NationStates Jolt Archive

I have read her books Anthem, Atlas Shrugged, and The Virtue of Selfishness a couple of months ago and I have to say that I was impressed by them (except I think that she REALLY could of used a good editor on Atlas Shrugged) and despite it being several months since I've read some of her work I can't help but be influenced by her ideas on Liberty, Individualism, and Free Thought (I don't agree with everything she said though).

I was just curious if anyone else heard has read any of her books and what they thought of the one-woman crusader for Individualism.

You are 17-20ish right?

I tend to think of her as largely overrated, but to each their own.

I read Atlas Shrugged.

My impression?

Rand was a woman who thought she had come up with this great idea, but couldn't support it in any other way than to create a world in which it *had* to be true, complete with completely 1-dimensional characters and a perpetual motion machine.

She also has pretty much no idea how human emotion really works, which leads me to wonder if she was human at all (or maybe she was some sort of sociopath).

I have read her books Anthem, Atlas Shrugged, and The Virtue of Selfishness a couple of months ago and I have to say that I was impressed by them (except I think that she REALLY could of used a good editor on Atlas Shrugged) and despite it being several months since I've read some of her work I can't help but be influenced by her ideas on Liberty, Individualism, and Free Thought (I don't agree with everything she said though).

I was just curious if anyone else heard has read any of her books and what they thought of the one-woman crusader for Individualism.

Put the books away, never read another. They're dangerous and depressing.

I haven't read any of it, save for a summary of Atlas Shrugged. As far as philosophy goes, I like to take my own path... Whether I agree with one philosopher or another doesn't matter much. I do agree with some of Rand's philosophy, and I disagree with some of it. I'm also indifferent to a lot of it.

A word of advice... Don't get steamed when a lot of the posters here start pushing you for agreeing with Rand, even if you're just agreeing with her even a tiny bit. It's going to happen, so like I said, don't get worked up over it.

That Rand was writing an extream reaction to Communism (which makes sense if you read her bio). I also thought that, like Communism, it looks REALLY good on paper, but when applied to actual humans it doesn't work out nearly as well, you don't get Taggart or Galt, you get Bill Gates and Enron.

Besides, I also noted that if you were not one of the gifted ones in her system, you're screwed.

You are 17-20ish right?

I'm 19, why? Do wanna :fluffle: ? ;)

I read Atlas Shrugged.

My impression?

Rand was a woman who thought she had come up with this great idea, but couldn't support it in any other way than to create a world in which it *had* to be true, complete with completely 1-dimensional characters and a perpetual motion machine.

She also has pretty much no idea how human emotion really works, which leads me to wonder if she was human at all (or maybe she was some sort of sociopath).

Perhaps she never had any social education, wasn't exposed to the environments necessary to learning about it, and was taught to repress any signs of emotion. It has happened to other people before.

Perhaps eliminating the emotional element of the allegory allows a stronger focus on the points she wanted to highlight.

Or, as you said, she could just be a sociopath. Hard to say for sure.

I've never read her books but I've heard Randroids spouting her horrific ideology.

That Rand was writing an extream reaction to Communism (which makes sense if you read her bio). I also thought that, like Communism, it looks REALLY good on paper, but when applied to actual humans it doesn't work out nearly as well, you don't get Taggart or Galt, you get Bill Gates and Enron.

Besides, I also noted that if you were not one of the gifted ones in her system, you're screwed.

Pretty much any philosophy can often look good on paper - especially when the person writing about it creates a pretend world in which their philosophy works wonderfully. Pretty much all of them are screwed up by the presence of real human beings, however. Pure communism would have the types of problems Rand described - lots of people choosing to do as little work as possible, but try to convince others they needed as much as possible. Innovation would be stifled, because of people. The idea of pure communism relies on people being better than they've ever been.

Pure capitalism falls into the same trap, from a different direction. In real life, people aren't going to offer fair wages if they can get away with paying less. Workers aren't going to ask for only what their work should get them. Nobody who owns a successful business is going to be glad when a new innovator not working for them comes along - and is going to do everything in their power to stifle that competitor. And so on....
Once again, having it work relies on people being better than they've ever been.


