I am curious to see what sort of response I will recieve on this site. I have read "The Fountainhead" and "Atlas Shrugged" both by Ayn Rand and these were both life changing books for me. Does anyone else like Ayn Rand? Does anyone hate Ayn Rand?
I honestly don't mean to be snotty in saying this, but I consider Ayn Rand to be a litmus test for intelligence. And the fact that you liked her does not bode well.. :\ I know its easy to get drawn into her garbage--I almost did when I was 15--but just consider this: why is it that there aren't any classes on Ayn Rand at any of the top schools for philosophy and literature? Is it because of some conspiracy? Or is it just because she's a hack as a philosopher and one of the most boring writers since the year 1900?
Ayn is important enough to repeat what I've said in previous Ayn Rand threads: Ayn Rand is one of the most revealing writers of the 20th century. Unconsciously and un-intentionally, Ayn freely reveals through her heroines, both her own deep rooted sado-masochism, and the deep perverted sexual impulses behind Hierarchical Capitalism Ayn, rejected as ugly by our Sexual Hierarchy, reveals through her fictional heroines, her own phantasies of being a Prime-female sexually-desired by the Hierarchy's Alpha-males. Capitalist of the Jungle, swinging down from the penthouse, taking Ayn in his productive arms and ravishing her on the marble floor! Ayn's real-life meek and mild husband couldn't give it to her, and her disciple/lover couldn't quite cut-it either. Only Howard Roark or John Gault could...in her objectivist dreams! Ayn reveals all these hairy smelly goings-on while remaining completely clueless. Perfect Stream of Consciousness, un-intentional and spontaneous.
The reason she isn't taught in college is because she is considered: 1. A conservative; 2. She was an auto-didact; 3.A capitalist. Get the picture? m6m: Read her first novel, "We The Living".
For the most part i agree that Ayn Rand's views on sexuality are a little off from what i enjoy, but essentially I believe her philosophy to be quite brilliant. No where else have I found words to describe some of the things I see everyday. And here is her philosophy: "My philosophy, in essence, is the concept of man as a heroic being, with his own happiness as the moral purpose of his life, with productive achievment as his noblest activity, and reason as his only absolute" -Ayn Rand Really think about that for a little while. It is almost perfect.
Heroes, in Ayn's objectivist point of view, objectify every relationship and every experience they ever have. Ayn's heroes represent alienated slaves absolutely subservient to the worst psycho-sexual impulses that our repressed Hierarchical Civilization has to offer. And one of the worst psycho-sexual impulses of our Primate Sexual Hierarchy is the hyper-competition of Business and Industry. The Business and Industry of Hierarchical Civilization was built with repressed psycho-sexual energy. Like the Politics and Religion of Hierarchical Civilization, Business is Sex by other means. Men made ambitious by fears of sexual-inadequacy, naturally grasp materialism as a form of psychological compensation. These heroes are simply slaves to neurotic psycho-sexual preoccupations with hierarchical business and industry. Men no longer strong enough to follow their own unique spirit path, but who bend to the the psycho-sexual competitive impulse of primate hierarchy. That endless festering breeding pool of coersion and conflict. Yet even though competition is one of the lowest and most base forms of human social interaction, Ayn's cowards never dare to question the effect of competitive hierarchical relationships upon the happiness and mental-health of endless generations of innocent children. After all, we never cared enough to question the ill effects upon Ayn's heroes when they were children. But then, why should we, they will never be more than mere objectified experiences anyway.
This is true. I may not be a conservative myself, but I recognize the bias towards all literature that could be construed as conservative in my classes. Although I would personally consider her writing as libertarian more so than conservative.
She is definatly influential. I'm supposed to be reading Fountainhead in school but stopped reading it after we watched a biography on her. Her thoughts on life are bogus and I never liked anything about her. If I wasn't a Christian and never believed in our God... then I might try to follow some of her views.
It would seem that wost people who dislike Ayn Rand's works in actuallity have a problem with her more then her thoughts or philosophies. Wether we admit it or not this world filled with its billions of humans needs men and woman of strength and vision to shape this world. It is nice to imagine a world where every man follows his own spiritual path, but unfortunatley that is not reality. Mass amounts of people must have some sort of structure to call society. All of written history proves this. I, myself, believe in the good of people. However, I am not naive enough to think that humans in large numbers could co-exist without structure. The heroes in Ayn Rand's books are the ones who advance our civilization in the ways we need. Who cares what thier motivation is? That is one of the basic principles of her books. If I invented a truly life changing invention, lets say I invented a new way to fuel automobiles that was 98% cheaper and more efficient, and my sole reason for doing it was because I wanted to be remembered. Because I selfishly wanted to be remembered in the anals of history. That does not change the fact that I invented a lif changing machine. Or if my motivation was money, so what? It takes a man of stronger character to admit the true motivation behind his actions. We would say, by some misguided attempt at kindness, that the only motivations a man sould have to advance mankind is the desire to advance mankind. If this was true I gaurantee we would not have some of the inventions we have today. How many medical and scientific breakthroughs have we had simply because some brilliant mind selfishly bent itself to solving a problem. Not for you, not for me, but simply to be the one who cracked the code. Or for the elation of discovery. All "selfish" reasons. The point is history and the ongoing struggle of man need heroes who are unafraid. Some people have the vision in there head. Things others could never comprehend or would ever even think about. These world shapers, history creators must follow their own path, their own vision. In history there are always people who have fantastic ideas that most people scoff at, but regardless of what other say they stick with it and eventually alter the course of history. These are heroes.
