Ayn Rand and the Afterschooler

[Spy Car]

I'd much rather read Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn.

 

While he may have had a few weird ideas of his own, he had a far deeper personal experience with the evils of Soviet Communism, and even in translation the literary genius and intellect of Solzhenitsyn shines like a bright beacon. In comparison Rand was a hack.

 

Bill

[Roadrunner]

I'd much rather read Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn.

 

While he may have had a few weird ideas of his own, he had a far deeper personal experience with the evils of Soviet Communism, and even in translation the literary genius and intellect of Solzhenitsyn shines like a bright beacon. In comparison Rand was a hack.

 

Bill

 

And add in probably the best academical account written by Anne Applebaum called Gulag. I read it while pregnant with my second child. I don't know why anybody would tackle it at such a time, but after finishing it I knew exactly why our surviving relatives never talked about their experiences in Gulag.

 

Either way, none of those books will give you a picture of economic schizophrenia of a communist economy (even the number of toilet paper produced was planned and most of the time unsuccessfully :tongue_smilie:) and what type of moral degradation it produced. That's why I like the factory description.

[LMD]

I'd much rather read Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn.

 

 

Bill

 

Which book would you recommend in particular?

[Spy Car]

Which book would you recommend in particular?

 

My favorite, if presenting the context of Soviet crimes and the conditions in the gulags in a very direct way is not the main objective, is "Cancer Ward." It is a masterful and deeply philosphical novel. It skewers Soviet totalitarianism, but in a more subtle (and to me) a more satisfying way. It ranks for me as one of the all-time great novels.

 

If one would prefer a harder look at the realities of Soviet prisons the short novel "One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich" is quite impactful. Solzhenitzen was a prisoner in the Soviet system so the story draws on his first-hand experiences there. It is not a grand philosophical novel, but one that is accessible and moving.

 

If one really wants a grand sweep of Soviet crimes the "Gulag Archipelago" is monumental. I read this when it was first published (I believe it was 1974) and it was incredibly powerful in it's accounts of the Soviet prison system and the horrendous abuses of human rights that took place there. This one is more for those who have a scholarly-historic interest in the period (as it may be too much fro a "general" audience).

 

There are other options, but these three stand out (in different ways) as recommendations.

 

Bill

[LMD]

Thanks!

[pqr]

And add in probably the best academical account written by Anne Applebaum called Gulag. I read it while pregnant with my second child. I don't know why anybody would tackle it at such a time, but after finishing it I knew exactly why our surviving relatives never talked about their experiences in Gulag.

.

 

I thought Gulag was well written and interesting, though Conquest's books are, I thought better. Kolyma and his classics Harvest of Sorrow and The Great Terror bring home the true horrors of the system. It is the discussion of the famine and the means by which those who worked saw their property confiscated by others who shrieked about the "greedy," the "wealthy" and the "bourgeois" that I found telling. This was deliberate class warfare and the generating of visceral hatred of those who worked for the betterment of themselves and their families that did lead to a collapse of the economic system. When the producers were taken out of the equation (in this case via deliberate famine and murder) the system fails.

 

Obviously Solzhenitsyn is almost without par, Gulag Archipelago (unabridged) being arguably his best work, not necessarily for literary merit but rather as a grand expose of the true evil of the Soviet system and its beliefs.

 

For personal accounts of the Gulag system I found Into the Whirlwind by Ginzburg and The Alexander Dolgun Story to be very good.

 

I have had the privilege of speaking to many who suffered under the Soviet system and their stories make for some chilling discussions.

[Roadrunner]

I thought Gulag was well written and interesting, though Conquest's books are, I thought better. Kolyma and his classics Harvest of Sorrow and The Great Terror bring home the true horrors of the system.

 

I haven't read those. Thanks!!!

[pqr]

I haven't read those. Thanks!!!

 

You are most welcome.

 

For a different perspective try Special Tasks by Sudoplatov, who was high in the NKVD. His views on spy networks in the US, on kidnapping and murder by the Soviets, on the assassination of Trotsky, on Stalin and much more are fascinating. He was on the inside of a truly evil organization and is well worth the read even if he were an execrable individual.

[Roadrunner]

You are most welcome.

 

For a different perspective try Special Tasks by Sudoplatov, who was high in the NKVD. His views on spy networks in the US, on kidnapping and murder by the Soviets, on the assassination of Trotsky, on Stalin and much more are fascinating. He was on the inside of a truly evil organization and is well worth the read even if he were an execrable individual.

 

This will be a marvel!!! My grandmother used to tell lot of anecdotal stories on Trotsky murder. This book will be under my Christmas tree.

