Ayn Rand

@nicodemus,

I started to read Atlas Shrugged because I thought it was necessary reading for some reason, but I couldn't get past the first chapter and have never picked it up again.

@nicodemus,

Ayn Rand was seriously flawed, but she can be useful to the inquiring mind. Yes, she is a 2nd rate philosopher, BUT she puts her finger on an important issue, and drives an exciting point home.

She was a curious revival of Romantic Satanism with the strange twist of the un-Romantic focus on money. She made a dashing hero of the business man.

I read her as a teen and found her essays engrossing. Also read Anthem, her short dystopian novel. Hers was a voice of passion and clarity. She was clearest where she was most passionate. She was what she called a man-worshiper. Just like Nietzsche, she wanted man to stop whining and affirm his life on Earth. She wanted folks to man-up, take responsibility, and stop sacrificing themselves for one another -- which she thought was hypocritical and rotten.

Her faults were many. She often said ridiculous things. She was blind to the depths in mysticism. But there is a kernel of purity in her. She's a moralist of heroic individualism. She wanted a fair playing field.

The free market in theory is something of amazing beauty. If only the Invisible Hand didn't wring our necks in the real world, where the government is one of the things on sale.....

Her best line: "Man is a heroic being....."

@Reconstructo,

Reconstructo;107373 wrote:

Her faults were many. She often said ridiculous things.

could you cite a flaw?

@nicodemus,

She said that reason was man's only absolute. I don't think this holds. But there are many things. If you don't see them, fine. I would guess if you like her, you like her for the same reasons I did/do. But exposure to more philosophy is likely to reveal the limitations of any philosopher.

Like I said, a pure kernel, but an arrogrance that blinded her to her limitations.

@nicodemus,

It has been a while since I have read her but any comparison with Nietzsche is strictly co-incidental. I did not find her novels even mildly interesting; they are didactic in nature. Objectivism as a philosophy is easily refutable by any first year philosophy student. Objectivism hardly existed in Nietzsche's vocabulary and individualism is a myth.

@goethe10,

goethe10;111064 wrote:

It has been a while since I have read her but any comparison with Nietzsche is strictly co-incidental. I did not find her novels even mildly interesting; they are didactic in nature. Objectivism as a philosophy is easily refutable by any first year philosophy student. Objectivism hardly existed in Nietzsche's vocabulary and individualism is a myth.

Doesn't matter if isn't coincidental. What matters is the similarity. There are strong similarities in their ethics, and also differences. Yes, her novels are didactic. That's a problem of hers in general. But Nietzche was sometimes a harpy himself.

Objectivism is "refutable" but so is Plato and anyone else. I find the term "refutable" a little amusing. Anything that we reject is thereby refuted. And a bullet is another kind of refutation. Where's the referee? Your first-year philosophy teacher? The ghost of your favorite philosopher? People adopt what suits them. Logic (rhetoric dressed as an altar boy) helps with the swallowing.

Assuming that "individualism" is a myth, so what? To dismiss one of the central concepts of our culture so glibly is lazy. It sounds like something Ayn Rand would do, if she played for the other team.

Rand is ridiculous in many ways, but she did a few things right. Nietzsche is much more sophisticated, no doubt. But they both attract a certain type of person with their outspoken individualist ethic.

Your tone does not sound devoid of individualism, or are you just defending the tribe from infidels?

@nicodemus,

Down came the hook and you took it and ran. Who are you anyway? What mask do you wear? Nietzsche loved masks so did Plato. Philosophy is narrative: stories people tell to make themselves feel better about themselves. The mystery of life is just that. Crack nuts, thats all we do at these forums. Read "We scholars" one more time. Wisdom, Carrion birds, same thing.

---------- Post added 12-14-2009 at 09:24 PM ----------

Yes, yes I know! Philosophy is a soporific but so is science. Remember the madman, it has been over a hundred years now, threw down his lantern in disgust. Do we finally get it , "if God is dead anything is possible". Or is it still to early, and we live in the shadows of a theologian's glance.

