"Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law." Moses? Jesus? No, that was the devil-worshipper Aliester Crowley.
Ayn Rand simply discovered the opposite of good (selfishness). All life is basically selfish, and Libertarians have inevitably glorified its deceits, vanity, cruelty and waste.
While the "good guys" give the benefit of the doubt, the "smart" ones double down and buy a bigger mansion.
16
Everyone seems to be an intellectual on this board. Well, I'm a hick and when I saw how fat Atlas Shrugged was I shrugged and said nope.
30
In high school I read her novels and it appealed to a young person, because at that age a lot of us think we're the smart ones, and we're also too young to appreciate the enormous depth of cooperation and interconnection that gives us a world where one person's writing can a) exist and b) be distributed widely and c) be read.
We're one of the top species, along with social insects, because we do NOT go it alone. The earliest humans who added meat to their diets were probably eating insects and mice and small game. The earliest humans actively hunting big game were doing it in cooperative groups, after a few times watching Ogg get squashed flat, Ugg get gored, and similar go-it-alone attempts. The cooperative survivors taught their kids, and away we went.
23
In the fall of 1971 I was a freshman at Ohio State. At one of the bookstores, a table was piled high with Ayn Rand's novels. I picked one up, turned it over to look at the back, maybe read the inside flap, shrugged and set it down. Then I chose a book by Hermann Hesse. Years later, I started reading more and more about Ayn Rand and the hateful philosophy she espoused in those novels. It disconcerts me that some of my fellow classmates may have been enthusiastically absorbing her ideology.
21
@Theresa
You might try reading one of the novels yourself rather than just listening to other people's view of them.
Say what you want about the philosophy, The Fountainhead is a fun, torrid read that demonstrates a real writer at work. Yes, the philosophy is half-baked when applied to the real world -- few philosophies aren't, from "turn the other cheek" to the Communist Manifesto.
Atlas Shrugged is too long and convoluted but Fountain is a good summer beach read. You don't have to be a college freshman to enjoy the racy lovemaking and characters out of a telenovela.
11
23 OCT 2008
REP. HENRY WAXMAN:
The question I have for you is, you had an ideology, you had a belief that free, competitive — and this is your statement — "I do have an ideology. My judgment is that free, competitive markets are by far the unrivaled way to organize economies. We've tried regulation. None meaningfully worked." That was your quote.
You had the authority to prevent irresponsible lending practices that led to the subprime mortgage crisis. You were advised to do so by many others. And now our whole economy is paying its price.
Do you feel that your ideology pushed you to make decisions that you wish you had not made?
Ex-FED CHAIR ALAN GREENSPAN (Rand Acolyte):
Well, remember that [an ideology is a] conceptual framework with the way people deal with reality. Everyone has one. You have to — to exist, you need an ideology. The question is whether it is accurate or not.
And what I'm saying to you is, yes, I found a flaw. I don't know how significant or permanent it is, but I've been very distressed by that fact.
W:
You found a flaw in the reality…
G:
Flaw in the model that I perceived is the critical functioning structure that defines how the world works, so to speak.
W:
In other words, you found that your view of the world, your ideology, was not right, it was not working?
G:
That is — precisely. No, that's precisely the reason I was shocked, because I had been going for 40 years or more with very considerable evidence that it was working exceptionally well.
37
Ayn Rand, as a novelist, could make it up as she went along. Nothing in real life or our current economic system of every man/woman for themselves works like her fictional accounts favoring the virtues of unregulated capitalism. For one thing her heroic protagonists supposedly do everything by themselves, in spite of the great unwashed masses getting in their way. Those of us who have worked for a living, realize that multiple viewpoints and goals are often competing with one another and the eventual outcome in any organization is a result of teamwork.
10
i read 3 of Ayn Rand's books while in college. i always thought they were supposed to be fantasy, not philosophy. how so many people can take the hyper romantic prose seriously enough to base their future outlook on life on it, is way beyond me. now, reading the list of her "disciples" among our current political leadership explains soooo much about the current state of our country and its relationship to the rest of the world. i would say, that trump must be surrounded by fans of Rand, who are pushing the harshness she advocated in her books. and succeeding. he certainly would not have the attention span or ability to absorb her ideals as his own, but they probably sound good to him, since he has lived his life by selfishness always. i fear for our country and its people. better they were influenced by Lord of the Rings. better yet, the Constitution...