 

O.K. completely derailed the thread, but yes, I do think a lot of what's described in Atlas Shrugged isn't baseless. :001_smile:

[pqr]

Be aware that Sudoplatov claims that there was a mole in the US atomic program and there are some errors in his book, but in an autobiography there always will be.

 

The book also claims that the aforementioned mole was Bohr as was Oppenheimer, both these claims are hotly disputed.....

 

It further confirms that the Rosenbergs were traitors who worked for the Soviets.

Edited December 8, 2011 by pqr

[Spy Car]

O.K. completely derailed the thread, but yes, I do think a lot of what's described in Atlas Shrugged isn't baseless. :001_smile:

 

If Rand had quit with principled anti-Communism it would be one thing. Then she might have been a champion of human rights (but maybe still a hack writer). But that's not where she came down. Instead she promulgated an ugly ideology that switched out the "Capitalists as parasites" for one where non-Capatalists are parasites. Both are ugly.

 

Randianism/Objectivism goes way (way) beyond anti- communism and into a very dark territory of it's own.

 

Bill

[BabyBre]

Without having read through the thread, I just wanted to say I'm pretty sure you can be a capitalist AND a Christian at the same time or, conversely, a capitalist and an athiest. They're not mutually exclusive.

 

I recently finished Atlas Shrugged, and if I remember, I did pick up on a few passages that alluded to Rand's atheism, but it was by no means overwhelmingly present in her message.

[Word Nerd]

I've only read The Fountainhead, and despite the atheist undertones, I thought her idolatry of man (though only a certain type) was even more overt. I plan to read Atlas Shrugged at some point and own a copy but always seem to find something else I'd rather read.

[Spy Car]

Without having read through the thread, I just wanted to say I'm pretty sure you can be a capitalist AND a Christian at the same time or, conversely, a capitalist and an athiest. They're not mutually exclusive.

 

I recently finished Atlas Shrugged, and if I remember, I did pick up on a few passages that alluded to Rand's atheism, but it was by no means overwhelmingly present in her message.

 

One can't be an Objectivist and a Christian as the two are incompatible. Ayn Rand made that absolutely clear. As I stated earlier if one wants a clearer introduction to Randianism one does better reading the "Virtue of Selfishness" collection. In it you will find that Rand was not just an "atheist" but viciously anti-Christian. The virtues that Christians and secular-humanists share Rand called vices. What they might consider sin or moral depravity she might call virtue.

 

To think Ayn Rand was simply pro-Capitalist and anti-Communist is to have a very incomplete understanding of Objectivism.

 

Bill

[EmilyK]

Back on the USSR literature, I wanted to second "One Day in the Life.." and "Into the Whirlwind" -- both made a big impact on me, still remembered decades later.

[jenbrdsly]

One can't be an Objectivist and a Christian as the two are incompatible. Ayn Rand made that absolutely clear. As I stated earlier if one wants a clearer introduction to Randianism one does better reading the "Virtue of Selfishness" collection. In it you will find that Rand was not just an "atheist" but viciously anti-Christian. The virtues that Christians and secular-humanists share Rand called vices. What they might consider sin or moral depravity she might call virtue.

 

To think Ayn Rand was simply pro-Capitalist and anti-Communist is to have a very incomplete understanding of Objectivism.

 

Bill

 

:iagree::iagree::iagree:

If you came away from reading Atlas Shrugged and didn't think atheism was a major component of Ayn Rand's message, then honestly, I don't know what to say...

I'm a Christian, and although I would say that I find Ayn Rand's ideas interesting to think about, evaluate, and then reject, at its very heart Objectivism is the polar opposite to everything I hold dear as a United Methodist.

If you walked up to Ayn Rand and said "You are the antichrist," She would say “Thank you for the complimentâ€. In my mind, Christians who love Atlas Shrugged sound really ignorant.

[BabyBre]

If you came away from reading Atlas Shrugged and didn't think atheism was a major component of Ayn Rand's message, then honestly, I don't know what to say...

 

 

 

Well, even after I finished it, I felt it worth a second read. I wasn't reading from a Christian perspective, and therefore didn't pick up on an overwhelmingly athiest undertone.

[Stacy in NJ]

I'm no Rand expert; I have read both Atlas and Fountainhead, though.

 

Rand's argument wasn't that the masses were looters. Other capitalists who's intent was to capture government "for the good of society" were the looters. Those capitalists like Dagney's brother used the masses in populist fashion to vilify their competitors. The co-opting of capitalism by government and vice versa were her villians.

 

One need not actually live under the evils of Soviet Communism to understand the crimes of Stalin and his successors. The same is true of Nazism.

 

Anti-communist ideals are not hard to grasp. What is not justifiable is replacing one evil ideology with another. Which is the case here.

