'ATLAS SHRUGGED' and the Tea Party Movement

[melensdad]

This pretty much covers it.

YouTube - Atlas Shrugged and the Tea Party Revolts

If you have not yet picked up a copy of Atlas Shrugged, its an amazing book that is a must read => Amazon.com: Atlas Shrugged (9780452011878): Ayn Rand: Books

 

[Fletch]

Robotic newsreader chick is robotic.

Dare I say... "Randroid"?

Also, she needs to wipe the drool off her chin. She talks about Rand the way Scientologists talk about Hubbard, and that's just effin' creepy.

I liked Atlas Shrugged, but I think some make too much of it and of her. I think Rand erred in being so adamantly opposed to certain topics which are not permitted to be discussed here. And there is evidence in at least one of her books (The Virtue of Selfishness, I think) that she couldn't completely free herself from the idea of government having a morally justifiable monopoly on force.

 

[melensdad]

No question that Rand is somewhat heavy handed and preachy in some of her writing.

Still it never ceases to amaze me that a book written 50+ years ago can so accurately predict what is happening in the world, and America, today.

 

[Fletch]

Still it never ceases to amaze me that a book written 50+ years ago can so accurately predict what is happening in the world, and America, today.

It is pretty cool, but then she also had the perspective of someone who watched the Great Depression unfold firsthand, and FDR's "remedies" weren't that far off from some of the things she described in her book. I've never seen any mention of it, but I think she would probably have been someone who read John T. Flynn's The Roosevelt Myth, which came out shortly after WW2 (1948, 10 years before Atlas Shrugged) and describes much of the institutional cynicism mirroring that which she would later depict in her fictional government.

Indeed, Obama has been said to be a new FDR, and whether that is meant as a compliment or insult seems to depend largely on the school of economics to which one subscribes.

 

[LEaSH]

so how does it end?

 

[Fletch]

so how does it end?

Gollum takes the ring from Frodo and falls into the Crack of Doom.

 

[dross]

Read Rand's other works to really understand her. Two I always recommend are We the Living, and Anthem. I don't think Roosevelt shaped her writing or thought processes at all, I think she fully understodd the implications of socialism watching it unfold in Russia as a girl. The Roosevelt administration was simply proof of what she believed all along.

Ayn Rand isn't perfect, but she gets held to a standard of perfection because of the cultish devotion of some of her followers. What she was, was a genius who was one of the first to emphasize the morality of the free market, and who could bring that understanding to the average person by using literature as her vehicle.

 

[infidel]

I'm reading atlas shrugged right now. I'm only a couple hundred pages in, but it's
good so far....just waiting on more action.

 

[Fletch]

Read Rand's other works to really understand her. Two I always recommend are We the Living, and Anthem. I don't think Roosevelt shaped her writing or thought processes at all, I think she fully understodd the implications of socialism watching it unfold in Russia as a girl. The Roosevelt administration was simply proof of what she believed all along.

I haven't read those, but I've read just about all of her non-fiction stuff, and it pretty much all springs from the same fountain. She was remarkably consistent, if not totally so.

Ayn Rand isn't perfect, but she gets held to a standard of perfection because of the cultish devotion of some of her followers. What she was, was a genius who was one of the first to emphasize the morality of the free market, and who could bring that understanding to the average person by using literature as her vehicle.

Ludwig von Mises was also a contemporary, and I believe I've read somewhere that they hung out together at one time or another. Since Human Action came out in 1949, I'm also inclined to believe that she was inspired by it.

The point of tracing what I believe to be some of the work that likely informed her own is not to denigrate her. What I desire to do is to take her off the pedestal of god-/saint-hood that her devotees have put her on, and examine her work as an extension of what had gone before.