And yeah, I hated it that there were only two truly likeable characters in Atlas Shrugged. One was a minor character only mentioned on one page. The other was the guy who worked for Taggart, but he got completely shafted because he just wasn't extraordinary enough.

Perhaps she never had any social education, wasn't exposed to the environments necessary to learning about it, and was taught to repress any signs of emotion. It has happened to other people before.

Perhaps eliminating the emotional element of the allegory allows a stronger focus on the points she wanted to highlight.

Or, as you said, she could just be a sociopath. Hard to say for sure.

The problem is that her philosophy doesn't suppress emotion. Instead, it turns emotion into just another commodity - to be bought and sold. Love is "bought" through "ownership" of another person and immediately discarded when a "more valuable" person comes along. People realize that their love has found a better value, and are thus perfectly happy to give it up.....

It's patently ridiculous.

I'm 19, why? Do wanna :fluffle: ? ;)

:D

Ahhhhh no but thank you.

The reason I ask is I find your comments about Rand tend to come from that age range.

It was curiosity....

I too have read(most)of these books(when I say 'most' I mean I really couldnt finish them, because I found them uniterestin, emotionless and repetetive)while she has good ideas, like a previous poster has expressed, they look good on paper, but really wouldn't work.I personally find her work a liitle extreme, and not in agreement with anything I believe.As a philosopher, she isnt that great(for instance, I disagree with much of Hobbes says but I can respect his work, whilst disagreeing.But I find it difficult to respect Rand in that way)Then again, I may be overly critical(but it is my perogative as I am studying for a philosophy degree)

I hate that Russian bitch.

I find extremism in any form deplorable, and so I do not agree with all of ayn Rand's views.

There is no "right" way of doing things. Somebody is always going to be downtrodden, since there are certain people that will only ever ask for government handouts. Until we eliminate imperfection from the human race, we can't expect to eliminate imperfection from our institutions.

However, given the choices of absolutism, I favor individualism and Laissez-faire economics. This is my choice amongst extremes, and should be viewed as the least of all the evils. But again, until the idiotic, lazy, good-for-nothings are either eliminated or reformed, human society will have its flaws, and certain measures of any area should be taken to correct those flaws. I just favor more measures that reflect a belief in individualism.

The problem is that her philosophy doesn't suppress emotion. Instead, it turns emotion into just another commodity - to be bought and sold. Love is "bought" through "ownership" of another person and immediately discarded when a "more valuable" person comes along. People realize that their love has found a better value, and are thus perfectly happy to give it up.....

It's patently ridiculous.

And I think it sounds disturbingly like what we have now, at least in some societies. :(

I have seen people throw away a good, loving partner for another person whom they felt, initially, was better or more valuable.

Ayn Rand is to capitialism what Marx is to communism. Read W. Gibson's Neuromancer (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neuromancer) and see what kind of future we would have. Or better yet watch Ridley Scott's Blade Runner (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blade_Runner) to see what kind of future we would have. Basically a high-tech dystopia. which sadly what is gonna happen.

Basically a high-tech dystopia.

Midgar, eat your heart out.

Midgar, eat your heart out.
Lol I had to look that up but I understand now. Actually Max Berry's Jennifer Government (http://www.maxbarry.com/jennifergovernment/) is an obvious and excellent example.

She portrays her ideological foes far too harshly, but then, few idealists don't. She certainly had some good ideas, like most philosophers, but, also like most philosophers, her lack of pragmatism makes here ideals of as little value as any number of extreme publications.

She also has pretty much no idea how human emotion really works, which leads me to wonder if she was human at all (or maybe she was some sort of sociopath).One of the few things I liked about her writings is that she did not resort to emotionalism to get her point across. Not everyone is an emotional wreck, just most of you.

One of the few things I liked about her writings is that she did not resort to emotionalism to get her point across. Not everyone is an emotional wreck, just most of you.
For those who are new, note that Neo Undelia is our resident guy without much in the way of emotions.

They're dangerous...

Actually, this is an excellent reason to read a book.

I'm not really a big fan of Objectivism (this notion that altruism is inherently evil or bad is simply absurd), but, if it's so dangerous, perhaps I should pay a visit to the library tomorrow...

When I first read Rand's books I assumed she was creating the exteeme case in order to make her point, and from that POV, I found her work inspiring and insightful.

I have since read some of her more personal writings and seen some recorded interviews with her. She wasn't exagerating, she was a nutbar. HOWEVER, her being a nutbar does not deminish the insparation or insight I gained from her work. She has a lot of good ideas, and like all good and bad things, moderation must be measured out appropriately, and everyone *should* (although most don't) exercise their own critical thought in reading ANYTHING.

That goes for her fans, and most especially for people who say stupid shit in dismissing her so completely that they call anyone who likes her work a Randroid, or other similar derrogatory term.

Most of you were very rude, especially considering this topic was opened with an honest enough question, looking for information.

One of the few things I liked about her writings is that she did not resort to emotionalism to get her point across. Not everyone is an emotional wreck, just most of you.

You completely misread my point. She absolutely did write about emotion. If she had left emotion out of it entirely that would have been fine - preferable, even. Instead, she did attempt to describe human emotion, and was so off base it isn't even funny. She described emotion as being just what I said - a commodity to be bought and sold. She tried to pull even human emotion into what was, at best, an philosophy on how economics should work. It's as ridiculous as a Marxist claiming that love can only exist in a communal nature, and that one cannot love one person more than another.

When I first read Rand's books I assumed she was creating the exteeme case in order to make her point, and from that POV, I found her work inspiring and insightful.

The problem is that it isnt' an "extreme case." It is a completely and utterly unrealistic case. If you have to create a fantasy world to make your point, you either are very, very bad at making your point, or there is no point to be made in the first place.

Actually, Atlas Shrugged made me nauseous.

You completely misread my point. She absolutely did write about emotion. If she had left emotion out of it entirely that would have been fine - preferable, even. Instead, she did attempt to describe human emotion, and was so off base it isn't even funny. She described emotion as being just what I said - a commodity to be bought and sold. She tried to pull even human emotion into what was, at best, an philosophy on how economics should work. It's as ridiculous as a Marxist claiming that love can only exist in a communal nature, and that one cannot love one person more than another.

Meh, I don't pay attention to that stuff. It isn't important to me.

I read the Fountainhead, and thought that Ellsworth Toohey was the Man (and still do). Atlas Shrugged is just too long for me to start on though, I can never get past around page 50 before the sheer mass of the book forces me to retreat under my bed and cry for several hours.
Her philosophy is pretty good, and is (if nothing else) better than all the Plato and Hobbesian bullshit I've had to wade through in my Philosophy classes.

I read the Fountainhead, and thought that Ellsworth Toohey was the Man (and still do). Atlas Shrugged is just too long for me to start on though, I can never get past around page 50Huh. I breezed through Atlas, but was crushed by the Fountainhead.

Still, I think she did her best with Anthem. Possibly because the whole thing is shorter than Galt's radio address, but also because she's more focused.

What i've heard many of her adherents spout prevents me from putting any of her work high up on my to-read list, i'm afraid. I'll probably get around to it one day.

Huh. I breezed through Atlas, but was crushed by the Fountainhead.

Still, I think she did her best with Anthem. Possibly because the whole thing is shorter than Galt's radio address, but also because she's more focused.

I agree. We read Anthem in my 9th Grade english class. I was the only one that really got anything out of it. All of my classmates bitched and moned about it. I hate the American pblic school system.

What i've heard many of her adherents spout prevents me from putting any of her work high up on my to-read list, i'm afraid. I'll probably get around to it one day.

It was the nonsense her adherents (and detractors, when trying to explain her philosophy) spouted that led me to actually check it out. I figured they must be getting it wrong or something.

Turns out, most of them were actually toning it down some.

Of course, the funny thing is that one of the main adherents I once knew now comes much closer to advocating communism. I don't know if it is a reactionary thing or what, but I do find it funny.

It was the nonsense her adherents (and detractors, when trying to explain her philosophy) spouted that led me to actually check it out. I figured they must be getting it wrong or something.

Turns out, most of them were actually toning it down some.

Hahaha :p

(actually, now that I know that, it's starting to sound like an amusing read.)

I agree. We read Anthem in my 9th Grade english class. I was the only one that really got anything out of it. All of my classmates bitched and moned about it. I hate the American pblic school system.
9th Graders will bitch about the The fucking Martian Chronicles.

Hahaha :p

(actually, now that I know that, it's starting to sound like an amusing read.)

Yeah, but don't try to trudge through Galt's radio speech. It's 40 pages of repetition, including the stunningly insightful "A equals A."

Yeah, but don't try to trudge through Galt's radio speech. It's 40 pages of repetition, including the stunningly insightful "A equals A."
Hey now, that was a big deal 3000 years ago.

40? Oh, no, no, no... the "Greed is Good!" one is 40 pages. Galt's was closer to 70 pages.

40? Oh, no, no, no... the "Greed is Good!" one is 40 pages. Galt's was closer to 70 pages.

Was it? Maybe I blanked some of it out.....

=)

40? Oh, no, no, no... the "Greed is Good!" one is 40 pages. Galt's was closer to 70 pages.
Whatever it was, it was too bloody long. After about the third time he repeated himself I was about ready to toss the book out the window.

Wow. This was an almost balanced discussion. Given this is Ayn Rand, that's quite impressive. I mean, you have someone writing like a preacher telling you that you either agree with her or you're part of the worst tendencies of the human race....this usually tends to create some marked resentments _regardless_ of the points being preached.

I don't think it's reasonable to hope for a balanced discussion when Rand is involved. She declares war on philosophers, socialists, those who do not excel, bureaucrats, organized labor, and higher education in general. This is a pretty prominent portion of the group loosely labelled "opinion leaders."

So I'd start by questioning her ability to reason well by the fact she did a screaming kamikaze charge (presentation wise) on a large portion of those she disagreed with.

Humans these days tend to assume whoever starts any sort of ruckus is the bad one.

It's a bit like whoever names a price first in negotiating over wages, barter or whatever generally comes off the worst in the exchange.

I mean, there have been very subtle writers who have shown you can match incisiveness and passion and radical notions with some sense of the finer points of _persuading_ people rather than _dictating_ to them.

But of course, she considered persuasion to be a perverse mechanism in itself; the merits of something should be obvious and clear to aloof observation. To try and persuade was to distort the truth.

Well, yes, to a degree it is. I hate marketing as a business discipline because it takes this effort to lengths that are simply evil. But it is impossible not to state your case without an attempt to persuade, if you truly care about one side or the other.

And even from someone indifferent to the subject, there is still inadvertent bias because the odds are one side will disinterest them less, and they will have more understanding and facts about it. Hence a passive bias representing their opinion of which position is _less boring_.

As my favorite sociology teacher said "everyone has biases. confess them as your preface, and move on to the argument". The name of her whole philosophy shows that she would be adamantly opposed to such a statement.

One of my best friends stated it with fair conciseness. "Ayn Rand's problem is that she thinks just like Karl Marx". (waits for the protest or stunned look this evokes from anyone who knows what she's talking about) "She has this model of how humans +have+ to act in precise detail when there is NEVER any "one size fits all" formula for predicting which way somone is going to jump. They both do this and both of their philosophies fail to be very useful because neither understands people."

Put another way, she starts from the position that people do what they do because they don't know what's good for them. But that's precisely the problem. They do know what is good for them. The thing is we're all to some degree fucked up in some regard(s) and in those regards what we feel is "good" for us is usually bad.

Utopia is defined as the state where all people act in their own best interests. But humans are by the above mechanism _incapable_ of consistently pursuing this interest, even where they might be able to _recognize_ it.

I agree seeing someone write with such passion and conviction and a hatred of mediocrity and incompetence is inspiring. These are motherhood issues for the smart misfits of the world. She did have a place in the formation of the ideas of people as diverse as Starhawk and William F Buckley.

But passion at the end of the day cannot be enough without substance. She has two great failings
(1) She insists (ironically in a mirror image of Marx, but with the same essential error) that human leadership labor is badly valued. Marx says managerial work is easy and anyone can do it if they get the training. Accordingly, no manager should be given extra reward.

