understand what she really wanted out of life.

 

Ai yai yai as we say here in Italy...

 

I could not disagree more. Rand is not for young adults; she is for emotionally mature adults who actually apply her characters' self-control and sense of high standard to life; not individuals who might get all whipped up about the excitement of a defiant stance (as a young person might).

 

The "Howard Roark" attitude in "The Fountainhead" has helped me enormously in times of self-doubt or "grayness" during certain career or personal difficulties, and John Galt's speech in "Atlas Shrugged" should be read at university, and every few years after that.

 

I also disagree that Objectivism (I would just call myself a fan of Rand, not an "Objectivist", per se) is about unfriendly, unkind attitudes of greedy "me"-ism, or about some philosophical appeal to "narcissism". It is neither, and her books are about neither. One must be careful in summarizing her. Self confidence and narcissism are two different things--the former is about genuine achievement, the latter about personal insecurity and the demand for recognition as driven by an unfulfilled ego. As for "niceness", Rand did not say one should not be compassionate or caring. Her point was that acts of kindness and compassion should not be coerced by the State and imposed on an individual. These should be born of an authentic, personal desire.

 

There is, to my mind, no contradiction between rational self-interest (as she called it) and personal kindness, attention to others. In fact, the former is what keeps a person truly happy and proud and more in the mindset to be a great example to others---an act of humanitarianism in and as of itself. It also tempers resentment, which one sees bred in a society of too much phoney egalitarianism.

 

(As for the "rape scene" in The Fountainhead----Come on. As Rand once stated in an interview, "If it was rape, it was by engraved invitation". Dominique was in love with the man, and the point of the scene was the dramatic power play between a god and his chosen goddess....)

 

 

OE

Edited February 10, 2010 by OldEurope

[OldEurope]

Lol.

 

A couple of amusing anecdotes about Rand. She was a smoking addict. So much for rationality and productive activity - she couldn't even exercise willpower to avoid something that was clearly weakening her faculties.

 

She also had an affair with one of her students, despite being married. So much for morality, rationality, and principles.

 

Basically if Rand herself couldn't live by her own principles, it shows what an unrealistic philosophy it is.

 

 

 

First, in answer to the post of yours that preceded this quoted tidbit above:

 

Rand presented man as a being with the potential of heroism within him--a potential that would and could be brought out if he would act in an manner consistent with reason, free of superstition, with his emotions not as the basis of his actiona but as his guide and signal and hence under control. You mention individual heroes: History is a catalogue of them, of men who have endured all kinds of circumstances to achieve and brilliantly. Not every rich man is a slob (far from it), and not every poor man is a saint. And not every sense of hero is that of "obvious" ones such as Mandela or other Theresa. Then you mention great art and culture: much of the most beautiful works of Western civilization (of which I can really only speak) were appeals to that sense of aspiration in man. You mention falling in love being outside of one's use of Reason?---I refer you Francisco d'Anconia's beautiful speech on Love in Atlas Shrugged. Honestly, if more people had this view in mind in choosing their partners, there would be a lot less miserable, petty, idiotic relationships out there....

 

As to your post above:

 

1) Ayn Rand's smoking was bad indeed, but she came of age in a time where smoking was not yet known to be the killer it is--or, let me say, not yet so much the subject of heavy campaigns that it is today.

 

Besides--there are flaws and then there are flaws. This was, for her, a tic, a habit, perhaps a physical flaw. But not the scale of moral or intellectual flaw that she said endangered a person's mental well being-

 

2) Her affair. What does this have to do with her philosophy? I mean, why the harping on a mistake in her personal life? She was married to the same man for 50, yes FIFTY years, while this prominent student of hers did correspond, so she thought, to a romantic ideal she had developed. This does not "excuse" her, but it is quite vicious to use this as some example of hers being a "flawed" philosophy. She was not writing a philosophy of monasticism, after all...

 

What she wrote about in her books has to do with purposeful achievement as the main calling of human life, and that achievement must be grounded in values that bring out the best in human ability. This is what to look for in her work and it is fantastic reading.

Edited February 10, 2010 by OldEurope

[OldEurope]

First, in answer to the post of Joe that preceded the bit about smoking above:

 

Rand presented man as a being with the potential of heroism within him--a potential that would and could be brought out if he would act in an manner consistent with reason, free of superstition, with his emotions not as the basis of his actions but as his guide and signal and hence under control.

 

You mention individual heroes: History is a catalogue of them, of men who have endured all kinds of circumstances to achieve and brilliantly. Not every rich man is a slob (far from it), and not every poor man is a saint. And not every sense of hero is that of such "obvious" heroes such as Mandela or Mother Theresa.

 

Then you mention great art and culture: much of the most beautiful works of Western civilization (of which I can really only speak) were appeals to that sense of aspiration in man.

 

You mention falling in love being outside of one's use of Reason?---I refer you Francisco d' Anconia's beautiful speech on Love in "Atlas Shrugged". Honestly, if more people had this view in mind in choosing their partners, there would be a lot less miserable, petty, idiotic relationships out there....

 

As to your post above:

 

1) Ayn Rand's smoking was bad indeed, but she came of age in a time where smoking was not yet known to be the killer it is--or, let me say, not yet so much the subject of heavy campaigns that it is today.

 

Besides--there are flaws and then there are flaws. This was, for her, a tic, a habit, perhaps a physical flaw. But not the scale of moral or intellectual flaw that she said endangered a person's mental well being-

 

2) Her affair. What does this have to do with her philosophy? I mean, why the harping on a mistake in her personal life? She was married to the same man for 50, yes FIFTY years, while this prominent student of hers did correspond, so she thought, to a romantic ideal she had developed. This does not "excuse" her, but it is quite vicious to use this as some example of hers being a "flawed" philosophy. She was not writing a philosophy of monasticism, after all...

 

What she wrote about in her books has to do with purposeful achievement as the main calling of human life, and that achievement must be grounded in values that bring out the best in human ability. This is what to look for in her work and it is fantastic reading.

[Wedded25]

Here's my take on Rand, her writings and her philosophy. The following is edited from a couple posts of mine at another forum some years ago. (I'm quoting some material from memory, so sorry if I'm not exact. All quotes are either from Rand's Atlas Shrugged or Nathaniel Branden's Judgment Day: My Years With Ayn Rand.)

 

First, the (one) part of Atlas Shrugged I was impressed with: As a long-time atheist, of course I fully agreed with her stance on religion. Passages like these (from Galt's speech) definitely warm the cockles of an atheist's heart:

 

The freedom [the mystics] seek is freedom from the fact that an A will remain an A, no matter what their tears or tantrums ... that water will not run uphill, no matter what comforts they could gain if it did, and if they want to lift it to the roof of a skyscraper, they must do it by a process of thought and labor, in which the nature of an inch of pipeline counts, but their feelings do not ...

__________

 

For centuries, the mystics of spirit had existed by running a protection racket -- by making life on earth unbearable, then charging you for consolation and relief ... by declaring production and joy to be sins, then collecting blackmail from the sinners.

__________

 

Make no mistake about the character of mystics. To undercut your consciousness has always been their only purpose ... and power, the power to rule you by force, has always been their only lust.... When you listen to a mystic's harangue ... and begin to doubt your consciousness, not his, the joke is on both of you; your sanction is the only source of certainty he has. The supernatural power that a mystic dreads, the unknowable spirit he worships, the consciousness he considers omnipotent is -- yours.

Useful to keep in mind when a televangelist cries out for your money "to end Bible famine in Africa." (An actual pitch I once heard on christian radio. No joke. Makes a gross mockery of actual famine.)

 

Alas, this isn't enough to save her and her work from my many objections to it:

 

(1)

 

Objectivism, at least as practiced by Rand, had a cult-like quality. I get nervous when any philosophy or religion claims that there is one, and only one, Truth and that only true believers may apprehend this one Truth.

 

Ironically, although Rand was very anti-religion, her Objectivism functions as one when it comes to divining the so-called true existence and reason.

Well said. For someone who professed herself an atheist, she seemed fully enamored of the form of religion. One passage from AS in particular galls me. Francisco D'Anconia is here asking Hank Rearden who he'd like to see riding a railroad of Rearden Metal rails:

 

Did you want to see it used by men who could not equal the power of your mind, but who would equal your moral integrity -- men such as Eddie Willers -- who could never invent your Metal, but who would do their best, work as hard as you did, live by their own effort, and -- riding on your rail -- give a moment's silent thanks to the man who gave them more than they could give him?

