Morality is not determined by the church you attend nor the faith you embrace. It is determined by the quality of your character and the positive impact you have on those you meet along your journey
Wednesday, October 01, 2014
John Oliver demands to know why Ayn Rand is still a thing.
I have to admit that I have never read any of Ayn Rand's work.
And after seeing this clip, with its clown car of Rand apostles, there is virtually no chance that I ever will read any of her books.
One word for why the conservatives love her so much when they should be against many of her philosophies: GREED
She provides justification for being selfish, greedy asshats who are willing to hurt anyone and everyone else in order to get what they want and feel they deserve (unlike those other 'ewe people' who don't deserve anything, just because). It's the same kind of cherry-picking they do with the bible...only follow the parts that agree with their particular ideas and ignore the rest.
Arrested male adolescence? Isn't that kind of a sexist comment for a liberal gender equality blog community? My experiences are that women are equally capable of being selfish adolescent assholes as men.
I had a rare one-on-one interview with Ayn Rand in 1974. Two things to remember about her, in addition to this marvelous film: 1) Her first name rhymes with "mine." Most appropriate, since she proclaims that the greatest good is the virtue of selfishness. She made up the name -- she immigrated to the U.S. from Russian, and originally had a Russian Jewish name. 2) She's a strident, dogmatic atheist. Any of the faux libertarians who try to combine her "virtue of selfishness" with their Christianity simply can't do it -- in an honest way. She'd have scorned you. Just as with most of the other conservative sexual laws that are promulgated. As she says here, abortion is a person's right, not to be interfered with by the state. 3) Oh, and I forgot: she was not as smart as she thought she was, she was the leader of a strange cult (which included her open marriage and affairs with some of her cult members), and she was completely and totally NUTS.
I laugh heartily whenever I hear Paul Ryan or Rand Paul or some of the other "libertarians" try to pretend they're Ayn Randians. I hope that, if they get near to any kind of national power, some serious debate will take place about what it is they think they're saying. And that more people will become aware of the failed-screen-writer conveniently turned cult leader that was Ayn ("mine") Rand.
I have never read her novels. I have read some of her (ahem) non-fiction, though. And it was pretty horrible - helping the poor makes everyone weaker - but it did help me clarify my own beliefs, if only in contrast.
I don't have a problem with how horrible her philosophy was. I understand that she simply over compensated for her time under communism. The problem I have is with people and politicians using her horrible philosophy as an excuse to treat other people like crap.
You haven't missed much by not reading her works. You may have seen some of her movie(s) without knowing but don't worry too much if you can't think of the names. They were imminently missable and of no consequence.
I didn't review the clip of the clown car or see John Oliver's comments about dear old Ayn but I hope he didn't neglect to point out that Mr. Andrea Mitchell, aka Alan Greenspan, was one of Ayn's most devoted fans in his "youth" and erected a shrine in his townhome at which he regularly offered incense and burnt offerings to supplement Ayn's meager social security benefits
(most people who worship at the altar of Ayn Rand may not know she collected, social security, the great evil in the eyes of most libertarian "philosophers.")
Awhile back I did a Google search to find out whether it was true that she collected social security. And yes, she did. What's interesting is that I found an impassioned defense by a follower who argued that it was completely consistent with her philosophy. She had paid into it for years, so she was entitled to get back what she paid, because that's how objectivism (her philosophy) works.
After all, this was a very wealthy woman who didn't believe in taking care of anyone else. So why shouldn't she get back "what she paid" to the government? (Sound like a mantra for today's Republican party?)
Like others, I enjoyed her as a teen. Well, I enjoyed "Anthem," a novella about a character escaping from a totalitarian society and discovering the marvel of the individual ego, because I was a social misfit and my "Christian" school felt like a totalitarian regime. Then I started "The Fountainhead" and got to the rape scene, and I couldn't continue. For anyone who hasn't read the book, the hero rapes the heroine as a show of his dominance and strength, and she--who has been haughty and disinterested in him--is mastered by this assertion of his superiority and falls in love. I was horrified and nauseated. Frankly, any man who likes The Fountainhead goes to the top of my red-flag, don't-ever-date-or-even-be-alone-in-a-room-with-this-guy list.
Incidentally, I do not for a second believe that Paul Ryan, Rand Paul, Glenn Bek, Ted Cruz, et al have actually read all her books. Atlas Shrugged is more than 1,000 pages, and she is a pedantic writer who creates cardboard characters. I'm trying to read it now as research into a project on dominionism. I have a graduate degree in literature (meaning I majored in reading boring as well as amazing books), and let me tell you, it's on its own level of tedious slog. I suspect all the above people had some unpaid intern read Ayn Rand and write them the Cliffs Notes version.
