damn . . it's Ann Rand?
Who's your favorite Ann ?
Posted on 07/22/2002 4:31:37 PM PDT by dubyagee
It's easier not to think.
Haven't read the Fountainhead, but from Atlas I gathered she believed the world would be a Utopia if only everyone believed the way that she did. Wasn't the little nook in the Rockies a Utopia of some sort...
Yes, but Stalin and Mao and Pol Pot (what a name...) were obvious looters. The fact that their self-interest was power over others is a distinction that cannot be ignored. Gandhi and Mother Theresa were different in that they helped others in their own self interest without taking from others, other than the charity of other good people that is. The profit from their self-interest was the powerful feeling of doing good for others. I have felt this through working for my local Lions Club.
Somebody said that the God area was where Rand swung and missed, and I agree with that. People who have never done charity work are really missing out on the way you feel after doing it. Erecting fences and dugouts for the kids' little league fields, spending days flipping burgers in the Lions food trailer at the local fair, dressing up like an elf to take pictures of kids with Santa and putting them into greeting cards at Wal-Mart, all for no pay was an incredibly rewarding experience, and it is a pity that Rand didnt realize this. I think if she had lived longer, she might have softened up, kind of the way that Malcom X did later in life...JFK
The very points that you pull out are why I would suggest it as reading for anyone.
You're right, because morality isn't derived from reason. Christianity posits that there is a God who wants us to live as selflessly as possible, and that true and total selflessness (living for the good of others) is what is good. Logic itself can be used for anything you want (any desire you have).
Yes, I see where you are going...I was hoping to avoid that..(grin)
I would welcome a few suggestions on books from your end.
I think that her point is that Utopia can only exist for people only within their own lives, only if they are allowed to make it so. The little nook in the Rockies was an example of a place where that was allowed to happen for each on his/her own terms, not the terms laid out by some do-gooder looter socialist types. Actually, I think that Galt's Gulch was a Utopia, only in the sense that its existance outside of the regular world proved that Utopia is not possible...JFK
I personally prefer "The Road to Serfdom" by FA Hayek, or even better "Knowledge and Decisions" by Thomas Sowell. Both of these books make the academic points better than Atlas shrugged, but they aren't nearly as entertaining a read.
I loved both of them, and "knowledge and Decisions" changed my life and work more than anything I've ever read, but there is simply no competing with a good story for entertainment value, no matter how heavy handed it may be.
But, if you feel good by doing it, how can it be self sacrifice?
That's the way I reconcile the charity work I do.
Self sacrifice is doing things that you hate because you are told it is for the "greater good."
I agree with you here!
And obviously no knowledge of the self-sacrifice it takes to have children.
damn . . it's Ann Rand?
Who's your favorite Ann ?
What is "good?"
Hank
Straight up good advice. Some FReepers get their panties in a wad because of Rand's general disdain for religion and charity, and use that as an excuse to ignore everything that she has to say on that premise. Just because an Arby's Bacon Chicken Club has tomatoes on it, doesnt mean I will stop eating them. I just pick 'em off and chow down...JFK
you left off this part of the quote, it changes the meaning completely, what does it mean to have evil desires? what is the cost of a)having them, and b) acting on them? If a person ponders these further questions and then still chooses to act out their evil desires then they are irrational, but the study of them, which I would wager most "evil-doers" do not do (ponder, study their own desires), she is claiming to be the highest virtue. This is what Christians do through prayer, and others through other forms of meditation.
Yes, and the replies still relatively civil. 8 * )
You're wrong. Stalin and Mao were quite rational and logical and clear-headed (much more than most people) and considered themselves overwhelming successes. It just didn't matter to them that they wiped out tens of millinos of people; it made rational sense for them to do such to reach their goals. That we consider wiping out so many people evil comes from somewhere else.
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