Ayn Rand? Are her works still relevant in 2005?

[Deja Q]

In 1940, she may have had a point.

But time changes and I believe her works are way out of touch with reality. Not in the current political "playing field" (and it's no game, rest assured...)

[MrBenchley]

1. She wasn't all that relevant in 1940, for that matter....

Her books are lame as fiction and even lamer as philosophy...

[Deja Q]

2. I know a guy who thinks her works are the greatest.

I'm not quite sure WHAT to say to hm, except for possibly "prepare for a shock".

[MrBenchley]

15. It's for the sort of person

who can't face up to the brutal realism of Star Trek but still wants to act like a childish fool in public...

[leveymg]

27. Alan Greenspan is a big Rand fan and looks like a frog.

Just thought you'd like to know. :+

[Ladyhawk]

31. My brother is HEAVILY into Ayn Rand.

He thinks greed and selfishness are virtues.

[Kolesar]

3. Would rather read about frogs or engine repair, myself

I have never read Rand.

[Wetzelbill]

4. only if you want to be a dick for your whole life nt

[ET Awful]

5. Wouldn't she have had to have been "relevant" to be considered

"still relevant?"

[comsymp]

24. And there's the rub

With her seething hatred of anything to the left of Father Coughlin, combined with a writing style that ran the gamut from mediocre to piss-poor, she came across to me as a slightly sane version of Coulter.

[JAbuchan08]

6. I haven't read it myself

but a friend told me she disliked it as a novel. The motivations of the evil industrial regulators were apparently absolutely insane and completely unbelievable. Like I said I haven't read it. I sort of don't want to.

[newscott]

7. Irrelevant.

[Mairead]

8. I certainly don't think so. Nor were they ever.

For all her hatred of Soviet Communism, a film of her work would have to be made in 'Soviet Realism' style, because she posterised everything.

[Generic Other]

9. NO, not for anyone but Karl Rove

And he's not one of Rand's "ubermen." Just a wannabee.

[Another Bill C.]

10. When I was young

I read all of Ayn Rand's books. I really bought into the "virtue of selfishness" and practiced it to the best of my ability. Eventually and unlike the characters in her books, I married, I had children, I was widowed and dependent on the charity of others, I lived among other cultures, I grew up, and the revelation that Ayn Rand was full of shit settled upon me.

In Ayn Rand's world, there are no children and consequently no future.

[Mairead]

14. "In Ayn Rand's world, there are no children"

Are you sure? I'd more say that they're all children, pretending to be grown-up without understanding that there's more to it than wearing daddy's and mommy's clothing.

[Ladyhawk]

32. Thanks for that. My brother is 42 and still believes in Rand. n/t

[jane_pippin]

11. She's relevant in that "I need to write an essay about Atlas Shrugged or

I'll never get into college" kind of way.

[hatrack]

12. Sucked then, suck now

Will continue to suck for as long as books, libraries and literacy exist.

[bemildred]

13. Her writing really sucks. nt

[MrBenchley]

16. You got that right....

"Atlas Shrugged" is half-assed pompous drivel....

[back2basics909]

17. They are relavant...

.. if only because the younger conservatives we are seeing now, the economic conservatives are reading from her Hymn book, so to speak. They are Neo-Rands IMO.

[MrBenchley]

21. Twas ever thus....

It mostly appeals to an adolescent and selfish person....

[Midlodemocrat]

18. I had to read that drivel in college.

She sucked then and she sucks now.

[eyepaddle]

23. That's just begging for a lounge response!

But seriously, her only work I read was "Atlas Shrugged." A terrible book Boring as hell, cartoonishly simple in its characterizations. Oddly enough I respe ted the roffessor who assigned it, but I sure looked at him differently after I read (most of) that book.

It was so grindingly dull I gave up 80% of the way through and took my chances on the test.

[Syncronaut Seven]

19. Atlas Shrugged is not a children's book, that's for sure.

I very much enjoyed the book as a piece of fiction, As a manifesto it sucked!

I would not recommend it to the weak minded or those prone to fascist thinking. I was able to take it apart and recognize it as sort of an pro business, anti labor, hyper-libertarian indoctrination for tender young minds.

The book is not benign, however if your thoughtful, intelligent and aware you might enjoy it. I've found it invaluable in helping to understand the current paradigm, sort of an early PNAC in many ways.

Of course Robert Anton Wilson has also helped me understand my world, and he's VERY entertaining. O8) :evilgrin:

[Warren DeMontague]

44. Yes, I far preferred "Telemachus Sneezed"

:evilgrin:

[AlienGirl]

48. Robert Anton Wilson is far more relevant

Also more fun to read, and probably a lot more fun at parties.

Tucker

[NoPasaran]

20. Some of her weightier tomes still make excellent doorstops n/t

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

22. Soap operas for wannabee rightwing "intellectuals".

As little of her writing as I could stomach reminded me of the torn bodice writings so beloved of frustrated housewives. Except the knight in shining armor is replaced with a "rugged individualist" with a brief case.

[comsymp]

25. That's EXACTLY it!!!

Bodice rippers featuring singularly unpleasant, selfish characters.

[Syncronaut Seven]

26. Oh yea, and there was that part of it

It was a long book, I forgot about the "take me now! No no stop.... we mustn't!" part of it.

The book took a lot of heat for romantasizing several sexist themes. Heinlein was criticized for writing that some perceived as sexist, I'm not a sexist, yet I enjoyed Heinlein immensly.

