The Influence of Ayn Rand on American Society...

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ruveyn
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01 Dec 2012, 1:29 pm

Whether you know who Ayn Rand is or not; whether you like what Ayn Rand has to say or not, Ayn Rand has made her mark:

Please see: http://books.google.com/books?id=f7t-ak ... CDoQ6AEwAA

which gives a list of notable folks who have been influenced positively by Rand.

One of them you already know (directly or indirectly). Jimmy Wales who founded Wikipedia.

And one of the best American sci-fi authors Robert Heinlein.

TANSTAAFL.

ruveyn



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01 Dec 2012, 10:02 pm

Ayn Rand says greed is a virtue and not a deadly sin.



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01 Dec 2012, 10:32 pm

I guess I really need to read some of her work. I've seen as much slamming of her on this forum as I have on George W. or even me.


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ruveyn
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01 Dec 2012, 10:39 pm

androbot2084 wrote:
Ayn Rand says greed is a virtue and not a deadly sin.


She never said greed was a virtue, but she would agree that greed is not a deadly sin.

Gordon Gekko said Greed is Good. But Gordon Gekko is a fictional character.

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ooOoOoOAnaOoOoOoo
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01 Dec 2012, 11:04 pm

Isn't she the one who influenced Ron Paul?



NAKnight
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01 Dec 2012, 11:39 pm

Ayn Rand is the author of "Atlas Shrugged" a political novel about Government/Business collusion in times of crisis and the effects it has on entrepreneurs and the like.

I would reccomend that you read it. It's very insightful.

Best Regards,

Jake


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EtherealBallet
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01 Dec 2012, 11:39 pm

ruveyn wrote:
androbot2084 wrote:
Ayn Rand says greed is a virtue and not a deadly sin.


She never said greed was a virtue, but she would agree that greed is not a deadly sin.

Gordon Gekko said Greed is Good. But Gordon Gekko is a fictional character.

ruveyn
The thing that is generally considered negative that she said was a virtue was selfishness. It is even the title of one of her books "The Virtue of Selfishness" I have it with me right now :study: 8)
The title would sound shocking to a lot of people I think, but truly I think a lot of what she says makes a lot of sense. Some of it I agree with, some of it I do not but it is, I think, truly a very good book to read.



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02 Dec 2012, 12:22 am

I haven't read "Virtue of Selfishness"
I will look into it!

Have you read "Atlas Shrugged"

Best Regards,

Jake


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02 Dec 2012, 12:26 am

NAKnight wrote:
I haven't read "Virtue of Selfishness"
I will look into it!

Have you read "Atlas Shrugged"

Best Regards,

Jake
I am planning too. It's huge! Large books I find exciting though they take a rather long time to read. I think I will read it after Lord of the Rings.



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02 Dec 2012, 12:33 am

Her idea of an ubermensch was a serial killer who raped and dismembered a little girl and then left pieces of her on her scattered about town.
http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2012/08/ ... girls.html
She literally advocated sociopathy.
She has had a tremendous impact on the country, but not a good one.



blauSamstag
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02 Dec 2012, 12:40 am

Jimmy Wales is sort of running a socialist organization. Are you sure he's not just reacting to rand? the same way rand is just reacting to the soviets.



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02 Dec 2012, 4:09 am

The view of the collective is everything should serve the collective.

The highest honor is dying for the collective, but the real meaning is killing for the collective.

It comes in many forms but what all have in common is, those who do as they please are a danger.

As almost all progress comes from one mind doing as it pleases, progress is evil.

The fear of change, the desire to control change, has not worked yet.

I embrace change, live in the future, project the decline of some things, and look for the spaces opening for what will replace them.

The collective cannot hold on to what it has, yet tries to claim what has yet to be.

I do ignor them, avoid them, and am anti social.

Rands point was beyond being selfish, I am, it was what happens when the selfish can no longer function? Atlas Shrugged is about driven selfish people turning Hippie and moving to a Commune. The world falls apart without them.

They all lie, the left wants to spend what they cannot produce, the right wants to limit taxes on profits. Both are drawing from the same well.

Just in my time a dollar has gone from an ounce of silver, to about 3 cents.

Both spending what you do not have, and taking profits, is withdrawing value from the money.

Soon the dollar will go to one cent, because that is what is needed to make their numbers work. Someday soon money becomes worthless.

I works for me, because I buy things valued in dollars, that have a use value to me that is higher. Selfish and self directed, no matter the system, I produce value.

There is no way to pull back from the red ink ball of debt rolling downhill, there will be no profits to tax or avoid being taxed, there will be no wealth, for worthless money cannot be spent.

There is something beyond the illusion, I will retire there.



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02 Dec 2012, 4:39 am

LKL wrote:
Her idea of an ubermensch was a serial killer who raped and dismembered a little girl and then left pieces of her on her scattered about town.
http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2012/08/ ... girls.html
She literally advocated sociopathy.
She has had a tremendous impact on the country, but not a good one.


And that has exactly what to do the validity of the rest of her ideas? See, I'm of the opinion that if say, a child molester invents say, a car that gets 100 miles to the gallon, what bearing does his criminal history have to do with whether or not his car works?
So Ayn Rand once wrote admiringly of a horrific criminal; so what? That does not automatically refute all of her ideas, some of which are sensible and work fine, and others of which not so much.

The problem I have with most criticism of her is that people tend to throw the baby out with the bathwater and/or pass judgment without having actually read her work. A common misconception is that the "looters and moochers" of Atlas Shrugged are the poor and working class, when they're actually the crony-capitalists and political leeches who use their influence with the state to take what they couldn't through honest competition, the type that I don't imagine anyone has much sympathy for.

I personally think of her as an author who went against the then prevailing grain and wielded a lot more influence than someone in her position normally would have, who's ideas should be examined individually in a vacuum rather than being accepted or dismissed wholesale. Basically, the same way I treat any idea or set of them.

Elements of the Bible that are perfectly sensible, and others not so much, but I don't just blindly condemn the whole thing or claim it as invalid because it's authors held other crazy views, not that you could get much crazier than a literal interpretation of the Bible.


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Dox47
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02 Dec 2012, 4:49 am

LKL wrote:
http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2012/08/mark-ames-paul-ryans-guru-ayn-rand-worshipped-a-serial-killer-who-kidnapped-and-dismembered-little-girls.html


Jesus, I just read the "article" you linked... I highly suggest changing to less craptastic information sources, for your own sake. I mean I see now where you get your whacked out ideas about what libertarianism is, but even the commentors in that POS tore it to shreds.


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LKL
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02 Dec 2012, 5:26 am

Dox47 wrote:
LKL wrote:
Her idea of an ubermensch was a serial killer who raped and dismembered a little girl and then left pieces of her on her scattered about town.
http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2012/08/ ... girls.html
She literally advocated sociopathy.
She has had a tremendous impact on the country, but not a good one.


And that has exactly what to do the validity of the rest of her ideas? See, I'm of the opinion that if say, a child molester invents say, a car that gets 100 miles to the gallon, what bearing does his criminal history have to do with whether or not his car works?
So Ayn Rand once wrote admiringly of a horrific criminal; so what? That does not automatically refute all of her ideas, some of which are sensible and work fine, and others of which not so much.

The problem I have with most criticism of her is that people tend to throw the baby out with the bathwater and/or pass judgment without having actually read her work. A common misconception is that the "looters and moochers" of Atlas Shrugged are the poor and working class, when they're actually the crony-capitalists and political leeches who use their influence with the state to take what they couldn't through honest competition, the type that I don't imagine anyone has much sympathy for.

I personally think of her as an author who went against the then prevailing grain and wielded a lot more influence than someone in her position normally would have, who's ideas should be examined individually in a vacuum rather than being accepted or dismissed wholesale. Basically, the same way I treat any idea or set of them.

Elements of the Bible that are perfectly sensible, and others not so much, but I don't just blindly condemn the whole thing or claim it as invalid because it's authors held other crazy views, not that you could get much crazier than a literal interpretation of the Bible.

Whether you like the source or not, her admiration for a sociopath in real life comes out in her writings and her words as well. One of her heroes blows up his masterwork building rather than have 'worthless' handicapped people housed in it.

"If any civilization is to survive, it is the morality of altruism that men have to reject."

"Civilization is the progress toward a society of privacy. The savage’s whole existence is public, ruled by the laws of his tribe. Civilization is the process of setting man free from men."

"The question isn’t who is going to let me; it’s who is going to stop me."

"There are two sides to every issue: one side is right and the other is wrong, but the middle is always evil."

“Freedom (n.): To ask nothing. To expect nothing. To depend on nothing.”

“Why do they always teach us that it's easy and evil to do what we want and that we need discipline to restrain ourselves? It's the hardest thing in the world--to do what we want. And it takes the greatest kind of courage. I mean, what we really want.”

Rand had a low opinion of humanity in general, a low opinion of women in general, and a borderline depraved view of sex (I'll spare everyone the soliloquies from Atlas Shrugged that speak to that). Her entire structure of philosophy is built on misanthropy, and people worship her for it. To extend the metaphor of your car, it's a car that gets its energies from being towed along by the kids that have grown beyond the age of attraction for the molester. He no longer needs them, and they have to be useful for something, don't they?



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02 Dec 2012, 6:07 am

LKL wrote:
Whether you like the source or not, her admiration for a sociopath in real life comes out in her writings and her words as well. One of her heroes blows up his masterwork building rather than have 'worthless' handicapped people housed in it.

"If any civilization is to survive, it is the morality of altruism that men have to reject."

"Civilization is the progress toward a society of privacy. The savage’s whole existence is public, ruled by the laws of his tribe. Civilization is the process of setting man free from men."

"The question isn’t who is going to let me; it’s who is going to stop me."

"There are two sides to every issue: one side is right and the other is wrong, but the middle is always evil."

“Freedom (n.): To ask nothing. To expect nothing. To depend on nothing.”

“Why do they always teach us that it's easy and evil to do what we want and that we need discipline to restrain ourselves? It's the hardest thing in the world--to do what we want. And it takes the greatest kind of courage. I mean, what we really want.”


So what? I specifically said that you have to pick and choose when reading her, you obviously picked and chose statements that would support your viewpoint and view of her. I could easily paint a more sympathetic picture if it mattered to me by engaging in a similar cherry picking exercise, but I don't feel that it's a good use of my time.

LKL wrote:
Rand had a low opinion of humanity in general, a low opinion of women in general, and a borderline depraved view of sex (I'll spare everyone the soliloquies from Atlas Shrugged that speak to that). Her entire structure of philosophy is built on misanthropy, and people worship her for it.


Again, so what? Ghandi liked to give little girls enemas (look it up), does that somehow undo all the other things he did with his life?

LKL wrote:
To extend the metaphor of your car, it's a car that gets its energies from being towed along by the kids that have grown beyond the age of attraction for the molester. He no longer needs them, and they have to be useful for something, don't they?


That doesn't make any sense. I said invented a car that get's 100 miles to the gallon, not "is towed by post-pubescent children. Is that really the best rebuttal you've got? :?


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