Saying that Ayn Rand's ideas did not spring from her mind fully-formed ex nihilo like Athena from the head of Zeus is not the same as saying she was an untalented hack. Hundreds or thousands of people may read the same works, but it does truly take a gifted mind to extend the works to the next logical step. Murray Rothbard had such a mind, and applied it to nonfiction (The Ethics of Liberty, for example), and Ayn Rand was certainly in good company, though I find another novelist contemporary of hers far more persuasive, if less detailed and explicit in his advocacy. Hans-Hermann Hoppe is the present-day torchbearer in the non-fiction realm, and there are scores attempting to push the envelope or at least keep the ideas alive in fiction (L. Neil Smith comes to mind).

 

[Expat]

Funny that the libertarians worship Ayn Rand, yet she calls them scum.
The Ayn Rand Institute: Ayn Rand's Q & A on Libertarianism

Libertarians are a monstrous, disgusting bunch of people:

 

[ATOMonkey]

Gollum takes the ring from Frodo and falls into the Crack of Doom.

BWAHAHAHAHAAAAA

 

[Fletch]

Funny that the libertarians worship Ayn Rand, yet she calls them scum.
The Ayn Rand Institute: Ayn Rand's Q & A on Libertarianism

It seems to me that she was most incensed by the attempt to use her work for political gain, at least that's what I read between the lines of her statements. She was not opposed to libertarian ideas... according to Wikipedia, she was friends with and admired Hazlitt and Mises, even though she had serious reservations about some of Mises' ideas.

Based on her nonfiction writing, I have come to the conclusion that her opposition to Libertarian politics was largely about "doing the work". She despised people who adopted the conclusion of a system of thought without regard for how the conclusion was derived -- this is echoed in her derogatory statements about "the end justifies the means".

One very clear example almost always arises when I talk to folks about Atlas Shrugged. The friend who begged me to read the book, and was head-over-heals in love with it, was discussing it with me after I read it. I asked what he thought of John Galt's epic speech. He said he skipped most of it and went to the novel's wrap-up. From her nonfiction writing, I can say that she would have despised him as a reader, and probably would have offered to buy his copy back from him because it was obviously wasted on him. In her mind, if you accept the conclusion without regard for the process, you are no better than those who reject the conclusion outright. To the extent that she would use a term like "sin", she would have said that intellectual laziness is the worst sin possible.

Every time the Rand-vs-Libertarians subject comes up, this is ultimately how I view it. She hated them for co-opting her work to other ends instead of attempting to understand it, and saw the pursuit of political power as prima facie evidence that they didn't understand it. FWIW, I tend to agree with her on this point.

 

[melensdad]

If you like Atlas Shrugged..

You will enjoy this:

YouTube - What is the root of money?

 

[Duncan]

Be careful .. all you guys that like Atlas Shrugged .. you guys might be closet Libertarians Thanks
Duncan

 

[Fletch]

Be careful .. all you guys that like Atlas Shrugged .. you guys might be closet Libertarians

"Closet" libertarians? Most of us in this thread are pretty open and forthcoming about our libertarianism. Where have you been?

 

[dross]

I haven't read those, but I've read just about all of her non-fiction stuff, and it pretty much all springs from the same fountain. She was remarkably consistent, if not totally so.

Ludwig von Mises was also a contemporary, and I believe I've read somewhere that they hung out together at one time or another. Since Human Action came out in 1949, I'm also inclined to believe that she was inspired by it.

The point of tracing what I believe to be some of the work that likely informed her own is not to denigrate her. What I desire to do is to take her off the pedestal of god-/saint-hood that her devotees have put her on, and examine her work as an extension of what had gone before.

Saying that Ayn Rand's ideas did not spring from her mind fully-formed ex nihilo like Athena from the head of Zeus is not the same as saying she was an untalented hack. Hundreds or thousands of people may read the same works, but it does truly take a gifted mind to extend the works to the next logical step. Murray Rothbard had such a mind, and applied it to nonfiction (The Ethics of Liberty, for example), and Ayn Rand was certainly in good company, though I find another novelist contemporary of hers far more persuasive, if less detailed and explicit in his advocacy. Hans-Hermann Hoppe is the present-day torchbearer in the non-fiction realm, and there are scores attempting to push the envelope or at least keep the ideas alive in fiction (L. Neil Smith comes to mind).