 

The Communists branded Capitalists "parasites" who suck the blood of the laboring masses, and Rand just turned it around and made it the masses who suck the blood of Capitalists. Either way you have one group that is lionized as a higher form of humanity, and another who are presented as sub-humans.

 

Both ideologies are sick.

 

Bill

[Storm Bay]

One need not actually live under the evils of Soviet Communism to understand the crimes of Stalin and his successors. The same is true of Nazism.

 

You can understand it, but it can't possible affect you the same way that living under it does.

 

Anti-communist ideals are not hard to grasp. What is not justifiable is replacing one evil ideology with another. Which is the case here.

 

The Communists branded Capitalists "parasites" who suck the blood of the laboring masses, and Rand just turned it around and made it the masses who suck the blood of Capitalists. Either way you have one group that is lionized as a higher form of humanity, and another who are presented as sub-humans.

 

Bill

 

I do agree with this. My grandparents were born in 1903 & 1905, around the same time as Rand. They lived through many horrors (people were shot for nothing, homes raided, etc) including some very close calls with their own lives. One of my great grandfathers was wealthy & owned a number of mills. One was burnt by a crowd who had been worked up, and 6 months later those same people came back & asked him to rebuild the mills because they were hungry and had no jobs. He said no. Eventually his mills were confiscated.

 

I'm not mentioned the horrors here, though, but my grandparents did not become Objectivists as a result. You don't have to espouse one or the other philosophy.

 

Remember Rand left the Soviet Union in the mid-20s. Her father had his store confiscated by the Reds, this obviously gave her a different perspective about those who produce and those who would take from them

 

Correct.

 

Now if you want to know what it was like politically in the thirties in the USSR, you read "1984". My grandparents went to sleep every day without knowing if they were going to wake up at home. Walls could hear what you said at home. I won't go into the horrors of torture. Too personal.

 

 

My grandparents lived this for much of their lives until they escaped. They wouldn't talk about it, so we only know of a few of the horrors they went through, but we know of it from others who came from where they did. It has a lifelong impact and is very serious.

 

Without having read through the thread, I just wanted to say I'm pretty sure you can be a capitalist AND a Christian at the same time or, conversely, a capitalist and an athiest. They're not mutually exclusive..

 

A capitalist doesn't have to be an objectivist. There are always a few who treat people decently & pay them living wages, and there are some Christian capitalists like this, as well as some other capitalists like this. However, there are a great many who aren't, and even today they'll go wherever in the world they can to have their stuff made as cheaply as possible by people paid nearly nothing in poor conditions because they care more about money than people. I'm not opposed to capitalism if there are ethics & controls, because I know that communism is oppressive and problematic--you lose a of rights (read the Communist Manifesto).

 

 

One can't be an Objectivist and a Christian as the two are incompatible. Ayn Rand made that absolutely clear.

 

To think Ayn Rand was simply pro-Capitalist and anti-Communist is to have a very incomplete understanding of Objectivism.

 

Bill

 

Correct.

[Spy Car]

You can understand it, but it can't possible affect you the same way that living under it does.

 

True. But that is not always a positive. Some people live through harrowing times and their response is to spend the rest of their lives trying to do good and in a small way help repair the world. But others end up deeply damaged, and replace one form of inhuman fanaticism for another.

 

There were many victims of the Nazis who became Communists in reaction, and victims of Communists who reacted by becoming Fascists. Ayn Rand was a deeply damaged person. The people in her personal life suffered for ambition and egoism, and her ideology stems from her damaged personality. Not a good basis for a worldview.

 

Bill

[Tullia]

I'm no Rand expert; I have read both Atlas and Fountainhead, though.

 

Rand's argument wasn't that the masses were looters. Other capitalists who's intent was to capture government "for the good of society" were the looters. Those capitalists like Dagney's brother used the masses in populist fashion to vilify their competitors. The co-opting of capitalism by government and vice versa were her villians.

 

:iagree:I've always thought Rand's villains were the opportunistic scoundrels who manipulated the masses. It's been 30+ years since I've read Rand's work, and people may be reading it for different reasons today. For me and most of my peers it was nothing more than a welcome relief from collectivist dogma--I've known only a few committed Objectivists. That was a time when 60's radicals were in the process of becoming college professors. Quoting Rand was a sure-fire way to derail a tedious lecture....not that I would have done such a thing. ;)

[Spy Car]

Rand has villains who manipulate the masses, and "heroes" who withdraw their creative energies/technologies/industries from the masses (who are parasites) leading to the doom of the masses. Either way, in Rand's novels, the masses are screwed. And she does not shed a tear for the large mass of humanity she views as sub-human. This is the essential feature of a facist-totalitarian mindset.

 

When one crosses the line into believing the world consists of supermen and sub-humans awful things follow.