Rand says it's murderously hard to lead and no one can do a satisfactory job except the brilliant. She feels that thus the "worthy organizers" should be both nigh-worshipped _and_ rewarded with the lion's share of the wealth of society.

Both are wrong. Marx's position has been proven patently absurd by the bureaucratic nightmare that State Stalinism became. And Rand's is disproved by the fact that the majority of companies do their job well enough to keep their customers rather than being locked in an endless cycle of stagnation adn decline save by the grace of the Gifted.

Moreover, even though you could say "well, large companies set up barriers to entry", first, a signifciant part of the economy is _still_ in small businesses. And even to the degree that it is not...there is a constant churn in big companies. It's slow, but it's discernable. I mean, we see Ford and GM, once the industrial titans of the planet struggling to avoid bankruptcy. And this in "normal times" economically.

The point is that by Rand's system, as we reward the efficient, then society as a whole should be benefit. And if reward the mediocre and incompetent, society should suffer.

Well, the wage gap multiple between lowest and highest paid is at an all time high. Yet somehow despite the fact that corporate leadership has been mediocre, society as a whole is still living in a world where products work, services are good enough, and the standard of living, while arguable declining somewhat, is not abysmal.

And the argument against the decline in living standards is that yes, we have less purchasing power per head, but the goods we buy often are of vastly higher quality than we could have in the past, or perform specialized functions than meet very particular needs with great efficiency.

(2) More concisely, she assumes that the "sides" of mediocrity and excellence have "class interests" (which is amusing given her hatred of Marx). That is, that the mediocre collude to drag down the efficient, and the excellent could organize to "shut down" the economy or otherwise stage highly effective interventions in society's progress.

Well, experience in RL just contradicts this flat out. First, Microsoft, the evil, mediocre monopolist, produces products that are better and better each year. They're making us pay through the nose for the key products (like their plans to eliminate or at least severely reduce pirarcy with Digital Rights Management, basically tracking each physical copy of the program from factory to computer via the internet.).

But they haven't supressed innovation. They're purchased dozens maybe hundreds of small one or two program firms and _promoted_ their products rather than locked them in a basement and sold crappier ones for the same price to rake a higher profit.

I mean, let's look at government bureaucracy, which is is infamous for stifling innovation. Slowly, there is a dawning awareness in the government organizations that by beating the desire out of people to do a good job, they are harming their ability to get budget money from the mother government. :) The reform is glacial, but real.

The main bottleneck is that government gets the least talents cut of the managerial labor pool, barring the tiny minority of brilliant idealists who go to work there. But again, given the tremendous impediment that this is to performance, the fact that governments still provide useful services in the large-state sector economies and don't drown in schlerotic loser hell like Rand says....rather makes her view seem at best simplistic, I think.

And the brilliant....feh. Businessmen and top bureaucrats show little sign of recognizing their peers as anything but competitors or scorekeepers. (that is, by possessing an informal gossip and prestige network of who's in and out for being particularly good at accumulating wealth or influence.) You don't see Ted Turner and Bill Gates and Ikea's big guy (Ikea makes UNGODLY profits by using a tax dodge to skip about 2/3 of it's tax obligation, plus the fact it's a reasonably well run business ) getting together and say, blackmailing Chiraq in France into labor reform.

Or cooperating at all.

To get to the top, it is almost universal to be regarding productive activity as a game, to see who can "make the most" and to win recognition and prestige. People have few lofty ideological goals, and they serve those last and least insofar as they possess them.

So that's my two triangular ningian pu's (hope to Douglas Adams I'm spelling that right :) )

I have read her books Anthem, Atlas Shrugged, and The Virtue of Selfishness a couple of months ago and I have to say that I was impressed by them (except I think that she REALLY could of used a good editor on Atlas Shrugged) and despite it being several months since I've read some of her work I can't help but be influenced by her ideas on Liberty, Individualism, and Free Thought (I don't agree with everything she said though).

I was just curious if anyone else heard has read any of her books and what they thought of the one-woman crusader for Individualism.

