Posted on 06/20/2013 12:48:09 PM PDT by nickcarraway
Yeah, ugly, huh. Show me some. Otherwise, you're just throwing dirt. Not saying it's not possible, but in 30 years of reading Rand, I've never heard that before your post tonight. I think you're making it up.
Prove me wrong.
He is trolling. He stated it explicitly about 5 times.
Someone who gains energy from the anger of others is really a sick sick person. He claims to have a wife. God help her.
I didn’t find it so.
Agreed.
As fiction, agreed. As philosophy, they have their place.
And the comment. "I've described her worldview as inverted Marxism — a conception of politics as a fundamental struggle between a producer class and a parasite class," is just about exactly right.
I could not get through the turgid and soulless 'Atlas Shrugged' novel, and the movie was better only because it only took 2 hours to get to the finish (by which time I was snoring, along with half of the other 8 people still in the theatre). If Ayn Rand is serious philosophy, then we badly need some serious religion.
You are being a pompous boor; and a boring one at best.
Lakeshark: "I remember getting to the famous "Galt speech", thinking to myself that finally she's going to lay it all out.
And wanting to slit my wrists about one page later.........ten, fifteen pages later he's still talking and somehow people are STILL listening to him on the radio all over the US of A...
I think a sense of humor would have helped her a lot........."
TBP: "Read all the way through The Fountainhead and Atlas Shrugged. Skimmed Anthem.
I've read The Virtue of Selfishness, , and other works.
I don't agree with everything Rand has to say, but I do agree with much of it, especially on capitalism and markets."
Dittos, dittos to TBP.
To Lakeshark's desire for more humor -- so what's not funny about Howard Roark laughing? ;-)
Perhaps more to the point: we should realize how much great comic material was available to Ayn Rand, coming from those world centers of international socialism (Soviet Russia, China) and national socialism (Nazi Germany, Fascist Italy).
Especially for somebody of Jewish heritage, the whole world was a barrel of silly monkeys, you could hardly keep from rolling on the floor laughing out loud over it all, right?.
Of course, growing up in Russia, Rand doubtless inherited their darker, more ironic sense of humor, often so dark and ironic some people can't tell the difference between their laughter and crying.
While Ayn Rand was still a beautiful young woman, not millions but tens of millions of innocent civilians and conscripted soldiers died in the most horrible ways imaginable -- because of national and international socialism.
So Rand's humor was always infused with her certain knowledge of where socialism leads.
Finally, why, why, why does nobody ever point out the totally obvious fact that John Galt's speech is Ayn Rand's answer to Dostoevsky's Grand Inquisitor?
Indeed, I would propose that no young person should be allowed to read Ayn Rand without first reading Dostoevsky.
Then they can begin to appreciate Rand's great sense of humor. ;-)
“That was weak, I’ll admit. If I was on my game, you’d be quivering and hooting like an enraged primate by now.”
I’m sure you’ll feel better when you get over your RDS (Rand Derangement Syndrome) and your LDS (not Latter Day Saints.)
Exactly.
Thanks for the link.
Note the connection between Ayn Rand and Dostoevsky!
As to her sense of humor, all I said is she could have used one, it might have helped.
The observation that her writing is bad is a correct one, she will never be considered a great novelist except by those who are true believers. As previously stated, her observations concerning statists are spot on, her understanding of how they gain and hold power couldn't be better. Philosophically she could point out what was wrong about the totalitarian left better than most. Unfortunately she didn't do quite so well with formulating how we should live and counter that totalitarian impulse, and how we could become full as human beings; her prescription for how to live was kind of stunted.
Hey, I have nothing against the woman, she made some great observations. I just find it difficult to laud her as the second coming of literary and philosophical genius.
So, if you don't care for the message you should consider the physical appearance of thee messenger? No, can't buy it.
I don’t think I made any reference to any message.
There are plenty of us here who choose not to obey laws which had no business being passed in the first place. What right does the regime have to "permit" us our medication- or our firearms?
Apologies if I read something in that wasn't there.
Fine, I get your points, all of them, and am trying not to be too critical... ;-)
But if you wish to deny Rand the status of "second coming of...", then let me challenge you to name an author who did the same thing she did, only better.
I'm saying, if Rand was the best ever at presenting her point of view, why take anything away from that?
I was agreeing with someone that she was not a LITERARY great, not even all that good. Alexander Sohlznetsin might be said to be great literarily (at least very good), and he fought the Marxists just as well as Rand did, if not a bit better.
Like I said, she has my respect for what she did well, I consider her to have had a strong part in educating others about the dangers of socialism, and for that I'm grateful for her work.
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