You do have to look at Rand as sort of a pathology, You can't deny the fact that she was clearly insane.

[OmmmSweetOmmm]

28. Considering Alan Greenspan sat at her feet, Yes. n/t

[K-W]

29. As relevant as it ever was.

Meaning only as a demonstration of right wing propaganda.

[applegrove]

30. Greenspon sat at her feet as a lad. Probably washed them too!

[Chichiri]

33. **Chichiri stands on one foot**

Objectivism is Scientology for atheists.

[jonnyblitz]

34. LOL....that was a good one. nt

[Chichiri]

51. I wondered if anyone would actually get that.

[K-W]

52. Nice. EOM

[BiggJawn]

35. I tried to read "The Fountainhead".

thankfully, I bought it for a dime at a used book sale, so it was no great loss as I fed it to the shredder. Made it to page 90, I think...

And lest you think me a mouth-breathing Philistine, I tackled Chaucer's "Canterbury tales" IN THE ORIGINAL until I LEARNED that strange tongue.

Sure would like to get into some "Swiving" right about now....

[fauxpolitico]

36. Definitely Irrelevent

Required reading for me in college. That drivel nearly had me vomiting.

[OrlandoGator]

37. It's essential reading for self-centered assholes.

No, Rand is not relevant. Greed is not a virtue.

[Must_B_Free]

38. left her husband to have an affair with a young fan

righties can't keeps their privates private.

[kitkat65]

39. A college friend of mine worked at the university's library.

He told me Ayn Rand books were the most vandalized books on the floor he worked . . . usually via a toilet flushing.

[really annoyed]

40. Her works were never relevant.

Just my opinion though.....

I know the libertarians are crazy about her. So, she is relevant to some people.

[mitchum]

41. Alice Rosenbaum was a talentless, tin-eared lunatic then....

she's a talentless, tin-eared lunatic now.

[kestrel91316]

42. Isn't she dead by now??

[mitchum]

45. Mercifully so...and her writing has always smelled that way

[Warren DeMontague]

43. Ask some of her Zombies

Since I'm not part of the cult, I'm really not qualified to make that call.

[mixedview]

46. As a libertarian I agree with her main ideas

which are essentially the classical liberal principles of the Enlightenment and of our founding fathers - that a free nation begins and ends with the individual.. that a great, strong, wealthy nation harnesses the power of the individual - the power of the human desire to improve oneself and the world around him/her. All of the great things we enjoy: democracy, a free and open culture, higher standards of living, education, technology, innovation, - all the results of this belief system.

As a moderate I agree with many mainstream liberal positions re. gov't intervention to prevent market failure, to manage/build the spaces we all share (the commons), to maintain a social safety net. But I see democratic socialism as a mechanism to save capitalism/liberty from itself - not to replace it.. to help stabilize and expand capitalism and opportunity to as many people as possible.

I should point out that a few years ago I was more of a liberal, and evolved to this position from that one. I've come to this position through much thought and debate, not just because I read some Rand.

[K-W]

53. Thats like saying "As a chicken, I agree with Col. Sanders main ideas."

No, her works are not in any way in line with enlightenment thinking, they are in fact an assault on enlightenment thinking.

Objectivism is to libertarianism as Intelligent Design is to evolution.

[Technowitch]

47. Seems almost every intellectual -- myself included -- goes through...

...a Randian phase at some point in one's early adult life. Something about the hyper-rationality and passionless "enlightened" self-interest is appealing.

As with many utopianists, she wrote her fiction to promulgate her philosophy -- and used the narrative itself to 'prove' it would work.

Meanwhile, in the real world, some of us like to take care of the weak. To enforce pollution laws, because the environment affects everybody. And not everybody behaves in a rational, dispassionless manner.

As for her works, I think they were a reaction to the rise of social responsibility -- and FDR's "New Deal" programs in the '30s. People like Rand feared socialism, and so came up with its polar opposite: the capitalists' paradise. One wherein anybody could enter into any agreement they liked, where resources were there for whomever could get at them first, and where the environment really needn't be worried about.

Her philosophies were as blind to actual human nature as communism was. But that doesn't stop people from falling for what she (and her followers) are selling.

One day though, I woke up and realized, "Hey, I *am* my brother's keeper." (That is, one of the reasons I'm on this planet is to help people, even when it isn't in my own self-interest.)

[mitchum]

50. That's because almost every intellectual is a teenager sometimes...

I agree with the poster above who said that dear sweet Alice was essentially adolescent. And then we get smarter.

[EnfantTerrible]

49. She's a NeoCon wet dream...

You have to be asleep to enjoy it and when you wake up you take a long, hot, shower and work through the shameful feelings.

[txaslftist]

54. I can't believe your ignorance...

... As I sit in my mountaintop retreat, high in the Colorado Rockies, built by the great railroad industrialists, we pity you poor 'takers' down below.

...not long from now, the deadly ray-beam weapons will blot you all out of existence, and we will remain, living by the principles of Ayn Rand, bartering our self-minted gold coins and rebuilding the world you pitiable fools have driven into the dark ages.

...by not following our principles since the 1940s, look how technological progress has been stifled. Why, there has been no significant advancement in any of the important fields of industry, commerce, medicine, or astrology at all.

...but our day is coming. Prometheus will rise anew, for the great spirit of enterprise cannot be contained!