Dumb Question but What is with Ayn Rand?

[romantico]

Dumb question but what it is with Ayn Rand? I've seen so many threads over the past day or so here about her. I know Paul Ryan likes her and she is his favorite author and all but what is it about her that I don't know? Sorry for asking such a dumb question but other than knowing she is an author and loved by the right wing, I'm not exactly sure as to why.

[Marr]

1. She promoted a phony "philosophy" literally based around the idea that altruism is evil,

while greed is good.

I've always found it odd that the right has so embraced her, while also claiming Christianity. If there's anything in the world more anti-Christ than Objectivism, I'd like to know what it is.

[applegrove]

2. Her books are cultlike. And immature way of thinking is taught to those who read her.

Last edited Mon Aug 13, 2012, 01:09 AM - Edit history (2)

Her characters actually try to disconnect you from anything outside of yourself. Even in the selfish days childhood we were connected with others and empathized with their plight. Not so in her books. She truly tries to give birth to selfish babies in those who read her philosophy. Ryan is one.

[elleng]

3. Ryan was/is a true believer.

[Aristus]

4. Her novels "Atlas Shrugged" and "The Fountainhead" promoted an ideology called determinism.

Extreme, ultra-right wing, free-market pornography basically. Basically stated that compassion, altruism, and empathy were signs of weakness, and that a human being's highest calling was the amassing of wealth and power at the expense of society, culture, community, family, you name it.

Reich-wingers love her for that, naturally, and ignore the fact that she was fanatically anti-Christian; asserting that compassion for the poor, the weak, and the powerless was itself a sign of weakness.

[unblock]

7. you mean "objectivism"

determinism is the philosophy that all events, including human decisions and emotions, are predetermined and could, in theory, be prefectily predicted by someone having enough detailed information as to the present status of all matter and energy in the universe.

rand rejected this theory in favor of the theory you describe, called "objectivism".

[Aristus]

19. Right. Sorry.

Thanks for the correction.

[BlueJazz]

5. Plus she took from the government (SS, medicare) in the last stages of her life,

Do as I say, not as I do

[freshwest]

6. All you needed to know, and more than you wanted to know:

If you read nothing else, read this article, in full if you can stomach it. Not only does it explain what is wrong with Rand, Objectivism, and these two Koch funded groups, The Reason Society and Libertarian Party as well as the Tea Party, it explains what the powerful intend for a large amount of Americans. When they say job creators, producers and parasites, this is where this came from. Are they intending genocide? You decide:

Ayn Rand, Hugely Popular Author and Inspiration to Right-Wing Leaders, Was a Big Admirer of Serial Killer

http://www.alternet.org/story/145819/ayn_rand%2C_hugely_popular_author_and_inspiration_to_right-wing_leaders%2C_was_a_big_admirer_of_serial_killer?paging=off

I've talked about this on a few threads, but here are some threads here on DU about Ayn Rand. We can't afford to bury our heads in the sand about this:

Paul Ryan’s Guru Ayn Rand Worshipped a Serial Killer Who Kidnapped and Dismembered Little Girls

http://www.democraticunderground.com/10021118602

ATLAS SHRIEKED: Ayn Rand's first love was a sadistic serial killer

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=439x913404

[jonthebru]

12. Word.

Mike Wallace interviewed her it is on youtube she is reserved and careful but the points she makes cement her fascist ideology.

[eShirl]

13. found a link

for anyone interested in trying to stomach it

&feature=related

[BumRushDaShow]

17. Thank you for posting

Just got done watching. I don't even recognize the Mike Wallace from that interview considering what he devolved into before he died.

[freshwest]

21. Also, if anyone worries the term 'genocide' is out of line, here are the words of Bernie Sanders:

He doesn't say 'genocide' here, but at 3:30 he gets to the point. AFAIK, genocide comes from a planned, intentional act. Things he cites are from plans that shorten the lives of the poor. They are considered to be lesser human beings, not equals.

Suffering is intentionally inflicted on the poor, the people Ayn Rand calls 'parasites.' The GOP ascribes to a religious doctrine that claims God gives riches to the wealthy because of their higher morality. Thus it wrong to demand the rich pay taxes because it's God's will.

This assumes those temporarily or long-term in poverty are not part of the whole of the system, but ae disposable items. And even if the rich benefit from impoverishing others, it is the 'just desserts' of those made poor, for being morally destitute. Their poverty requires punishment, to the point of death.

When a business finds something is not good for the bottom line, it is eliminated. It or them, in this case, by denying them first the means to live in the fabled 'free market' and then deny them means to live with welfare and thus eliminate them from the gene pool.

S.C. Lt. Gov. Andre Bauer Compares Helping Poor to Feeding Stray Animals

"My grandmother was not a highly educated woman, but she told me as a small child to quit feeding stray animals," Bauer said during a town hall meeting, as the Greenville News reported over the weekend. "You know why? Because they breed. You're facilitating the problem if you give an animal or a person ample food supply. They will reproduce, especially ones that don't think too much further than that. And so what you've got to do is you've got to curtail that type of behavior. They don't know any better."

As the Greenville News notes, more than half of the students in South Carolina participate in a program that allows them to get their lunch for free, or at a reduced cost.

