It is as economically conservative as you can get, especially in regards to government's interaction with the economy and socially liberal. The political party with the closest roots to Objectivism is libertarianism. This is opposed to the Republican party which is largely both socially and economically conservative in that they want the government to regulate personal aspects of lives such as drug usage, LGBT issues and things such as that. That said, the libertarians and republicans tend to cuddle up together because of their similar ideologies in regards to economics.triggrhappy94 said:
Escape to the Movies: Atlas Shrugged
- Thread starter MovieBob
- Start date
The problem with the smart and powerful ruling the world is that they are never as smart and powerful as they think they are. I mean, there's a reason there are very few monarchies left in the world, and even the ones that do exist typically still employ some form of representative democracy.
Objectivism is as flawed a concept as communism is. The modern Republican party pretty much epitomizes the concept, and look at all their hypocrisy: Their whole message is, "Privatize the gains, socialize the losses."
Objectivism is as flawed a concept as communism is. The modern Republican party pretty much epitomizes the concept, and look at all their hypocrisy: Their whole message is, "Privatize the gains, socialize the losses."
@Mortrialus,
While you're right that it's similar to the concept of libertarianism, I think it's important to note that the libertarian party is also extremely socially conservative. Almost all of their representatives (and, by extension, anyone who would seriously vote for them) are constitutional and biblical fundamentalists with deep-seated racist, sexist, classist, and homophobic ideals.
While you're right that it's similar to the concept of libertarianism, I think it's important to note that the libertarian party is also extremely socially conservative. Almost all of their representatives (and, by extension, anyone who would seriously vote for them) are constitutional and biblical fundamentalists with deep-seated racist, sexist, classist, and homophobic ideals.
If you're going to challenge me, implying that I am doing nothing be regurgitating quotes else way, try backing up that claim, or you might as well have not said it. I also don't watch John Stewart or Colbert. I really don't care what comedians have to say on the issue.head desk tricycle said:
True but they are libertarian in name only. They might as well be republicans.SemiHumanTarget said:
As those terms refer to levels of government (liberal = a lot, conservative = as little as possible) it edges closer to conservativism, but depending on how extreme you take it, it comes closer to anarchy. Most "followers" take a cafeteria approach to things: praising the parts they like while trying to deny the existance of the parts they don't. As such, by more general terms, it appeals to right wing conservatives because it's big into unfettered capitalism and renforces the ideas that management, shareholders and the wealthy are the smartest and most tallented people on the planet, and that if you're rich you earned it owing nobody anything. However the GOP would completely lose the reglious right if they took up the more exteme levels of her attitudes toward marrage, family values, and total contempt for the poor.triggrhappy94 said:
Just remember that people are rarely one end of the spectum or the other, especially when it's their own ass in the crosshairs. Hence we get free market capitalists asking for subsidies and bailouts, and the anti government tea party want to hang on to their favoite government programs like social security and medicare.
As a book, Ayn Rand's work is great. As a personal philosophy, it's incredibly lacking and considers everyone who isn't you to be means rather than ends. If she said people should always reach for their greatest potential and those who aren't doing so are slowly ruining their life. However, when you say that only the greatest matter, that's when you start to get to the point of being a jerk-ass.ArBeater said:
I always thought Objectivism was a combination of left-wing and right-wing extremisms...not the merely right-wing thing Bob seems to think it is.
The fact that it's ivory-tower-intellectual material requiring elimination of faith-based ideals should have been the first clue. The American right wing is so stereotypically Christian blue-collar that both of these requirements fail right out of the gate.
The fact that it also requires pushing the concept of utterly-unfettered competition (i.e., an unregulated free market), is likewise anathema to most folks on the left. For all that Bob seems to talk down a bit to the right-wing types, it's interesting that this aspect of non-regulation is the part he most likes about Randian philosophy.
As a right-winger, I've never had any interest in Rand's work...at all. And in fact, the only people I've ever met who DO have identified themselves as hard-left liberals (the Noam Chomsky types)...or the more hardcore Libertarians who want to be able to buy PCP over the counter.
The fact that it's ivory-tower-intellectual material requiring elimination of faith-based ideals should have been the first clue. The American right wing is so stereotypically Christian blue-collar that both of these requirements fail right out of the gate.
The fact that it also requires pushing the concept of utterly-unfettered competition (i.e., an unregulated free market), is likewise anathema to most folks on the left. For all that Bob seems to talk down a bit to the right-wing types, it's interesting that this aspect of non-regulation is the part he most likes about Randian philosophy.
As a right-winger, I've never had any interest in Rand's work...at all. And in fact, the only people I've ever met who DO have identified themselves as hard-left liberals (the Noam Chomsky types)...or the more hardcore Libertarians who want to be able to buy PCP over the counter.
