"Now observe the results of a society built on the principle of individualism. This, our country. The noblest country in the history of men. The country of greatest achievement, greatest prosperity, greatest freedom. This country was not based on selfless service, sacrifice, renunciation or any precept of altruism. It was based on a man's right to the pursuit of happiness. His own happiness. Not anyone else's. A private, personal, selfish motive. Look at the results. Look into your own conscience." -Ayn Rand
$13 trillion dollars in debt, unemployment rate of 10% (actual jobless rate could be as high as 20%), a large and ever increasing rate of inequality of wealth, a political system ran by inept politicians who govern based on how to win elections than what actually works (dems + Rep)....
America wasn't built upon sacrifice, or any "precept of altruism"? It was created by personal, selfish motives? And yet somehow it's the noblest country in the history of the world!!!11 "All men are created equal..." sounds like an altruistic precept to me...
"So how does it feel to stand so close And never understand How do you feel when you mean so much But you don't even give a damn You let a lotta people down You let a lotta people down You've got a lot to learn, you can't do that Just who the hell do you think you are, you can't do that Well, you rode upon a wicked fence Could've fallen either way But you've chosen other losers In your sick, sick game You let a lotta people down You let a lotta people down You've got a lot to learn, you can't do that Just who the hell do you think you are, you can't do that Your conscience has ghost writers Your dirty hands are clean Flesh and blood and life and death No, it's no mystery You let a lotta people down You let a lotta people down You let a lotta people down You let a lotta people down
"No one can be loyal to two masters. He is bound to hate one and love the other, or support one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and the power of money at the same time." - some guy named Jesus "Now this was the sin of Sodom: She and her daughters were arrogant, overfed and unconcerned; they did not help the poor and needy." - the prophet, Ezekiel "If any civilization is to survive, it is the morality of altruism that men have to reject." - Ayn Rand Honestly, I feel sorry for Ayn Rand. A life built entirely around self is hardly worth living and a gigantic deception.
To me, it's a lot easier to follow the Ayn Rand/Republican way of thinking. Just the other day, I was frustrated over several things, and I thought how much easier it would be to just say, everyone for themselves, I only want to take care of me, if you're not born into a good situation, tough crap, do it my way or else, etc. And then I thought- that's a lot of what is espoused from the right- it must be very comforting to bring things down to a simple level. Which is why I admire the left even more. Requires much more thought.
Ayn Rand demands a de-naturing of human will in the same way the Soviets and most organized religions she hated did. Obejectivism is nothing more than inverted Bolshevism, as simplistic, brutal, and anti-intellectual as Stalinism, but with contempt for the poor instead of the wealthy. Rand celebrates a perverted form of laissez faire capitalism that would offend Adam Smith. Were her ideas to truly win on this planet we would all live in a nightmarish world that is equal parts suburban sprawl mixed with the third world. She does not celebrate individuality -- she worships some perfect, mythical patriarch that never makes mistakes and never experiences a moment of self-doubt and has more in common with fascists and Stalinists of the 20th Century than the great thinkers of the Enlightenment. If you want to read about human will, or the weaknesses of mankind's collective false ethics, Schopenhauer, Nietzsche, Brecht, Lacan, and the collective works of the Frankfurt School, however flawed they might be are much better reading, and far more inspiring. Any post-religious thinker has to address fulfilling spiritual and aesthetic needs. Ayn Rand finds these needs an impediment to the acquisition of wealth and pitiless "progress," which for an Objectivist, are one in the same. Name one culturally significant work of art, be it literature, film, drama, music, visual art or ****ing interpretative dance that owes itself in any way to the "ethics" of Objectivism. Rand herself is a boring writer, filling endless pages with excruciatingly tedious exposition to describe characters that do not, and could not exist, magical supermen that never make mistakes, who will lead the way, if only you think just exactly like them and fill yourself with contempt for human beings who don't live in the higher tax brackets of the developed world. Even Emma Goldman's brand of Anarchism is more intellectually honest than Ayn Rand's quasi-fascist ideals. As much as I can sympathize with many libertarian (with a small "L") ideas, the dogma of the Objectivists is in it's own mean-spirited (anti)intellectual ghetto. And I say this, having supported the Libertarian Party in the past, but I find it's often way too kooky, right-wing and well...Objectivist. The Objectivist looks at the world, with all of its imperfections, and thinks, "If only things were done Howard Roark's way, everything would be PERFECT." I have more respect for the world view of the fundamentally religious. Reading Ayn Rand feels very dated. It's nothing more than a reaction to her early life in the turmoil from her native Russia's violent change from serfdom to Bolshevism, and it should be treated for what it is, an anti-intellectual, reactionary Cold War relic that belongs in a museum next to McCarthy and L. Ron Hubbard. Two hundred years from now, human beings will still be reading Kurt Vonnegut. They'll still be listening to the Beatles. They will still be watching Stanley Kubrick's films. They won't be reading Atlas Shrugged, except for the same kind of wall-eyed creeps that read Mein Kampf today.
There are two novels that can change a bookish fourteen-year old's life: The Lord of the Rings and Atlas Shrugged. One is a childish fantasy that often engenders a lifelong obsession with its unbelievable heroes, leading to an emotionally stunted, socially crippled adulthood, unable to deal with the real world. The other, of course, involves orcs.
This is the exact quote I thought of when I read the OP, because of someone's signature on this board (I think it's on this board...).
"Be lamps unto yourselves. Be refuges unto yourselves. Take yourself no external refuge. Hold fast to the truth as a lamp. Hold fast to the truth as a refuge. Look not for a refuge in anyone besides yourselves. And those, Ananda, who either now or after I am dead, Shall be a lamp unto themselves, Shall betake themselves as no external refuge, But holding fast to the truth as their lamp, Holding fast to the truth as their refuge, Shall not look for refuge to anyone else besides themselves, It is they who shall reach to the very topmost height; But they must be anxious to learn." THE BUDDHA
The next teaching after that is: [rquoter] Consider your body: Think of its impurity. Knowing that both its pain and its delight are alike causes of suffering, how can you indulge in its desires? Consider your 'self'; think of its transiency; ho can you fall into delustion about it and cherish pride and selfishness, knowing that they must all end in inevitable suffering?[/rquoter]
Former fed chair Alan Greenspan's jig on the backs of the working poor, pirouetting as our economy imploded, doesn't count? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alan_Greenspan#Objectivism I get cults. I get cult leaders. I don't get how we allow the members of ridiculously transparent cults to work their way into the upper echelons of power in our society. Any ten-year-old can see the flaws in Rand's philosophy/morality; why, then, did we as a nation allow it to reign? (Unless, of course, we are also that transparently full of avarice-at-any-cost.)
