[POLITICS] Why do people look down on Ayn Randian philosophies?
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I wouldn't call it pseudo-philosophy on that count. Being a cowboy who tries to draw massive conclusions about things which you only half understand is common practice among philosophers. If Nietzsche and Quine are taken seriously in spite of their bad arguments and absurd conclusions, why not Ayn Rand? You don't have to believe a word she says, but 'pseudo-philosopher' is a strange way to put it.Agema said:
Haven't read Fountainhead or Atlas Shrugged since they seem to be almost as reviled as the Twilight books, but the philosophy seems akin to Christianity to me; a well-meaning set of rules for life but easily co-opted by douchebags who can use it as an excuse to dump on the poor or the weak. Ms. Rand seems to have been badly scarred by some of the bigger absurdities taking place in communist Russia (and to be fair, most people were), and promotes revulsion of the masses in order to engineer 'greatness' in an elite few.
I was just watching a cinematic retrospect of Spider-Man which pointed out how strange it was that the Green Goblin in the first Raimi film cited some of the same beats out of nowhere: 'The 8 million people in this city exist for the sole purpose of elevating the exceptional few onto their shoulders'. It's just so easy for any villain in nearly any genre to pick it up and run with it and pretend it gives them some kind of depth or good reason to be the way they are.
I was just watching a cinematic retrospect of Spider-Man which pointed out how strange it was that the Green Goblin in the first Raimi film cited some of the same beats out of nowhere: 'The 8 million people in this city exist for the sole purpose of elevating the exceptional few onto their shoulders'. It's just so easy for any villain in nearly any genre to pick it up and run with it and pretend it gives them some kind of depth or good reason to be the way they are.
Everybody got there before me, but might as well throw in a "cos they're bloody shite" for good measure. Doin' me part for science, sir!
Huh, interesting. I didn?t know that, but then I don?t exactly have the patience to understand philosophical details.Agema said:
Most of what I know of objectivism comes from Bioshock... which doesn?t exactly paint a good picture of that way of thinking...
I've read both Atlas Shrugged and The Fountainhead and I came away from both rather critical. Beyond the structure of her writing, which is a criticism in and of itself, I don't think she makes a compelling case. There's a saying I'm rather fond of, that goes something like this: A page of history is worth a volume of theory. And I don't think her ideas have panned out. If we look at the "great" accomplishments of history (in terms of size and impact, not morality), they are rarely accomplished by people I would describe as Randian. Sure, some of the people at the head may have been self-interested, but it required the work on the ground level of others to accomplish that. And these people are not always working for what directly benefits them the most. I have a soft spot for great man history, but even I have to admit that Augustus would have been nothing without tens of thousands of Romans, soldiers and civilians alike, working towards a common goal. Human society is sort of like a body in being a complex organism, and your muscle tissue doesn't act in a way that only benefits the muscle tissue. If all parts of your body did that, I don't know how long you'd be alive.
There's also the usual criticisms that those of us on the right have towards her, such as her seeming disregard of institutions like the family unit and the church. Also I think she puts too much emphasis on wealth as the be-all-end-all goal. To quote my econ 101 prof: "This isn't a moral system where whoever dies with the most stuff or the highest number wins."
The kindest thing I can say about objectivists that I've known is that they are utterly opposed to discrimination on the basis of gender, religion, race, sexual orientation, national origin, language, etc, mostly because they view it as bad for business.
At the end of the day, the way I judge philosophy is how it has impacted the world.
There's also the usual criticisms that those of us on the right have towards her, such as her seeming disregard of institutions like the family unit and the church. Also I think she puts too much emphasis on wealth as the be-all-end-all goal. To quote my econ 101 prof: "This isn't a moral system where whoever dies with the most stuff or the highest number wins."
The kindest thing I can say about objectivists that I've known is that they are utterly opposed to discrimination on the basis of gender, religion, race, sexual orientation, national origin, language, etc, mostly because they view it as bad for business.
At the end of the day, the way I judge philosophy is how it has impacted the world.
It's been years since I've read the book and yet I can never forget that particular part of the book whenever it gets brought up. She's very clearly happy when all these "parasites" with the wrong ideas end up getting killed.Agema said:
Just to elaborate further on what I was talking about with Rand/Hickman. Here's the newspaper account of the murder.
"It was while I was fixing the blindfold that the urge to murder came upon me," he continued, "and I just couldn't help myself. I got a towel and stepped up behind Marion. Then before she could move, I put it around her neck and twisted it tightly. I held on and she made no outcry except to gurgle. I held on for about two minutes, I guess, and then I let go. When I cut loose the fastenings, she fell to the floor. I knew she was dead. Well, after she was dead I carried her body into the bathroom and undressed her, all but the underwear, and cut a hole in her throat with a pocket knife to let the blood out."