@goethe10,

goethe10;111410 wrote:

Down came the hook and you took it and ran. Who are you anyway? What mask do you wear? Nietzsche loved masks so did Plato. Philosophy is narrative: stories people tell to make themselves feel better about themselves. The mystery of life is just that. Crack nuts, thats all we do at these forums. Read "We scholars" one more time. Wisdom, Carrion birds, same thing.

---------- Post added 12-14-2009 at 09:24 PM ----------

Yes, yes I know! Philosophy is a soporific but so is science. Remember the madman, it has been over a hundred years now, threw down his lantern in disgust. Do we finally get it , "if God is dead anything is possible". Or is it still to early, and we live in the shadows of a theologian's glance.

This is a good post. My question is whether a man can live without religion. Personally I prefer myself as God, to answer your question. Like my brother Christ said: I am the truth. Nietzsche tickles my thighs with his mustache. He was my John the Baptist, cured me of my amnesia.

@nicodemus,

Ayn Rand's ethic is something special. This was her gold mine. Even if one disagrees with it to suggest something higher, one should nod to its directness. Why did she have to slavishly adopt the correspondence theory of truth and spit a curse on Kant? I cracked open her aesthetics book today at Borders and she says with perfect certainty that photography is not an art. Stupid!

The virtue of selfishness -- what a thumb in the eye! It attracted me with its boldness. I must have been 17, at Waldenbooks. Snatched it up, read much of it in the store. Does it flatter the monster in man? That too. But it was also a does of reality. A young man should be warned that mother says does not so much apply outside in the big bad world. Folks will eat you. Slave-owners used to attend church. Underneath the poses, selfishness. Better to know. Better to make one's self god. Rand was half-Satanic. She dreamed up a righteous capitalism, based on reason. Strange brew! One of her nice touches is in the book Anthem. This dystopian novel features a society so selfless that it lacks a personal pronoun.

@Theaetetus,

Theaetetus;42521 wrote:

1. Alan Greenspan wrote essays printed in the book by Rand, Capitalism: The Unknown Ideal, and Greenspan admitted that many of his failed policies started as as Federal Reserve Chairman lead to the current economic crisis.

2. Just because someone wrote something that some people believe is true does not make it true. This is a mistake that many Objectivists fall to. The ball should be in your court attempting to argue for Objectivist philosophy rather than having the non-Objectivist argue against it. The second statement should be changed to "what about Objectivism makes sense."

Are you suggesting greenspan is an objectivist? he may have been when he was younger but the federal reserve is one of the most anti-capitialist institutions around. your argument is completly without connection. ie your premises have little relation when it comes to the conclusion. i did the sential logic(2 replaces arrow)(writes for objectivist. O(objectivist)(G(greenspan)(P1: W 2 O P2: G 2 W C:g 2 o)(chain argument) and it makes sense unless writing for an objectivist publication does not in fact make a life long objectivist. in this case it doesn't, so your logic doesn't hold.

@nicodemus,

I think Ayn Rand had a very important point to make about the importance of individual vision and individual contributions to human endeavor. She stressed the contributions of individuals over the contributions of groups and committees. I have always remembered reading her books. Of course, I have always hated group decision making and choice by commitee as watered down version of individual visions. Einstein's visions, Mozart, Newton, Darwin, all these major advances in vision and insight were largely the work of devoted individuals in science, in art, in music I think individual's always make the most significant contributions.

Later of course I discovered Rand came from a socialist country and had experienced the evils of suppresion of individual vision, initiative and freedom first hand. Anyway, second rate philosopher or not; her vision of the importance of individualsim suits the American vision and character very well and I think has the ring of truth as well.

@prothero,

prothero;141953 wrote:

I think Ayn Rand had a very important point to make about the importance of individual vision and individual contributions to human endeavor. She stressed the contributions of individuals over the contributions of groups and committees. I have always remembered reading her books. Of course, I have always hated group decision making and choice by commitee as watered down version of individual visions. Einstein's visions, Mozart, Newton, Darwin, all these major advances in vision and insight were largely the work of devoted individuals in science, in art, in music I think individual's always make the most significant contributions.

