Ayn Rand’s adult-onset adolescence (Wash Post)

[tishaLA]

<snip> Rand is something of a cultural phenomenon — the author of potboilers who became an ethical and political philosopher, a libertarian heroine. But Rand’s distinctive mix of expressive egotism, free love and free-market metallurgy does not hold up very well on the screen. The emotional center of the movie is the success of high-speed rail — oddly similar to a proposal in Barack Obama’s last State of the Union address. All of the characters are ideological puppets. Visionary, comely capitalists are assaulted by sniveling government planners, smirking lobbyists, nagging wives, rented scientists and cynical humanitarians. When characters begin disappearing — on strike against the servility and inferiority of the masses — one does not question their wisdom in leaving the movie.

None of the characters expresses a hint of sympathetic human emotion — which is precisely the point. Rand’s novels are vehicles for a system of thought known as Objectivism. Rand developed this philosophy at the length of Tolstoy, with the intellectual pretensions of Hegel, but it can be summarized on a napkin. Reason is everything. Religion is a fraud. Selfishness is a virtue. Altruism is a crime against human excellence. Self-sacrifice is weakness. Weakness is contemptible. “The Objectivist ethics, in essence,” said Rand, “hold that man exists for his own sake, that the pursuit of his own happiness is his highest moral purpose, that he must not sacrifice himself to others, nor sacrifice others to himself.”

If Objectivism seems familiar, it is because most people know it under another name: adolescence. Many of us experienced a few unfortunate years of invincible self-involvement, testing moral boundaries and prone to stormy egotism and hero worship. Usually one grows out of it, eventually discovering that the quality of our lives is tied to the benefit of others. Rand’s achievement was to turn a phase into a philosophy, as attractive as an outbreak of acne. <snip> http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/ayn-rands-adult-onset-adolescence/2011/04/21/AFv2JyKE_story.html">Washington Post

[Kingofalldems]

1. Rush Limbaugh basically has the sensibilities of a 14 yr. old

[MedleyMisty]

2. So why are we ruled by so many people who believe in it?

If the rest of us know it's not sane, know it's psychopathic, know it's not reasonable or realistic - why do we let people who live by it have power over us and make decisions that impact our lives based on it?

America is the most insane, the most illogical, the most cowardly nation this planet has ever known.

[fascisthunter]

6. true, but we didn't just let them have the power

they used dishonesty and tons of money with the cover of the media... this was a massive conspiracy.

On the other hand, our system did get to this anemic state because we did allow it to happen. I just don't put all the blame on us... criminals, psychopaths and sociopaths need to be taken very seriously so that in the future, these same types don't get into government.

[MH1]

17. "the rest of us", obviously, DON'T know that.

It's a simplistic worldview that makes a neat fit for a lot of people. So they say 'yeah, that sounds right', accept it, and vote for assholes who will make their life more difficult.

People don't want to understand that life is complex and can't be boiled down into the simple (and easy) ideas that Rand proposes. So they buy into the simple.

[JVS]

3. Well she grew up a teenager during the Russian Revolution and they didn't tolerate her kind of shit.

[white_wolf]

5. We would all have been better off if she never made it

out of Russia.

[fascisthunter]

14. her mentality is what brought about the revolution in the first place

people became intolerant toward her fucked-up elitist views. She like many of her kind were sociopaths...

[Enrique]

4. we can't take anything Michael Gerson ssys at face value

and also, we need to keep asking, why does anyone so involved, with such dishonesty, in such a debacle as Iraq still have a prominent voice in the media? We need to keep saying it about Bill Kristol as well. People like Richard Perle and Paul Wolfowitz at least had the decency to disappear from the face of the earth.

[hulka38]

12. Good point.

It's as if the Iraq War never happened and all these clowns get a do over and can keep their reputations as experts in foreign policy, or in the case of CNBC, etc...finance and economics.

[ixion]

7. "nor sacrifice others to himself.”

