Posted on 10/02/2006 6:59:27 PM PDT by Rob Larrikin
Lefties commonly say there is something wrong with Rand’s use of fiction as a vehicle for Objectivist beliefs. In a 1957 review of ‘Atlas Shrugged’, Whittaker Chambers, who had no idea how successful Atlas Shrugged would be, said, “The mischief here is that the author, dodging into fiction, nevertheless counts on your reading it as political reality.” Lefties have been using that same approach ever since. Using fiction is ‘mischief’ and ‘dodging’.
Rand was trying to make an otherwise dull subject interesting, and she also wanted to show what might happen in a world where businessmen really did go on strike. Since that hasn’t happened, it would need to be fiction. Duhh...
Rob Larrikin
Was it? Ok, I wasn't sure. Thanks for clearing that up for me.
Right. As he would Animal Farm, also by Blair (Orwell), Brave New World by Aldous Huxley, ONE by David Karp, and a whole host of other morality plays, novels and movies warning of the slide to dystopia....
You have obviously not read the book or even bothered to see the movie.
L
She also thought conservatives needed a written "manifesto" to counter the liberal "communist manifesto". I always thought she missed a good opportunity there. Conservatives already have a written thesis: The Constitution of the United States.
yitbos
Well, I have read the book. I remember something about adding columns and blowing up the building. Or am I wrong?
Buckley failed to convince me.
Years later, Rand succeeded.
I've been wondering that myself.
Her first attempt at exactly that was actually in 1946, here: http://laissez-fairerepublic.com/textbook.htm
Boiled down and translated, here it is:
Miss Rand does not believe in God....piss on her.He then so pads his review that it would make both Galt and Rand blanch.
I've got to hand it to him for the "to a gas chamber, go" sentence though.
Fair or not it is such a great quote that I will bet dollars to doughnuts that he had that line first and wrote the whole review around it.
Perhaps we should start calling democrats "collectivists" and start the conservative lexicon rather than the ever reactionary response to dominating PC.
We know that when a synonym for socialism acquires a pejorative connotation the collectivists seek a perceived less offensive word, ie. progressive. democrat, liberal.
It would be interesting to watch the etymology of the "collectivist" reference.
yitbos
I often do that whenever I suspect I'm going to be pelted with a "you're just trying to smear us as communists" retort. They CAN'T slide out from under the "collectivist" label, though!
On the web, you can always zap them with this: COLLECTIVIST!
Well we can ALL see The FOUNTAINHEAD movie on Turner Classic Movies tomorrow night (8pm Eastern, if I read it correctly): http://tcmdb.com/title/title.jsp?stid=596
We will probably get some reviews of the movie. I saw it last weekend.
For those who have read Rand but not seen it, I must say that the condensation is rather dramatic. The points are made early and I didn't stick around for the end. But then, I didn't finish the book either.
yitbos
Inasmuch as RAH was more than passing familiar with Ayn Rand, you're not off the mark...
the infowarrior
"Another damned, thick, square, book! Always scribble, scribble, scribble! Eh! Mr. Gibbon?"
:)
My hand cramps at merely the thought.
I am an atheist... and that is the gaping 40mm cannon hole in Ayn Rand's philosophy...
Morality and all of its associated ideals are rooted entirely in the presupposition some higher power defines what is correct for human behavior.
This syllogism can be tested in logic and proves true every time...
Plato’s Euthyphro is a great illustration. Socrates advances the argument to Euthyphro that, piety to the gods, who all want conflicting devotions and/or actions from humans, is impossible. (Socrates exposed the pagan esoteric sophistry.)
Likewise, morals are such a construction of idols used by the Left as a rationale for them to demand compliance to their wishes in politics, which most often are a skewed mess of fallacies in logic. Morals are a deceptive replacement for the avoidance of sin.
An atheist who claims I am immoral is no different than a preacher or rabbi saying I am a sinner...
