What did I just read? Ayn Rand's Philosophy.

[Eukaryote]

I just read Ayn Rand's wikipedia page:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ayn_Rand

And watched this video of her explaining her philosophy:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=viGkAZR-x8s&feature=related

I had heard of Ayn Rand before but never knew anything about her other than the fact that I've seen her mocked on CFC.

What I've basically inferred from these webpages is that this is a philosopher who got famous by saying that religion, conformity, and altruism were evil and that being a self-obsessed prick is good.

Am I interpreting her correctly, and am I right to think this lady was bat crazy? Or am I misinterpreting this? If the former, how'd she get published?

 

[Old Hippy]

probably for the same reasons... L RON Hubbard founded a religion... apparently they write good children's literature

 

[JollyRoger]

You are right and she got published because she is not the only bat crazy one.

 

[Traitorfish]

Honestly, Objectivism is just conservatism given a vaguely radical sheen by an eccentric metaphysics and a poorly-considered atheism. I wouldn't say that she was "crazy", but more because that falsely implies there was something genuinely innovative in her work as anything else.

 

[Cutlass]

What I've basically inferred from these webpages is that this is a philosopher who got famous by saying that religion, conformity, and altruism were evil and that being a self-obsessed prick is good.

The irony being that her followers are as conformist as anyone can get, marching in lockstep with what they are told to believe.

 

[Silurian]

probably for the same reasons... L RON Hubbard founded a religion... apparently they write good children's literature

Does L RON Hubbard's cult have more followers.

 

[Old Hippy]

Does L RON Hubbard's cult have more followers.

I honestly don't have any idea how to count Randians... but rons little baby numbers over 8 million... slightly less than the trekkers cult I belive... tho apparently some trekkers are also Randians... but not it seems scientologists...

 

[Graceheart the Leopard]

 

[Silurian]

I honestly don't have any idea how to count Randians... but rons little baby numbers over 8 million... slightly less than the trekkers cult I belive... tho apparently some trekkers are also Randians... but not it seems scientologists...

Well Randians do seem to get embarrased when they get older and so leave.

Hubbard's followers become second tier actors.

 

[Eukaryote]

The worst part of this philosophy appears to be that it is entirely self defeating. She implies taxation is evil, therefore the only jobs available should be in the private sector. However conformity is also evil, therefore conforming to market forces when you don't want to is evil too. Therefore, working for the public sector is evil, and working for the private sector is evil too unless you want to. Therefore the only way to have a job that isn't evil is to want to work for the private sector and to do so.

 

[Icaria909]

I'm going to preface my statement on objectivism with the fact that I am not a objectivist or believe in Rand' philosophy.

I don't want to defend objectivism, but I hope the people making criticisms have a.) read her books and b.) have studied her philosophy. I say this because she redefines a lot of common terms and they form the foundation of her philosophy and if you don't know these definitions, then her philosophy will sound ridiculous.

Her philosophy ultimately stems from the idea that the individual should be intellectually, emotionally, and financially self sufficient. She defines selfishness as the idea that man can and shoul work towards being self sufficient without harming the rights and life of others. Another cornerstone of her philosophy is that there is absolute truth and man can discover truth in the world.

Based on these ideas, Rand has drawn many conclusions about Politics and economics. I everyone is more or less self sufficient, then we really don't need much of a government or government services. If a government puts restrictions on the economy, they are preventing my freedom to buy and sell as I see fit. What makes her feel this way is the idea that man can know the truth of all things and therefore will always act in an incorruptible way and will always know what is best for himself and the world through reason. If you don't believe man can act perfectly, then you are bound to disagree with her political and economic ideas.

A lot of people make ridiculous claims about her on this forum. She is not a front for conservatives. Her philosophical ideas began in the early soviet union before she emigrated here and many in the conservative movement (like Ron Paul) have used her philosophical ideas to justify her policies. It Gould also be noted that she really didn't believe in political parties and in fact hated libertarianism. In her view, one needs to enact cultural change before one should move into politics, and even then politics is only a
Means to an end and not an end of itself (like many politicians seem to believe today).

Like I said, I have my own reasons to not believe in her philosophy, but I hope that I you disagree with her then it because you have a legitimate understanding of her beliefs and are willing to criticize her in an intellectual manner. Do not just dismiss her as crazy. She is simply one philosopher among many in the modern world.

 

[Traitorfish]

Like I said, I have my own reasons to not believe in her philosophy, but I hope that I you disagree with her then it because you have a legitimate understanding of her beliefs and are willing to criticize her in an intellectual manner. Do not just dismiss her as crazy. She is simply one philosopher among many in the modern world.

Difference is, most of them didn't insist on working in an essentially late medieval framework. That's always going to knock a bit of credibility off you.

 

[Angst]

I don't want to defend objectivism, but I hope the people making criticisms have a.) read her books and b.) have studied her philosophy.

Stop right there.

The problem is that she isn't well-read at all. She has no position to provide a fundamental layer of her ethics or political system because she references nothing beyond contemporary things that really are more complex than she makes them out to be. As such she falls into complete nonsense when cast in the shadows of even her contemporary philosophers. She is only popular because of her radicality. Many philosophers enjoy that; Nietzsche writes violently and powerful, Kierkegaard is an airhead with incomprehensible yet beautiful and seemingly artistically true writing, Zizek is everywhere in the media and makes references to contemporary things with funny analyses such as his toilet example when explaining how architecture in some level showcases mindset differences in cultures.

I mean, seriously, even things she seemingly researched to provide real world arguments for her insanity, such as the building of railroads throughout America in the 1800s, was massively funded by government and falls into an embarassing fallacy of her argument.

