Paradise Lost **potential mini spoiler if you intend to read Atlas Shrugged**

[LisaContractorUmbrella]

Read the first 25%. No intention of reading the rest. Undergraduate-level prolix tulip. Popular with the Tea Party, libertarians and other idiots ....

... this would be the Ayn Rand who championed individualism and self-reliance and derided all forms of collective provision - until her life-long exercise of her right to smoke tobacco gave her lung cancer, at which point she signed up for Medicaire and Social Security pronto? Puh-leeze.

Have read this thread with interest and I cannot believe that someone is so vociferous in their condemnation of a book that they haven't even read and of an author whose work they don't understand

[darmstadt]

Have read this thread with interest and I cannot believe that someone is so vociferous in their condemnation of a book that they haven't even read and of an author whose work they don't understand

Particularly as it's a work of fiction, even the Bible has more real facts in it than this

[pjclarke]

Have read this thread with interest and I cannot believe that someone is so vociferous in their condemnation of a book that they haven't even read and of an author whose work they don't understand

"It has a fair claim to be the ugliest philosophy the post-war world has produced. Selfishness, it contends, is good, altruism evil, empathy and compassion are irrational and destructive. The poor deserve to die; the rich deserve unmediated power. It has already been tested, and has failed spectacularly and catastrophically. Yet the belief system constructed by Ayn Rand, who died 30 years ago today, has never been more popular or influential. [...] Rand’s is the philosophy of the psychopath, a misanthropic fantasy of cruelty, revenge and greed. Yet, as Gary Weiss shows in his new book Ayn Rand Nation, she has become to the new right what Karl Marx once was to the left: a demi-god at the head of a chiliastic cult(4). [...] Saturated in her philosophy, the new right on both sides of the Atlantic continues to demand the rollback of the state, even as the wreckage of that policy lies all around. The poor go down, the ultra-rich survive and prosper. Ayn Rand would have approved."

A Manifesto for Psychopaths | George Monbiot

I haven't read all the Bible either, but enough to realise that I will never be a Christian, one does not have to read every line of every source text (which for me, would be a form of torture) of a 'philosophy' to find it repulsive, and the effects of policies informed by that ideology, ironically, morally repugnant.

[LisaContractorUmbrella]

"It has a fair claim to be the ugliest philosophy the post-war world has produced. Selfishness, it contends, is good, altruism evil, empathy and compassion are irrational and destructive. The poor deserve to die; the rich deserve unmediated power. It has already been tested, and has failed spectacularly and catastrophically. Yet the belief system constructed by Ayn Rand, who died 30 years ago today, has never been more popular or influential. [...] Rand’s is the philosophy of the psychopath, a misanthropic fantasy of cruelty, revenge and greed. Yet, as Gary Weiss shows in his new book Ayn Rand Nation, she has become to the new right what Karl Marx once was to the left: a demi-god at the head of a chiliastic cult(4). [...] Saturated in her philosophy, the new right on both sides of the Atlantic continues to demand the rollback of the state, even as the wreckage of that policy lies all around. The poor go down, the ultra-rich survive and prosper. Ayn Rand would have approved."

A Manifesto for Psychopaths | George Monbiot

I haven't read all the Bible either, but enough to realise that I will never be a Christian, one does not have to read every line of every source text (which for me, would be a form of torture) of a 'philosophy' to find it repulsive, and the effects of policies informed by that ideology, ironically, morally repugnant.

Your quote proves that you haven't read the book and have no understanding of the philosophy behind it. Atlas Shrugged told the story of the demise of the US economy following the introduction of extreme Socialist ideologies. To find worth in yourself is not selfish. To not want to reward those who want everything but don't want to do anything to get it is not to despise altruism. The book does not suggest that empathy and compassion are worthless merely that it is not necessarily wrong to consider your own well being before that of others - that doesn't mean that you should consider your own feelings to the exclusion or detriment of others.

An interesting quote but it would be nice if you read the book in its entirety and then formed your own opinion rather than borrowing someone else's

[pjclarke]

Your quote proves that you haven't read the book and have no understanding of the philosophy behind it. Atlas Shrugged told the story of the demise of the US economy following the introduction of extreme Socialist ideologies. To find worth in yourself is not selfish. To not want to reward those who want everything but don't want to do anything to get it is not to despise altruism. The book does not suggest that empathy and compassion are worthless merely that it is not necessarily wrong to consider your own well being before that of others - that doesn't mean that you should consider your own feelings to the exclusion or detriment of others.

An interesting quote but it would be nice if you read the book in its entirety and then formed your own opinion rather than borrowing someone else's

A fair point, and a far more cogent defence than that put up by our resident Objectivist, with his evasions, adolescent pedantry,fallacies, juvenile debating points and lies.

It is not a single (unread) book I find objectionable, nor necessarily would I disagree with some of the tenets proposed above, however the political measures introduced by those who claim to be informed by Rand - and I concede they may have misinterpreted or cherry-picked from the ideology just as Christians tend to do with their text, seem to me morally topsy-turvy, materialistic, worshipping profit above all else, regarding any kind of collective provision or concern for those poorer or less fortunate as not just weak but immoral. Alan Greenspan being one such disciple:

Among the essays he wrote for Ayn Rand were those published in a book he co-edited with her called Capitalism: the Unknown Ideal(10). Here, starkly explained, you’ll find the philosophy he brought into government. There is no need for the regulation of business – even builders or Big Pharma – he argued, as “the ‘greed’ of the businessman or, more appropriately, his profit-seeking … is the unexcelled protector of the consumer.”(11) As for bankers, their need to win the trust of their clients guarantees that they will act with honour and integrity. Unregulated capitalism, he maintains, is a “superlatively moral system”

We - the poorer and weaker 99% -are still suffering the effects of the near-collapse of that 'superlatively moral system'. So you'll forgive me if I don't feel motivated to finish the fictional masterpiece of its High Priestess.

