Posted on 04/24/2011 10:07:56 PM PDT by fight_truth_decay
Ayn Rand is recapturing the hearts of American conservatives. The Cold War writer’s individualist philosophy is back in fashion among the Republican faithful. Her 1957 novel Atlas Shrugged has just been released as a movie and while critics call it slow and two-dimensional, Tea Partiers are queuing around the block to see it. Something about Rand’s take-no-prisoners prose strikes a chord with people exasperated by Obama’s tax-and-spend liberalism and desperate for a road-map to liberty.
But Ayn Rand is not a natural pin-up for American conservatives. Her individualism went beyond libertarianism. It was an exciting, revolutionary mix of greed, atheism, materialism and the Marquis de Sade. It comes as no surprise that the 1960s Church of Satan lifted most of its high-camp gospel from Ayn Rand.One of its acolytes notes with approval that, “Rand’s philosophy rejects as ethical accepting the sacrifice of another to one’s self … The Satanic view sees as ethical the reality of domination of the weak by the strong.”
The story of how Rand fell out with the libertarian economist Murray Rothbard is instructive of her anti-conservative temperament (many versions exist; this one is attributed to Rothbard’s protégé, Prof Harry Veryser). In 1958, Rothbard and his wife JoAnn Schumacher
(Excerpt) Read more at blogs.telegraph.co.uk ...
For you collectors.
They’ve really been trying to slander Ayn Rand lately.
Well it’s not really Ayn Rands fault that the Church of Satanism ascribes to objectivism. Anton le Vey acknowledged that his satanic bible has inspiration from her writings.
And, in turn, Rand may have lifted some of her gospel from earlier satanists like Ragnar Redbeard and Aleister Crowley.
The movie "Atlas Shrugged" has the Left reeling. They fear it's potential spotlighting of the current regime. Check out Rotten Tomatoes.com and check the rating by critics. It's 6%. That is the lowest I've ever seen for a movie on RT. The audience rating on the same site is at 85%. I've likewise never seen that type of disparity. The commies are in full assault mode.
She wrote that well, huh.
If Rand really was more like these liberals in worldview than she was like conservatives, one would think liberals would be loving Rand to death instead of bad mouthing her at every turn.
Maybe it’s because Atlas Shrugged (the book or movie) doesn’t say a lot about religion.
It has the whacko right’s panties in a bunch as well.
Either that or it's a really bad movie, on the level of Battlefield Earth or worse. Rand's novels are reminiscent of Hubbard's, both in content and terrible writing style. Johnnie Goodboy Tyler is kind of like a cave-man John Galt, no? Hubbard was also a satanist and a cult leader, by the way.
I’ve viewed some of her video interviews....she admitted she did not believe in God and did not see faith vital to the society as a whole, rather a mystical sort of thing people cling to which gets in the way of their ability to reason.
This was a sardonic reference to her stuff being quoted in the “Satanic Bible.” Of course I don’t believe in her twist on reality. God furnishes reason with a place to begin. She can disagree with the starting place, but she can’t furnish any alternative without an equally adamant dogma. Reason of itself can’t furnish premises any more than bookkeeping can cause a penny to appear in an empty checking account.
Good post! My opinion of her is she had only a portion of the package she might have had otherwise had she at least been open to the possibility of faith in God....therefore she herself took that mantel as I see it.
I didn’t care for the woman and noticed how she danced around questions which would have given some insight into her motives.
True, but really bad movies don't pull 85% audience ratings on Rotten Tomatoes. I'm no great fan of Rand. Her fervent atheism aligns more with today's left, but her anti-statism clearly does not. Atlas Shrugged is her anti-state/pro-individual liberty masterwork and that is why they are trashing this movie.
Someone arranged a social setting in which Ayn Rand met William F. Buckley. According to WFB, her first words to him were these: “You’re much too intelligent to believe in God.”
That could be the work of diligent Rand cultists, swarming the polls. Rand's books sometimes get up there in the top 10, next to Brothers Karamazov and such. It can't be due to merit. Hubbard cultists behave the same way.
Atlas Shrugged is her anti-state/pro-individual liberty masterwork and that is why they are trashing this movie.
I thiink it's counterproductive for conservatives to rally around someone like Rand. I wouldn't want to see conservatives rallying around Hubbard either because he was, like Rand, a cult leader and a nut.
Ayn Rand considered collectivist priests as witch doctors who allied with the "brute" (dictators) to controll the masses and rendered freedom unattainable. Think of Ayatollas and dictators in Iran and the Islamic mideast in general and the lack of democratic freedom there and you have what she feared. Her view was grounded in a reality of contemporary times and history. Think Islam is the only problem? Check out India where Hindus kill christians. Check out Northern Ireland where Catholics and Protestants blow each other up.
I don't recall "Battlefield Earth " having a high audience rating response. I have never been able to sit through a minute and a half of it. Who the heck is "Johnny Goodboy Tyler?" And why do you know anything about the insane L. Ron Hubbard's writing style?
I suspect the truth is that you have read L. Ron Hubbard's works more than you will ever admit, but have never read Ayn Rand's work. I recommend "Anthem" first, then "We the Living" to introduce her background before you try the thicker books.
I could not get through a page or two of Dianetics back in the Sixties, and that was back before Scientology was understood to be a lobotomized idiot cult. His supposed Science Fiction was to arcane and boring to even open a book.
In our modern times it is the best ally Christianity and Conservatives will ever find. The non-religion and anti-opression tenets staunchly oppose Evil Islam. The individual liberty and laissez-faire capitalism principles stalwartly oppose liberalism, socialism and communism and fascism.
In spite of Objectivism rejecting faith, its embracing rational self-interest and personal happiness as the guiding purpose of life grants any sovereign individual tacit license to hold personal beliefs as desired. Qbjectivism could never be an enemy but is an unwavering Paladin standing at the shoulder of our Civilization.
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