"Then he took a pocket knife and cut a hole in her throat. Then he cut off each arm to the elbow. Then he cut her legs off at the knees. He put the limbs in a cabinet. He cut up the body in his room at the Bellevue Arms Apartments. Then he removed the clothing and cut the body through at the waist. He put it on a shelf in the dressing room. He placed a towel in the body to drain the blood. He wrapped up the exposed ends of the arms and waist with paper. He combed back her hair, powdered her face and then with a needle fixed her eyelids. He did this because he realized that he would lose the reward if he did not have the body to produce to her father."
"Hickman packed her body, limbs and entrails into a car, and drove to the drop-off point to pick up his ransom; along his way he tossed out wrapped-up limbs and innards scattering them around Los Angeles. When he arrived at the meeting point, Hickman pulled Miriam's [sic] head and torso out of a suitcase and propped her up, her torso wrapped tightly, to look like she was alive?he sewed wires into her eyelids to keep them open, so that she'd appear to be awake and alive. When Miriam's father arrived, Hickman pointed a sawed-off shotgun at him, showed Miriam's head with the eyes sewn open (it would have been hard to see for certain that she was dead), and then took the ransom money and sped away. As he sped away, he threw Miriam's head and torso out of the car, and that's when the father ran up and saw his daughter?and screamed."
Nasty huh?
Ayn's thoughts on this?
"It was while I was fixing the blindfold that the urge to murder came upon me," he continued, "and I just couldn't help myself. I got a towel and stepped up behind Marion. Then before she could move, I put it around her neck and twisted it tightly. I held on and she made no outcry except to gurgle. I held on for about two minutes, I guess, and then I let go. When I cut loose the fastenings, she fell to the floor. I knew she was dead. Well, after she was dead I carried her body into the bathroom and undressed her, all but the underwear, and cut a hole in her throat with a pocket knife to let the blood out."
"Then he took a pocket knife and cut a hole in her throat. Then he cut off each arm to the elbow. Then he cut her legs off at the knees. He put the limbs in a cabinet. He cut up the body in his room at the Bellevue Arms Apartments. Then he removed the clothing and cut the body through at the waist. He put it on a shelf in the dressing room. He placed a towel in the body to drain the blood. He wrapped up the exposed ends of the arms and waist with paper. He combed back her hair, powdered her face and then with a needle fixed her eyelids. He did this because he realized that he would lose the reward if he did not have the body to produce to her father."
"Hickman packed her body, limbs and entrails into a car, and drove to the drop-off point to pick up his ransom; along his way he tossed out wrapped-up limbs and innards scattering them around Los Angeles. When he arrived at the meeting point, Hickman pulled Miriam's [sic] head and torso out of a suitcase and propped her up, her torso wrapped tightly, to look like she was alive?he sewed wires into her eyelids to keep them open, so that she'd appear to be awake and alive. When Miriam's father arrived, Hickman pointed a sawed-off shotgun at him, showed Miriam's head with the eyes sewn open (it would have been hard to see for certain that she was dead), and then took the ransom money and sped away. As he sped away, he threw Miriam's head and torso out of the car, and that's when the father ran up and saw his daughter?and screamed."
Nasty huh?
Ayn's thoughts on this?
Sound familiar, droogs?
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That's because altruism is probably the most important thing humans do. Like, we literally got where we are because of our more altruistic nature then most other animals. We got here by working together, we worked together well enough for us to be able to become greedy assholes who want to take as much for ourselves as we can. Not totally but we do too much of it.CrazyGirl17 said:
I'm going to have to go with Agema, really just because I've always found Terry Goodkind to be totally shit. Though I haven't read anything by him in at least 15 years, on account of it being so shit, so maybe he got better at it?jademunky said:
OT: Pretty sure it's because she is/was (is she dead? Don't care and can't be bothered to check) just an unfortunate stain on life's sofa. Like, a sofa that had a few tiny red wine stains on it, which you thought you could probably put a cushion or throw over the top of, but then someone's colostomy bag leaked on it and now you're stuck with it, a shitty, smelly sofa that reminds you of Ayn Rand.
Sure. And I can tell you the universe is just the dream of a big fat toad and that means it's immoral to eat cheese, because reasons. But I don't think that justifies calling myself a philosopher just because it's making claims about metaphysics and ethics.Pseudonym said:
There's a reason (almost) no-one teaches Objectivism in philosophy classes in university: it's not worth the effort. It reminds me of the story of someone reviewing a piece of work and commented that it was half good and half original: it's just the half that was good was not original and the half that was original was not good.