You...really haven't been paying much attention to the world, have you?CronoT said:
No, seriously. This movie was cobbled together when? Republicans took the House when? Timeline check much?
Plus, ahem, the Democrats have held Congress (and usually the Presidency) since the 1960s with the EXCEPTION of the 1994 taking of the House by Repubs. They managed to hang onto it for a while but never got a Senate majority, so they never fully took Congress at all. Then they lost the House, and then they recently regained a majority there.
And amid all of this, no one gave a rat's ass about Ayn Rand. Where were the movies that "lobotomized" the public in the early '90s? Where was the hype, where were all the folks re-reading her book?
If you're gonna make stuff up out of the thin blue, at least try to be more entertaining about it.
You DO realize how ridiculous you sound, right? If conservatives have no knowledge of Rand's philosophy, they can't have read her book. If they haven't read her book, they aren't likely to be interested in the movie.Lordpils said:
So if conservatives AREN'T fans of the book and therefore knowledgeable about it, that leaves which wing as the fanbase?
Would just like to say that the final Bioshock reference would have been much better spoken over a plain black screen.
In fact, ALL references work better when you don't smack us over the head with the source material like we're idiots (especially considering you specifically brought Bioshock earlier).
In fact, ALL references work better when you don't smack us over the head with the source material like we're idiots (especially considering you specifically brought Bioshock earlier).
That's too bad. I read "The Fountainhead" first, and saw the old movie a few years ago. The Fountainhead movie was actually pretty good, but I think Rand wrote the script...at any rate, you are totally right Mr. Movie Bob Chapman. The Fountainhead was less goofy in its preaching, and, aside from Francisco D'Anconia's amazing speech about why money is not the root of all evil, Shrugged was dull as hell, IMO. Here's hoping they don't try for a remake of that film. Unless they cast Conan as Roark...
The book was alright once you learned to skip the parts where Rand beats the dead horse of her philosophy. I mean, seriously, John Galt's radio speech was what, 30-odd pages? And he doesn't say a single thing that hadn't been said earlier in the book, and wasn't repeated afterwards.
Except objectivism does not propose that the smart and powerful "rule the world". I know that's what Bob says, but like you he's just echoing what someone else has said to him. Can you demonstrate evidence that objectivism promotes anybody should rule the world?SemiHumanTarget said:
I'd just like to point out one bit of nit-pickery that always chafed me about this book.
The Title ''Atlas Shrugged'' is a reference to a conversation in the book between Francisco d'Anconia and Hank Rearden in which d'Anconia asks of Rearden what sort of advice he would give to Atlas upon seeing that "the greater [the titan's] effort the heavier the world bore down on his shoulders". With Rearden unable to answer, Francisco gives his own response: "To shrug".
Ok stole that chunk from wikipedia, but the problem I have with it is due to this
ATLAS DID NOT HOLD UP THE WORLD. He held up the SKY.
You'd think the woman could of opened up a greek mythology book when naming her magnum opus >_<
Nit-picking at it's best.
The Title ''Atlas Shrugged'' is a reference to a conversation in the book between Francisco d'Anconia and Hank Rearden in which d'Anconia asks of Rearden what sort of advice he would give to Atlas upon seeing that "the greater [the titan's] effort the heavier the world bore down on his shoulders". With Rearden unable to answer, Francisco gives his own response: "To shrug".
Ok stole that chunk from wikipedia, but the problem I have with it is due to this
ATLAS DID NOT HOLD UP THE WORLD. He held up the SKY.
You'd think the woman could of opened up a greek mythology book when naming her magnum opus >_<
Nit-picking at it's best.
It's depressing to see people bashing a philosophy they don't understand. But it's not surprising because Rand is hard to understand. Just like Nietzsche, Kant, Plato, and Aristotle are hard to understand.
I didn't fully understand Rand until I read the great ethicist Alisdair Macintyre. Macintyre famously showed how people use words like "good" and "evil" as if they meant something according to modern ethics, while at the same time subscribing to modern ethical teachings that say those words *don't* mean anything. Confusion sets in, in very short order. This is because modern ethicists have lost sight of something. They have forgotten that to the philosophers who invented the study of morality itself, the word "good" meant "good for something". That is, good was a *functional* word. A good hammer is a hammer that's good at hammering nails. A good doctor is a doctor who is good at treating sick people. So what does it mean to say that so-and-so is a good man?
