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The Vindication of Ayn Rand
The Autonomist ^ | 03/11/05 | Cass Hewitt

Posted on 03/11/2005 6:17:42 PM PST by Hank Kerchief

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To: Hank Kerchief
a dark, “repressed“, angry woman who tortured and pilloried anyone who remotely disagreed with her

She would have done well on Free Republic.
41 posted on 03/11/2005 7:40:04 PM PST by Bear_Slayer (If you're gonna be a Knight, act like a Knight)
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To: jan in Colorado

Ping

42 posted on 03/11/2005 7:43:38 PM PST by USF (I see your Jihad and raise you a Crusade ™ © ®)
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To: Hank Kerchief
If you look up "Brandens" in Who's Who, you will find a picture of a leech. (just after Attorney and before Churchill)
43 posted on 03/11/2005 7:44:20 PM PST by fish hawk (The best thing about the "Vast Right Wing Conspiracy" is : it is Vast and it is Right Wing.)
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To: dpwiener
Excellently reasoned reply. I also have great admiration for this marvelous woman of accomplishment. Her Virtues of Selfishness most influenced my outlooks. But I did not agree with everything she wrote in her objectivists newsletter or her non-fiction books. Having read all her books except Atlas Shrugged (which I never got more than forty pages into) and a play she wrote named after a date (which I only half read), gives me I guess an extremely crippled insight into her ideas.

At any rate I agree with you that the author of this new work, appears to be locked in to an idealized image. On the other hand, its nice that somebody is presenting another view, even if I'm never able to get at the truth.

44 posted on 03/11/2005 7:47:04 PM PST by jackbob
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To: Hank Kerchief

I liked Thomas Jefferson better. Ayn Rand wrote about the life. Jefferson lived it.


45 posted on 03/11/2005 7:49:01 PM PST by sergeantdave (Smart growth is Marxist insects agitating for a collective hive.)
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To: RobFromGa; BradyLS; PGalt; dAnconia; Capitalism2003; Diana in Wisconsin; muir_redwoods; ...
ping the Ayn Rand list?

Good idea.

46 posted on 03/11/2005 8:20:16 PM PST by FreeKeys (Happy 100th Birthday, Miss Rand: 1905 - 2005)
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To: ShadowDancer
If you think it's pretty good so far, just wait. It gets better and better with each page.

LOL. Yup. Until the 350 page speech by John Galt. Snooze . . .

47 posted on 03/11/2005 8:20:49 PM PST by ModelBreaker
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To: Hank Kerchief

bump


48 posted on 03/11/2005 8:21:29 PM PST by beebuster2000
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To: dpwiener
One can appreciate Rand's philosophy and her intellectual genius without requiring that she be the kind of perfect human hero depicted in Atlas Shrugged.

When I was 16, they seemed like perfect human heros. On further reflection, her heros seem more like depraved, but talented narcissists.

49 posted on 03/11/2005 8:23:37 PM PST by ModelBreaker
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To: Hank Kerchief

Ayn Rand is one of my favorites and I believe she had class.


50 posted on 03/11/2005 8:33:17 PM PST by Big Horn (Rummy has done a great job.)
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To: Hank Kerchief

Bump for later.


51 posted on 03/11/2005 8:34:27 PM PST by Euro-American Scum (A poverty-stricken middle class must be a disarmed middle class)
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To: Hank Kerchief; HankReardon

You did ping Hank Reardon, didn't you?


52 posted on 03/11/2005 8:39:22 PM PST by Blood of Tyrants (G-d is not a Republican. But Satan is definitely a Democrat.)
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To: Hank Kerchief
"...a viscous character assassination..."

I imagine a character assassination taking place in molasses.

But perhaps he meant "vicious"...

53 posted on 03/11/2005 8:43:17 PM PST by Redbob
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To: Hank Kerchief; armymarinedad; ken21; West Coast Conservative; ShadowDancer; Larry Lucido; ...

It would be great to get Mel Gibson to produce and direct a remake of the movie based on Ayn Rand's novel "The Fountainhead". There is a scene where the architect Howard Roark gives a speech in his own defense at his trial. There is so much in that speech that is a direct indictment of all the leftist PC mumbo jumbo that is accepted without question in the media and by people in general today. The speech is long but it is so beautiful in its reason and logic. I think that speech alone is so powerful that I want to see the movie made just so that people get the context of and then the blast of that speech. Mel has the values and instincts that would do justice to it on film.


54 posted on 03/11/2005 9:00:48 PM PST by Wuli (The Vindication of Ayn Rand)
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To: Hank Kerchief

I've met both Brandens, and while I may not care for Nathaniel personally, he's not the monster this guy tries to make him out to be.


55 posted on 03/11/2005 9:30:21 PM PST by aynrandfreak (If 9/11 didn't change you, you're a bad human being)
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To: dpwiener

Great post. I'd heard stories about Rand berating questioners. That's not my approach to the less rational, but I'd still have loved to ask her some questions myself.