Quite so. It's a staggering mis-step, really, suggesting all the "parasites" deserve to die. I've never encountered an Objectivist who hasn't tried to fudge it away because it's such an embarrassment to Rand and Objectivism.CM156 said:
I read the first three. By that point I decided that Goodkind was not only a mediocre writer of unoriginal tripe (which I could just about tolerate), but a misogynist as well. Seriously, all his books seem to involve a load of dreadful women, most of whom fall in love with the hero (which I find inexplicable as he has the charisma of a lump of coal) and merit death.Baffle2 said:
Beyond that, I followed him only via a fantasy book review site that had a whole section devoted to how awful Goodkind was. I think the site has since been retired, but it was as hilarious as it was merciless. There's the fantastic moment the hero breaks the jaw of a 7-year-old because "the thing" rose up in him. What "the thing" is (righteous anger?) is anybody's guess; and it might have been extremely bratty and spoilt 7-year-old, but even still, holy fuck...
Because she was a shameless hypocrite, fraud, scam artist and was basically the Donald Trump of her time.
Also she collected social security, and her husband pension under a alternate name and used it for hip surgery I think it was, again under alternate name, because it was bad for her image to take Government hand outs
Also she collected social security, and her husband pension under a alternate name and used it for hip surgery I think it was, again under alternate name, because it was bad for her image to take Government hand outs
I think a lot of issues come from the fact that the term "philosophy" is defined generally very broadly. But I do agree that it's not a useful philosophy, just like anyone who insists solipsism is correct and that's the end of the debate.Agema said:
I've met at least one who was unapologetic as to what they think should happen to all "parasites"
Sadly I too have met plenty of people like that. It really isn't all that uncommon in wealthy republican districts tbh. The healthcare debate has brought a lot of these people that believe these terrible things to the surface. Of course they change their tune the second something terrible happens to themselves or their loved ones(only as it applies to them however, as they see themselves as the exception), but everyone else can go die quietly somewhere where they cannot be seen or heard as far as they are concerned. When you live in a wealthy area, you interact with these people on a daily basis and as far as their concerned, they would rather us build an impenetrable wall around where they work, live and entertain themselves and keep all " the less fortunate" away from them with deadly force if necessary so they do not have to see them or be bothered by them at all.CM156 said:
I think that is what some do not understand. Just like Trump builds walls around his golf courses to only allow the wealthy in, and keep everyone else out of sight, even on public lands he wasn't supposed to do so, his wall is not actually to keep out the " criminals", it is to keep out those less fortunate. He knows damn good and well the wall does nothing to deter actual criminals who will just find a way around it, this wall only stops suffering families and those too weak to travel further. He too wants to wall off the wealthy from everyone else and let everyone else go die quietly where he won't be bothered by them as well. He doesn't come out and blatantly say everyone outside his walls should just "die", however, he knows many will and isn't the least bit bothered by it. That is just how people with this mindset think.
Can we talk about the only reason she got notoriety?
She hated Communism.
I mean, I totally understand hating the Soviet system. But she forgot the number one lesson from the Russian Revolutions. Making a totally new system defeats the safe guards the old system leading to way more problems
She hated Communism.
I mean, I totally understand hating the Soviet system. But she forgot the number one lesson from the Russian Revolutions. Making a totally new system defeats the safe guards the old system leading to way more problems
Making a new system only defeats the safeguards if you fail to build the safeguards in to the new system to begin with. A system is only as good as it's design.trunkage said:
This is totally true.Lil devils x said:
This issue was that we didn't know the emergent safeguards of Capitalism. For example, the work done on pricing and how that relays way more information than just a number to the market than we realised before 1919
I can only wonder what her thoughts on it would have been, had she been the victim. Rather different, I imagine. But this is what you expect from psychopaths- and that's what Rand was. And she has become a rallying point for other psychopaths desperate to normalize their mental illness and dupe us into willingly being their victims.Smithnikov said:
..And she utilized the same hospitals and physicians she thought should have the right to turn her away. Her seeing doctors as slaves that should not be bound by ethics to treat her, yet she deemed it necessary to use that to her advantage when she was the one in need of assistance. If the physicians that treated her adhered to her ideology, she would not have been able to seek treatment as she was relying on doctors that accepted government funding rather than the private, wealthy physicians that you paid out of pocket for at the time. In her world, the physicians that were willing to take the government payments she required would not exist.jademunky said: