I'm So Ashamed-- I Just Ordered "The Fountainhead" By Rand

[BamaLefty]

I know I know... give me the insults here. :cry:

I dunno-- sometimes I enjoy crappy philosophy and situations that are impossible to present themselves in the real world. Hell, that's what I got from reading Atlas Shrugged.

[SeanQuinn]

1. I've not read Rand, I guess I shouldn't, then. nt

[BamaLefty]

4. Well,

she hates liberals, but that's why I read her-- it fires me up. Her characters are self serving and selfish and are completely opposed to Christianity. She mixes extreme libertarianism with pure nonsense (ex: Galt's Gulch in Atlas Shrugged) to form her "masterpieces."

Ayn Rand is well known for her "brand" of philosophy called Objeectivism, but if you're looking for good philosophy don't check out Rand. John Galt's speech in Atlas Shrugged goes on for 60 pages and all he says is "fudge your neighbor." You want to know who John Galt is? He's someone with narcissistic schizophrenia, and he wants to live in a secret valley in Colorado with other extremely wealthy people "roughing it" (trading their mysteriously acquired gold crowns for magic food). Sign me up.

Rand isn't the most famous, or the clearest philosopher on the matter of selfishness as a virtue and the importance and dominance of the self over all other things. She's just easier to pick on b/c of the gaping holes in her thinking. If you want a real philosophy on individualism and the morality of individualism, read real philosophy. Adam Smith (the man who arguably invented capitalism) says interesting things about what the idvidual's role SHOULD be in a capitalist society. Looks as if Rand on the other hand, was just out to make a buck.

[back2basics909]

2. Atlas Shrugged

I liked Atlas Shrugged, i found it a decent read. Don't agree with much of it, but hey it's by a woman who left a communist country who was waaxing lyrical about the woderfull world of market economies. She was always bound to take it a little too far IMHO.

[Dogmudgeon]

3. Don't feel bad

Some people -- even some DUers -- enjoy being humiliated and beaten.

In that context, Ayn Rand isn't so bad.

But I don't enjoy being humiliated and beaten, so I avoid Rand.

--p!
That's because I'm a Top. And a Communist. At the same time.

[Captain Hilts]

5. The movie is a laugh out loud riot. Unintentionally so.

It's a fascinating book, really. Don't be ashamed.

Think Frank Lloyd Wright.

[BamaLefty]

6. Oh I Was Kidding

I'm not ashamed at all-- but knew that Rand didn't have that big of a following on DU, lol. That's all.

At least I can say I've given the 'ol bastard more money for her objectivism conferences and her lasting "legacy" estate. ;)

[Captain Hilts]

17. "The Simpsons" did a send-up of her running a day care center...

for infants that was a riot. She yanked their pacifiers from them and told them to repeat "I am a leach!"

They then did a "Great Escape" take off where the little kids break into her office and take their pacifiers back.

[classof56]

7. I recommend "Anthem", a short but poignant and thought-provoking read

I've also read "The Fountainhead", "Atlas Shrugged" and "We the Living". I never really bought into or fully understood what Rand was trying to tell us, but liked her characters, especially the strong women. I was awfully young back then, of course. I still re-read "Anthem" now and then, a rather chilling look at the future as Ayn envisioned it.

Don't be ashamed. Enjoy the book and be glad we're still free to read what we want...for now, anyhow!

Tired Old Cynic

[BamaLefty]

8. Yeah... I Have A Feeling That They Ones I Power Would Leave Us Rand Books

Yeah, I'm still a young buck. I'll start my Senior year next Tuesday. *gasp*

So I still have time to read "Anthem"...

[Maple]

12. I agree

Hard to oppose something you haven't read.

I enjoyed them all, but my faves were Anthem and Atlas Shrugged. I never cared for the Fountainhead.

They are only fictional worlds, and meant to make a point like any other book, but interesting nonetheless.

I never got the same point out of them as others did, but that's okay. :D

[SlipperySlope]

9. Atlas Shrugged: Second most influential book in America!

I'm surprised more DUers don't know about Rand. Atlas Shrugged often polls as the second most influential book in America. Everybody should read a little Rand, if just to familiarize themselves with her.

[BamaLefty]

10. That Is Kinda Odd Sounding To Me...

I've heard about AS being the 2nd most influential book in the USA-- only behind The Bible.

I would think that something else would hold the 2nd place crown, but I guess not.

[moggie]

15. That's right

That was from a 1991 survey conducted by the Library of Congress and the Book of the Month Club, which found that Atlas Shrugged ranked second in significance to the respondents' lives, after the bible. I don't know whether those two books are compatible, though. Nathaniel Branden, who was close to Rand (part of her adoring inner circle, until he fell out of favour), quotes her in his book Judgement Day: My Years with Ayn Rand:

The precept: "Judge not, that ye be not judged" ... is an abdication of moral responsibility: it is a moral blank check one gives to others in exchange for a moral blank check one expects for oneself.

So much for Christ's sermon on the mount.

The cult of personality surrounding Rand was (is?) amazing. Branden describes the creed adopted by that inner circle (who called themselves "the Collective"):

• Ayn Rand in the greatest human being who has ever lived.
  