This is arguable for all the figures you cite, and it's certainly not true of Darwin. Darwin's work was hardly his own but rather is based on the assistance of hundreds, perhaps thousands, of people, and interestingly enough many of them were philosophers. There was John Gould who identified his "grosbeaks" and "blackbirds" as finches, Charles Lyell who got him thinking in terms of cumulative change and deep time, William Whewell who provided Darwin with the framework for his "one long argument" in On the Origin of Species, John Grant who initiated him into zoology, the freed slave John Edmonstone who taught him taxidermy, Thomas Malthus whose thought provided the spur to Darwin's notion of natural selection, and the hundreds or thousands of correspondents who kept him abreast of current research and sent him specimens (this was especially important when he was doing his two-volume book on barnacles, which provided him with much useful insight on variation in nature).

Scientific achievements rarely take place in a vacuum. Even Newton had his predecessors whose problems he was solving or whose thought he was adopting. Furthermore, the vast majority of scientific problems are not solved by superior individuals with elevated insights far beyond us peons. It would be a pretty boring discipline for me if all I had to do was sit around all day, waiting for Dr. Demigod. Just look at all the people who were involved in the Super-Kamiokande experiments that demonstrated that neutrinos have mass. It was one of the major discoveries of the 1990s, and several dozen people were involved.

This is probably why, for all that Rand claims to have solved the problems of demonstrating an objective reality (she 'did it' by fiat), very few of those who concern themselves with the workings of reality have any time for her. I've never met any biologists, which is my field, who were Objectivists and when I asked one of them to name any scientists who were Objectivists, the only name he could come up with was an engineer, not a research scientist (and this particular engineer is apparently regarded as a bit of a crank).

Like many people, I encountered Rand in high school, but even at that point I had read too much philosophy and literature for her to make any impact. In fact, recognizing the gulf between Rand's work and the rest of the works we were assigned in high school, I asked my teacher why she'd even bother with this. She told me that the only reason she assigned Anthem and The Fountainhead was because of the Ayn Rand Institute's scholarship prize. Sadly, nobody thinks its worth their time to endow a scholarship prize so that students can read Wharton, Melville, Dos Passos, Kafka, Camus, Sartre, Cervantes, Boccaccio, Eliot, Mann, Borges, Eco, or any of the other authors I read in high school.

At the time, I was also into philosophy (though I cannot lay claim either then or now to be as well read as professional philosophers, as I am not and never wanted to be one) and I was a moderate, Burkean conservative, so I knew full well that there were better arguments out there for capitalism, individualism, and all of Rand's other isms.

In fact, it was because of this that I inflicted Atlas Shrugged on myself. While Rand is not per se consistent with the ethos of conservatism, and I could see that, I was starting to doubt my commitment to conservatism and I decided to read as widely as I could on a range of political philosophies until I came to one that made sense for me. Naturally, I started "closest" to my current philosophy with Atlas Shrugged, which I had heard was the greatest summation of Rand's thought in print. Unfortunately, the people who told me that were probably right.

I do not exaggerate when I say that it is the worst novel I have ever read, or that it had a traumatizing effect on me. I was going on a three day school trip for the Model UN Conference, so I brought that book and that book alone to read while I was gone. Rand's book is transcendently bad, by which I mean it piles together all the worst transgressions of other bad books and commits a few they never contained in the process. I couldn't help but chuckle at the post in this thread that compares Rand to James Fenimore Cooper, because a latter-day Mark Twain really does need to write "Ayn Rand's Literary Offenses". In fact, it would be an interesting exercise to go through Twain's list of grievances and see how many apply to Atlas Shrugged. I dare say that almost all would hit the mark.

Because of that experience, where I was 70 mi. from home without another book and without the means to go get another one, I started carrying multiple books around with me whenever I was going anywhere. I never want to have another experience like that one where I'm faced with either terminal boredom or the worst book in the world.

I also hate her for justifying her terrible writing by concocting literary standards of "romanticism" and "naturalism" which bear no relationship to real-world romanticism and naturalism. Anyone who follows Rand into the world of literary criticism is going to be as bad off as anyone who follows her into the world of philosophy. That's really her in a nutshell: she never knew what she was doing, but she created her own 'systems' where her own incompetence was praised to the skies, while the skill and competence of other writers and philosophers was denigrated. If you read The Romantic Manifesto and listen to only those composers whom she hates passionately and read only those writers whom she scorns, you'll have a pretty solid basis for a survey course in Western Civilization.