29
Did I hear an echo...echo...echo...echo?
2
To understand Rand who was a screen writer, you must go back to Samuel Merwin, an inspirational business story writer for the Saturday Evening Post under the guidance of George Horace LorImer. In fact "How to succeed in Business, without Really Trying" was spoof on a series of books about business written by Lorimer. Lorimer championed the inspirational Horatio Alger style of business writing.
Merwin wrote several Randian novels before she even landed in the US. Most noted are "Calumet K" and "Anthony the Absolute". The story of Anthony revolves around his out of touch Objectivist philosophy when he becomes involved with an abused married woman. Calumet K revolves around the construction of a grain elevator, needed to break the grasp of the Grain Trust. All manner of adversity is overcome by the man tasked with it's on time completion.
5
Ayn Rand was no scholarly theorist but a sociopath fueled by a warehouse of emotional rants. Her's was a mindset whose defining event was the Russian Revolution that had brought an end to her family's comfortable, prosperous life in Russia causing them to leave that country and immigrate to America. Her hatred of Communism was for her less about ideology and more representational of a personal offense to her family and to the way of life both they and she had once led and lost. How many of her acolytes are aware that in the late 1920s she wrote about a notorious trial taking place in Los Angeles where she went on to defend a child kidnapper and murderer presenting him as an individual not confined by societal convention? This material and much more documenting the twisted mind that was Ayn Rand can be found in the voluminous journals she kept throughout her life and eventually published.
27
@Rose very interesting, Nabokov had a very similar background, but from what I’ve read by him, it doesn’t seem to me that it greatly influenced his art to make it highly capitalist vs. communist, i.e. rugged individualism vs. collective heroicism. Although in Ada, there certainly is a very royalist vein. But I wouldn’t call Humbert Humbert a bastion of capitalism. Nor John Shade. I suppose in this era of close readings and deconstruction, you could see them that way. I don’t feel as if Rand is of Nabokov’s caliber anyway.
4
Became acquainted with Ayn Rand at 17. Read most of her books and subscribed to The Objectivist by my early twenties. Supported Goldwater & Nixon (in '68). Got married, gained insight on life/reality. Ended my subscription and forswore Objectivism & Rand. Was no longer a child and put (threw) away my childish things. Caring & compassion will go further to improve our lot in life than the "virtue of selfishness".
51
"Not for nothing does her enormous fan base include Silicon Valley entrepreneurs, Tea Partiers, President Trump and innumerable adolescents."
My husband is willing to bet lunch at Sardi's that Trump has not read her work. In fact he is willing to bet Trump hasn't even read his own biography.
36
I was a teenager/young adult in India in the 1980s. At the time, books were very expensive and public libraries were few and under stocked. So every neighborhood had its local for-profit lending library, where books could be borrowed for a few pennies a day. But in the India of that time, even a few pennies had to be carefully hoarded. I loved reading, and to get the most value for my money, I learned to speed read and to focus for long hours to get through books quickly (I recall getting through War and Peace in about a week). It also meant that I borrowed only one book at a time. My local library had “The Fountainhead” and “Atlas Shrugged” and I randomly picked the first.
Ayn Rand was touted as a marvelous philosopher by the “deep thinkers” among my circle who I was in awe of at the time (other authors held in awe by them: Steinbeck, Orwell, Joseph Heller; I dare anyone to see the internal consistency there). So I slogged through Fountainhead in 3 days or so, mystified by how anyone could conceive of a world as obviously unworkable as the one Rand proposed.
I never borrowed Atlas Shrugged. Rand’s writing was too tedious and her ideas too childish for even my immature self. I’m still mystified by people who acclaim her thinking.
But I did read Orwell, and the writings of that deeply moral man opened my eyes to the devastation that socialism wreaked on India. I’m no apologist for Rand, but socialism isn’t the answer to her silly version of capitalism.
29
@Shiv
Orwell was not anti-socialism.he was against any form of government which relied on force to keep the mass of the population (proles) subjugated to the whims of an elite political junta to right or to left.
25
The more absurd that nihilist moderns become, the more they rationalize evading Rand. Hmm...that’s a curious coincidence.
1
Okay - you sold me on it.
This is one of the best reviews I've ever read in the Times and I'm printing it out at this moment.
I'm 71. I read "Atlas Shrugged" when I was 17, working in the shoe factory and caught in another slow-down.
I hated it.
So, I read it again.
Six times in all over the decades.
Something was wrong about it. No, I don't mean the dualism, the hierarchicalism, or the silly sex: There was something.....
And, finally, I figured out what it was.
"Atlas Shrugged" came out in the mid-late 50's.
And it was about railroads.
But America, even at that time, was the car.
President Eisenhower was, even then, building the super-highway, the freeway system, that would be copied worldwide.
But cars are really only mentioned once: The wonderful "Hammond cars". No Ford, no Chevies, no Caddies or Lincolns.....
Rand was oblivious to who America was: It was cars.
It was unions.
It was 16-wheeler shipping.
The railroads were on their last leg, even then.
And, she never had a clue.
That makes her the perfect icon to a Libertarian boy.
All that "mundane" stuff is blown off.
Okay - must go jump in my CAR and get a copy of this.
Many thanks!
23
Rand may have officially been an atheist but she regarded the Israeli theocracy as a model and denigrated Arab people with severely racist opprobrium.
Moreover, when she was present for her disciple Alan Greenspan’s swearing-in as head of the Office of Budget Management he swore the oath on a copy of the Talmud, rather than the Bible. There is no record of Rand having objected.
The book review neglects to allude in the slightest to her early life in Czarist Russia where she was born Alisa Zinovyevna Rosenbaum.
12
There was solipsism, greed, and denial of the collective good in the time of Zeno, who codified it, and probably long before him, and Rand is just another sorry instance of those things. Until Durkheim correctly saw that our social being and it’s manifestation in religion was human beings greatest achievement, and the common good was the guiding principle of human existence.
4
I had to read the Fountainhead in one of my college courses. I thought then, and still think today how bad, nonsensical and utterly devoid of any literary value this book is. How anyone can believe or adhere to this dribble is beyond me. Do yourself a favor, read Mad magazine. Intellectually it's miles above anything this women ever wrote.
25
I actually saw Rand speak at college in the 1970s.
She ranted that "altruism is destroying the world". And shouted "If I collapse on the street, and you see me, step over me and keep walking! You owe me NOTHING".
What an ugly person she was. And I don't just physically. A withered twisted soul.
Fast forward to Paul Ryan.
56
She was the personification of evil. She was a neurotic powered by cranial/neurological destructive emotions: so defined by words such as: psychotic, aggressive, selfish, deceptive, mean spirited, egocentric, jealous, possessive, dishonest, power hungry, narcissistic, deceitful, wicked.
It is now called neo-liberalism. It will spell our end.
www.InquiryAbraham.com
9
Why anyone liked/likes Rand's books escapes me. A friend recommended Atlas Shrugged to me in the 1970's. I read it, disliked it, and wondered why the selfish architect would prefer to blow up those houses rather than have people live in them. Conservatives are either stupid or mean-spirited.
13
First of all I think you mean The Fountainhead.
Secondly, blowing up the building was not the worst part .That was the rape, which Rand thought was fully justified if you were a man because men (as in male) were the pinnacle of creation.
Read more about her.
8
Greed, fear , hatred. From Rand's pen to Trump, Ryan, McConnell, Pence, evangelicals and the GOP's ears.
21
Any Rand, a simpleton’s simpleton. Definitely fits the current state of our shallow culture.
17
Didn't Ann Rand free those enslaved in the South? oh, wait that was Abraham Lincoln.
6
"Not for nothing does her enormous fan base include ... President Trump and innumerable adolescents."
