Anybody here ever read Ayn Rand's works?
Posted by deleted 6 years ago to Philosophy
Not intending to be objectionable or insensitive, I have to ask, especially considering some of the responses I have received lately:
Has Anybody Here Ever Read Ayn Rand's Works?
Yes, yes, I've been told a million times not to exaggerate so I know perhaps even most people here have some familiarity with her works and words.
But there are too many others who seem to have not the least concept.
Rand advocated, as her political philosophy, individual freedom. From her premise that each individual has sole ownership and control of his own life, she reasoned -- and I honestly see no other conclusion -- that therefore it is wrong to initiate force.
She quite explicitly opposed, to name one, the income tax, as well as other forms of theft.
Therefore, despite her own neurotic opposition to the word, Ayn Rand was a libertarian.
Now, please, you who are determined to react rather than think, note I said "libertarian," NOT "Libertarian."
Even though I have several times explained the differences between the two words, some leap-to-wrong-conclusion addicts keep trying to argue with me, without checking their premises.
For you folks who have not read her works and her words, Ayn Rand was probably the world's foremost advocate of reason ... maybe ever.
She was also, though actually allied with many thousands of others, a leading advocate of human freedom.
Only a cultist, only very misinformed cultist, can continue to deny that "libertarian" is the correct term.
She was not an "anarchist," not an agorist, not a voluntaryist, but I think she was a free marketeer and thus she was, yes, a libertarian -- though a minarchist.
So, I ask again: You people who keep calling yourselves "conservative" and/or "Republican," how do you rationalize or justify also calling yourself "Randian" or, especially, "Objectivist"?
I remember Rand explicitly forbidding people calling themselves "Objectivist." She said to call your self "student of Objectivism."
Finally, and I'm sure there will be hurt feelings from this, why on Earth don't you check your spelling as well as your premise?
I see comments here that are downright embarrassing because of miserable grammar and sloppy spelling.
If we truly care about truth, about reason, about Ayn Rand's legacy, shouldn't we be much more careful about how we represent her?
Has Anybody Here Ever Read Ayn Rand's Works?
Yes, yes, I've been told a million times not to exaggerate so I know perhaps even most people here have some familiarity with her works and words.
But there are too many others who seem to have not the least concept.
Rand advocated, as her political philosophy, individual freedom. From her premise that each individual has sole ownership and control of his own life, she reasoned -- and I honestly see no other conclusion -- that therefore it is wrong to initiate force.
She quite explicitly opposed, to name one, the income tax, as well as other forms of theft.
Therefore, despite her own neurotic opposition to the word, Ayn Rand was a libertarian.
Now, please, you who are determined to react rather than think, note I said "libertarian," NOT "Libertarian."
Even though I have several times explained the differences between the two words, some leap-to-wrong-conclusion addicts keep trying to argue with me, without checking their premises.
For you folks who have not read her works and her words, Ayn Rand was probably the world's foremost advocate of reason ... maybe ever.
She was also, though actually allied with many thousands of others, a leading advocate of human freedom.
Only a cultist, only very misinformed cultist, can continue to deny that "libertarian" is the correct term.
She was not an "anarchist," not an agorist, not a voluntaryist, but I think she was a free marketeer and thus she was, yes, a libertarian -- though a minarchist.
So, I ask again: You people who keep calling yourselves "conservative" and/or "Republican," how do you rationalize or justify also calling yourself "Randian" or, especially, "Objectivist"?
I remember Rand explicitly forbidding people calling themselves "Objectivist." She said to call your self "student of Objectivism."
Finally, and I'm sure there will be hurt feelings from this, why on Earth don't you check your spelling as well as your premise?
I see comments here that are downright embarrassing because of miserable grammar and sloppy spelling.
If we truly care about truth, about reason, about Ayn Rand's legacy, shouldn't we be much more careful about how we represent her?
I also think that using reason to combat the leftists emotional arguments doesn’t work. They haven’t gotten to where they are using reason. And we won’t change their position with reason
I think the civilization needs to collapse before people will listen to galt
Maybe Venezuela is ready for galt now that they don’t have food
There has never been a time when it was more important to consistently explain the proper principles of individualism and appeal to the American sense of life left while there is still some of it left to appeal to. When it's gone it will be much more difficult to speak out and convince anyone, and once collectivism is accepted and entrenched, speaking out against it becomes illegal.
... Meanwhile we see "libertarian" groupies who couldn't even come close to Trump trying to be taken seriously. At least one such troll is here on this forum 'downvoting' Ayn Rand's rejection of them.
That kind of nastiness is just why so many otherwise intelligent people just write off all Randians as "cultists" and, worse, "nuts."
I don't know who is "downvoting" you, but I certainly understand why anyone would.
In fact, on those rare occasions you have said something intelligent and worthwhile, I have voted up. But I won't again.
I agree than an intellectually consistent rational candidate cannot be elected in this emotionally drive. Culture.
Trump is not intellectually consistent either but DID get elected fortunately because Hillary was so bad. My hope is that he can slow down the march to socialism for a few years
As she herself said, her ideas were flying in the face of thousands of years of Judeo-Christian beliefs.
I ask, often, how do you explain water to a fish?
Much harder, how do you explain the stars to a fish?
Rand was trying the latter, to show humans greatness, things and ideas beyond the mundane.
Probably most people cannot because they will not accept a hard reality, as opposed to mysticism and superstition.
It's a terrible cliche, but apparently also a truism: It's important to go along in order to get along.
Being willing to stand out, to be different, to, for example, study and understand the ideas of Ayn Rand in many ways make us different and, thus, perceived as a threat.
Or at least as something making others uncomfortable.
But her basic ideas are radically different than most of what has been promoted for thousands of years. They challenge what most people have come to believe out of habit because they have heard it so many times from an early age and absorb it uncritically, not knowing where it came from or its full implications.
Part of what they accept is a hopelessness of understanding at all, and they are not accustomed to thinking in abstract concepts beyond an emotional level. Any kind of true thinking with mental focus requires effort, but at least some do that in their professional lives. People either want to question and understand or they don't. Even on this forum we see people enthusiastically attracted to Atlas Shrugged in some way, but associate it with whatever else they have absorbed. They don't think about what Ayn Rand was saying beyond their emotional reactions and don't try to understand the philosophy that made Atlas Shrugged possible.
The producers at the end of AS, though, were not dead. The worm had turned. They were 100% full of life.
It's true he has stood up to the agitators, propagandists, and liars of the "news" media better than most presidents, certainly better than the "news" media's favorite targets, Republicans.
But another philosopher, Sidney Hook, pointed out that having the strength of one's convictions is not good enough if one's convictions are irrational or immoral, as for example Islamic suicide bombers.
Then, again, does Trump have any convictions?
And I don't mean the convictions the Democrats are hoping for from a trial.
Aleppo, and frankly anything we are doing in the middle east, is not at all important in the scheme of things for the USA. It did show that Johnson wasnt anywhere near being sufficiently aware of what was going on in the world for the president's job. He should just have answered that we shouldnt be in Iraq in any event, rather than just admitting he didnt even know what or where it was. The MSM got him on that one.
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