Galtism: I will never live for the sake of another
Sounds like Johnny isn’t much of a family man. (Trailer trash?)
Dear Peter,
Articles such as this is the reason that I no longer subscribe to NR.
But this does not answer the question: “Who is John Galt”?
Article probably written by someone that couldn’t finish reading Atlas Shrugged.
I’m doing my best to starve the beast. If that’s reprehensible, so be it.
Like anything, there must be moderation.
A healthy dose of Rand’s libertarian, just-leave-us-alone, attitude would do a lot to heal the rot that is the federal government.
Its always so disappointing to meet a conservative who seems to have the right ideas on government, but then you realize he considers himself a “Rand-ian”.
Its like meeting someone who calls himself a Christian, but then you realize he belongs to some perverted sect.
Reading Atlas shrugged changed my political outlook many years ago.
Wow. So Rand is wrong because..... Chambers and Buckley didn’t like her book?
I totally get that most of us were raised in the Christian tradition and cannot seem to get over the hump to agree with her.
But anyone care to refute here excerpt re Christianity contained right there? And I mean factually, rationally refute. Without the use of “feelings” or “faith”.
Still going Galt.
Probably because they look at her philosophy of Objectivism completely backwards. It is often incorrectly viewed as a top-down philosophy of politics affecting the individual. Instead, the best view is Objectivism is a philosophy of the individual, not a political movement. If individuals adhered to a more objectivist philosophy personally, then it would impact forms of government from the bottom up because there would be no demand for big brother pandering.
Understanding it from that direction completely changes some of the issues people have with Objectivism. Also, I should note that Objectivism isn't a religious philosophy that is supposed to be a 'perfect', instead it is more of a roadmap philosophy.
National Review hated her because she called out WF Buckley ages ago for what he was - a pragmatist. A Conservative, but a pragmatist who believed in some forms of government power and largesse. So that they run this is no surprise.
Her non fiction spells out clearly what is required for living freely on earth. Nothing more needs to be said.
And the author thinks his case is bolstered by holding this up as an example of how "horrible" Rand is - but it looks like a pretty accurate insight, to me. Not about who Jesus was, but about how the political entity known as the church have used Him over the centuries to make money.
Funny how so many independent people follow Rand like lemmings.
There is no God, and Ayn Rand is His prophet.
Did Chambers actually read the book? To a gas chamber? That's an insane reading of it!
That pretty much says it all.
With Ayn Rand you have to take the good with the bad. She was a great novelist. She was a staunch defender of individual liberty, limited government, and free market capitalism-—that is all to the good.
On the other hand, she promoted atheism and selfishness and her personal life, values, and morals were perfectly atrocious.
As a teenager, I read Atlas Shrugged and The Fountainhead and enjoyed them greatly. But more recently I read Whittaker Chambers’ book Witness. I found Chambers to be much more deep. His transition from darkness into the light was quite profound. He understood man’s weaknesses and faults including his own. Miss Rand, on the other hand, was a romanticist who invented cartoon like superhuman characters who were flawless and never made mistakes or errors in judgement. IMHO, Chambers was a realist, Rand was a dreamer.
For example, she named "The pursuit of his ... his own happiness" as one of the "highest moral purpose[s] of his life." It's not rational that a highly subjective mental/physical state should be the highest moral goal of a supposedly rational and objective philosophy.
And then there's her insistence that "Man—every man—is an end in himself, not the means to the ends of others." This could only come from the pen of a woman who never had children.
One might be tempted to excuse her for that one on the basis of ignorance, except that she was apparently also strongly in favor of abortion -- which is just about the pinnacle of "sacrificing others to [herself]."
I long ago concluded that Rand's philosophy began with her atheism, and that everything else she wrote can only properly be understood on that basis. She wanted absolutes, but no God to enforce them.... the last 6 Commandments without the inconvenience of the first 4. And thus her insistence that reason and observation were sufficient to lead us to her "objective" philosophy.
If one accepts her premises, I suppose it's possible to reach her conclusions; but then, that's what insane people do, too: they draw painstakingly logical conclusions from initial conditions that have no contact with the real world. Rand's initial premises, while not necessarily "insane," nevertheless suffer from the flaw that they don't match the real world very well.
In many important respects, I think that Ayn Rand was actually a very childish person, who never moved beyond a childish insistence on getting her own way. No wonder she was irrational.