I didn't take what you wrote as criticism of Rand. I was just pointing out that she seems to have understood the big picture implications of socialism much earlier than most other intellectuals and people in general, which was a particular aspect of her genius.

If I remember what I read, her issues with von Mises were that he made a practical argument for capitalism, but wasn't much interested in the morality of it. She considered herself a moralist, and her defense of capitalism was from a moral perspective.

She and her protege, Nathanial Branden, recognized that the objectivist movement had much in common with libertarianism. I think her rejection of it had much to do with territory defense, rather than any real disagreement. Branden later wrote an essay called, We're All Libertarians Now.

There is much to criticize about Ayn Rand, yet I consider her an intellectual hero of freedom.

 

[jsgolfman]

I enjoy Rand. I liked Atlas, Anthem, Fountainhead and even We the Living. My main two points of contention with her philosophy are her atheism and her defense of IP. Well, that and her rejection of Anarcho-Capitalism as a contradiciton while positing the very same ideals. I've also always thought of her a bit of an elitist, at least as the little man is concerned. She was all about the individual as long as he was a creator in the manner of Galt.

 

[jsgolfman]

If I remember what I read, her issues with von Mises were that he made a practical argument for capitalism, but wasn't much interested in the morality of it. She considered herself a moralist, and her defense of capitalism was from a moral perspective.
quote]
Yeah, I can't square "moralist" with "atheist".

 

[Fletch]

If I remember what I read, her issues with von Mises were that he made a practical argument for capitalism, but wasn't much interested in the morality of it. She considered herself a moralist, and her defense of capitalism was from a moral perspective.

The article I linked...

To What Extent Was Rand a Misesian? - Bettina Bien Greaves - Mises Daily

...states that her problems were more about the Subjective Theory of Value. Personally I think it's an intellectual error on her part, because she wanted everything to be objectively measured, but failed to realize that her supposedly "objective" standard of value (man's own life) was essentially subjective in nature. The article finds a way to reconcile the two using someone else's work, but I think it's more probable that Rand just bullheadedly insisted that her terms were correct when she was in fact saying the same thing.

FWIW, when I read Human Action, I see a very definite morality at work. It may not be as overt as Rand's work, but it is certainly present.

 

[dross]

If I remember what I read, her issues with von Mises were that he made a practical argument for capitalism, but wasn't much interested in the morality of it. She considered herself a moralist, and her defense of capitalism was from a moral perspective.
quote]
Yeah, I can't square "moralist" with "atheist".

That's because of our country's culture, which assumes that all systems of morality spring from a spiritual place. Without advocating one way or another, that's not a requirement. Also, we tend not to think of things as moral questions if they don't have something to do with sex, or lying, or stealing, or cheating. Moral systems are much broader than that, it's just that most of their aspects are invisible to us because we've assimilated them so thoroughly.

Libertarianism, for instance, is a very moralistic political philosophy.

The article I linked...

To What Extent Was Rand a Misesian? - Bettina Bien Greaves - Mises Daily

...states that her problems were more about the Subjective Theory of Value. Personally I think it's an intellectual error on her part, because she wanted everything to be objectively measured, but failed to realize that her supposedly "objective" standard of value (man's own life) was essentially subjective in nature. The article finds a way to reconcile the two using someone else's work, but I think it's more probable that Rand just bullheadedly insisted that her terms were correct when she was in fact saying the same thing.

FWIW, when I read Human Action, I see a very definite morality at work. It may not be as overt as Rand's work, but it is certainly present.

One of Rand's major failings is that she considered even her mundane choices and preferences to be rooted so deeply in reason as to take on moral relevance.

I suggest you read some of Nathaniel Branden's essays. He has a web site out there. I think you'd find him interesting.