Posted on 02/02/2007 11:18:17 AM PST by Ed Hudgins
No problem! Sadly there are some Objectivists who treat the philosophy almost like a religion -- certainly ironic. We at The Atlas Society understand that critical thinking means just that, thinking critically. Thus we don't assume that Rand said the last word on everything.
Concerning celebrations and holy days, check out my piece on "Secular Spirituality" at this link:
http://www.objectivistcenter.org/ct-1835-secular_spirit.aspx
One of the avenues that Rand did help open -- and I which more Objectivists and non-Objectivists alike would explore it -- is that meaning and significance in life comes from ourselves and our nature as creatures with a rational capacity and free will. We create meaning. Let me know what you think.
Cheers!
It is by no means universally accepted that Atlas is poorly written. ("Universal" sounds like a collectivist standard in any case.) In fact we published a book on The Litrary Art of Ayn Rand." Here's the link:
http://www.objectivismstore.com/pc-277-30-the-literary-art-of-ayn-rand.aspx
And here's the description:
-----
"The Literary Art of Ayn Rand" focuses on Rand as a writer: the brilliantly distinctive stylist, the master of aphorism and symbol, the apostle of essentialistic characterization, the rigorous integrator who insisted that all elements in a work serve a single theme, and the igenious plotter who took pride in constructing her magnum opus as a "stunt" novel of mystery and misdirection.
Now in one volume, nine essays by six authors shed new light on the depth and complexity behind Rand's inspiring and entertaining writing. The contributors include:
Kirsti Minsaas: "Structural Integration in The Fountainhead and Atlas Shrugged"
"The Visual Power of Ayn Rand's Fiction"
"The Stylization of Mind in Ayn Rand's Fiction."
Susan McCloskey: "Odysseus, Jesus, and Dagny: Ayn Rand's Conception of the Hero"
"Work and Love in The Fountainhead"
Mimi Reisel Gladstein: "Breakthroughs in Ayn Rand Literary Criticism"
Nathaniel Branden: "The Literary Method of Ayn Rand"
David Kelley: "The Code of the Creator"
Stephen Cox: "The Literary Achievement of The Fountainhead"
Mr. Hudgins, I didn't know you were a Freeper :-) Been following your efforts since I met David Kelley in college. Keep up the great work.
Thanks! What's your name? I'll pass along your greeting to David, who's in the office down the hall from me.
ehudgins@atlassociety.org
Easy, wherever the technology is behind the times, make it state-run. Wherever it's at the cutting edge, make it privately owned.
Not bad. :-)
Still, there would be a lot of anachronisms if the setting was as written. It's doable (a "future" USA of 40 or 50 years ago), but I don't know how well it would actually work.
Maybe it could be Taggart Hover Craft, and Rearden Polymers could create the lighter than air fusilage.
Happy birthday to this godless psycho?
No thanks.
And she was not a true conservative, but frankly more of an anarchist.
She was for the exaltation of man as god.
She is burning in hell.
I actually like the odd futures created in films like "The Matrix" and "Dark City", where older style is combined with futuristic technology. Personally, I'd like to see it as a period piece with an "alternate history" feel to it, just so they can have fun with the industrial design and the architecture. I liked what Tim Burton did with Gotham City in his Batman movies, kind of a German Expressionist style that goes back to the days of "Metropolis". It fits with Rand's storytelling, as well.
Exactly.
People, you are in error worshipping this woman.
She was not a conservative.
A conservative is a classic liberal.
Ayn Rand was not even close to believing what Jefferson and our founding fathers believed.
She had ZERO concept of the importance of society.
To Rand, it is everybody for themselves. Me, me, me.
Selfishness is not a conservative virtue.
It is the liberals who always go on about what they want, not conservatives.
Nah, she figured out a way to make the furnaces run more efficiently and she's getting rich off the rights to the process.
Cute.
I will say that she did a great job of showing the danger of the state as god or the lack of individualism and freedom of people.
Very well done.
But, ultimately, her ideas do way more bad than good.
You must be an Arminian. If you were a Calvinist, you couldn't be so sure that God in His sovereignty didn't elect to save her on her deathbed. Or if you're RC, that she didn't have some other sort of last minute baptism of desire that saved her.
Face it, none of us knows where she is because we don't know what God saw in her at the end.
I think that depends on who's reading them. I was pretty much soured on religion before I read AS, but I saw in it a responsibility to act with integrity and courage. I did not see it as a license to do whaterver pleased me - she addresses that failing as well.
There are others who will read it and turn it into an authorization for anarchy. That was never her intent. In fact, she has publicly decried those who use her work as an excuse to live on their whims and ignore ethics and morality.
True, being Calvinist I should have been more careful.
However, those last-minute conversions are rare.
Let's hope God reached her.
Oh, and Geddy and Alex are good too.
;?)
Whose fault is it that one is starving in the gutter?
Honoring and/or appreciating is not the same thing as worshipping.
She was not a conservative.
Certainly not in the social(ist) conservative meaning of the word.
Ayn Rand was not even close to believing what Jefferson and our founding fathers believed.
Can you be more specific and provide some references, or are you just being inflammatory? That whole individual liberty theme which pervades the works of both seems to falsify your claim, but I'm open to correction.
She had ZERO concept of the importance of society.
Hold that thought for a sec...
To Rand, it is everybody for themselves. Me, me, me.
...okay, this is starting to sound familiar...
It is the liberals who always go on about what they want, not conservatives.
No, liberals go on about "the importance of society" and how, with conservatives, "it is everybody for themselves. Me, me, me.". THAT'S what liberals sound like.
Happy Birthday, Ms. Rand.
What a moronic post.
If you read the founding fathers, you would realize how important they considered society in our country, that everybody for themselves is not what they envisioned for America.
Did they want a nanny state? No.
But, there is a difference between that....which Rand did show to be in error, a good thing....and no social cohesion, which is the opposite extreme that Rand proposes.
Conservatism is not on either extreme, but in the middle.
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