Yes, I've read them all. Actually, I could have just read Anthem because they're all essentially the same story and Anthem is the shortest. :D

And while I respect her conviction toward individuality, I can't say that I buy into it on a societal level. It may be good for singular people, but I don't think it's heroic, nor do I feel people should aspire to the Howard Roark ideal. The good of society is based on the greatest good for the greatest number. Or at least the smallest harm to the fewest number. At any rate, 6 billion "selfish" individuals would unravel all that for themselves. [/rant]

I've read Anthem. It was okay. She didn't have the nerve to call what she was describing communism in the book itself, so I couldn't take offense to it. She did betray her lack of knowledge of what communism is in the introduction to it, though, but that didn't detract from the story too much.

It could have used a little more fleshing out, though.

I like Atlas Shrugged. That said it seemed slightly artificial and black and white. People arn't all "good guys" and "bad guys".

I agree. We read Anthem in my 9th Grade english class. I was the only one that really got anything out of it. All of my classmates bitched and moned about it. I hate the American pblic school system.

Well I hate William Faulkner. And Shakespeare.

I agree. We read Anthem in my 9th Grade english class. I was the only one that really got anything out of it. All of my classmates bitched and moned about it. I hate the American pblic school system.

I'm not sure that this doesn't say more about you and your classmates than it does about the American public school system, but it's fashionable to disparage public education in the US these days as the root of all evil, so we'll leave it there, shall we?

As for Ayn Rand, what I understand about her philosophy does not appeal to me and I have not been tempted to read her books. A couple of interesting films were made from them, though.

I'm not sure that this doesn't say more about you and your classmates than it does about the American public school system, but it's fashionable to disparage public education in the US these days as the root of all evil, so we'll leave it there, shall we?

As for Ayn Rand, what I understand about her philosophy does not appeal to me and I have not been tempted to read her books. A couple of interesting films were made from them, though.

Part of me thinks this has to be a joke, but;
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0480239/

They're apparently planning to do an Atlas Shrugged movie, with Angelina Jolie as Dagny and Brad Pitt as Galt - or at least considering them. Given their personal viewpoints on charity and such (at least their publicly stated ones), I can't imagine that either of them would do this movie, but I guess you never know.

Part of me thinks this has to be a joke, but;
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0480239/

They're apparently planning to do an Atlas Shrugged movie, with Angelina Jolie as Dagny and Brad Pitt as Galt - or at least considering them. Given their personal viewpoints on charity and such (at least their publicly stated ones), I can't imagine that either of them would do this movie, but I guess you never know.

They should be really innovative and let Angelina play the Galt part.

The problem is that it isnt' an "extreme case." It is a completely and utterly unrealistic case. If you have to create a fantasy world to make your point, you either are very, very bad at making your point, or there is no point to be made in the first place.

Did you not read my whole post, or was I unclear. I said I assumed that at first that her story was explaining the extreme idea of her philosophy using a fictional case, and I got a lot out of it. Then when I learnedthat her philosophy was exactly as extreeme as her books were, and she wasn't overstating the point for effect, but was actually a nutbar nutbar nutbar, I still found value in what I got out of it.

As to the fantasy thing, I suggest you take that up with... well, anyone with an imagination. From Homer, through Proust, to Nietzsche and Issac Assimov Humanity has a very long tradition of expressing values and ideas through fiction. If you will disreguard Ayn Rand because her works were fictional, and you hold true to that (which I doubt) with all other authors, then I'm going to guess that your bookshelf will be REALLY boring, and not very educational.

Hell, even the sciences use fiction to advance our understanding of the mechanics of the universe - Schroedinger had this conceptual cat, you see... you can look that one up all on your own.

Now, my guess is that you think she's a nutbar - and she is - and that is your real objection. If I'm wrong, then forgive me. ANYWAY, if that *is* the case, then I will point out that Einstein and Schrodinger were both nutbars too... so was Kant, so was Hegel, and many many others. Including Adam Smith, and Karl Marx.

Just a side note: I refrained from using the Bible, as an example above as I don't want to get into the debate over the literal vs metaphoric aspects of the bible in this thread... let's start a new thread if anyone wants to go there.

40? Oh, no, no, no... the "Greed is Good!" one is 40 pages. Galt's was closer to 70 pages.

