Lululemon Athletica Combines Ayn Rand and Yoga

[groovedaddy]

OTTAWA — Lululemon Athletica, the retailer of yoga pants and hoodies, has long decorated shopping bags with slogans that appear to have been lifted from self-help books. But this month its bags have asked a question that some may find more provocative: “Who is John Galt?”

The question is the opening line of “Atlas Shrugged,” the novel by Ayn Rand that was published in 1957. Followers of Rand’s free market philosophy, which promotes the idea of individuals living for their self-interest and dismisses altruism, sometimes use the question to signal their allegiance.

Galt would not likely have proclaimed, as Lululemon’s bags once did, that “what we do to the earth, we do to ourselves.” Nor does the online reaction to the campaign suggest that many Lululemon shoppers are fans of Rand’s philosophy, known as Objectivism.

“I was so shocked by being handed this bag today at your Portland, Ore., store that I literally WALKED BACK to return this horrific bag,” one customer wrote on Lululemon’s blog. “In this political and economic climate, I find it baffling that your company would choose such an inflammatory and offensive statement.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/11/28/business/media/combines-ayn-rand-and-yoga.html?nl=todaysheadlines&emc=tha210

[HopeHoops]

1. Isn't that a little like mixing Kahluha and prune juice?

:puke:

[Quantess]

2. I would have handed it back also.

I would be too embarrassed to tote it around.

[fasttense]

3. Why any thinking person would believe one word from Ayn Rand

When she has been so wrong about so many things is a mystery. She has been found to be absolutely wrong on the fundamental human question. She claimed that when she died, the world would end. She died and the world did not end. Again she was wrong.

She also made a hero out of a serial murderer who chopped up a 12 year old girl for fun and ransom. Her hero rolled out the dead girls head at her father's feet. This murderer was a man Ayn said we should all admire. Again she was wrong.

Ayn Rand was a psychopath and admired only other psychopaths. She wanted to fill the world with psychopaths like her so she wouldn't look so crazy.

[The Wizard]

4. And a chain smoking meth addict

which might explain the mindless rambling. Only numbskulls adhere to Rand's rambling radical right wing reactionary rhetoric.

[pscot]

6. Alliteration

Nice.

[The Wizard]

9. add Republican (NT)

[freshwest]

5. +1,000. But the 1% crowd loves her. And she's the top promoted (paid for) video on youtube.

They're seeking to turn an entire generation ont their psychopathy. It's working well for them since people's minds are sponges...

[nxylas]

7. And the wannabe 1%ers

She basically succeeded by massaging the egos of people with narcissistic personality disorders, writing (bad) novels that help them reaffirm their belief in their own specialness and superiority to the great unwashed masses. That famous John Rogers quote sums it up beautifully, but has been so overused that I won't bother to post it again here.

[freshwest]

8. Yep.