posted October 14, 2012 08:19 PM            

Or... have you seen the movie and plan to see part II?

We just got back from seeing Atlas Shrugged II. SO GOOD.

posted October 14, 2012 09:12 PM            

Moving to Pilgrims Progress.

posted October 15, 2012 06:15 PM            

Reflecting on why I think it's not just her very dry style (and I got the impression she felt being a woman was something to be overcome which annoyed me) but her fictional characters are REALLY over the top in being epically heroic or dastardly villains, with minds and bodies as beautiful or ugly as their ideals (again, in AR's way of seeing things). It sounds like she appeals to wannabe elitists overcoming their unwashed dirty hippie enemies (who if they were really that stupid and worse then they shouldn't have been so powerful), and I've always had a problem with stories like that as they're just so hard for me to believe. Heck, even when I was a child I took a more complex view of my fictional characters (I think I was 10 when I had the good witch as ugly and the really wicked witch as beautiful, which is very much against Ayn Rand's style).

And I say that in part because I was able to read her nonfiction...it was still very dry but that's ok when talking of ideas rather than sharing a story, and it's free of that ridiculous black/ugly vs. white/beautiful thing (even if her views held little to no room for shades of gray).

posted October 18, 2012 05:31 PM            

The whole idea that the world is filled with useful people, whom the rest of the useless world wants to leach off is just too narcissistic for me. I see everyone as having a part to play and just like education, people don't all shine under a general curriculum. We require unique avenues for excelling in our individual talents. The Rand style Libertarian view does not consider how severely "Producers" rely on consumers to generate their wealth.

It's fine to stand around whining about how one has worked so hard to bring innovation to the world and earn their own wealth, but leaving the poor and pathetic to fend for their self, puts producers in a position which Rand ignores. A state where producers no longer have access to grants and tax loopholes which increase their income, people to manufacture their products, clean up their homes, care for and educate their kids, maintain their roads, offer them care while they are ill. The reality is, producers are just as parasitic as consumers.

The idea of "Big Government, Get Out Of My Business" is a valid one. Rand unfortunately, is practically a sociopath when it comes to identifying with a majority of the world. No person is an island, life is a symbiotic experience. Where one person may have money or genius, another with less money and intellect has services which are needed. Stephen Hawking would have been considered a useless mooch in Rand's time, because of his physical needs and inability to communicate.

posted October 20, 2012 10:51 AM            

quote:

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No person is an island, life is a symbiotic experience. Where one person may have money or genius, another with less money and intellect has services which are needed.

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The weight of her objectivism/narcissim was her personal undoing. Objectivism crushs any common society much the way it finally crushed her.

posted October 23, 2012 09:53 PM            

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Gnosis ThySelf

posted October 23, 2012 09:54 PM            

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Gnosis ThySelf