Objectivism and Ayn Rand

I would agree with the general criticism that her characters are a bit wooden. Love is a transaction deal with no emotion and the only benefit of the transaction takes its place.:eek6: It is my opinion that Rand was more of a non-fiction writer, and her writing suffers as a result. At the same time, she does a masterful job as you watch Hank Reardon suffer through his wife, his idiot indolent-socialist brother, nagging mother, and other collectivists who claim his life when he shows up late to dinner. James Taggart is another wonderful character who just gets your blood boiling. He is the pinnacle of incompetence and ineptitude. He hooks you in to the story as he leads Taggart Transcontinental to ruin, all the while spouting off about "social justice" and the hilariously titled "dog-eat-dog" rule. Say what you want bout her philosophy, her works strike a chord in anyone who has ever worked under incompetence, or has seen other factors besides merit hold sway in the workplace.

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Originally Posted by Jozanny

I am not an expert on Rand's development of Objectivism, but I thought it would be interesting to pose the question as to whether she was simply a bad intellectual or trying to form her own religion?

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Originally Posted by Cunninglinguist

Why can't it be both?

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I'd certainly vote both.

The reason why Rand is not taken seriously as a philosopher, except in certain American institutions that receive funding from far right groups, is that she lacked a fully articulated and flushed out philosophical discourse about anything.

She built a career over developing straw men communist to attack with her Jesus-like Libertarian heroes. Anyway, she has a spiritual successor in Terry Goodkind, now with added Neoliberalism for extra flavour.

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Originally Posted by OrphanPip

The reason why Rand is not taken seriously as a philosopher, except in certain American institutions that receive funding from far right groups, is that she lacked a fully articulated and flushed out philosophical discourse about anything.

She built a career over developing straw men communist to attack with her Jesus-like Libertarian heroes. Anyway, she has a spiritual successor in Terry Goodkind, now with added Neoliberalism for extra flavour.

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Amen :rofl:

I think it comes down essentially to this: socalist-minded and leftist people hate her works while capitalist rightists love her work. There seems to be no middle ground when it comes to Rand. I for one think she was an unique modern philosopher. Others dismiss her work.

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Originally Posted by Jassy Melson

I think it comes down essentially to this: socalist-minded and leftist people hate her works while capitalist rightists love her work. There seems to be no middle ground when it comes to Rand

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:iagree:

I consider myself a capitalist rightist and I wouldn't say I love her work.

I can't even bring myself to go past the first page of Atlas Shrugged after having read The Fountainhead. I just know the incessant droning on about selfishness being good blah blah blah is coming and I just can't stand reading a dozen monologues by different characters all saying the exact same thing.

It's not that I disagree with what she says; I thought most of her ideas before I read her and that's actually why I chose to read her, but I just can't stand the bleeding-heart sentimentality that she pushes her views with. It's exactly that kind of delusion that drove me away from liberal politics.

Her characters are pretty good. I thought Peter Keating, Ellesworth Toohey, and that little woman that Keating liked were interesting. Her supposed heroes: Dominique, Roark, and Gail Wynand are all basically one character and it was pretty painful reading their crap conversations by the end of the novel. Her prose is also pretty good so if she would've eased up on the preaching she'd possibly be an author I like.

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Originally Posted by cyberbob

I consider myself a capitalist rightist and I wouldn't say I love her work.

I can't even bring myself to go past the first page of Atlas Shrugged after having read The Fountainhead. I just know the incessant droning on about selfishness being good blah blah blah is coming and I just can't stand reading a dozen monologues by different characters all saying the exact same thing.

It's not that I disagree with what she says; I thought most of her ideas before I read her and that's actually why I chose to read her, but I just can't stand the bleeding-heart sentimentality that she pushes her views with. It's exactly that kind of delusion that drove me away from liberal politics.

Her characters are pretty good. I thought Peter Keating, Ellesworth Toohey, and that little woman that Keating liked were interesting. Her supposed heroes: Dominique, Roark, and Gail Wynand are all basically one character and it was pretty painful reading their crap conversations by the end of the novel. Her prose is also pretty good so if she would've eased up on the preaching she'd possibly be an author I like.

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Perhaps you don't like her work due to religious "collectivist" reasons?:wink5:

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Originally Posted by SFG75

Perhaps you don't like her work due to religious "collectivist" reasons?:wink5:

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I'm an atheist. I told you, I agree with pretty much everything she says. I just don't like the annoying way that she presents it.

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Originally Posted by cyberbob

I'm an atheist. I told you, I agree with pretty much everything she says. I just don't like the annoying way that she presents it.

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It's strange to see such terrible philosophical judgement juxtaposed to such good literary taste.

I love the depiction of James Taggart, Balph Eubank, and Lillian Reardon as the bloodsuckers they truly are. anyone else concur?

Aynd Rand is a capitalist hound and what she did was brainwash the indefensible Americans into her stupid thoughts. In fact the root of capitalism is objective reality and man's main main achievement is self-fulfillment. With this philosophy man is always guided by self interest and selfishness.

Covetousness, consumerism and possessiveness are her guiding principles. Today America is economically doing worse when her philosophy of capitalism,consumerism have swept the entire United States.

Capitalism is not a good philosophy and all we need is restrained socialism wherein consumption is in control and our wild motives are in check.

She is not on the list of philosophers and in fact she has not proved herself to be a philosopher. All she did is she tried to repackage some thoughts in colorful wrappers of ideas using her elusive language to confuse the common American who always crave for change.

She suffered under the Bolsheviks in Russia and all her writings are just reactions to them only and the rightists in America and in the rest of the world supported her literally.

Alan Greenspan, a follower of her dysfunctional capitalistic thought got misguided when he was chairing the seat of the Federal Reserves as the chief.

Rand's pseudo-ad hominem attack on Kant as "the most evil man in history" has always left a nasty taste in my mouth.

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Originally Posted by Ecurb

It's strange to see such terrible philosophical judgement juxtaposed to such good literary taste.

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Well I may have exaggerated.

I'm a libertarian and free-thinker but have never considered myself an Objectivist.