• Atlas Shrugged is the greatest human achievement in the history of the world.
  
• Ayn Rand, by virtue of her philosophical genius, is the supreme arbiter in any issue pertaining to what is rational, moral, or appropriate to man's life on earth.
  
• Once one is acquainted with Ayn Rand and/or her work, the measure of one's virtue is intrinsically tied to the position one takes regarding her and/or it.
  
• No-one can be a good Objectivist who does not admire what Ayn Rand admires and condemn what Ayn Rand condemns.
  
• No-one can be a fully consistent individualist who disagrees with Ayn Rand on any fundamental issue.
  
• Since Ayn Rand has designated Nathaniel Branden as her "intellectual heir", and has repeatedly proclaimed him to be an ideal exponent of her philosophy, he is to be accorded only marginally less reverence than Ayn Rand herself.
  
• But it is best not to say most of these things explicitly (excepting, perhaps, the first two items). One must always maintain that one arrives at one's beliefs solely by reason.
  

I think it's just possible that these people had lost their sense of perspective, slightly.

I may be wrong, but I get the impression that, over here in Europe, Rand is taken a lot less seriously than in the US.

[papau]

13. When I was 12 I read it for the sex - one page of the lady feeling the

power of his money in his body and then in her body as he did the dirty deed.

Since then I have met many GOP male executives that really believe they have that to offer, and, amazingly, many GOP females that do the Mistress thing because they believe the money makes up for ugly and bad talk/vibes/logic in a partner.

Crazy world.

[BamaLefty]

14. Old Dagny

got around didn't she? LOL

[papau]

16. :-) Dagny Taggart and rough sex with hero worship = women defined by her

male - at least for sex.

I'm not sure what might be called consensual rape technique makes our rich and powerful John Galt a great lover (..."leashed intensity" ...the "harshness of his lips...down the line of her throat,… a trail of bruises... his elbow knocking her head aside" ... "her teeth sinking into the flesh of his arm" as she claims to not "surrender" but to just "worship" his maleness - pp. 995-996).

For a lady that liked large egos, the sexual "hero-worship" sure sounded like dependence, yielding to the male because females are the weaker sex.

I always laughed at Rand's reason as one's only source of knowledge as demonstrated by one's independence of mind and refusal to accept contradictions.

She never admitted the contradictions in her own work.

:-)

[rwenos]

23. Rand's Seductive Logic

In both "Atlas Shrugged" and "The Fountainhead" she makes a fetish about deifying Aristotle. Only trouble is, she never gets around to challenging the major premise -- i.e., the part of Aristotelian logic that requires speculative thought.

"The Fountainhead" is a good novel, worth reading if for no other reason than to hold in one's head the image of Peter Keating, the ultimate corporate whore. Also, Dominique is about the most cold-blooded bitch in 20th Century literature.

"Atlas Shrugged" is a book people have on their bookshelf but don't read. Is anyone REALLY willing to contend they read "The Speech" (it's 300 pages long) all the way through? (It's the same screed, over and over and over.)

Meanwhile: She was an escaped White Russian, you know. Ever read "We the Living"?

A thoroughly pretensious woman, wrote good novels, bad philosophy.

[htuttle]

11. htuttle Shrugged

:shrug:

[dr.zoidberg]

18. My brother had to read one of her books.

It was assigned to him in some class while he is going to college. I can't remember the name of it, but I tried reading it and it was a total bore. From what I understand, I have just described each and every single one of her books:).

[Uncle Roy]

19. I read "Atlas Shrugged" and "The Fountainhead" when I was a teenager,

back in the mid-60s. They are thought-provoking books, and I'd recommend one or the other (they're pretty much interchangeable) to anyone who is interrested in the issue of the role of the individual in society. Rand came down strongly on the side of the individual, and argued that selfishness was not necessarily a bad thing. As a teenager, coming of age, groaning under the yoke of parental tyranny (as I saw it then...), I found the argument refreshing, and there is a strain of libertarianism in my political makeup to this very day.

But the books are really just thinly disguised political essays, dressed up as novels. They have NO literary virtues of any kind, and if you pick one up hoping for a good read, you'll probably be disappointed.

As for her political thought: she's pretty much a one-trick pony. Once you "get" her message of enlightened selfishness, then there's not much else there.

Bottom line? Read one of her books, by all means. But don't pay good money for it. Take out a copy from your local library - an enlightened and UN-selfishness institution. It'll drive her nuts.

[Zorra]

20. Her writing is so flat and dry that her books make great cat litter.

Shredded Ayn Rand actually books absorb 50,000 times their own wait in kitty pee.

Try reading Tolstoy backwards if you want to get something more valuable out of torturing yourself.

[toddaa]

21. Her philosophy stinks, but it's a rose compared to her writing

Reams and reams of paper tortured by her pen. And to top it all off, she then attaches an little essay to the end of her turgid monstrosities extolling the virtue of her writing talent. If you manage to finish her abuse of the English language, I suggest a massive dose of Robert Anton Wilson. Libertarian philosophy that is funny, subversive, and far more enjoyable to read.

[AllieB]

22. That is probably the most boring book that I've ever read

if have insomnia, it's a great remedy.

[Uncle Roy]

24. kick

.