Yes, I do like Ayn Rand, but I do not bend my knee in acquiescence to the cult of personality that has grown up around her like the Marxists that enshrined and groomed Lenin's corpse in the former Soviet Union!
Socrates saw that fallacy in Plato’s Euthyphro, when he asked Euthyphro what was pleasing to the gods, and how could someone be pious to the gods when they all wanted something different from the others. It made no sense to observe the divinity of one god and ignore the demands of another god. How could a person know what it was to be in accordance with the will of the gods in this respect?
The origins of drama come from the esoteric ideals directly related to religion. Religious ritual is psychodrama designed to conjure up images in the mind of the viewers and/or participants. This is illustrated no better than by the Greek traditions of using masks in their plays. <>The actor can hide himself behind the illusion of a character’s mask, the audience can focus not on the actor, but on the image of the character represented - - one form of idolatry, among others in pagan Greek polytheism.
The Greeks were idolaters and were pagans. The images in their drama were a representation of something. What did Oedipus represent? To the pagan Egyptians, the pharaohs were gods. Gods had their own special privileges of divinity. The pagan Egyptians had their own pantheon of gods like the pagan Greeks, several of which the Greeks adopted. (Set and Typhon are convenient examples.)
The pagan Egyptians were also idolaters like the Greeks; their temples, architecture and art are replete with sacred idols. They both practiced human sacrifice. (These practices extended to the pagan Romans as well.) Is Oedipus representative of the pharaoh Akhnaton?
One of Sigmund Freud’s earlier followers, Karl Abraham, contributed an essay to the first volume of Imago, published by Freud in 1912, entitled Amenhotep IV (Akhnaton). This was of interest in that the essay talks about how Akhnaton did not entomb his mother Tiy next to her husband after her death and that Akhnaton’s rivalry with his father for possession of his mother extended beyond death.
Dr. Immanuel Velikovsky has many critics, but his assertions are most profound in his book on the topic (Oedipus and Akhnaton). There appears to be a particular level of viciousness directed toward Velikovsky from many Egyptologists. Like Akhnaton, Velikovsky is reviled for tearing down some idolatries of previously accepted thinking.
Examinations of reaction concerning his other books (Peoples of the Sea and Ages in Chaos) are ample evidence of this in such historical and literary circles of research. I attribute much of this to the ancient conflict between the pagan and the Judaic that still rages (even from within Judaism itself, see the Steven Plaut article: The Rise Of Tikkun Olam Paganism) although the pagan civilizations of Greece and Egypt are long since dead.
This conflict was represented by Othello, Death of a SalesmanOedipus, it is also represented in the modern arguments over historical chronology, pagan idolatry of the Greeks and Egyptians, along with modern idolatries commonly found in both domestic and international politics.
The Sun and Bacchus are Apollo and Dionysus, two gods, or two aspects of religious experience from the ancient Greeks, and their juxtaposition is of some importance - - a statement of belief in the duality of human nature, symbolized by Apollo as the light of reason, and Dionysus as the underground power of emotion (see Camille Paglia's Sexual Personae).
Egyptians worshipped Harpocrates, the god of silence; for which reason he is always pictured holding a finger on his mouth. Athenians had a statue of brass, which they bowed to; a figure made without a tongue, to declare secrecy thereby. The Romans had a goddess of silence called Angerona, which was pictured like Harpocrates, holding her finger on her mouth, in token of secrecy.
There is an occult nature to certain politics and this progression of culture (ancient Egypt, Greece, Rome and the modern iconographic idolatry of Marxist paganism) can easily be illustrated, but is most often ignored or rejected for reasons of political expediency, like the aforementioned pagan idolatries of secrecy and silence. The use of such religion is essential for many aspects of political power over the ignorant, unwashed masses. It is no surprise that Akhnaton's monotheistic approach was completely and abruptly destroyed by the successive generation, restoring the pantheistic idolatries of previous pharaohs. This phenomenon is not historically isolated and is played out in a myriad of instances today.