@prothero,

prothero;141953 wrote:

I think Ayn Rand had a very important point to make about the importance of individual vision and individual contributions to human endeavor. She stressed the contributions of individuals over the contributions of groups and committees. I have always remembered reading her books. Of course, I have always hated group decision making and choice by commitee as watered down version of individual visions. Einstein's visions, Mozart, Newton, Darwin, all these major advances in vision and insight were largely the work of devoted individuals in science, in art, in music I think individual's always make the most significant contributions.QUOTE]

I think you(nulli) misunderstood what he(prothero) was talking about. He didnn't say that the those types of mental endeavors you mentioned are inferior or no-exsistent. In fact those examples are what prot was talking about in terms of the superior way of doing science and thought. It was each person working for their own ends on a market of ideas. Prot was refferring to an instance where the scientist or thinker had to submit to a group or to democratic vote. Your argument looks like this to me.
(I:Individual, G: Group)
(Prot) I > G
(Null) I< G because the I > G. Its a contradiction.

In terms of what else you said about Atlas Shrugged, it's one of those books that you have to agree with the authors view point for it to be a pleasant read. Another example like that is the bible. Lots of people like the bible but I hate hows it written. I'm an athiest who doesn't like most of whats said in the book. So me reading it is like getting teeth pulled. I thought it was one of the best books I've ever read and I know no substitute. If you no any other books or thinkers who promote egoism, selfishness, capitalism, atheism, and the like; point me in their direction. So far Anton Lavey is the only one who fits all of that without being an objectivist.

@nicodemus,

nicodemus;42279 wrote:

you all have presumably heard of the creater of objectivism. Her book, Atlas Shrugged, is second only to the bible when it comes to total copies sold. Her proposed system where greed and ambition are seen as virtue, not vice. She planned a purely capitalistic, laisez faire society where the government existed simply to maintain social order and enforce contracts. So, are there any thoughts about one of the most controversial thinkers of the 20th century?

I remember reading certain parts of her works where she bashed Kant: I wanted to get a witch doctor, raise Rand from the dead, and make her read all three of Kant's Critiques. She doesnt have a very good understanding of Kant.

Im all for the capitalist aspect, but I dont really enjoy how she blends economics and morality together. If youre a successful (rich) person, then youre moral. Im not sure if I buy that.

Rands ideal moral man reminds me of an Ubermensch dressed in a business suit.

@Ding an Sich,

Ding_an_Sich;168593 wrote:

I remember reading certain parts of her works where she bashed Kant: I wanted to get a witch doctor, raise Rand from the dead, and make her read all three of Kant's Critiques. She doesnt have a very good understanding of Kant.

Absolutely. Though, her misconceptions of Kant are not that uncommon, in fact, I think Kant is one of the most common philosophers to be mistaken for a relativist.

Quote:

Im all for the capitalist aspect, but I dont really enjoy how she blends economics and morality together. If youre a successful (rich) person, then youre moral. Im not sure if I buy that.

I agree with this, it's a very narrow view. You can only say such if the system forced companies to answer for shady business acts, and they barely have to do that now, and a poor person can still be moral.

Ironic that she calls Kant's philosophy devoid of logic.

She seemed somewhat clueless and her philosophy seemed more about dealing with her bad experiences in Soviet Russia then they did serious Philosophical ideologies.

@nicodemus,

i rather like ayn rand, her writing, and her philosophy. no, she doesn't answer all the questions to my liking, no she doesn't have the exact philosophy i believe in, but no one else does either. i agree with most, not all, but most, of the things she said, and i agree with her more than i agree with a few others out there.

i've read the fountainhead and atlas shrugged, and i liked them both. i can honestly say, having worked in the government, i have seen the sterotypes she rails against, they are real, and because i had to work for them and because i was frustrated by them, perhaps that is why i like her stories so much, i can relate.

if you havn't seen it, and care, there is an interview with her on the donahue show on youtube, here is the link, part 1 of 5, parts 2 and 3 are the best parts i think....YouTube - Ayn Rand Phil Donahue Interview Part 1 of 5

wow, they don't do interviews like that anymore.