Agree. The woman came across as very mentally ill. I tried to figure out if this is what women wanted their characters to be like in the 1940s? Rourke just was crazy also too.
As John Galt rides away on a train to his safe, smart, commune free of the "users", the little man with the lantern makes sure the train can safely travel, but will be left behind to fend for himself, free of the "elites". So, which would you rather be; John Galt, or the train-guy? I read this in high school, and knew that I hated John Galt.
”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." - John Rogers
I think the first book of hers that I read was "We the Living". The Fountainhead and Atlas Shrugged were so intense -- I would read a chapter and then have to put the book aside for awhile. Then I started reading ABOUT Rand herself, and soon discovered what an incredibly selfish, heartless individual she had to have been. Yes, no doubt her thesis was the exact opposite of the communist state from which she hailed, but her rationale was so far over the top that it became a tower of nonsense. And it sure doesn't say much for the thought processes of Cruz, Ryan, Paul etc. that they would revere her and her theories about how the world should be run. Scary, scary stuff.
I couldn't get myself to finish reading Lord of the Rings as a kid. The whole style of writing and fantasy world bs just plain annoyed me. I generally thought Tolkiens books were crap.
I read every single Ayn Rand book--including The Art of Selfishness.....when I was 16 years old. But I was very troubled by what I read, so much so that I went to talk to a priest about it. I had gone to Catholic schools all my life and what she said in her books was directly opposite. She said 'do NOT be altruistic.' That was totally against what Jesus said. I was very confused. I don't remember what the priest told me but at some point I phased into something else.
The idea that Christian conservative, the right who claim to have the moral and ethical upper hand, the ones who believe they have better 'values', the fact that they--and all of Fox news--were promoting Ayn Rand is just about the most damning evidence or EITHER the fact that they are all pure evil OR the fact that they are all DUMB LIARS (having never read the books that would contradict everything they pretend to stand for)! I was ASTOUNDED when Fox news and SEan Hannity and all the others starting bragging about how great Ayn Rand's philosophy was. ASTOUNDED.
I suffered thru the Fountainhead this summer. It is just a bizarre book full of bizarre characters. I had to keep remembering the time frame in which it was written - the 40;s. That didn't help me much lol. I have Atlas Shrugged on my desk and want to see what all the fuss is about, but haven't started yet.
I have read Anthem, Fountainhead, and Atlas Shrugged. It took a herculean effort to get through them on my part (and I like SciFy). She is a social science fiction writer and not a very good one either.
I know conservative, fundamentalist Christians who think this bitch hung the moon! She is against everything Jesus represented Himself to be. What in the hell is wrong with these people? They worship the queen of selfishness. She is vile or was vile and her stinking vileness lives on.
How in the hell can ANYONE, even the GOP, praise this woman with what is known about her if you do even the slightest bit of research?!!
Do they not know how extreme her selfishness took her?! To the point where she admired and was enthralled with a serial killer who dismembered a little 12 year old girl?!!!
The best way to get to the bottom of Ayn Rand's beliefs is to take a look at how she developed the superhero of her novel, Atlas Shrugged , John Galt. Back in the late 1920s, as Ayn Rand was working out her philosophy, she became enthralled by a real-life American serial killer, William Edward Hickman, whose gruesome, sadistic dismemberment of 12-year-old girl named Marion Parker in 1927 shocked the nation. Rand filled her early notebooks with worshipful praise of Hickman. According to biographer Jennifer Burns, author of Goddess of the Market , Rand was so smitten with Hickman that she modeled her first literary creation -- Danny Renahan, the protagonist of her unfinished first novel, The Little Street -- on him.
What did Rand admire so much about Hickman? His sociopathic qualities: "Other people do not exist for him, and he does not see why they should," she wrote, gushing that Hickman had "no regard whatsoever for all that society holds sacred, and with a consciousness all his own. He has the true, innate psychology of a Superman. He can never realize and feel 'other people.'"
One word for why the conservatives love her so much when they should be against many of her philosophies: GREED
ReplyDeleteShe provides justification for being selfish, greedy asshats who are willing to hurt anyone and everyone else in order to get what they want and feel they deserve (unlike those other 'ewe people' who don't deserve anything, just because). It's the same kind of cherry-picking they do with the bible...only follow the parts that agree with their particular ideas and ignore the rest.
BINGO.
DeleteArrested male adolescence.
