posted October 15, 2012 06:44 PM            

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Passion, Lust, Desire. Check out my journal

posted October 15, 2012 10:13 PM            

I didn't expand enough

posted October 16, 2012 01:14 PM            

i read both atlas shrugged and fountainhead as a teenager and found them thrilling - and chilling.

i understand her premise that conformity and the pressure of society to altruism can lead to betrayal of self...however without realizing we are all in this together there can be no expression of said self.

the architect/hero in fountainhead, for instance, could not function without doing for others...if only to get the money to create his buildings....

and this is where the "randists" fall down. despite such as ryan having made as much use, for instance, of stimulus money as he could get out of the fed govt, he acts as if individual isolation/freedom is the be all end all and the govt should not have or provide these funds - in abstract but NOT in reality. yet he pushes this model as if he didn't act otherwise.

posted October 16, 2012 05:00 PM            

Osho

Perhaps her suicide says more about her Objectivism philosophy that we can imagine

posted October 16, 2012 05:07 PM            

I liked how RAW poked fun at her in the Illuminatus, with his Taoist opposition version of her works written by Atalanta Hope

She sounds fun

posted October 16, 2012 08:49 PM            

quote:

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Originally posted by juniperb:
The meaning ascribed in popular usage to the word 'selfishness' is not merely wrong: it represents a devastating intellectual 'package-deal,' which is responsible, more than any other single factor, for the arrested moral development of mankind.

ayn rand

If you love, you become illogical; if you are very logical, you become unloving. and without love, what is there to live by, to live with, to live for? What is there? Ayn Rand was a very egoistic, rationalistic, realistic woman. Her philosophy is that of absolute selfishness. If you are absolutely selfish, how can you be loving? It is impossible. Her philosophy is absolutely realistic, materialistic. When there is only matter, what is there to bloom into?

Osho

Perhaps her suicide says more about her Objectivism philosophy that we can imagine

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It's been years since I've even glanced at either Objectivism or the writings of AR, but that doesn't sound accurate of their (and her) philosophy of an enlightened selfishness, that is, you can still do good and sacrifice for others, just those that are worth it...and also acknowledges the selfishness of love (even if you care about someone as much or more than yourself). It's possible my impression comes from those inspired by AR, however (with many other inspirations), but I did find this from the ARC:
http://www.aynrand.org/site/News2?page=NewsArticle&id=5298

quote:

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Imagine a Valentine's Day card which takes this premise seriously. Imagine receiving a card with the following message: "I get no pleasure from your existence. I obtain no personal enjoyment from the way you look, dress, move, act or think. Our relationship profits me not. You satisfy no sexual, emotional or intellectual needs of mine. You're a charity case, and I'm with you only out of pity. Love, XXX."

Needless to say, you would be indignant to learn that you are being "loved," not for anything positive you offer your lover, but--like any recipient of alms--for what you lack. Yet that is the perverse view of love entailed in the belief that it is self-sacrificial.

Genuine love is the exact opposite. It is the most selfish experience possible, in the true sense of the term: it benefits your life in a way that involves no sacrifice of others to yourself or of yourself to others.

To love a person is selfish because it means that you value that particular person, that he or she makes your life better, that he or she is an intense source of joy--to you. A "disinterested" love is a contradiction in terms. One cannot be neutral to that which one values. The time, effort and money you spend on behalf of someone you love are not sacrifices, but actions taken because his or her happiness is crucially important to your own. Such actions would constitute sacrifices only if they were done for a stranger--or for an enemy. Those who argue that love demands self-denial must hold the bizarre belief that it makes no personal difference whether your loved one is healthy or sick, feels pleasure or pain, is alive or dead.

It is regularly asserted that love should be unconditional, and that we should "love everyone as a brother." We see this view advocated by the "non-judgmental" grade-school teacher who tells his class that whoever brings a Valentine's Day card for one student must bring cards for everyone. We see it in the appalling dictum of "Hate the sin, but love the sinner"--which would have us condemn death camps but send Hitler a box of Godiva chocolates. Most people would agree that having sex with a person one despises is debased. Yet somehow, when the same underlying idea is applied to love, people consider it noble.

Love is far too precious to be offered indiscriminately. It is above all in the area of love that egalitarianism ought to be repudiated. Love represents an exalted exchange--a spiritual exchange--between two people, for the purpose of mutual benefit.

You love someone because he or she is a value--a selfish value to you, as determined by your standards--just as you are a value to him or her.

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And AR herself:
http://aynrandlexicon.com/lexicon/love.html

Yep, that person with the suicide note (if real) didn't understand the philosophy. I've never even been an Objectivist and I understood it better than her and quickly found that my impression was right.

That said, it's worth saying IMO that Ayn Rand didn't have the most healthy or ethical of romantic relationships...but then even many who admire her without worshiping her recognize her as a hypocrite who failed to live up to her own philosophy more than once. And the cult-like mentality of many Objectivists can be scary (like when her cult gave serious discussion on killing a boyfriend of hers that cheated on her despite that she, IIRC, also cheated on him) and I could see a cult telling her that who she loved was wrong and she mistook that for "love itself is wrong."

posted October 16, 2012 11:31 PM            

Wow, just been browsing that lexicon... I can see why Ive been putting it off, I think I'm in love with yet another dead person LOL!

quote:

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To love is to value. Only a rationally selfish man, a man of self-esteem, is capable of love—because he is the only man capable of holding firm, consistent, uncompromising, unbetrayed values. The man who does not value himself, cannot value anything or anyone.

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That's definitely a philosophy I embrace, Oh crap!

Now Ive got to read "Atlas Shrugged"!!!

posted October 17, 2012 08:49 PM            

Oh, and IMO, I thought this mockery of AR fiction was well-deserved:

http://whatever.scalzi.com/2004/12/01/the-10-least-successful-holiday-specials-of-a ll-time/

quote:

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Ayn Rand’s A Selfish Christmas (1951)

In this hour-long radio drama, Santa struggles with the increasing demands of providing gifts for millions of spoiled, ungrateful brats across the world, until a single elf, in the engineering department of his workshop, convinces Santa to go on strike. The special ends with the entropic collapse of the civilization of takers and the spectacle of children trudging across the bitterly cold, dark tundra to offer Santa cash for his services, acknowledging at last that his genius makes the gifts — and therefore Christmas — possible. Prior to broadcast, Mutual Broadcast System executives raised objections to the radio play, noting that 56 minutes of the hour-long broadcast went to a philosophical manifesto by the elf and of the four remaining minutes, three went to a love scene between Santa and the cold, practical Mrs. Claus that was rendered into radio through the use of grunts and the shattering of several dozen whiskey tumblers. In later letters, Rand sneeringly described these executives as “anti-life.”

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'Course the one on Star Trek was even better...when I first read that I wondered if it wasn't a real ep! (Seriously, having seen some really stupid ST eps, like going to a planet and finding a Greek god as just one example, and seeing many of the other elements in the satire in plenty of other ST eps, I really could see their satire as a real ep.)

posted October 18, 2012 10:49 AM            

quote:

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Unfortunately, doing this will get you kicked out of many Objectivist circles (perhaps the biggest reason Robert Anton Wilson mocked them so much was they come off as a cult with a guru espousing individuality).

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Yea, and you know how I feel about religions/cults/guru's, Id suffer the same fate as RAW in about 10 seconds!

Objectivism is a broken model for understanding reality its totality, my guess would be that is why RAW took serious issue with them since his philosophy revolves around Subjectivism. Yet not to the point where he excludes objective/shared realty... which makes the model much more flexible and ultimately more stable

Quantum physics must give the Objectivist's a real headache.