This is a great example of why the modern-day 'Randians' are nothing but a bunch of parasitic coattail riders, whom Rand would find detestable, in my opinion.

[Tansy_Gold]

8. She, like her followers, too often forgot the second half of her philosophy

"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."

In fact, it has become, ". . . and I will ask every other man, woman, child, animal, vegetable, and especially mineral to give up their lives for me, me, me, and ME."


TG, who has an autographed copy

[ixion]

9. Oh yeah... she was on again off again practicing what she preached

I just wanted to point out that Objectivism often gets a rap it doesn't deserve necessarily. While there are certainly things I disagree with, there are admirable qualities in the philosophy as well. I think you can boil much of it down to:

Don't be shy, just deserve -- Michael Stipe

[Turbineguy]

10. "....nor sacrifice others to himself...."

That's the part these clowns forgot to read.

[snagglepuss]

11. K & R nt

[Vinnie From Indy]

13. "it can be summarized on a napkin"

"If Objectivism seems familiar, it is because most people know it under another name: adolescence"

Fucking brilliant description!

[applegrove]

15. So true.

[Duppers]

16. bitch gives atheism a bad rep. nt

nt

[fasttense]

18. Ayn Rand based the lead character on Hickman, the serial killer who chopped up a 12 year old girl.

"The best way to get to the bottom of Ayn Rand's beliefs is to take a look at how she developed the superhero of her novel, Atlas Shrugged, John Galt. Back in the late 1920s, as Ayn Rand was working out her philosophy, she became enthralled by a real-life American serial killer, William Edward Hickman, whose gruesome, sadistic dismemberment of 12-year-old girl named Marion Parker in 1927 shocked the nation. Rand filled her early notebooks with worshipful praise of Hickman. According to biographer Jennifer Burns, author of Goddess of the Market, Rand was so smitten with Hickman that she modeled her first literary creation -- Danny Renahan, the protagonist of her unfinished first novel, The Little Street -- on him.

What did Rand admire so much about Hickman? His sociopathic qualities: "Other people do not exist for him, and he does not see why they should," she wrote, gushing that Hickman had "no regard whatsoever for all that society holds sacred, and with a consciousness all his own. He has the true, innate psychology of a Superman. He can never realize and feel 'other people.'"

This echoes almost word for word Rand's later description of her character Howard Roark, the hero of her novel The Fountainhead: "He was born without the ability to consider others." (The Fountainhead is Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas' favorite book -- he even requires his clerks to read it.)

I'll get to where Rand picked up her silly superman blather later -- but first, let's meet William Hickman, the "genuinely beautiful soul" and inspiration to Ayn Rand. What you will read below -- the real story, details included, of what made Hickman a "superman" in Ayn Rand's eyes -- is extremely gory and upsetting, even if you're well acquainted with true crime stories -- so prepare yourself. But it's necessary to read this to understand Rand, and to repeat this over and over until all of America understands what made her tick, because Rand's influence over the very people leading the fight to kill social programs, and her ideological influence on so many powerful bankers, regulators and businessmen who brought the financial markets crashing down, means her ideas are affecting all of our lives in the worst way imaginable."

http://www.alternet.org/books/145819/ayn_rand,_hugely_popular_author_and_inspiration_to_right-wing_leaders,_was_a_big_admirer_of_serial_killers?page=entire

You really need to read the whole thing to know what a sicko Ayn Rand's hero's true life example was. Hickman sewed up the dead girls eyes, so she would look alive when the father came to hand over the ransom. Hickman threw out the dead girl's severed head at her father's feet as he drove away with the money.

This is the sicko the hero of the Libertarian movement admired so much she used him as the bases for her character.

[stevenleser]

19. YES, I have you and other DUers to thank for the inspiration for this video

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tjQeeRn6kW0

Which talks about Hickman and other Rand oddities.

[Libertas1776]

20. "Objectivism" "Selfishness" "Self sacrifice is weakness"...

meanwhile the bitch collected Social Security checks till she kicked the bucket.