DeleteArrested male adolescence? Isn't that kind of a sexist comment for a liberal gender equality blog community? My experiences are that women are equally capable of being selfish adolescent assholes as men.
DeleteI had a rare one-on-one interview with Ayn Rand in 1974.
ReplyDeleteTwo things to remember about her, in addition to this marvelous film:
1) Her first name rhymes with "mine." Most appropriate, since she proclaims that the greatest good is the virtue of selfishness. She made up the name -- she immigrated to the U.S. from Russian, and originally had a Russian Jewish name.
2) She's a strident, dogmatic atheist. Any of the faux libertarians who try to combine her "virtue of selfishness" with their Christianity simply can't do it -- in an honest way. She'd have scorned you. Just as with most of the other conservative sexual laws that are promulgated. As she says here, abortion is a person's right, not to be interfered with by the state.
3) Oh, and I forgot: she was not as smart as she thought she was, she was the leader of a strange cult (which included her open marriage and affairs with some of her cult members), and she was completely and totally NUTS.
I laugh heartily whenever I hear Paul Ryan or Rand Paul or some of the other "libertarians" try to pretend they're Ayn Randians.
I hope that, if they get near to any kind of national power, some serious debate will take place about what it is they think they're saying. And that more people will become aware of the failed-screen-writer conveniently turned cult leader that was Ayn ("mine") Rand.
Great comments.
DeleteIt's a really funny clip.
ReplyDeleteI have never read her novels. I have read some of her (ahem) non-fiction, though. And it was pretty horrible - helping the poor makes everyone weaker - but it did help me clarify my own beliefs, if only in contrast.
I don't have a problem with how horrible her philosophy was. I understand that she simply over compensated for her time under communism. The problem I have is with people and politicians using her horrible philosophy as an excuse to treat other people like crap.
You haven't missed much by not reading her works. You may have seen some of her movie(s) without knowing but don't worry too much if you can't think of the names. They were imminently missable and of no consequence.
ReplyDeleteI didn't review the clip of the clown car or see John Oliver's comments about dear old Ayn but I hope he didn't neglect to point out that Mr. Andrea Mitchell, aka Alan Greenspan, was one of Ayn's most devoted fans in his "youth" and erected a shrine in his townhome at which he regularly offered incense and burnt offerings to supplement Ayn's meager social security benefits
(most people who worship at the altar of Ayn Rand may not know she collected, social security, the great evil in the eyes of most libertarian "philosophers.")
Awhile back I did a Google search to find out whether it was true that she collected social security. And yes, she did. What's interesting is that I found an impassioned defense by a follower who argued that it was completely consistent with her philosophy. She had paid into it for years, so she was entitled to get back what she paid, because that's how objectivism (her philosophy) works.
DeleteAfter all, this was a very wealthy woman who didn't believe in taking care of anyone else. So why shouldn't she get back "what she paid" to the government? (Sound like a mantra for today's Republican party?)
Like others, I enjoyed her as a teen. Well, I enjoyed "Anthem," a novella about a character escaping from a totalitarian society and discovering the marvel of the individual ego, because I was a social misfit and my "Christian" school felt like a totalitarian regime. Then I started "The Fountainhead" and got to the rape scene, and I couldn't continue. For anyone who hasn't read the book, the hero rapes the heroine as a show of his dominance and strength, and she--who has been haughty and disinterested in him--is mastered by this assertion of his superiority and falls in love. I was horrified and nauseated. Frankly, any man who likes The Fountainhead goes to the top of my red-flag, don't-ever-date-or-even-be-alone-in-a-room-with-this-guy list.
Incidentally, I do not for a second believe that Paul Ryan, Rand Paul, Glenn Bek, Ted Cruz, et al have actually read all her books. Atlas Shrugged is more than 1,000 pages, and she is a pedantic writer who creates cardboard characters. I'm trying to read it now as research into a project on dominionism. I have a graduate degree in literature (meaning I majored in reading boring as well as amazing books), and let me tell you, it's on its own level of tedious slog. I suspect all the above people had some unpaid intern read Ayn Rand and write them the Cliffs Notes version.
Agree. The woman came across as very mentally ill. I tried to figure out if this is what women wanted their characters to be like in the 1940s? Rourke just was crazy also too.
DeleteAs John Galt rides away on a train to his safe, smart, commune free of the "users", the little man with the lantern makes sure the train can safely travel, but will be left behind to fend for himself, free of the "elites". So, which would you rather be; John Galt, or the train-guy? I read this in high school, and knew that I hated John Galt.