Oh, and the prose sucks.

[SpontaneousOrder]

I very much doubt that one can extrapolate so simplistically, however I do conclude that your opinion that public expenditure on healthcare makes it more expensive is at odds with the evidence.

What i'm getting at is that that is precisely what the evidence suggests. I'm trying to figure out what line of thought you're using to see otherwise.

[pjclarke]

What i'm getting at is that that is precisely what the evidence suggests. I'm trying to figure out what line of thought you're using to see otherwise.

You first.

[LisaContractorUmbrella]

A fair point, and a far more cogent defence than that put up by our resident Objectivist, with his evasions, adolescent pedantry,fallacies, juvenile debating points and lies.

It is not a single (unread) book I find objectionable, nor necessarily would I disagree with some of the tenets proposed above, however the political measures introduced by those who claim to be informed by Rand - and I concede they may have misinterpreted or cherry-picked from the ideology just as Christians tend to do with their text, seem to me morally topsy-turvy, materialistic, worshipping profit above all else, regarding any kind of collective provision or concern for those poorer or less fortunate as not just weak but immoral. Alan Greenspan being one such disciple:



We - the poorer and weaker 99% -are still suffering the effects of the near-collapse of that 'superlatively moral system'. So you'll forgive me if I don't feel motivated to finish the fictional masterpiece of its High Priestess.

Oh, and the prose sucks.

Many people quote Ayn Rand and invariably the quotes are taken out of context. The most common is 'I shall live my life for no other man' which is used to illustrate her supposedly 'selfish' ideals. The whole quote is 'I swear on my life and for my love of it that I shall live my life for no other man, nor shall I expect him to live his life for me' which has different connotations entirely. One situation in the book involved the main character being told by a family member that he should give another family member a job - he agreed that he would be happy to offer a job but as the person in question had no experience whatsoever, they would need to start at the bottom, for the going rate, and work their way up. Perfectly reasonable. The person wanting the job was furious and insisted that, as the main character was a rich man and had all this money going spare he should create a senior position for his relative and ensure it was very well paid even though there would be absolutely no value at all added to his business by doing so and the move could potentially risk the smooth running of the business. The business owner then refused him a position at all.

Like all philosophical works Atlas Shrugged talks in terms of extremes but it does illustrate the flaws in Socialism extremely well and also the reasons why, as long as you have human nature, it will never work. If you thought about the above example in terms of the effort you have put in to be a success or financially well off would you do anything different to the main character? Would you just hand over large amounts of cash to a freeloader (referred to as 'looters' in the book) just because you had it and he didn't?

[Old Greg]

Your quote proves that you haven't read the book and have no understanding of the philosophy behind it. Atlas Shrugged told the story of the demise of the US economy following the introduction of extreme Socialist ideologies. To find worth in yourself is not selfish. To not want to reward those who want everything but don't want to do anything to get it is not to despise altruism. The book does not suggest that empathy and compassion are worthless merely that it is not necessarily wrong to consider your own well being before that of others - that doesn't mean that you should consider your own feelings to the exclusion or detriment of others.

An interesting quote but it would be nice if you read the book in its entirety and then formed your own opinion rather than borrowing someone else's

So, Lisa, do you think that a democratic Parliament has no more right to mandate compulsory taxation to fund healthcare for those who cannot afford it, than it does to send agents of the state round Spontaneous Order's house to rape him?

[Old Greg]

Many people quote Ayn Rand and invariably the quotes are taken out of context. The most common is 'I shall live my life for no other man' which is used to illustrate her supposedly 'selfish' ideals. The whole quote is 'I swear on my life and for my love of it that I shall live my life for no other man, nor shall I expect him to live his life for me' which has different connotations entirely. One situation in the book involved the main character being told by a family member that he should give another family member a job - he agreed that he would be happy to offer a job but as the person in question had no experience whatsoever, they would need to start at the bottom, for the going rate, and work their way up. Perfectly reasonable. The person wanting the job was furious and insisted that, as the main character was a rich man and had all this money going spare he should create a senior position for his relative and ensure it was very well paid even though there would be absolutely no value at all added to his business by doing so and the move could potentially risk the smooth running of the business. The business owner then refused him a position at all.

Like all philosophical works Atlas Shrugged talks in terms of extremes but it does illustrate the flaws in Socialism extremely well and also the reasons why, as long as you have human nature, it will never work. If you thought about the above example in terms of the effort you have put in to be a success or financially well off would you do anything different to the main character? Would you just hand over large amounts of cash to a freeloader (referred to as 'looters' in the book) just because you had it and he didn't?

I don't have a problem with the book. It has interesting ideas. But I do have a problem when people start believing it is objectively true and organising to implement the philosophy (although of course they have the right to do so).

It's like Marx and Engels. They have interesting ideas and a pretty good analysis of 19th century industrial capitalism. The problem comes when people are dogmatic about taking the writings as some kind of received truth.

Funnily enough, the selective quote bit works on Marx as well. Marxist opposition to religion is often characterised through the statement:

Religion is the opium of the people.

Opium is bad so religion is bad. A fuller version of the quotation is:

Religious suffering is, at one and the same time, the expression of real suffering and a protest against real suffering. Religion is the sigh of the oppressed creature, the heart of a heartless world, and the soul of soulless conditions. It is the opium of the people.

A fuller version of the quotation can be found at: Opium of the people - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia