Posted on 01/05/2005 11:22:24 AM PST by annyokie
Childrearing is altruistic. It is totally subordinating your schedule to the needs of another.
No disagreement. I love to read from polar extremes. It's important to be informed and intelligent (as much as that's within one's ability to influence), and so I read views from radically opposite writers all the time. I even (GASP) listen to NPR and Air America for the same reason.
What I take umbrage at is the thought that Rand will be required reading at all colleges as one of the most important writers of the 20th century.
If total numbers are the determinant in this claim, then the Rev. Moon must be one of the most important religious figures of the last hundred years as well, destined to be studied in minute detail for generations to come.
Too bad that Salinger has managed to live his life as a sophomore.
"I would be interested in hearing from any Christians who have read Ayn Rand, if there are any. Again, I have yet to meet even one."
Apparently, you need to get out more. Now you've met one.
Whaddyawannaknow?
Compared to Rand, the "mainstream" of academia prefers Chambers, because although he denounced a commie, at least he had what they regard as one redeeming virtue -- he was queer. Rand, on the other hand, was not only anti-commie, but she also denounced the peculiar vice of people like Chambers. So of course she gets a bad press.
Your comment "shows someone who hasn't read," or at least, has not understood, Chambers's review. He gave reasons for his assertions, and his reasons are believable because they are based on history. We've seen his assertions concerning the trend toward dictatorship borne out in practice all throughout history.
And, specifically to Ms. Rand, we can simply look at her personal history to see that she was not particularly different in that regard. Consider her famous tendency to "excommunicate" those disciples who dared to disagree, for example; or the personality cult from which the dissidents were excommunicated; or her egregious "objectively justified" infidelity to her husband.
Chambers, a former Communist, used that old canard of the Reds; anything we don't like must be Fascist.
I must admit to being very impressed at your use of an ad hominem attack based on Chambers's alleged ad hominem attack.
As it happens, Chambers very publicly recanted his former Communist views; however, he made a point of never forgetting them -- and in the case of Ms. Rand, he clearly recognized the same sorts of totalitarian impulses to which he'd been a party in the Party.
As for myself, I used to think Ayn Rand's philosophy was pretty swell, until I tried to follow her advice and use reason to prove it. In so doing, I discovered that Ayn Rand was a fraud: her philosophy is "objective" if and only if you accept her axioms -- even when the real world suggests that they are incorrect. And when you make an honest attempt to do the same, I think you'll come to the same conclusion.
Well, Marx is, or should be, required reading in political philosophy. And also Rousseau and Hegel and Gramsci and Lenin and Le Maitre and Ortega y Gassett.
I don't see why not Rand. She is more entertaining than Marx at least.
Ssh! Don't make sense!
Mr. Chambers was not "queer." He was bisexual.
Mea culpa.
You live in a world that will not let you get away with practicing a kind of inter-personal imperialism.
"...of course she get bad press."
Probably a kernel of truth. She shares that distinction with hundreds of millions of Christians. Although I don't like the way you worded this sentence, in that it vaguely impresses the concept of victimhood upon one's consciousness. I don't think Rand would have liked it, either.
Salinger was mentally or emotionally disturbed I understand. We all have our problems.
She understood the press and why she got the reviews she got. I don't think she never worried about being victimized, except to the extent that she got the same shaft we're all getting from the lefties (or "statists").
Well spoken.
Cogitationis poenam nemo patitur.
(Nobody should be punished for his thoughts.)
Ya gotta admire that about the old girl. She hated the lefties.
No philosophy as defined by a human being is likely to be "swell" - everybody has some blindness or deafness or a degree of misjudgement.
For an analogy, Frank Lloyd Wright was a similar "guru" figure. He was also tyrannical and overbearing and exploited his acolytes, and left them with an impractical outlook on life. His buildings roofs all leaked. Not coincidentally, he was the model for the protagonist of "The Fountainhead". But he was nontheless great.
Rand is best appreciated as a political philosopher, not a personal guru. She had interesting and useful (and prophetic) things to say.
Not only that, she understood them. She understood them deep down, and explained them, and they hated her for it. That's why, regardless of what some may see as personal flaws, she must always be honored.
Okay; let us correct their error; I'll stipulate that you can remove Morrison ALL THREE TIMES from the list. Now move up the authors/works to take those slots, and add the three books that just missed the cut for the top one hundred the first time around.
Guess what: Rand is still ahead of Chambers! Twice!
;-)
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