ReplyDeleteThe admiration of Ayn Rand (and the cartoonish John Galt character) by the extreme right is a telling glimpse into their psychopathy and narcissism.
DeleteHow is it possible that an selfish, egocentric, ATHIEST like Ayn Rand is so revered by the religious right Christians?
ReplyDeleteNot to mention, someone who had no problem with abortion.
Delete”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." - John Rogers
ReplyDeleteAtlas Shrugged and The Fountainhead made great summer reading by the pool the summer I was 14. And shaped my world view by showing what I didn't want.
DeleteI think the first book of hers that I read was "We the Living". The Fountainhead and Atlas Shrugged were so intense -- I would read a chapter and then have to put the book aside for awhile. Then I started reading ABOUT Rand herself, and soon discovered what an incredibly selfish, heartless individual she had to have been. Yes, no doubt her thesis was the exact opposite of the communist state from which she hailed, but her rationale was so far over the top that it became a tower of nonsense. And it sure doesn't say much for the thought processes of Cruz, Ryan, Paul etc. that they would revere her and her theories about how the world should be run. Scary, scary stuff.
DeleteI couldn't get myself to finish reading Lord of the Rings as a kid. The whole style of writing and fantasy world bs just plain annoyed me. I generally thought Tolkiens books were crap.
DeleteI read every single Ayn Rand book--including The Art of Selfishness.....when I was 16 years old. But I was very troubled by what I read, so much so that I went to talk to a priest about it. I had gone to Catholic schools all my life and what she said in her books was directly opposite. She said 'do NOT be altruistic.' That was totally against what Jesus said. I was very confused. I don't remember what the priest told me but at some point I phased into something else.
ReplyDeleteThe idea that Christian conservative, the right who claim to have the moral and ethical upper hand, the ones who believe they have better 'values', the fact that they--and all of Fox news--were promoting Ayn Rand is just about the most damning evidence or EITHER the fact that they are all pure evil OR the fact that they are all DUMB LIARS (having never read the books that would contradict everything they pretend to stand for)! I was ASTOUNDED when Fox news and SEan Hannity and all the others starting bragging about how great Ayn Rand's philosophy was. ASTOUNDED.
I suffered thru the Fountainhead this summer.
ReplyDeleteIt is just a bizarre book full of bizarre characters. I had to keep remembering the time frame in which it was written - the 40;s. That didn't help me much lol. I have Atlas Shrugged on my desk and want to see what all the fuss is about, but haven't started yet.
I have read Anthem, Fountainhead, and Atlas Shrugged. It took a herculean effort to get through them on my part (and I like SciFy). She is a social science fiction writer and not a very good one either.
ReplyDeleteI know conservative, fundamentalist Christians who think this bitch hung the moon! She is against everything Jesus represented Himself to be. What in the hell is wrong with these people? They worship the queen of selfishness. She is vile or was vile and her stinking vileness lives on.
ReplyDeleteI recommend instead "Beyond Power" by Marilyn French.
ReplyDeleteA quick synopsis is PLENTY to have to stomach, in regard to Rand's "selfish prick" novels.
ReplyDeleteHow in the hell can ANYONE, even the GOP, praise this woman with what is known about her if you do even the slightest bit of research?!!
ReplyDeleteDo they not know how extreme her selfishness took her?! To the point where she admired and was enthralled with a serial killer who dismembered a little 12 year old girl?!!!
The best way to get to the bottom of Ayn Rand's beliefs is to take a look at how she developed the superhero of her novel, Atlas Shrugged , John Galt. Back in the late 1920s, as Ayn Rand was working out her philosophy, she became enthralled by a real-life American serial killer, William Edward Hickman, whose gruesome, sadistic dismemberment of 12-year-old girl named Marion Parker in 1927 shocked the nation. Rand filled her early notebooks with worshipful praise of Hickman. According to biographer Jennifer Burns, author of Goddess of the Market , Rand was so smitten with Hickman that she modeled her first literary creation -- Danny Renahan, the protagonist of her unfinished first novel, The Little Street -- on him.
What did Rand admire so much about Hickman? His sociopathic qualities: "Other people do not exist for him, and he does not see why they should," she wrote, gushing that Hickman had "no regard whatsoever for all that society holds sacred, and with a consciousness all his own. He has the true, innate psychology of a Superman. He can never realize and feel 'other people.'"
http://www.alternet.org/story/145819/ayn_rand%2C_hugely_popular_author_and_inspiration_to_right-wing_leaders%2C_was_a_big_admirer_of_serial_killer
For fuck sake, she based some of her characters in her book on him!