56 posted on 03/11/2005 9:34:27 PM PST by aynrandfreak (If 9/11 didn't change you, you're a bad human being)
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To: SteveMcKing
Even objectivists must operate within their own reference frame

Just because you're using a frame of reference doesn't stop you from being able to observe the objective world around as honestly as possible.

You should use all the information you have to make good choices. Why throw out certain facts?

Objectivism advocates using all of the information you have to make good choices. It just holds that emotions may not be real information. It's subjectivism that throws out facts for personal whim.

What's the difference between loyalty and favoritism, for example, if I'm going to embrace my wife, even when I KNOW she's wrong? No Objectivist can expect to fulfill the requirements of a marriage contract, where some blind loyalty need exist (and I wouldn't have it another way, nor would she)

Just because you think your wife is wrong about something doesn't mean that she still represents a supreme value to you, and so it's not worth fighting over something minor. Love shouldn't be blind loyalty, but open acknowledgement that you both provide value for each other.

Two apples are two different apples, and so all things are different as the space and time they occupy helps define them, in my opinion; a is NOT a - they are two different "a"'s)

Each apple shares universal qualities with all other apples (shape, taste, etc), the things that make us identify it as an apple. In that sense, they are both apples at that time, until something acts upon it to change it's nature (being eaten, rotting, etc). At the same time, each apple has a specific identity apart from the other apples. Everything that exists has a specific identity. That's what A=A is trying to explain.

57 posted on 03/11/2005 9:49:57 PM PST by aynrandfreak (If 9/11 didn't change you, you're a bad human being)
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To: FreeKeys; RobFromGa

Thanks for the ping!


58 posted on 03/11/2005 9:51:28 PM PST by aynrandfreak (If 9/11 didn't change you, you're a bad human being)
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To: Bear_Slayer

Hilarious!


59 posted on 03/11/2005 9:52:23 PM PST by aynrandfreak (If 9/11 didn't change you, you're a bad human being)
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To: Hank Kerchief
They lied to her about themselves, the state of their marriage, their multiple sexual affairs, and Nathaniel Branden’s secret four year love affair with another woman while he was supposedly carrying on a sexual liaison with Rand herself.

Yeah, now dare they lie about their sexual affairs when Ayn and Nathanial had a compact to lie about their own extra-marital liason? That's where the lies started, and it was Ayn Rand who initiated the affair and urged they keep it secret -- as opposed to the honest route of informing their respective spouses and seeking divorces. There is no great moral gulf between co-conspirators in this kind of moral deception. They are all guilty. The main difference, as I see it, is that Nathanial Branden finally realized he couldn't in conscience continue to act as spokesman for Objectivism (or any coherent philosophy for that matter) when he was morally compromised. So he took a bold step to 'come clean'. I don't criticize Rand much for initiating the affair. It was how she handled the dishonesty aspect that reveals her flaws. Throwing a fit and slapping someone in the face just for telling the truth is not consistent with a healthy, rational approach.

Her generous nature was unable to conceive the full truth about Nathaniel Branden.

In other words, her subjective considerations disabled her rational mind from perceiving the truth about a man she had closely associated with, professionally and romantically, for many years. She declared him the spokesman for her own philosophy. How could she know he would dare to disagree with her one day and reject her as the prophet and perfect embodiment of the saving philosophy she offerd to humankind? Aw, one almost feels sorry for the frail thing. But let's get real. If she could dish it out to others, why should she be immune from honest criticism of glaring character defects? By the way, both Nathanial and Barbara's books have more nice things to say about Ayn Rand than negative, the latter's bio has a palpable air of admiration, even reverence for Rand, despite the hurt Barbara suffered. Nathanial's book shows admiration for aspects of her work and personality, and when he criticizes her, it is in a sort of uncomprehending manner, as if 'how could someone who so eloquently defends the rational and ethical act so contrary?' But his criticism is also tempered by his frankly acknowledged culpability.
How does this amount to 'viscous (sp) character assassination'?

In contrast, Rand never admits and ethical missteps, just as she never found need to revise or refine her philosophy. Born perfect???

She was, in the broadest analysis, a cult leader, who rose to prominence less on the brilliance of her writings than on the passion with which she advocated and defended them. Passion coupled with acerbic, uncompromising intellectual clarity - that is her great contribution to philosophy and our culture. But at at least one critical point in her life, passion overcame reason. Adultry is a sin, whether you think in Christian terms (as I do) or Aristotelian terms, as Rand did. Because deceiving the ones you love and associate with means living a contradiction, betraying people's trust. Still, I wouldn't say that she ruined her life by any means, or put her in a moral leper category. No idealist can live up to his philosophy unless he or she happens to be called Christ, imo. Everyone falls short of the mark. But to elevate Rand to 'goddess' status, free of any taint of the dreaded 'irrational' or 'subjective' is pure hero(ine) worship. And I find that pretty irrational.

60 posted on 03/11/2005 10:25:46 PM PST by ARepublicanForAllReasons (Don't worry. My suit is triple-flameproof)
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