In my edition, it was over 100 pages. It was the first and only time I skipped a large section of text in a book. I assumed it was merely a long, boring, pedantic condensation of the same points she discusses in the rest of her body of work. From the sound of it, I was completely correct.

The trouble with her philosophy is that it would not solve all our social ills if there were people who did not follow it. In this respect, it is similar to communism or any christian denomination. Unlike these, though, it has the added disadvantage of not working if everybody was an objectivist.

The act of parenting is inherently altruistic. It would be impossible to create a sustainable market around the act of procreation and child-rearing. There is no way to make a profit off of being a mother.

Therefore, in an objectivist society, the population would eventually dwindle to zero.

Did you not read my whole post, or was I unclear. I said I assumed that at first that her story was explaining the extreme idea of her philosophy using a fictional case, and I got a lot out of it.

I was merely pointing out that "extreme" doesn't adequately describe it. The word suggests that the situation is possible, in extreme circumstances. The world Rand describes isn't possible under any circumstances (unless there is actually another universe where human beings are entirely 1-dimensional, and someone has created a perpetual motion machine). It is completely and utterly unrealistic, as are the characters.

As to the fantasy thing, I suggest you take that up with... well, anyone with an imagination. From Homer, through Proust, to Nietzsche and Issac Assimov Humanity has a very long tradition of expressing values and ideas through fiction. If you will disreguard Ayn Rand because her works were fictional, and you hold true to that (which I doubt) with all other authors, then I'm going to guess that your bookshelf will be REALLY boring, and not very educational.

My problem isn't that they are fictional. It is that they are fictional to the point of being ridiculous - and therefore useless. They are just as abominable as fictional works as they are as philosophical works. Asimov certainly made points through fiction, but he had real characters - with depth to them. The settings are often fantastical, but not completely unbelievable (and, in fact, he made a concious effort to try and take the scientific knowledge at the time he was writing, and simply extrapolate it - not just make up random things that any physics prof would tell you defy everything we know about physics). The people are different, living in different societies, but are still akin to real human beings.

I love fiction, but I don't love boring fiction. I expect characters to be fleshed out beyond, "This person is unequivocally evil" and "This person is the perfect example of a moral being, there is nothing at all wrong with him and he's a genius to boot!"

Now, my guess is that you think she's a nutbar - and she is - and that is your real objection.

That is a separate objection altoghether. I do think she was a nutbar. However, if the only way she could get her point across was to write fiction not even remotely based in reality, I think *she* should have realized she was a nutbar as well.

Edit: Another interesting point is that Rand would have objected stridently to being compared to Asimov. Her works, she said, were absolutely not science fiction.

And since Asimov has come up, one can find a lot to mine in Robert Heinlein's work, too.

I've read Anthem. It was okay. She didn't have the nerve to call what she was describing communism in the book itself, so I couldn't take offense to it. She did betray her lack of knowledge of what communism is in the introduction to it, though, but that didn't detract from the story too much.

It could have used a little more fleshing out, though.


Uh... I hate to break this to you but Ayn Rand was BORN in Russia and lived in the Soviet Union until she escaped, I think she has a better understanding of Communism than you ever will because she LIVED it.

I have read her books Anthem, Atlas Shrugged, and The Virtue of Selfishness a couple of months ago and I have to say that I was impressed by them (except I think that she REALLY could of used a good editor on Atlas Shrugged) and despite it being several months since I've read some of her work I can't help but be influenced by her ideas on Liberty, Individualism, and Free Thought (I don't agree with everything she said though).

I was just curious if anyone else heard has read any of her books and what they thought of the one-woman crusader for Individualism.

She has a VERY strange way of sexual expression...like " please drag me by my hair into your cave and have at it you wild man " kind of crap...

The broads a bit nuts IMO....and yes it has NOTHING to do with her philosophy or beliefs...she herself is a nut job IMO .

Uh... I hate to break this to you but Ayn Rand was BORN in Russia and lived in the Soviet Union until she escaped, I think she has a better understanding of Communism than you ever will because she LIVED it.Uh, I hate to break this to you, but the Soviet Union wasn't communist; what she lived wasn't communism.

communism only exist and works in peoples heads...when it comes out into the real world bodies pile up and start stinking .