This sounds amazingly like prayer and worship to me. To my mind, in a Randian world where people are free to charge stratospheric prices for their goods/services, you gave your thanks when you forked over the price of the Taggart Comet ticket, or the Wyatt gasoline for your Hammond automobile. Any further "thanks" is groveling.

 

(2)

 

I would say that the problem with objectivism is that it relies on those with power, wealth and influence having the integrity and honesty of the fictional characters in Rand's books....

Again, well said. Rand's heroes are all engaged in producing pretty much self-evident goods; certainly no one can dispute the need for oil, autos, steel and long-haul passenger and freight transport. Furthermore, say what you will about their prices, at least they deliver the quality they promise -- and their buyers appreciate it and always make 100% rational buying decisions.

 

Meanwhile, back in the real world, many industrialists make "goods" of dubious value at best, and count on the fears, vanity and irrationalities of buyers. Women buy a shampoo because they saw and heard a simulated orgasm in its commercial. Men buy a General Motors lemon because they heard Patrick Stewart on the radio thundering, "Get on your Pontiac and RIDE!" followed by a bunch of overwrought singers shrieking, "RIDE, PONTIAC, RIDE!" Those heroic makers of cosmetics hire teams of psychologists to find out how to best scare women about the dire consequences they'll suffer if they don't "strike back at the very first signs of aging" by shelling out $50.00 or more for a quarter ounce of cream (which will ultimately fail anyway). I have seen toilet paper shilled with the slogan "It's a New Elegant Feeling!" :shock:

 

I am as staunch a defender of honest profit as anyone, but Ayn Rand's model falls flat on its face when businessmen can do this kind of fraudulence because consumers can't or won't exercise buying intelligence.

 

How did this hit me personally? My first car was a 1982 General Motors J-body. Bottom of the heroic industrialist barrel, and I couldn't afford payments on a decent Japanese machine at the time. It nearly did bankrupt me in repair bills, came close to spending more time in the shop than out, and actually got me penalized on a performance review at work! (Because of how often I had to come in late and leave early to accommodate mechanics' hours.)

 

Keep in mind that however Rand may have claimed that AS represented her philosophy, it's still a novel. Anything she wants to have happen in its pages can happen there; it NEED NOT bear any relation to real life. Remember the scene where James Taggart breaks down blubbering when his sister Dagny confronts him over what a wreck he's made of Taggart Transcontinental? I guarantee you I could not have so confronted the president of GM and watched him whine, "John, I WANT to be president of an automaker! I WANT it! Why can't I have my ambition, as you always have yours?"

 

Instead, the (expletive) (expletive) (choice string of expletives) produced a bad product, and knew it, and got away with it, and felt no shame or guilt over it. And now, with the profits deservedly drying up, the current prez gets to help himself to John Q. Taxpayer's money for bailout. So much for industrial heroism.

 

(3) As to Rand's personal (presumably "heroic") conduct:

 

1) Ayn Rand's smoking was bad indeed, but she came of age in a time where smoking was not yet known to be the killer it is--or, let me say, not yet so much the subject of heavy campaigns that it is today.... This was, for her, a tic, a habit, perhaps a physical flaw.

Far more than that, if we're to believe what she had one of her AS characters (I forget which) say: "When a man thinks, there is a spot of fire alive in his mind -- and it is proper that he should have the burning point of a cigarette as the expression of this activity."

 

She also had an affair with one of her students, despite being married. So much for morality, rationality, and principles.

2) Her affair. What does this have to do with her philosophy? I mean, why the harping on a mistake in her personal life?

Again, far more than a mere mistake -- a deliberate and calculated act fully in accord with her philosophy by her own declaration:

 

She had designated psychologist Nathaniel Branden (25 years her junior) her "intellectual heir" and second-in-command, and dedicated AS to him. In September 1954, she and Branden, in the most high-flown, philosophical-sounding speechifying they could come up with, demanded (and got!) the consent of both their spouses to their meeting alone a few times every week just to talk and be friends; of course, the affair went sexual five months later, and remained so until Branden fell in love with a pretty young attendee at one of his lectures.