I believe this is what the kids today call a 'sick burn'.
9
Sounds a heck of a lot like Rand suffered from Narcissistic Personality Disorder. It would certainly explain why her fan base includes self-regarding Valley types, egotistical teenagers, and, of course, Trump.
22
My teenage son asked his aunt if he could read any books by Ayn Rand. She told him that, of course, he could — but only if he got over it by the time he turned 23.
37
In the turning point of the late fifties – early sixties, my contemporaries (those who bothered to read) would haul around either a copy of Atlas Shrugged, or a copy of Stranger in a Strange Land. Both were adolescent fantasies with an odd ability to resonate deeply with a certain type of person.
I don't think Rand has followers so much as a large body of people who gratefully use her to justify their mean spirited greed. They were already that way; Rand just taught them that it was admirable. Of what other use is philosophy in a Randian world?
32
@michaeltide I could not get past the first few pages of "Stranger in a Strange Land" ... the condescending and over-sexualized way the women in that story were addressed was just too offensive.
4
@Martha Goff, As I said: an adolescent fantasy.
I grok what you're saying in fullness.
5
Ayn Rand's books (I read the Fountainhead and Atlas Shrugged) chilled me: in her world, there is no greater value than greed. No love, no spirituality, no value in kindness, no value in anyone that is not part of the production machine.
And in a final bit of irony, she received Social Security - after writing books that practically called for the genocide of anyone who was not part of the greed machine.
65
@Barbara Without the prosperity created by “greed,” you will need a lot of kindness as you starve to death in your pre-capitalist utopia.
5
@Barbara
Paul Ryan had a famous incident where he was at a kegger party and he stood there staring at the bonfire's flames trying to figure out how he could get rid of Medicaid, health-care for the poorest of the poor.
(Goggle: Paul Ryan, kegger party.)
He also yearned to get rid of Social Security.
When his father died when Ryan was 16 it was SS that saved his family.
It was good enough for HIM and Ayn Rand - but everyone one else was just supposed to roll over and die.
The very worst of Americans.
Glad he snuck off.
34
@Sammy Azalea
How odd.
When I was working at the shoe factory over 50 years ago, I don't recall any of the owners of the factory standing beside me, lacing up a boot.
In fact, I think they were all over in Ireland at a new place called an "Enterprise Processing Zone" an EPZ which was the "Cradle of Capitalism"
, the first of the job outsourcing sites.
Without the underpaid labor of workers, companies would make no profits - and workers have shown that they can do an even better job at organizing factories than self-absorbed Trumpians.
If you will remember correctly, then you will recall that Trump made his fortune the old-fashioned way: First, he inherited it, and, second, he then stiffed his contractors.
"Greed" has had little to do with Trump being the Biggest Loser in the history of the IRS.
Not even Ayn Rand could wrap that man in a convincing myth.
Without underpaid workers, there are no profits.
16
In the 50's, Ayn Rand asked my dad if he liked her book "Atlas Shrugged". He said "Nope".
I love my dad.
56
Decades ago a friend who was smitten with Ayn Rand loaned me ATLAS SHRUGGED. I slogged through the thing, completely at a loss as to its merit. When he asked my reaction, I kindly responded with something like, "Well, some of her diatribes were a bit long and boring." His response, "Oh, I always skipped over those parts."
A life dedicated to logic and reason, greed and selfishness, is boring and often far too long. Just look at most Republican Congressmen.
43
As a ' former ' insider by choice currently residing on the fringes ( complete with advanced degrees in theology and apologetics ) ;
What is even more abjectly and disturbingly shocking is the number of prominent evangelicals and Catholics ( both Roman and Orthodox ) from Franklin Graham to several Bishops and Cardinals [ along with several prominent leaders in the Jewish community ] to more local pastors , priests and theologians than you can imagine .. all of whom adhere to the writings , ideologies and ethics of Ayn Rand as if she were the new ' Messiah ' of the 21st century putting aside all Biblical aspects of their ' so called ' faith ' [ to the point of abject denial of the ' Truth ' ] in order to bow down before the " Throne of Narcism and Greed " of Ayn Rand
17
@TJ Martin
Hummmm..... you mean all those men that never had to try to feed their families while working 48 hours a week at minimum wage?