Our motivations have a far more profound impact upon our subjective experience of this life than any objective material achievement could ever have. I could cure cancer or build a rocket to Alpha-Centauri, and we would still objectify our reality and remain aliens to the subjective experience of our own skins. Ayn Rand's "Objectivist" philosophy must deny our motivations, because our primal motivations are at odds with the sterile objectification that disconnects us from ever experiencing the full subjective experience of life. The continuation of our Civilization's death-drive is the objective funeral-march of we alien ghouls who have never experienced the natural spontaneous perfection of life's subjective eternal moment, but who, dragging one foot in the grave, sleep-walk like zombies through the living natural world around us. Ayn's heroes, like all capitalists and like all of us who carry the pathos of the Old World, are forever trapped trying to desperately fill our empty objective experience with an endless parade of futile material achievements. Yet even these achievements are in fact anti-material, and are a reflection of our fear-driven objectification of, and alienation from, the natural material world around us. Only when we end Civilization's ten thousand year old fear-driven objectification of life, will we even begin to experience The Heroic. Newsletter, Ha! There's too many words out there as it is. But there is within this Book Forum another Ayn Rand thread in the Meta-physics and Pilosophy sub-forum. There you can read some similar and maybe redundant thoughts on the same subject. Yet when I am in the mood for words, I prefer the words of Ezra Pound.
so in essence what your saying is if someone likes ayn rand they are not intelligent?? gee that seems rather close minded
I should like to ask, sir, what would come after the end of the "ten thousand year old fear-driven objectification of life"? I also find your ideas interesting and as someone who has spent a lot of time contemplating these ideas and civilization in general I am interested to hear your views on civilization and any alternatives to the way things are now. And what is The Heroic in your eyes?
Unfortunately, the future looks dismal. Behavioral patterns, once set into motion, are very difficult to modify. Mass destruction is how this, ten-thousand year reign of alienation and objectification, will end. The poor survivors, if any, may be total basket cases. Civilization began as a local behavioral response to an environment suddenly made deadly by the last great glacial retreat. Death was suddenly everywhere in the now desolate dry Middle East. Survival and reproduction are the primary motives behind primate behavior. Once we were Men, but death-fear turned us back into Apes. Back to seeking the security and authority of an alpha-male hierarchy. Classic behavior of stressed females and males whose anal-spinchter constantly tightens from chronic fear. A hyper-competitive, primate sexual hierarchy where the most fear-driven are driven to become the alpha-males who must disguise their anal stimulated fears by mounting and dry-fucking every subordinate male they can. These impulses must also be disguised, because deception is the most effective survival and reproductive strategy in a hyper-competitive, primate sexual hierarchy. Hence civilization, and the drappery of its Business, Politics and Religion. Unfortunately, deception must run very deep to be convincing, and it's down here that we run into the master of deception, the commander of survival and reproduction, Ego. I say unfortunatley, because Ego uses repressed psycho-sexual energy and redirects it into the disguised sex and death of Business, Politics, and Religion. And it gets even worse. Spontaneity is a freedom only possible for the fearless. Those of us raised in a hierarchical civilization will at best only experience a few, though seemingly eternal, moments of natural spontaneity. I charish and feed my life with those rare heroic moments.
I first read Ayn Rand at 21 so I can empathize with you, LostOne. Her philosophy of life was the one system I took from her works. She entrapped me into her philosophy and world view very quickly, and I became an Objectivist "fanatic". I was an Atheist also(since age 15), so that certainly helped me to support her even more. I wanted to move to New York(I was going to school in Mississippi at the time), but her very unfortunate tryst with Nathaniel Branden, and the subsequent breakup of her School, kept me from doing that. I have incorporated her "heirarchy of values" concept into my personal life with success. Her economics and politics we can see embodied in the Republican party today. I reject those in the strongest terms. It took me years to wean myself away from Rand, and my advice to you is take what you like from her thought but don't slavishly follow her. There are many other philosophers out there whose thought is more rational and "gentle" than Rand's.
I do enjoy reading Ayn Rand, although I take a lot of what is written with a grain of salt.... but all she writes is a fascinating read, at least.