 

When he told Rand in 1968 that he could no longer continue his affair with her, she not only threatened to disgrace him publicly and force him to sign his copyrights over to her, but also screamed at him about his "transgressions" in front of his wife, her husband and his cousin, culminating in, "IF YOU HAVE AN OUNCE OF MORALITY LEFT IN YOU, AN OUNCE OF PSYCHOLOGICAL HEALTH -- YOU'LL BE IMPOTENT FOR THE NEXT TWENTY YEARS! AND IF YOU ACHIEVE ANY POTENCY SOONER, YOU'LL KNOW IT'S A SIGN OF STILL WORSE MORAL DEGRADATION! NOW GET OUT!"

 

Rand did not consider the above merely a personal matter, but a philosophical and moral betrayal of her most important principles. Here's Francisco D'Anconia explaining it to Hank Rearden (from the speech on love noted earlier in this thread):

 

They think that your body creates a desire and makes a choice for you -- just about in some such way as if iron ore transformed itself into railroad rails of its own volition.... But, in fact, a man's sexual choice is the result and the sum of his fundamental convictions. Tell me what a man finds sexually attractive and I will tell you his entire philosophy of life.... The man who is proudly certain of his own value, will want the highest type of woman he can find ... the hardest to conquer -- because only the possession of a heroine will give him the sense of an achievement, not the possession of a brainless slut.

She also maintained that the truly moral person arrived at an emotion solely by reason and in accord with his/her deepest moral values -- or as she said of herself, "I've never had an emotion I couldn't account for."

 

So she proceeded to justify her affair with Branden to both their spouses morally: "You two understand, as perhaps no one else could, what Nathan is to me ... the realization of everything I write about ... and what it means to have him in reality, on earth, not just in my writing or in my mind. If the four of us were of lesser stature, this would not have happened, and if it somehow had, you would not accept it. But it is the logic of who we are that led us to this.... It's totally rational, given our premises, that our feelings would include the sexual."

 

The sexual part of their affair ended in 1959, but Rand remained furious at Branden for not behaving as if he were still in love with her, and for falling in love with Patrecia Gullison -- and justified her anger in moral terms, no doubt driven by her precept "Never withhold contempt for men's vices": "Do you want to be like Goethe or any of those so-called geniuses who marry a nothing hausfrau? You know the type I mean; I despise them. Do you wish to be a hero in public life, but not in your private life? The man to whom I dedicated Atlas Shrugged would never want anything less than me! I don't care if I'm ninety years old and in a wheelchair! This will always be my view! If you are a complete and utter fraud, at least have the decency to say so ..."

 

Notice: It's perfectly moral for Branden to cheat on his spouse with Ayn Rand, but the depth of depravity to do so with Patrecia Gullison -- not because it wrongs Barbara Branden, but because it wrongs Ayn Rand!

 

(And don't rail against hausfraus, lady! You never had kids, and thus had NO IDEA what a mom goes through to keep up a home!)

 

Finally, when Rand knew she'd lost Branden's love for good, she exploded at him as above; note that she condemns any future potency of Branden's as moral transgression; had she been a theist, she would have called it "sin."

 

And all of this from the same person who wrote this defining sentence of AS: "I swear -- by my life and my love of it -- that I will never live for the sake of another man, nor ask another man to live for mine." *irony meter melts down*

 

This may have no bearing on the wisdom of her economic ideas or of her philosophy in the abstract, but I find it strange, and hypocritical in the extreme, that a philosophy which she claimed to be the absolute key to human happiness could instead wreak so much emotional devastation.

 

For more on the cultlike aspects of Rand's movement, I strongly recommend three excellent sources: Branden's Judgment Day: My Years With Ayn Rand, the chapter "The Unlikeliest Cult of All" in Michael Shermer's Why People Believe Weird Things, and Albert Ellis' Is Objectivism a Religion?

 

Sorry if this has been long-winded; I had a lot of ground to cover. If you've made it this far, my thanks.

 

W25

[sunshinegirl]

I haven't read this whole thread so this may be out of school, so to speak... but these two things stood out to me:

 

Threebyfate:

You know I'm a huge proponent of foundational upbringing, greatly affecting our coping tools. Nurture, rather than nature, has more impact.

 

 

Threebyfate:

I hold the student responsible. The choice to get involved with drugs, is a personal choice. It's not often that people are held down and forced to partake. Same thing goes with failing school. No one forced anyone, not to pay attention or not to learn. The tools are there.