I mean, she didn't even understand what she was doing herself as a "philosopher" and "writer". She believed that some works of the arts were objectively and inherently better than others; it shows a complete misunderstanding of how humanities work, what distinguishes them from science, and is mostly used by her as a cop-out to ensure herself a good position if her utopia ever became true (Because since her writing was objectively good, it should be objectively rewarded etc).

She's an old, outgrown teenager with ethical ideals founded on her subjective thoughts branded wrongly. Objectivism is a propagandist term that she was lucky to snatch. Her differentiation between subjectivity and objectivity was disproved several times before she was even born. She almost didn't argue against the philosophical research before her; either she was ignorant of two thousand years of philosophy or she didn't care about it, none of which being good when trying to make a properly argumented point.

And she has a problem when you can summarize her ideology as "All humans are objective, but some are more objective than others" when you understand that's a cross-reference to Animal Farm; and if you know the reference, she is in an unlucky position, because it's basically rational legitimization of oligarchal suppression.

 

[Ajidica]

Am I interpreting her correctly, and am I right to think this lady was bat crazy?

You are correct. I prefer to call her a cranky old Russian bat, but that is just me.
For the record, I have been making my way through her essays (not her books) and I can generaly count on her to make several abysmal historical errors, notably her fetishization of the Transcontinental Railroad and the Apollo Program as examples of her philosophy in action.

Or am I misinterpreting this? If the former, how'd she get published?

Her first few books got published because she was a halfway decent pop philosopher who managed to attract a cult following that lead to her sucessive books and essays being published.

 

[Part_Time_Civer]

Maybe I interpret her wrongly, but it sounds like she says a 2 things:
-That love should be deserved. That we are not obliged to care for others if they are, for instance, criminals.
-That we are not responsible for, or guilty of the misery of others unless we caused it.

That doesn't sound crazy, but as plain logic.

 

[Formaldehyde]

Egoism is just egotism with one letter removed.

 

[Ajidica]

Maybe I interpret her wrongly, but it sounds like she says a 2 things:
-That love should be deserved. That we are not obliged to care for others if they are, for instance, criminals.
-That we are not responsible for, or guilty of the misery of others unless we caused it.

That doesn't sound crazy, but as plain logic.

She sounds vaguely reasonable if you ignore every other part of her philosophy and her entire justification for it.

Also,

That love should be deserved.

I might be misremembering her, but doesn't she essentialy say love doesn't exist as it is used to hold down 'great men' or something like that?

EDIT: Also, I'm surprised nobody has linked to this yet:
http://sites.google.com/site/atlassucked/part-1

 

[Icaria909]

Difference is, most of them didn't insist on working in an essentially late medieval framework. That's always going to knock a bit of credibility off you.

I wouldn't say so. She bills her philosophy as one that falls in line with ideas about American individualism. She many times invokes this idea of American individualism and self-sufficiency to justify her own views and uses these as examples as to why America is the greatest country in the world.

You are correct. I prefer to call her a cranky old Russian bat, but that is just me.
For the record, I have been making my way through her essays (not her books) and I can generaly count on her to make several abysmal historical errors, notably her fetishization of the Transcontinental Railroad and the Apollo Program as examples of her philosophy in action.

This is one of the reasons why I do not believe in her philosophy. She does have a habit of misunderstanding history and using outdated facts to support her philosophy. However, it should be noted that she based her historical ideas on the historiography of the 1940s and 1950s. Many of things we have come to understand as historically true were only really talked about in the 1960s onward.

I mean, she didn't even understand what she was doing herself as a "philosopher" and "writer". She believed that some works of the arts were objectively and inherently better than others; it shows a complete misunderstanding of how humanities work, what distinguishes them from science, and is mostly used by her as a cop-out to ensure herself a good position if her utopia ever became true (Because since her writing was objectively good, it should be objectively rewarded etc).

She's an old, outgrown teenager with ethical ideals founded on her subjective thoughts branded wrongly. Objectivism is a propagandist term that she was lucky to snatch. Her differentiation between subjectivity and objectivity was disproved several times before she was even born. She almost didn't argue against the philosophical research before her; either she was ignorant of two thousand years of philosophy or she didn't care about it, none of which being good when trying to make a properly argumented point.

Her philosophy on art is a bit different than her other ideas. She does posit the idea that all activity is linked to philosophy. In fact, that is why most of her major protagonists are engineers, corporate CEOs, and businessmen. Even though few of her protagonists ever study philosophy, she does make them very philosophical (for example Howard Roark and Dafney Taggart). She therefore makes the conclusion that different forms of art are based on different philosophies. Because of this, she believes she can objectively say what is "good art" and "bad art." I agree with Lord Joakim that that is ridiculous though.

I don't think you can completely disregard her though. I may disagree with her ethics and epistemology but I do think she also had good ideas as well. I think we should view Rand in the way view Spinoza: many of her ideas will be disproven as the information she based her ideas on become outdated, but she did have some good ideas.

 

[Icaria909]

She sounds vaguely reasonable if you ignore every other part of her philosophy and her entire justification for it.

Also,

I might be misremembering her, but doesn't she essentialy say love doesn't exist as it is used to hold down 'great men' or something like that?

EDIT: Also, I'm surprised nobody has linked to this yet:
http://sites.google.com/site/atlassucked/part-1

She doesn't believe in love for man. You cannot love humanity according to her. However, you can definitely experience romantic love. She also does say that love must be earned. That idea isn't too complicated. You have to be worthy of love before you can give away your own love (not too different from most modern books on Romance IMHO). She would say that you shouldn't make your lover the major part of your life though, because that breeds dependency and that prevents you from being self-sufficient.

 

[aelf]

many of her ideas will be disproven as the information she based her ideas on become outdated, but she did have some good ideas.

What are these good ideas, please? You were not very explicit in making the distinction between the good ones and the rest.