Or, do you mean the ones that get everything "tax-exempt", housing, room, board, cars, etc., if they only take a "vow of poverty"?
6
@rosa
And is some cases celibacy although if they stick by them is increasingly doubtful!!!
4
Rand was a soviet spy sent by the Russians to destroy America. She was incredibly successful. And insanely boring with her 1200 pages or so to say the same thing 1200 different and not so different ways.
7
"Rand’s simplistic reversals — selfishness is a virtue, altruism is a sin, capitalism is a deeply moral system that allows human freedom to flourish — have given her work a patina of transgression, making her beloved by those who consider themselves bold, anti-establishment truth tellers"
Anti-establishment truth tellers----otherwise known as college sophomores (and their intellectual/emotional equivalents).
13
Astonishing to realize that ideas rejected by most people by the time they leave hight school still have currency in our social and political life. Is there something embedded in human DNA that periodically gives rise to greed and fascism? I'm beginning to think so.
17
@Antoine Socialism gives rise to fascism when people get dizzy.
1
It isn't hard to understand the appeal of Ayn Rand to a certain type of person, her whole mantra basically boiled down to justifying greed and selfishness and to comfort those who feel guilty about their own success and lack of helping others. It doesn't take a Phd in philosophy to understand the basic tenets, that those who 'create' in the capitalist system (note that creator doesn't mean innovator, or creativity in terms of art, or in science, it means those who create wealth by any means) are special people who have no debt to anyone else, they are 'self made people', they don't owe anything to anyone else, and in fact us mere mortals "owe them".
It also doesn't take an advanced degree to see the influence across the entire right wing we have today. Supply Side economics, for example, urges huge tax cuts on the rich and companies, claiming it will benefit all, and when it doesn't, that is 'class warfare' and everyone 'should be grateful". To the Koch Brothers, it fills their view of themselves, that they are above it all. The religious right, despite their claims to being Christian, have created the prosperity gospel, where Jesus not only wants us all rich, but blesses those who are, and in turn, they have tacitly endorsed the mantra of the GOP that the poor are poor because they are somehow defective (and worse, don't deserve help). Rand's is the philosophy of a spoiled 14 year old 'prince' or 'princess', it is not fully fleshed out...
22
In "We the Living" a female student says she will study engineering so she won't have to learn and parrot back the lying ideologies being spouted at the university.
A student of today might go into STEM for the same reason.
1
@Liz STEM may be the only justification for not burning down the universities.
2
I've met several Russian natives who are now staunch republicans. Ayn Rand was born in St Petersburg and came to Hollywood as an act of rebellion against the communists. I suppose the right wing aversion to communism and its ideals of collective good appeals to Russians' experience of oppression of individual freedom. Belief is all relative to world view. The right tends to focus on our freedoms as the cornerstone of our country and mistake the supremacy of the individual as essential for progress of society. Ayn Rand wrapped aversion to collectivism in the American flag of success, as if the ideal of a stand alone architect with vision or tech entrepreneur can be attained by everyone. Never mind how much the country is floated by the consumer or built upon infrastructure or depends on natural resources and the free destruction of the environment and its climate as a dumping ground for the waste products of progress. Ayn Rand was a fine revolutionary for 1940 Hollywood. Not so much a physician for a dying planet stocked with 8 billion all yearning to live like royals.
56
I highly recommend the near-future science fiction novel “Sewer, Gas and Electric” in which author Matt Ruff creates an AI built on Rand and housed in a portable lamp. One of the great joys of the book is how the Rand lamp falls into the hands of a group of characters who, through a series of arguments, dismantle and demolish her ideas, much of it with wit that would do Dorothy Parker proud.
19
It is amazing how many conservatives seem to regard Ayn Rand as some sort of Founding Father. Notable among these is former Speaker of the House Paul Ryan; others include the Libertarians (with a capital "L," which has very little in common with actual lower-case "l" libertarianism) Ron and his son Rand (named after Ayn) Paul.