 

There’s a contradiction here, TBF. You say foundational upbringing is so important to affecting a child's coping skills. Presumably this includes learning how to say no to unhealthy things like drugs, resisting peer pressure, establishing a solid sense of self and confidence in one’s decision making abilities, etc. ?

 

So take an inner city child whose home life is chaotic and whose parents - if they're around - didn’t provide a solid foundational upbringing. Is it any wonder that such kids get caught up in drugs, etc?

 

Yet you would still blame the child/youth because no one "forced" them to partake? How can this be 100% their fault, if they had a weak, crumbling, or nonexistent foundational upbringing, and therefore did not learn appropriate coping skills and tools to make better choices?

 

Sorry if this was discussed to death in the subsequent pages of this thread.

 

I read Atlas Shrugged and was bothered by the inherent narcissism of it.

[Taramere]

Sorry if this has been long-winded; I had a lot of ground to cover. If you've made it this far, my thanks.

 

W25

 

It certainly was a lengthy post, but a good read. I remember reading somewhere else about the incident where she wished impotence on the man she'd had an affair with, when he broke things off. Didn't she also slap him?

 

One thing I like about her is that she has a knack of marrying up the rationality of the industrial world with the creativity of the artist. For her, it isn't either or. Industry and art are both of equal value. It's a step away from the cliched artist who thinks all commerce is evil...or the philistine industrialist who thinks art is for pansies.

 

I read the Romantic Manifesto recently, and found it an interesting read. Particularly the chapter on writing...where she breaks down what makes a book stand out. Interestingly, she was extremely positive about Gone With The Wind. I'd always loved that book, and also the film - and been sneered at many times for saying so. Rand argues that it's a great book because of the skill with which the writer integrates an important theme (the impact of the Civil War on Southern Society) with a complex plot structure (the heroine is in love with a man who represents the old order, and is loved/pursued by a man who represents the new). As soon as I read that, it struck me that that's why I find the book so perfect.

 

I do appreciate the insights she has gives with her writing, which is why on balance I feel positive rather than negative about her. If I've read and enjoyed something a person has written then that person has gifted me, and even if I don't completely agree with them I still feel appreciative to them for providing entertainment/a challenge. I would feel confident that any Ayn Rand book I picked up would leave me with something of value...and I think that's why people can often be quite passionate in defending her/her philosophy. For me, if following that philosophy helped her to write books that I enjoy reading then all power to Ayn Rand for being an objectivist.

 

If I were to dream up the perfect career for her, I would have Rand selling works of art to wealthy industrialists in between writing books and having affairs with her male fans.

[threebyfate]

There’s a contradiction here, TBF. You say foundational upbringing is so important to affecting a child's coping skills. Presumably this includes learning how to say no to unhealthy things like drugs, resisting peer pressure, establishing a solid sense of self and confidence in one’s decision making abilities, etc. ?

 

So take an inner city child whose home life is chaotic and whose parents - if they're around - didn’t provide a solid foundational upbringing. Is it any wonder that such kids get caught up in drugs, etc?

 

Yet you would still blame the child/youth because no one "forced" them to partake? How can this be 100% their fault, if they had a weak, crumbling, or nonexistent foundational upbringing, and therefore did not learn appropriate coping skills and tools to make better choices?

 

Sorry if this was discussed to death in the subsequent pages of this thread.

 

I read Atlas Shrugged and was bothered by the inherent narcissism of it.

It's been so long since I wrote those two excerpts and to be honest, couldn't be bothered to find them within the original context they were posted within. So, with this in mind, I'm going to respond cold.

 

People and even children, have free will when it comes to drugs. Anti-drug use isn't a secret since the media mass spreads this message, as well as the school system. A child has the free will to be swayed one way or the other. If you consider inner city children in general, some end up becoming addicted, others don't. For that matter, children and adults of every socio-economic bracket end up with substance abuse problems.

 

Net result, foundational upbringing has much to do with coping tools but it's not the only driver for each and every behaviour. Sooner or later, people have to be responsible for themselves.

 

As previously stated, IMO, people need to hold onto their humanity when reading or considering Rand and Objectivism. Also previously stated, anyone 100% embracing any life changing ideology, needs to be really careful. There are aspects of each and every theology that can and IMO, SHOULD be cherry picked. There are also aspects of each and every theology, that SHOULD be disregarded. This is no different than being a Keynesian or someone who embraces...errr...Reganomics. Time, place and humanity.