Gammatron 64 posted:

I think it's because Ayn Rand and her followers tend to be literal sociopaths who go beyond not having empathy but thinking that empathy is something that is to be detested

Throwing Turtles posted:

Leaving the philosophy aside everybody in the book falls into one of two categories. Either your the hero and you monologue at people till your done with your point, or your one of the villains and you exist to be monologued at. Very seldom will you see dialog in the book.

Gum posted:

i'm surprised an ayn rand thread has gone on for over two pages without anyone bringing up the hickman stuff

http://michaelprescott.freeservers.com/romancing-the-stone-cold.html

LloydDobler posted:

Plus they sucked hard.

FilthyImp posted:

Upon release of the First Installment, the GLORIOUS FREE MARKET spoke (because it made poo poo-all money).

Like good, rational Objectivists, the producers whined that no one understood how important their movie was and, against all common fiscal sense, produced a second part to a movie no one wanted to watch.

eschaton posted:

Which part has the speech? Is that in III or is it coming in IV?

eschaton posted:

Which part has the speech? Is that in III or is it coming in IV?

surc posted:

Is... is this serious? They're actually going through the whole book as a quadrilogy of films?

Mister Kingdom posted:

The trilogy only made $8.8 million. The first movie's budget was $20,000,000. I don't think these people understand economics as mush as they think they do.

Shayu posted:

I think her prose is very long winded and generally I find Atlas Shrugged to not be very engaging but you shouldn't disregard it out right. She gets a lot of hate but her philosophy outlined in Atlas Shrugged is worthy of a little consideration at least.

Obdicut posted:

Free will is not an absolute, emotions are tools of cognition, true altruism exists. To give three.

02-6611-0142-1 posted:

But since her philosophy is built on a false premise (that all human beings start in equal circumstances with equal wealth and equal opportunity), isn't her entire philosophy actually provably wrong?

tsa posted:

These are hardly settled topics in philosophy, it's a bit silly to claim to have the absolute truth on topics people still spend their entire lives researching. I'm not even sure things like "absolute free will" can be meaningfully and objectively defined.

TopherCStone posted:

This is one of the better criticisms of Atlas Shrugged I've found: https://sites.google.com/site/atlassucked/home

ElGroucho posted:

Here you go OP, much more entertaining than that lovely book

http://activatecomix.com/162-1-1.comic

ElGroucho posted:

Here you go OP, much more entertaining than that lovely book

http://activatecomix.com/162-1-1.comic

quote:

tsa posted:

These are hardly settled topics in philosophy, it's a bit silly to claim to have the absolute truth on topics people still spend their entire lives researching. I'm not even sure things like "absolute free will" can be meaningfully and objectively defined.

eschaton posted:

Perfect illustration for Ayn Rand's famous letter to "Cat Fancy."

http://www.businessinsider.com/ayn-rands-letter-to-cat-fancy-magazine-2014-6 posted:

Ayn Rand was all about objectivism, the philosophical system for the selfish, but she was, apparently, also all about cats.

She loved cats so much that she subscribed to "Cat Fancy" magazine and engaged in correspondence with them on March 20, 1966.

Mallory Ortberg of The Toast came across this letter in the book "The Letters Of Ayn Rand."

Here's the text:

Dear Miss Smith,

You ask whether I own cats or simply enjoy them, or both. The answer is: both. I love cats in general and own two in particular.

You ask: “We are assuming that you have an interest in cats, or was your subscription strictly objective?” My subscription was strictly objective because I have an interest in cats. I can demonstrate objectively that cats are of a great value, and the carter issue of Cat Fancy magazine can serve as part of the evidence. (“Objective” does not mean “disinterested” or indifferent; it means corresponding to the facts of reality and applies both to knowledge and to values.)

I subscribed to Cat Fancy primarily for the sake of the picture, and found the charter issue very interesting and enjoyable.

As Animal New York pointed out, "Big up to Rand to even responding to bait, but tying objectivism to cats is like applying the String Theory to jealousy. A stretch. And yet, she manages to do so, in the driest way possible."

But the real applause goes to the editors of "Cat Fancy" magazine, who must have felt like they really put themselves on the map after this back-and-forth.

Enfys posted:

I can demonstrate objectively that cats are of a great value

quote:

At the time, she was planning a novel that was to be titled The Little Street, the projected hero of which was named Danny Renahan.According to Rand scholar Chris Matthew Sciabarra, she deliberately modeled Renahan - intended to be her first sketch of her ideal man - after this same William Edward Hickman. Renahan, she enthuses in another journal entry, "is born with a wonderful, free, light consciousness -- [resulting from] the absolute lack of social instinct or herd feeling. He does not understand, because he has no organ for understanding, the necessity, meaning, or importance of other people ... Other people do not exist for him and he does not understand why they should." (Journals, pp. 27, 21-22; emphasis hers.)

...