Bauer later said he wasn't saying those who receive government help "were animals or anything else."

http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-503544_162-6139186-503544.html

Note Bauer tried to take back the exact same words he said. After listening to Rush, Boortz, and other hate radio pundits, the rhetoric from these Koch-influenced shills affects voters and those in charge of the purse strings of this country.

They are hostile to the life of many people. Clearly, they don't desire for all of us to survive.

[MissMarple]

8. Check her out on youtube.

There are several interviews, some with Mike Wallace and Phil Donahue

[Warpy]

9. She makes rich punks think its their destiny to stay rich punks

and the rest of us are rabble meant to service them.

It's a very seductive philosophy for punks in general, but rich punks don't tend to outgrow it.

[Honeycombe8]

10. Here's a PBS description, and a note I added about the end of her life.

http://www.pbs.org/wnet/americannovel/timeline/rand.html

Ayn Rand, (1905-1982), was an American author and social critic. Her books serve mainly as a means of expressing her philosophies. Literary critics tend to see them as marred by a tendency to instruct the reader.

Rand's best-known novels are THE FOUNTAINHEAD (1943) and ATLAS SHRUGGED (1957). Both present a moral and economic philosophy, called Objectivism, based on individualism and self-interest. These novels express the belief that original ideas are the main force in the world and that creative individuals deserve to profit from their ideas. The heroes represent disciplined, rational people of action who reject organized religion. In THE FOUNTAINHEAD, an architect destroys a housing project in which his ideas had been altered. In ATLAS SHRUGGED, one of the central characters calls a "mind strike," during which all creative people withhold their ideas from the rest of the world. The strike reveals that society cannot exist without creative genius.

Rand was born in St. Petersburg, Russia. She moved to the United States in 1926 and became a U.S. citizen in 1931. Her novels WE THE LIVING (1936) and ANTHEm (1938) reflect her early life in Russia. Both novels express her revolt against socialist forms of government. Rand also wrote about her philosophies in such works of nonfiction as FOR THE NEW INTELLECTUAL (1961), THE VIRTUE OF SELFISHNESS (1964), and CAPITALISM, THE UNKNOWN IDEAL (1966).


Contributor:
Arthur M. Saltzman, Ph.D., Professor of English, Missouri Southern State College.
**************************************************************

She took things to an un-understandable level, but having experienced certain things in her life, she came to the conclusion that objectivism was the best philosophy. She had lived through two revolutions in Russia, including the Bolshevik Revolution. Her family's business and property had been confiscated and given away. A lifetime of hard work taken away, in the name of socialism. So it is maybe understandable her philosophy went the other way.

In her later years, despite a lifetime of work, she ended up with not a lot of money, and had to take Social Security, despite her objections to social programs. Her feelings were that she paid into it, so she was entitlted to it, and needed it. Medicare provided her much needed health care that she couldn't pay for. Others who had been against socialism, like her, had refused to take Social Security.

I can guess that, despite her protests to the contrary, she may have had a slight change of heart at the end of her life, having then experienced what millions of others already knew: that you can work hard an entire lifetime, in a capitalistic society where you theoretically get paid what you're worth, and still end up not being able to get medical care or pay your bills. I believe her belief before then had been that others were not intelligent or didn't work hard, and that's why they had less money, and that was how things should be.

[romantico]

11. Thanks

Some of this sounded familiar but I could not remember exactly. Thanks for refreshing my memory. I do recall her hypocrisy on taking advantage of the system she condemned.

[HiPointDem]

14. because she wrote stupid novels with her stupid libertarianism embedded in them -- moronic

novels written so moronically that even teenage boys could "get" the stupid message.

lowest common denominator libertarianism, that's why.

[Motown_Johnny]

15. Some Rand quotes

http://atheism.about.com/library/quotes/bl_q_ARand.htm

^snip^

14. The alleged short-cut to knowledge, which is faith, is only a short circuit destroying the mind.

15. Faith is the worse curse of mankind, as the exact antithesis and enemy of thought.

20. To rest one's case on faith means to concede that reason is on the side of one's enemies- that one has no rational arguments to offer.





http://listverse.com/2007/12/13/top-25-ayn-rand-quotes/

^snip^

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

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.

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.

[BumRushDaShow]

16. And ironically, she didn't become a naturalized citizen of the U.S. until 1963.

One of the few immigrants who came here not to move us forward, but to aid and abet moving us backwards -all while feeding from the government trough while railing against it. A true huckster.

[romantico]

18. Found

I found this. Disturbing.

"Rand also believed that the scientific consensus on the dangers of tobacco was a hoax. By 1974, the two-pack-a-day smoker, then 69, required surgery for lung cancer. And it was at that moment of vulnerability that she succumbed to the lure of collectivism"

“She was coming to a point in her life where she was going to receive the very thing she didn’t like, which was Medicare and Social Security,” Pryor told McConnell. “I remember telling her that this was going to be difficult. For me to do my job she had to recognize that there were exceptions to her theory. So that started our political discussions. From there on – with gusto – we argued all the time."

http://www.alternet.org/story/149721/ayn_rand_railed_against_government_benefits,_but_grabbed_social_security_and_medicare_when_she_needed_them

[Bluenorthwest]

20. Rand was a hack novelist and wannabe screenwriter whose relative failure in both fields lead to

her touting Objectivism and pretending she'd never ever really wanted to have hit films and books. Bitter as any of them, and there are plenty of them.