Posted on 07/23/2008 10:55:27 AM PDT by mnehring
Wow, man, like this is really cool!
Well, grey_whiskers, I suspect your whiskers are not quite as grey as mine. (I'm not very good at the jargon of the 60's drug scene, I'm afraid.) I've posted this speech of Rand's, and commented on it, many times. It is really timeless, and only just an introduction to her larger work, Philosophy, Who Needs It.
I am not an Objectivist, especially not one of the current day claimants of that ideology (which it is to those who think Objectivism is a movement, not a philosophy) who are mostly subjectivists and hedonists--totally opposite of all Rand thought and taught.
This is the age of corruption of everything, springing from the dominance of postmodernism and cultural Marxism, so nothing is surprising, if still very discouraging.
Thanks for the ping.
Hank
But I had to name myself *something*.
Also, I seem to recall your saying that you were not a Randian, although you seemed to admire parts of her philosophy (e.g. standing on one's own and eschewing altruism).
Nonetheless, the speech was interesting enough that I thought you'd like to see it.
Cheers!
Bump.
You have my thanks for linking that Heinlein speech. It’s been a while since I read it. He was brilliant.
Slow start, but overall - several parts in particular - very powerful.
You are attacked, not for any errors or flaws, but for your virtues. You are denounced, not for any weaknesses, but for your strength and your competence. You are penalized for being the protectors of the United States. On a lower level of the same issue, a similar kind of campaign is conducted against the police force. Those who seek to destroy this country, seek to disarm it--intellectually and physically. But it is not a mere political issue; politics is not the cause, but the last consequence of philosophical ideas. It is not a communist conspiracy, though some communists may be involved--as maggots cashing in on a disaster they had no power to originate. The motive of the destroyers is not love for communism, but hatred for America. Why hatred? Because America is the living refutation of a Kantian universe.
Today's mawkish concern with and compassion for the feeble, the flawed, the suffering, the guilty, is a cover for the profoundly Kantian hatred of the innocent, the strong, the able, the successful, the virtuous, the confident, the happy. A philosophy out to destroy man's mind is necessarily a philosophy of hatred for man, for man's life, and for every human value. Hatred of the good for being the good, is the hallmark of the twentieth century. This is the enemy you are facing.
YES YES YES YES. Rand nails it so well it is scary.
There is an excellent essay in her book “The New Left” in which she compares/contrasts the news and cultural coverage of the landing on the moon to the coverage of Woodstock. It is one of my favorites.
I did enjoy it, and am happy someone posted to FR, and thank you again for pointing it out to me.
You are right, I’m not a Randian, but I do admire her and appreciate much of her philosophy, and am always sorry to see her misunderstood. The Brandens did an awful hatchet job on her.
Hank
bookedmark
Yup...I recently began reading Atlas Shrugged, and naturally I became interested in the author.
Seems she was exactly as you described.
She was vehemently anti-religious. I find it interesting she mentions evil but not a thing about being Holy.
She was against the U.S. entering both world wars.
There are some interviews with her on YOUTUBE. One is from Phil Donahue’s show in the lat 1970s, just a few months before Ayn Rand died. She had lost her husband and was still mourning him...but she held steadfast, at least publicly, to her atheism.
Another recommendation is the film “The Passion of Ayn Rand”, which is a SHOWTIME cable show movie about her. Some of it certainly is fictional, but she did have an affair with a subordinate and it messed up his marriage. The woman who plays her is Helen Mirren, the lady who won an oscar last year for her portrayal in “The Queen”. Mirren does a great job looking and sounding like Rand.
For what it is worth.
Overdue BTTT.
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