[J m HofMarN]

I'm scared. Help me?

I want to hate Ayn Rand, because everything I've heard makes it sound like she's anti-gay, anti-progressive, anti-woman and viciously pro-capitalism.

But I don't want to read one of her books to find out because after reading what's been said of her literary style I'm equally terrified of doing what an informed fellow aught to do in order to make fun of someone.

Any ideas? Anyone actually read some of her stuff?

[civilian_number_two]

I'm scared. Help me?

I want to hate Ayn Rand, because everything I've heard makes it sound like she's anti-gay, anti-progressive, anti-woman and viciously pro-capitalism.

But I don't want to read one of her books to find out because after reading what's been said of her literary style I'm equally terrified of doing what an informed fellow aught to do in order to make fun of someone.

Any ideas? Anyone actually read some of her stuff?

Read the first five chapters or so each of THE FOUNTAINHEAD and ATLAS SHRUGGED. The you can see that her entire stance against any sort of social spending and centralised government is a series of hysterical straw man arguments. Virtually all Ayn Rand supporters speak out in favour of a pure laissez-faire capitalism, but don't recognize that they also support a strong police force to protect their wealth. A force paid by taxation, which they oppose as a kind of theft. It's so yawn-worthy, it makes me ill. Ayn Rand herself said that she felt taxation would not be necessary in a pure laissez-faire environment because the wealthy would pay for the services they wanted voluntarily (like road paving, fire departments, etc), and the poor could be relied upon to participate in lotteries. She said these things in her Playboy interview. It's awesome.

[J m HofMarN]

Ah that sounds like an ingenius system. The rich can pay for the police forces and that way anyone who is bad for business can be summarily executed.

[Otal Nimrodi]

Brilliant!

[Tek]

Ayn Rand is best summed up by this:

"Her views are always spouted by those who secretly think themselves in the elite group of her world order"

[Bond]

Tried to read Rand once; couldn't. It was awful...

[Emu]

I read The Fountainhead for that scholarship essay that everyone does. Howard Roark was an interesting character because he insisted upon doing his work the "right" way and not being restricted by tradition - he' willing to live an ascetic lifestyle in order to work on his own terms; he's the ultimate not-selling-out person.

However, Rand really bashes anyone who works for the benefit of others. There is one character (I forgot her name) who devotes her life to charitable causes and, as a result, is utterly deluded and miserable. But, by Rand's logic, if helping others is something you're really utterly brilliant at, then shouldn't that be what you do?

She also bashes humor. Her reasoning is thus (or thereabouts): in order to do something right, you must take it completely seriously. as such, having a sense of humor about anything undermines the thing about which you are joking. as such, she is opposed to humor of any sort. as such, her book is utterly devoid of it.

as such, it makes for a rather dull read.

then there are the really long monologues by the people in the book who are successful because they worked hard but also because they were ruthless and selfish. these monologues serve pretty much to outline her philosophy. but my, they are long and redundant.

[Slade]

Yeah, she's essentially a libertarian capitalist with an unhealthy fixation on and support of selfish power struggles. I can't get through any of her stuff. Mostly I hear her name and think "lol libertarian!" Seriously. And I don't associate with "lol" if I can all help it.

You're much braver and of stronger will than I, my dear Emu.

[David-kyo]

Good thing I saw the South Park episode with her book in it before I came across Atlas Shrugged. Needless to say I dropped the thing like hot coal.

[Bond]

Really? I don't think I've seen that episode; what was it about?

[njamilla]

My dad paid for a summer trip to Europe when I was in high school only if I read The Fountainhead. I never did until much later.

Here's my suggestion: Read the last chapter and you'll get a summary of the whole thesis of the book.

For my part, I started reading the beginning and though the whole thing was bullshit. Her writing was so conventional that I figured that I could probably read the last chapter and not miss a beat. So I tore out the last chapter and carried it in my pocket, reading it whenever I had the time. I finally read it in NYC. It was exactly what I expected. A summary of her arguments. I threw the chapter in the nearest trash bin.

[Snake Logan]

Everyone working for themselves is very counterproductive.

[?!!]

Really? I don't think I've seen that episode; what was it about?

It was the episode where Officer Barbrady learned to read and, as a celebration, he read Atlas Shrugged. After reading it he claimed that reading "totally sucks ass" and that he would never do it again.

This post has been edited by ?!!: 26 January 2008 - 01:19 PM

[David-kyo]

It was the episode where Officer Barbrady learned to read and, as a celebration, he read Atlas Shrugged. After reading it he claimed that reading "totally sucks ass" and that he would never do it again.

You forgot to mention that the librarian who had given the book to him was a chickenfucker.

[Deucaon]

1. A government is the most dangerous threat to man’s rights: it holds a legal monopoly on the use of physical force against legally disarmed victims.

2. Ask yourself whether the dream of heaven and greatness should be waiting for us in our graves - or whether it should be ours here and now and on this earth.

3. 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.

4. Do not ever say that the desire to “do good” by force is a good motive. Neither power-lust nor stupidity are good motives.

5. From the smallest necessity to the highest religious abstraction, from the wheel to the skyscraper, everything we are and everything we have comes from one attribute of man - the function of his reasoning mind.

6. Government “help” to business is just as disastrous as government persecution… the only way a government can be of service to national prosperity is by keeping its hands off.

7. I swear, by my life and my love of it, that I will never live for the sake of another man, nor ask another man to live for mine.

8. Individual rights are not subject to a public vote; a majority has no right to vote away the rights of a minority; the political function of rights is precisely to protect minorities from oppression by majorities (and the smallest minority on earth is the individual).

9. It only stands to reason that where there’s sacrifice, there’s someone collecting the sacrificial offerings. Where there’s service, there is someone being served. The man who speaks to you of sacrifice is speaking of slaves and masters, and intends to be the master.

10. Man’s unique reward, however, is that while animals survive by adjusting themselves to their background, man survives by adjusting his background to himself.

11. Money is the barometer of a society’s virtue.

12. Only the man who does not need it, is fit to inherit wealth, the man who would make his fortune no matter where he started.

13. People create their own questions because they are afraid to look straight. All you have to do is look straight and see the road, and when you see it, don’t sit looking at it - walk.

14. Reason is not automatic. Those who deny it cannot be conquered by it. Do not count on them. Leave them alone.

15. Run for your life from any man who tells you that money is evil. That sentence is the leper’s bell of an approaching looter.

16. The man who lets a leader prescribe his course is a wreck being towed to the scrap heap.

17. The only power any government has is the power to crack down on criminals. Well, when there aren’t enough criminals, one makes them. One declares so many things to be a crime that it becomes impossible for men to live without breaking laws

18. The purpose of morality is to teach you, not to suffer and die, but to enjoy yourself and live.

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

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

21. There is a level of cowardice lower than that of the conformist: the fashionable non-conformist.

22. We are fast approaching the stage of the ultimate inversion: the stage where the government is free to do anything it pleases, while the citizens may act only by permission; which is the stage of the darkest periods of human history, the stage of rule by brute force.

23. When I die, I hope to go to Heaven, whatever the Hell that is.

24. Wealth is the product of man’s capacity to think.

25. The most depraved type of human being is the man without a purpose.

I never read a book written by Ayn Rand but what I gathered from these quotes of hers, she is not a bad philosopher and she doesn’t seem amoral (both of which I assumed from all the criticism on Ayn Rand.)