Socrates saw that fallacy in Plato’s Euthyphro, when he asked Euthyphro what was pleasing to the gods, and how could someone be pious to the gods when they all wanted something different from the others. It made no sense to observe the divinity of one god and ignore the demands of another god. How could a person know what it was to be in accordance with the will of the gods in this respect?
The origins of drama come from the esoteric ideals directly related to religion. Religious ritual is psychodrama designed to conjure up images in the mind of the viewers and/or participants. This is illustrated no better than by the Greek traditions of using masks in their plays.
The actor can hide himself behind the illusion of a character’s mask, the audience can focus not on the actor, but on the image of the character represented - - one form of idolatry, among others in pagan Greek polytheism.
The Greeks were idolaters and were pagans. The images in their drama were a representation of something. What did Oedipus represent?
To the pagan Egyptians, the pharaohs were gods. Gods had their own special privileges of divinity. The pagan Egyptians had their own pantheon of gods like the pagan Greeks, several of which the Greeks adopted. (Set and Typhon are convenient examples.)
The pagan Egyptians were also idolaters like the Greeks; their temples, architecture and art are replete with sacred idols. They both practiced human sacrifice. (These practices extended to the pagan Romans as well.) Is Oedipus representative of the pharaoh Akhnaton?
One of Sigmund Freud’s earlier followers, Karl Abraham, contributed an essay to the first volume of Imago, published by Freud in 1912, entitled Amenhotep IV (Akhnaton). This was of interest in that the essay talks about how Akhnaton did not entomb his mother Tiy next to her husband after her death and that Akhnaton’s rivalry with his father for possession of his mother extended beyond death.
Dr. Immanuel Velikovsky has many critics, but his assertions are most profound in his book on the topic (Oedipus and Akhnaton). There appears to be a particular level of viciousness directed toward Velikovsky from many Egyptologists. Like Akhnaton, Velikovsky is reviled for tearing down some idolatries of previously accepted thinking.
Examinations of reaction concerning his other books (Peoples of the Sea and Ages in Chaos) are ample evidence of this in such historical and literary circles of research. I attribute much of this to the ancient conflict between the pagan and the Judaic that still rages (even from within Judaism itself, see the Steven Plaut article: The Rise Of Tikkun Olam Paganism) although the pagan civilizations of Greece and Egypt are long since dead.
This conflict was represented by Othello, Death of a Salesman, and many other places in art, literature and science. Here with Oedipus, it is also represented in the modern arguments over historical chronology, pagan idolatry of the Greeks and Egyptians, along with modern idolatries commonly found in both domestic and international politics.
The Sun and Bacchus are Apollo and Dionysus, two gods, or two aspects of religious experience from the ancient Greeks, and their juxtaposition is of some importance - - a statement of belief in the duality of human nature, symbolized by Apollo as the light of reason, and Dionysus as the underground power of emotion (see Camille Paglia's Sexual Personae).
Egyptians worshipped Harpocrates, the god of silence; for which reason he is always pictured holding a finger on his mouth. Athenians had a statue of brass, which they bowed to; a figure made without a tongue, to declare secrecy thereby. The Romans had a goddess of silence called Angerona, which was pictured like Harpocrates, holding her finger on her mouth, in token of secrecy.
There is an occult nature to certain politics and this progression of culture (ancient Egypt, Greece, Rome and the modern iconographic idolatry of Marxist paganism) can easily be illustrated, but is most often ignored or rejected for reasons of political expediency, like the aforementioned pagan idolatries of secrecy and silence. The use of such religion is essential for many aspects of political power over the ignorant, unwashed masses. It is no surprise that Akhnaton's monotheistic approach was completely and abruptly destroyed by the successive generation, restoring the pantheistic idolatries of previous pharaohs. This phenomenon is not historically isolated and is played out in a myriad of instances today.
A "critic" is a man who creates nothing and thereby feels qualified to judge the work of creative men. There IS logic in this; he is unbiased, he hates all creative people equally.
Lazarus Long
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