"At the rendezvous, Mr. Parker handed over the money to a young man who was waiting for him in a parked car. When Mr. Parker paid the ransom, he could see his daughter, Marion, sitting in the passenger seat next to the suspect. As soon as the money was exchanged, the suspect drove off with the victim still in the car. At the end of the street, Marion's corpse was dumped onto the pavement. She was dead. Her legs had been chopped off and her eyes had been wired open to appear as if she was still alive. Her internal organs had been cut out and pieces of her body were later found strewn all over the Los Angeles area."

...

"He was conveyed back to Los Angeles where he promptly confessed to another murder he committed during a drug store hold-up. Eventually, Hickman confessed to a dozen armed robberies. 'This is going to get interesting before it's over,' he told investigators. 'Marion and I were good friends,' he said, 'and we really had a good time when we were together and I really liked her. I'm sorry that she was killed.' Hickman never said why he had killed the girl and cut off her legs."

...

Of The Fountainhead's hero, Howard Roark: He "has learned long ago, with his first consciousness, two things which dominate his entire attitude toward life: his own superiority and the utter worthlessness of the world." (Journals, p. 93.)

...

"For reasons given in the following notes, AR concluded that the intensity of the public's hatred was primarily 'because of the man who committed the crime and not because of the crime he committed.' The mob hated Hickman for his independence; she chose him as a model for the same reason.

"Hickman served as a model for [her fictional hero] Danny [Renahan] only in strictly limited respects, which AR names in her notes. And he does commit a crime in the story, but it is nothing like Hickman's. To guard against any misinterpretation, I quote her own statement regarding the relationship between her hero and Hickman:

" '[My hero is] very far from him, of course. The outside of Hickman, but not the inside. Much deeper and much more. A Hickman with a purpose. And without the degeneracy. It is more exact to say that the model is not Hickman, but what Hickman suggested to me.' "

...

"He shows how impossible it is for a genuinely beautiful soul to succeed at present, for in all [aspects of] modern life, one has to be a hypocrite, to bend and tolerate. This boy wanted to command and smash away things and people he didn't approve of."

...

"The first thing that impresses me about the case is the ferocious rage of a whole society against one man. No matter what the man did, there is always something loathsome in the 'virtuous' indignation and mass-hatred of the 'majority.'... It is repulsive to see all these beings with worse sins and crimes in their own lives, virtuously condemning a criminal...

"This is not just the case of a terrible crime. It is not the crime alone that has raised the fury of public hatred. It is the case of a daring challenge to society. It is the fact that a crime has been committed by one man, alone; that this man knew it was against all laws of humanity and intended that way; that he does not want to recognize it as a crime and that he feels superior to all. It is the amazing picture of a man with no regard whatever for all that society holds sacred, and with a consciousness all his own. A man who really stands alone, in action and in soul."


...

"And when we look at the other side of it -- there is a brilliant, unusual, exceptional boy turned into a purposeless monster. By whom? By what? Is it not by that very society that is now yelling so virtuously in its role of innocent victim? He had a brilliant mind, a romantic, adventurous, impatient soul and a straight, uncompromising, proud character. What had society to offer him? A wretched, insane family as the ideal home, a Y.M.C.A. club as social honor, and a bank-page job as ambition and career...

"If he had any desires and ambitions -- what was the way before him? A long, slow, soul-eating, heart-wrecking toil and struggle; the degrading, ignoble road of silent pain and loud compromises....

"A strong man can eventually trample society under his feet. That boy was not strong enough. But is that his crime? Is it his crime that he was too impatient, fiery and proud to go that slow way? That he was not able to serve, when he felt worthy to rule; to obey, when he wanted to command?...

"He was given [nothing with which] to fill his life. What was he offered to fill his soul? The petty, narrow, inconsistent, hypocritical ideology of present-day humanity. All the criminal, ludicrous, tragic nonsense of Christianity and its morals, virtues, and consequences. Is it any wonder that he didn't accept it?"

...

"What could society answer, if that boy were to say: 'Yes. I am a monstrous criminal, but what are you?' "

...

"The fact that he looks like 'a bad boy with a very winning grin,' that he makes you like him the whole time you're in his presence..."

...

Still writing of Hickman, she confesses to her "involuntary, irresistible sympathy for him, which I cannot help feeling just because of [his antisocial nature] and in spite of everything else." Regarding his credo (the full statement of which is, "I am like the state: what is good for me is right"), Rand writes, "Even if he wasn't big enough to live by that attitude, he deserves credit for saying it so brilliantly."

Obdicut posted:

Well, even on this they're hypocritical. The ultrawonderful industriastscientistgeniuses who are here heroes totally get off on each other, they feel strong zesty emotions being around each other, they value each other's company. The whole plot of the book is about them forming a community, not them going off as individuals. So that they're setting up a system where everyone like them will suffer forever more, except the people in their gulch, is even weirder.

Mister Kingdom posted:

The trilogy only made $8.8 million. The first movie's budget was $20,000,000. I don't think these people understand economics as much as they think they do.