Posted on 07/20/2010 6:42:03 AM PDT by marshmallow
Ayn Rand may have said a few smart things, but she seems to have been a pretty empty person overall.
Rand rejected all the lessons of Communism except Atheism. I can never figure out how she missed how interconnected it all was.
But I think people read into Galt’s words too much dogmatic ideology, and I think Rand missed a huge loophole in her thought in the book.
If Objectivism is doing what is in my own self interest without cheating another, then I can choose, in my own self interest, to extend aid to another who needs it.
“Altruism” can only be immoral when it is coerced or forced from a person.
True altruism is a personal choice, rationally reached.
Rand never got that.
The Catholic church has way too much blood on it’s hands in the 20th century with Marxist governments to have any credit on anything.
And their support of socialism in America makes me sick!
To me she is the definition of “half-baked”.
>>...to have any credit on anything.
If you’re choosing enemies, you could do worse than the Church.
Materialism, whether it’s collective or individual based, always leads to death. Marxism and Objectivism are two sides of the same coin in the end: all meaning is derived from the material world.
She never said any such thing about voluntary choices. Her objection was to governments (or quasi-governmental churches like the author's) compelling sacrifice from their victims.
Well, she said that no one has the right to compel another to sacrifice himself. That doesn’t mean that someone can’t decide to do it on his own. This author seems to think that people have to be forced to be altruistic. An insane concept.
To me...the author is half-baked.
"...Rand never got that....."
Actually, yes she did. I read most of her books and she explicitly stated many times exactly what you said: that if it was in her own rational self interest to help another (and not be forced to do it) she would.
For example, the joy derived from helping a complete stranger, either financially or whatever.
What she deemed evil was the forced "help" imposed by a government or bureaucrats to enact that assistance. For example, the plundering of personal or corporate wealth for re-distribution for "altruistic" causes.
"Rand rejected all the lessons of Communism except Atheism. I can never figure out how she missed how interconnected it all was."
Pretty much sums up my perspective on her as well; I'd go so far to say she said a lot of smart things. I do find delicious irony in the fact that many of her diehard proponents have essentially deified her, and will viciously assail any person who casts even remotely negative aspersions her with all the vigor of a religious fanatic in the face of a heretic. Funny how an avowed athiest seems to be followed by so many "true believers".
I greatly admire Rand, however, I recognize she was exclusively intellectual at the cost of her spirit. I do believe, had she had children, her outlook and philosophy would have softened. She is the most moral “horizontal” person I have ever studied. That she eschewed the “vertical” was her choice. I can still map my own course using much of her moral landmarks.
Rather than confound myself with how they're able to do this, rationalizing personal altruism as a sin, and individual, singular arrogance as a virtue, it occurs to me that maybe there's a simple answer to it:
"Just plain ol' nuts."
I swear, by my life and my love of it, that I will never live for the sake of another man, nor ask another man to live for mine.
-- Ayn Rand
Yep. Culture of death for sure.
We’re born like Ayn Rand describes - all self. We don’t tend to date people long that are still that way.
I suppose the Catholic Church starved the Kulaks, sent millions of people to freeze and starve in the Gulags, created mass democide on the Chinese mainland, created the killing fields of Kampuchea and Cuba, and killed all those Poles and Jews in the concentration camps.
I guess the Catholic Church also murdered millions of children in the womb as well.
Sigh. Your post was mostly gibbering insanity.
However there is a real issue with members of (e.g.) the American church hierarchy supporting socialist doctrines. Lead with that next time, rather than the DU-style frothing at the mouth.
Yes, but in Atlas Shrugged, Galt’s rules explicitly forbid voluntary altruism in Galt’s Gulch. It was that book that I was speaking of when I said she missed a major loophole.
“Making sacrifices for one’s born or unborn children, one’s elderly parents or other family members becomes anathema for Ayn Rand.”
She said a sacrifice is giving up something you value highly, for something which you don’t. If you value your elderly parents, and you decide to assist them, it is a rational choice for you,,,not a sacrifice. And she is right about one thing, someone demanding a “sacrifice” is at the root of almost all evil.
“Ayn Rand: Architect of The Culture of Death”
Now I thought that would have been Margaret Sanger.
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