IGX

Very entertaining, and now I know where my libertarian friends are getting the whole "at the point of a gun" arguments.

As a philosophy, it's retarded. Ayn Rand has no answer for Bernie Madoff. LOL at Rush Limbaugh loving this book. He would fit in very comfortably with the villains in the novel.

There was a lot I liked about it. Considering the red scare in the 50's and Rand's Russian background in the early Bolshevik days, it makes for an interesting read. It's been quite a while but I can see sales of this book re-surging in the days of Pelosi/Reid/Obama. Surely state gov't in modern NY state represents what we see in the book.

IIRC the protagonist chick should have just fucked more and quit having to be "taken". The female attitude towards sex was either constrained by the times or Ayn really really craved the Maytag treatment.

Also, I don't know shit about Objectivism.

It's really an awful book compared to either We The Living or The Fountainhead.

Btw, I'm pretty sure that, even at her most drug-addled point, Ayn Rand would have been in favor of the government prosecuting a con man.

It's really an awful book

Yup. This. That there aint good readin'.

Try "The Three Musketeers" by a guy named Dumas.

DrDonkeyLove wrote:IIRC the protagonist chick should have just fucked more and quit having to be "taken". The female attitude towards sex was either constrained by the times or Ayn really really craved the Maytag treatment.

I'm guessing she would have traded sex for cigarettes.

tough old man wrote:

It's really an awful book

Yup. This. That there aint good readin'.

Try "The Three Musketeers" by a guy named Dumas.

I've got The Count of Monte Cristo sitting on my shelf that I haven't read yet. Really need to start on it. I want to read The Three Musketeers as well.

Atlas Shrugged to 3 Musketeers. Best IGX thread hijack EVAH.

It's been forever but I remember liking Atlas Shrugged well enough. There are zillions of novels about evil corporations and capitalists. To my knowledge it's the only paen to the productivity and contributions of the private sector. If more people had read it, there would be a better understanding of the contributions of businesses vs. the statism of the state bureaucracy.

I recently heard that the largest employer in my part of NY is the gov't. People and businesses are leaving in droves and government's reaction is to tax and regulate more...more...more. That can't end well and it's like the worst parts of her book come to life. With a little more Any Rand maybe CA, MI, NY, and other dystopias would be a little better off.

Maybe it's not the greatest read, but it's a valuable and necessary book.

I never understood Rand's popularity. Crappy writer, simplistic themes. Of coarse, I never understood L Ron Hubbard's popularity either.

DrDonkeyLove wrote:Ayn really really craved the Maytag treatment.

This is apparently true.

Of coarse, I never understood L Ron Hubbard's popularity either.

He's not popular. I read once that Scientologists actually bought books at the bookstores and then their depot sent the same books back out again to drive up their numbers. Various bookstore employees attested to this. Remember, a book only has to be a "bestseller" on one date to plaster it all over your ads for the rest of time. The same with the survey. He'd never make a top 100 list of even just science fiction without koolaiders voting on command.

Grandpa's Spells wrote: As a philosophy, it's retarded. Ayn Rand has no answer for Bernie Madoff.

Wrong. Ayn Rand condemned fraud.

Grandpa's Spells wrote: LOL at Rush Limbaugh loving this book. He would fit in very comfortably with the villains in the novel.

Wrong again (mostly). Rand admired those who followed their own vision, tried & failed, then rose again to find success.
But she would have rejected Limbaugh's religious bent.

johno wrote:

Grandpa's Spells wrote: As a philosophy, it's retarded. Ayn Rand has no answer for Bernie Madoff.

Wrong. Ayn Rand condemned fraud.

I think you are missing the point of his criticism. What Madoff did was in line with Objectivism's teleology in that he embodied a single-minded pursuit of his own happiness and rational self-interest.

You are all high if you think anything Rand wrote was worth the paper it was written on.

What Madoff did was in line with Objectivism's teleology in that he embodied a single-minded pursuit of his own happiness and rational self-interest.

Yes. Replace Madoff with any of the industrialists who engaged in seriously anti-competitive practices before anti-trust laws came into place. It seems to be A-OK to Rand. Understandably, since from her bio it looks like she absolutely lost her mind living under Soviet rule, and anything that was Opposite Day from her childhood probably looked great.

Fat Cat wrote:

johno wrote:

Grandpa's Spells wrote: As a philosophy, it's retarded. Ayn Rand has no answer for Bernie Madoff.

Wrong. Ayn Rand condemned fraud.

I think you are missing the point of his criticism. What Madoff did was in line with Objectivism's teleology in that he embodied a single-minded pursuit of his own happiness and rational self-interest.

Rand's concept of self-interest was more expansive than that. She wrote extensively of her contempt for moochers and "Witch Doctors" (frauds).

Again, you're missing the point. Objectivism isn't about what Ayn Rand personally liked. She liked cigarettes too, does that represent rational self interest? Spells objection stands. That is all.

Not to defend the crazy Ruskie, but she did argue that frauds and moochers were not pursuing their rational self interest. Anyone who thinks Bernie Madoff was living according to her philosophy didn't read very carefully.

Fat Cat wrote:Again, you're missing the point. Objectivism isn't about what Ayn Rand personally liked.

From Wikipedia:

Objectivism is the philosophy developed by the Russian-American philosopher and novelist Ayn Rand

I think Rand gets to define her own philosophy.

...that the proper moral purpose of one's life is the pursuit of one's own happiness or rational self-interest; that the only social system consistent with this morality is full respect for individual rights, embodied in pure laissez faire capitalism

Respect for individual rights is essential to Rand's social philosophy. She was not a solipsist.
Her taste for cigarettes is as irrelevant to Objectivism as Christ's enjoyment of donkey rides is to Christianity.

Pinky wrote:Not to defend the crazy Ruskie, but she did argue that frauds and moochers were not pursuing their rational self interest. Anyone who thinks Bernie Madoff was living according to her philosophy didn't read very carefully.

Wrong. The moochers in this case are all the people who got sucked into his scam, thinking they were going to get rich by doing nothing. You both seem to have a hard time accepting that the application of Objectivism is ugly.

johno wrote:

Fat Cat wrote:Again, you're missing the point. Objectivism isn't about what Ayn Rand personally liked.

From Wikipedia:

Objectivism is the philosophy developed by the Russian-American philosopher and novelist Ayn Rand

I think Rand gets to define her own philosophy.

...that the proper moral purpose of one's life is the pursuit of one's own happiness or rational self-interest; that the only social system consistent with this morality is full respect for individual rights, embodied in pure laissez faire capitalism

Respect for individual rights is essential to Rand's social philosophy. She was not a solipsist.
Her taste for cigarettes is as irrelevant to Objectivism as Christ's enjoyment of donkey rides is to Christianity.

LMAO. You don't get it.

When I read this in college I really like it.

When I tried to re-read it like 6 months ago to get psyched for the recent start up adventure it seemed really juvenile. Everyone's a paper cut out of what a real person might actually be like. I can't imagine a self reflective adult with some life experience getting through this without thinking it's a book for teens.

I've read that late teens, early twenties students are a large part of her audience...in the I'm a misunderstood intellectual Superhero phase of life. Nietzsche gets a lot of play with that crowd also.

Nietzsche was a great philosopher. Rand was not.

Yawn.