My friends and I were briefly fascinated by her writings back when we were in the 7th grade or so, but like most people we outgrew her facile points of view and returned to the real world. It did not take long to recognize her works as merely a paean to vanity, selfishness and apathy.
I saw her speak in person a couple of times. If Republicans knew what a truly weird little Russian woman she was, they might be less likely to grant credence to the philosophies she espoused.
81
@Dr. Planarian
For the thousandth time, Rand Paul's full name is RANDALL and he was NOT named after the author. As a youth he was known as "Randy" and his wife shortened it to "Rand".
7
@Dr. Planarian
I was briefly entranced with Rand during junior high as well - most notably during a family summer vacation when I took The Fountainhead along to read in the car. My poor family, I was insufferable at the time.
Then I saw her on the Johnny Carson show and realized I didn't want anything to do with such an unpleasant, one-dimensional, cartoonish person.
18
@Dr. Planarian
“If Republicans knew what a truly weird little Russian woman she was, they might be less likely to grant credence to the philosophies she espoused.”
I am pretty sure that modern Republicanism depends on the truly weird. For instance, the evangelicals, gun fetishists, and racists.
18
It’s interesting that a writer so flawed and ordinary managed to have so much impact and resonance.
She didn’t create misanthropism. There are just a lot of misanthropes out there. It turned out that there was a huge audience for her ideas. I believe that the people attracted to her meanness and selfishness would think and behave deplorably even if they never read Rand.
37
@Tony S
The reality is Ayn Rand Validates and Confirms the core beliefs and ideologies of misanthropist , narcissistic and greedy individuals thereby giving them permission to act out their inner core beliefs .
Which ... believe it or not ... they desperately need . Why you may ask ? More than likely because some part of them deep down within their subconscious they realize their core beliefs and ideologies are the essence of evil
7
This does not surprise me at all.
Ayn Rand and Objectivism are the exact opposite of "United We Stand" which, intuitively, is the bonding ethic for all cultures and societies everywhere on Earth and throughout human history.
41
@VJR life liberty and the pursuit of happiness
you “forgot” that
@Sammy Azalea
I'm sorry that I am not a Randroid, but I do believe in life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness - in safety and without violence rooted in selfishness and conflict of interest between peoples.
4
Conservatives accuse liberals of "virtue signaling," and perhaps that's true some of the time.
But there's also such a thing as "vice signaling": the transgressive view that you're only credible if you're breaking some rule of civility, decency, and mutual respect.
That was Rand, and that's the conservative movement today.
The problem is: as human beings, we are social creatures who take cues from those around us. We aspire to what's admired. And when what's admired is viciousness and cruelty, that's what we get more of.
Look around. That's what "vice signaling" in the name of "political incorrectness" is giving us. More hate. More brutality. A worse world for everyone -- except for those who thrive on hate.
99
Read "Anthem" in the 8th grade, and "The Fountainhead" and "Atlas Shrugged" (too long) in college. Like all human creations, they come from one's experience. I think hers was the beginnings of Soviet Russia. Everyone needs to take that into account.
19
Rand's Atlas Shrugged is always useful when read to proselytizing evangelicals, especially when you tell them she is loved by the GOP.
11
@poslug
As a former insider currently living on the fringes ( by choice ) ... Twenty years ago you'd be correct in your assumption that evangelicals would find the fact that their beloved GOP has bowed down before the throne of Ayn Rand pledging their undying allegiance to her and her alone absolutely deplorable
Whereas today ... as I stated in my original comment ... the majority of Evangelicals and Catholics ( Roman and Orthodox ) are right by the GOP's side ... denying all aspects of their Biblical ' truth ' as they prostrate before their new Goddess ... Ayn Rand
3
Where is John Galt when we need him to take on the Democratic Socialists like Bernie and AOC?
5
The low information voter has chosen Trump as their John Galt.
6
"Where is John Galt..."
He is hiding out in a remote secret hamlet in the mountains of Colorado, living off his inherited trust fund, smoking pot, growing fat and wondering where it all went wrong for his little cult.