That's the question that classical ethics devoted itself to answering, and its answer was that a good man is a man who is good at living, i.e. one who lives the good life for man. Thus the question of ethics was "what is the good life for man?" Ayn Rand falls into this category of classical moral thinkers, called teleological ethicists or virtue ethicists. Ayn Rand's ethics is aimed at answering "what is the good life for man" and her answer is that it is life lived with the virtues of purpose, productivity, and self-esteem. Her philosophy is a type of virtue ethics, and anyone who believes her system is a recipe for sociopathic behavior is simply not understanding what she's saying. Her philosophy says little about how we should treat others because it's not meant to be a system of other-regarding laws - its a system that first and foremost tells how to live our lives with virtue. A virtue ethicist believes that if you have virtue, you will treat others rightly. If you lack virtue, you will treat others wrongly, regardless of any alleged "altruistic philosophy" you may subscribe to. Ayn Rand once wrote that a man alone on a deserted island would need moral philosophy more than anyone. Not until and unless you understand what that statement means do you understand Objectivism.
If anyone really has an interest in understanding this, rather than listen to ignorance on the internet, I would recommend you read the following three works: Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics, Alisdair Macintyre's After Virtue and Macintyre's Dependent Rational Animals. Each of them presents classical ethics in a different way and between those three and Rand you should be well-equipped to understand her and make a reasoned and intelligent judgment. I'm happy to reference other works that can help you actually grasp what this very deep, and ridiculously misunderstood and slandered, thinker had to say.
I didn't fully understand Rand until I read the great ethicist Alisdair Macintyre. Macintyre famously showed how people use words like "good" and "evil" as if they meant something according to modern ethics, while at the same time subscribing to modern ethical teachings that say those words *don't* mean anything. Confusion sets in, in very short order. This is because modern ethicists have lost sight of something. They have forgotten that to the philosophers who invented the study of morality itself, the word "good" meant "good for something". That is, good was a *functional* word. A good hammer is a hammer that's good at hammering nails. A good doctor is a doctor who is good at treating sick people. So what does it mean to say that so-and-so is a good man?
That's the question that classical ethics devoted itself to answering, and its answer was that a good man is a man who is good at living, i.e. one who lives the good life for man. Thus the question of ethics was "what is the good life for man?" Ayn Rand falls into this category of classical moral thinkers, called teleological ethicists or virtue ethicists. Ayn Rand's ethics is aimed at answering "what is the good life for man" and her answer is that it is life lived with the virtues of purpose, productivity, and self-esteem. Her philosophy is a type of virtue ethics, and anyone who believes her system is a recipe for sociopathic behavior is simply not understanding what she's saying. Her philosophy says little about how we should treat others because it's not meant to be a system of other-regarding laws - its a system that first and foremost tells how to live our lives with virtue. A virtue ethicist believes that if you have virtue, you will treat others rightly. If you lack virtue, you will treat others wrongly, regardless of any alleged "altruistic philosophy" you may subscribe to. Ayn Rand once wrote that a man alone on a deserted island would need moral philosophy more than anyone. Not until and unless you understand what that statement means do you understand Objectivism.
If anyone really has an interest in understanding this, rather than listen to ignorance on the internet, I would recommend you read the following three works: Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics, Alisdair Macintyre's After Virtue and Macintyre's Dependent Rational Animals. Each of them presents classical ethics in a different way and between those three and Rand you should be well-equipped to understand her and make a reasoned and intelligent judgment. I'm happy to reference other works that can help you actually grasp what this very deep, and ridiculously misunderstood and slandered, thinker had to say.
The issue is that this idea of morality is wrong right out of the box. Worlds such as good and evil are still both completely useless. Working around the term "good" as in "beneficial" is wrong. You are simply confusing the two definitions of "useful" and "moral". Morality is simply the way social species adjust their actions based on existing within societies. Without society there is no morality. You can't adjust your actions based on living in a society without a society. This is the general issue I have with objectivism. As you learn about it, its generally agreeable, but it takes such a hilariously wrong turn on morality and ethics.Archon said:
Thank goodness someone else brought this up. It really tends to show a pretty clear distinction between those who have actually read Rand's work and those who just, at most, read half of Atlas Shrugged. And sadly this topic, as in most discussion on Rand, shows many automatically assuming that her idea of a good person is one who will use, extort or rise upon the backs of others. Rand makes it very clear in her writings, both fiction and non-fiction, that the true good man will not treat others poorly. A point seen over and over again is that people who do take advantage of others weakness are actually the "bad guys" regardless of their own innate abilities. A good man will, in serving his own needs, ends up helping the world, not making it subservient to him.Archon said:
Rand also, as stated, is a philosopher. Certainly moral stances follow from philosophical view points when those stances are brought into the "real world," but what Rand was doing was answering a philosophical question. Anyone who has actually studied philosophy at even a basic level knows that much of it involves answering questions like this one.