I appreciate seeing you are aware of Rand’s biases. What she gets right—the nobility of human endeavours, work, creativity, she gets TRULY RIGHT.
Sadly, what she got wrong—the worship of the dollar as a symbol of that human effort, the denial of the Deity...she got absolutely wrong.
Knowing that in advance makes studying her ideas much more palatable, imo.
I appreciate seeing you are aware of Rand’s biases. What she gets right—the nobility of human endeavours, work, creativity, she gets TRULY RIGHT.
Sadly, what she got wrong—the worship of the dollar as a symbol of that human effort, the denial of the Deity...she got absolutely wrong.”
Reading Atlas Shrugged right now. I agree on first part but on the second part, not quite. Rand, in her novels at least, distinguishes strongly between the creators of wealth and those biz-people, social engineers and other ‘looters’ who expropriate the wealth created by others for their own ends. A strong thread of a specific morality runs through it, the morality of being true to one’s own creative purpose and intention, and never taking from others what isn’t earned. It doesnt worship the dollar, it exhalts the creative effort that produces wealth - a difference that is key since her ‘bad guys’ include money-grubbing bizpeople who use ‘the system’ (aka rent-seeking politicial backscratchers) to win rather than capitalist free trading. Her heroes in multiple situations turn down lucrative opptys because its not consistent with their values of only accepting what is earned.
It’s a moral system that is consistent with the universal commandment ‘Do Unto Others...’ even if she declaims agains t the ethics of ‘sacrifice’. She sees the ethic of sacrifice as a trick used by charlatans to shame people into the ‘system’ that robs from creators to give to looters. She was partially correct on that score. e.g “Social Justice” in Catholic circles is a good example of Christian ethics twisted into socialist-leaning teaching.