10
@Mon Ray - there's no personal profit for him so he doesn't care. He'll just keep continuing to make enormous contributions of dark money to fund groups that fight against making the wealthy pay back some of what they take from the efforts of themselves and many many others.
5
Some are suggesting the direction were headed toward, with the game increasingly rigged for the rich, is a virtual slave society, since all but the elite will have little economic or political power. Maybe rich donors like the Koch brothers and the Mercers intend to create that situation.
Thus the 'free society' of few rules for those at the top could be turning most of us into slaves, but I guess "she didn't mean that."
19
@Michael > virtual slave society
You have transcended experience. Kyudos.
1
Having read several Rand books in my time...
I wonder what Ayn Rand would have had to say about Mother Theresa. On the other hand I wonder what Mother Theresa would have had to say about Ayn Rand.
We won't even get into Sister Boom-Boom and her crew...Nope, not going there...
4
@Alternate Identity I don’t know what Ayn Rand would have to say about Mother (now Saint) Teresa. I do know what Christopher Hitchens, one of the finest minds of the last few decades, had to say about her: she loved poverty, not the poor. Despite raising millions of dollars in donations, her hospice for the dying in Calcutta still lacks air conditioning and doesn’t administer pain killers to the destitute dying in dormitory rows in the stifling space, because Teresa disapproved of these modern conveniences. Of course, when she herself needed treatment, it wasn’t in any of her wretched hovels in India but in the best hospitals of the world.
I also don’t know what Teresa would have to say about Ayn Rand. But in my opinion both lack the moral authority to offer opinions on anyone or anything else.
7
The naïveté that followers of Rand have is so hard to imagine. Teens are supposed to be smitten, but when the brain fully develops, they should be able to think, and realize the folly. The bit about all relationships being transactional highlights the brokenness of Rand.
20
@Tricia I think it would be safe to say that the majority of Rand followers haven't actually read any of her books
8
Rand was a bad novelist and a worse philosopher. Or is it the other way around? Any book that trashes her should gain as much traction in the culture as possible. But Rand fanatics, like Trumpers, are impervious to the blandishments of logic, reason, or compassion.
40
Schoolboy Fantasyland. Perfect for the GOP.
Sad.
49
There are a few books I have tried to read that I could never finish because it seemed to me I was just wasting time with nonsense that wasn't even entertaining. The two most ridiculous are Atlas Shrugged and the bible. I have no idea how one can force themselves to actually spend the time to read these. I am going to guess that one must be rather dull mentally to actually see any truth at all in these.
25
Rand was nothing if not a horrible writer and storyteller. Her plots are turgid, characters one-dimensional, her point is tirelessly made page after page. All that aside I can’t discount her experience with Bolshevism. It might be enough to drive anyone with the least bit of sensitivity crazy.
3
I think Ayn Rand was one of the few female socio-paths. Look at her eyes.
22
Little Master Paul Ryan, of Republican Party fame, evidently read the cliff’s notes versions of her books, purchased from a church school bookstore.
14
If ever there were an author—and I use the term loosely—who epitomized the Hobbesian worldview of life as solitary, mean, nasty, brutish and short, here she is. No wonder she spawned the likes of such base devotees as Steve Bannon, Miller and Trump, the last of whom doesn’t even read. Of course, that might explain why Truman Capote’s infamous jab at Jack Kerouac is actually more fitting for Rand: “That’s not writing, that’s typing.”
35
The following quote has been attributed to a number of people, most prominently a comedian named John Rogers:
“There are two novels that can transform a bookish 14-year-kid’s life: 'The Lord of the Rings' and 'Atlas Shrugged.' One is a childish daydream that can lead to an emotionally stunted, socially crippled adulthood in which large chunks of the day are spent inventing ways to make real life more like a fantasy novel. The other is a book about orcs.”
156
@CB Evans I see you've met my brother-in-law.
6
I was going to write something about libertarianism, anarchy (from the Left and Right), and Rand and where America is heading, but ... it's all just too depressing.
Thank God I'm old.
64