@Native Skeptic,

Native Skeptic;168607 wrote:

Absolutely. Though, her misconceptions of Kant are not that uncommon, in fact, I think Kant is one of the most common philosophers to be mistaken for a relativist.

I agree with this, it's a very narrow view. You can only say such if the system forced companies to answer for shady business acts, and they barely have to do that now, and a poor person can still be moral.

Ironic that she calls Kant's philosophy devoid of logic.

She seemed somewhat clueless and her philosophy seemed more about dealing with her bad experiences in Soviet Russia then they did serious Philosophical ideologies.

Yes Kant is more often than naught mistaken for a relativist. Its very sad especially when you read all of his critiques and realize that this is clearly not the case. I find it hilarious when I deal with objectivists claiming that Kant does not use logic. The transcendental table of categories is all one needs in order to point out Kant's use of logic: it is very much there.

I am not going to entirely dismiss Rand as she does appeal to certain principles that I take a liking to, such as natural rights (go John Locke!) and a capitalist society; but it is mainly because I am Kantian that I esteem such principles so high.

@Ding an Sich,

Ding_an_Sich;168593 wrote:

Im all for the capitalist aspect, but I dont really enjoy how she blends economics and morality together. If youre a successful (rich) person, then youre moral. Im not sure if I buy that.

Rands ideal moral man reminds me of an Ubermensch dressed in a business suit.

More men of straw. I'd say about 80-90 percent of arguments against Rand that I've seen are all straw man arguments. I have to ask, have you read Atlas Shrugged? some of the most evil and baddest of the bad were super rich.(James Taggart comes to mind) She never says that money equals a moral person. What she says is that people who use their mind and do not evade truth to achieve their own happiness and passion are the ones who have achieved a good form of morailty.

I have to concede ignorance of Kant. I just dont know enough about him from his own works to say anything. If what Rand said is true Im no fan. It's mostly the extreme altruism that I'm not for.

@nicodemus,

Randroids.

Atlas Shrugged is synonymous with Christ Squirmed. I cannot tell why Christians have any support for this author.

@greenghost08,

greenghost08;168639 wrote:

More men of straw. I'd say about 80-90 percent of arguments against Rand that I've seen are all straw man arguments. I have to ask, have you read Atlas Shrugged? some of the most evil and baddest of the bad were super rich.(James Taggart comes to mind) She never says that money equals a moral person. What she says is that people who use their mind and do not evade truth to achieve their own happiness and passion are the ones who have achieved a good form of morailty.

I have to concede ignorance of Kant. I just dont know enough about him from his own works to say anything. If what Rand said is true Im no fan. It's mostly the extreme altruism that I'm not for.

That men use reason and not faith to achieve everything: this is a vital tenet to objectivist thought (if not the biggest next to rejecting altruism). Its irrelevant whether or not ive read atlas shrugged. Ive read some basic works of hers to understand her philosophy (the virtue of selfishness and capitalism: the unknown ideal); I also read some interviews of her. I shouldnt have added the rich part. Successful is what I am aiming for. But there are certain codes to being successful for Rand in order to be moral. One must obey certain universals (telling the truth), and building up oneself without having to rely on others in a negative way (stealing from people, conning them, etc.). You cant be a lying, sleazy, cheat, while being succesful, and still be moral in Rands eyes. There, I have elaborated and corrected to clear up my mistake.

Kant doesnt mention altruism in his ethics. Bentham, Mill, and Christians are the ones Rand is really against. Especially Augustine for the Christians. Rands biggest problem with Kant is his take on reality and how we cannot know of the thing-in-itself (ding-an-sich). She blames Kant for the past 200 years of modern philosophy and how it has all gone terribly wrong due to his critique of pure reason. Ironically, Kant brought back metaphysics from the ever growing maw of David Hume, which Rand despises equally (hes one of those guys Rand talks about as saying "knowledge is probability")

I still dont get why people are so bent out of shape with the thing-in-itself. Its not just Rand: its a lot of people that ive met who despise Kant. How the object functions aside from us, how it works from our perception of the world, we cannot know. There we are done with it: now we can move on to representations.

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