Ayn Rand is everywhere!

[juldea]

So last week I saw a guy on the silver line reading Atlas Shrugged (and promptly got in a conversation with him), and this morning a girl on the orange line was reading The Fountainhead. Is it something in the air?

Comments

[greyhame.livejournal.com]

Yeesh. In case it is, I'm glad pyrodon just picked me up some claritin.

[juldea.livejournal.com]

*waves open pages of novel at you, sending the allergins your way...*

But no, really. I know and accept that some people vehemently hate Rand. I just don't get why...

[en-ki.livejournal.com]

Her stories are fun, but her worldview is grossly oversimplified and utterly dismissive of those who don't share it in every respect. If you think the stuff she glosses over is important (like I do) and you (unlike me) aren't a big fan of the main thrust of her ideas anyway, it's quite reasonable to respond to her hostility (which Randroids always call "contempt" for some reason) in kind.

[juldea.livejournal.com]

Okay, so I can understand disagreeing with her quite easily - I know what you mean about how some things are glossed over, and I certainly don't follow her full philosophy and method of life - but I still don't get the hate. Hatred is a response to being threatened... She's just an author, a dead one at that! She might have a cult following but that's not enough by far to threaten the existence of others... *shrug*

I'd be interested to, in some other setting, discuss the simplifications and problems you find in the objectivist philosophy. You simply being another human being who's actually read the damn stuff. ;)

[siderea]

Clearly, you haven't met her fan club. Speaking as someone who from time-to-time identifies as a "Reform Objectivist", the Randroids attain levels of obnoxious, confrontational dogmatism previously reserved for religious fundamentalists. Which basically they are: they have their holy text, they have their prophet, and they follow both literally. They seem to believe that if they can make the world comform to their faith, the Dead Hand of the Market will reward them with 77 virgins in paradise. It's real easy to develop a defensive lash-back toward Rand's work simply from experiencing her devotees.

That said, remember that Rand is actually arguing against stuff which plenty of real people are adamantly for. Religion, for one. Folks don't like their gods dissed. Folks don't like being dissed for having gods. Makes 'em feel attacked. That's because they are being attacked. So that hostility is not unreasonable.

[juldea.livejournal.com]

Heh. There was an Objectivist Club at OU, but I think I attempted to make it to one meeting and then stopped... Do these people realize that by blindly following their "prophet" and "holy text" they are contradicting themself? I can quote from her right here to prove it:

...the vilest form of self-abasement and self-destruction is the subordination of your mind to the mind of another, the acceptance of an authority over your brain, the acceptance of his assertions as facts, his say-so as truth, his edicts as a middle-man between your consciousness and your existence.

Yes, I realize I'm preaching to the choir here. I'm just... bothered. Since I'm a fan of the book, those others who are and take it too far/in the wrong direction/in a way I don't want to be represented by throw mud on me. Yar.

As for the second part - I was discounting religious folks when I said I didn't know why people would hate Rand. I was speaking more of the people whom I would expect to agree with her to at least some degree, but instead violently oppose. I consider many of my friends to be a part of this category.

[(Anonymous)]

objectivism is a funny thing. it's probably only funny because i don't know everything about it, but i have heard about it occasionally.

so, one thing i've been wondering: i get the impression that it is a view which is possibly compatible with various kinds of racism, but which does not itself prescribe one, and which is also compatible with an absense of racism. this is because i saw someone speak to an o.c. who is the closest thing i've ever seen to a hitlerian, as even nazis tend to not be loud, declarative racists (since doing so is now deprecated after the example of hitler). well, the fact that he spoke there, and the fact that he wasn't removed immediately. or even murmured against.

jacob

[juldea.livejournal.com]

Well, being wholly unfamiliar, my question would be: What kind of things was the speaker specifically saying? I'm possibly not clearly reading your comment...

Nothing Rand-written that I have read says anything specific about race. Then again, there are no races besides caucasian mentioned in the books anywhere. The "People's State of China" and some from Africa are mentioned, but no actual people...