 

 

Bill

[Jayne J]

In my experience (and I have had some) most Christians who claim to like Rand tend to talk solely about her views on capitalism, and tend to think that capitalism (pull yourself up by your bootstraps) goes hand in hand with Christianity. They especially seem to like her Laissez-Faire flavor. They seem largely to use quotes from the Old Testament, especially Proverbs, to support the idea that individual effort and good hard work will win God's blessing in the end.

They conveniently forget all the rest of her philosophy, and the New Testament as well.

[Stacy in NJ]

actually read the book. Rand never refers or implies that the masses are parasites. That kind of characterization is limited to the the industrialists, intellectuals, scientists and politicians who engage in incestuous relationships. In fact she express a great deal of respect for the common men who work in difficult and compromised circumstances. While the masses maybe "screwed" its not because of their inherit corruption, but, rather the corruption of the elites who manipulate them "for their own good".

 

Rand has villains who manipulate the masses, and "heroes" who withdraw their creative energies/technologies/industries from the masses (who are parasites) leading to the doom of the masses. Either way, in Rand's novels, the masses are screwed. And she does not shed a tear for the large mass of humanity she views as sub-human. This is the essential feature of a facist-totalitarian mindset.

 

When one crosses the line into believing the world consists of supermen and sub-humans awful things follow.

 

 

Bill

[jenbrdsly]

actually read the book. Rand never refers or implies that the masses are parasites. That kind of characterization is limited to the the industrialists, intellectuals, scientists and politicians who engage in incestuous relationships. In fact she express a great deal of respect for the common men who work in difficult and compromised circumstances. While the masses maybe "screwed" its not because of their inherit corruption, but, rather the corruption of the elites who manipulate them "for their own good".

 

 

I disagree. What about the train crash scene? She shows no pity, empathy or remorse for any of the vicitms on board. In fact, she goes out of her way to describe each and every ordinary person who got killed as actually kind of deserving their death because they were just ordinary, and not one of her "heroes" or "heroines".

[LMD]

I've only read Fountainhead and Atlas, but I"m wondering about this 'masses' discussion. I would agree that Rand doesn't have pity for them, I'm sure she's said as much - I seem to remember in her foreword to the fountainhead that she simply says something like 'I don't think of them'. However I think there's a disctinction between an unthinking mass and an ordinary hard-working thinking person - many of whom are heroes, I'm thinking of the builder in fountainhead especially. The former are a group that she seems to think have sacrificed their heroism for ease and conformity, at everyone's expense.

[Stacy in NJ]

:D

 

To me the crash scene read like a calculated effort to illustrate the cost of stupidity on a large scale - meaning the greed and stupidity of the industrialists and politicians - and how that plays out for ordinary folks who are victims of circumstance. She did emphasize their ordinariness - but not to vilify them.

 

I disagree. What about the train crash scene? She shows no pity, empathy or remorse for any of the victims on board. In fact, she goes out of her way to describe each and every ordinary person who got killed as actually kind of deserving their death because they were just ordinary, and not one of her "heroes" or "heroines".

[Stacy in NJ]

I think she treats the masses and the elites equally. She is harsh on those that she characterizes as cowardly, lazy, corrupt and greedy. She celebrates those that are bold, hardworking, self-driven - regardless of their class. There are many, many secondary characters that are of the working man variety that she treats very respectfully. It's about their character not their class.

 

I've only read Fountainhead and Atlas, but I"m wondering about this 'masses' discussion. I would agree that Rand doesn't have pity for them, I'm sure she's said as much - I seem to remember in her foreword to the fountainhead that she simply says something like 'I don't think of them'. However I think there's a disctinction between an unthinking mass and an ordinary hard-working thinking person - many of whom are heroes, I'm thinking of the builder in fountainhead especially. The former are a group that she seems to think have sacrificed their heroism for ease and conformity, at everyone's expense.

[Spy Car]

I disagree. What about the train crash scene? She shows no pity, empathy or remorse for any of the vicitms on board. In fact, she goes out of her way to describe each and every ordinary person who got killed as actually kind of deserving their death because they were just ordinary, and not one of her "heroes" or "heroines".

 

Exactly!

 

The conservative commentator Whittaker Chambers (no soul-mate of mine) was spot-on in his assessment of Rand in his famous review of Atlas Shrugged for the National Review. He (rightly) summarized her position as: "“To a gas chamber — go!â€

 

Chambers:

 

In Atlas Shrugged, all this debased inhuman riffraff is lumped as “looters.†This is a fairly inspired epithet. It enables the author to skewer on one invective word everything and everybody that she fears and hates. This spares her the plaguey business of performing one service that her fiction might have performed, namely: that of examining in human depth how so feeble a lot came to exist at all, let alone be powerful enough to be worth hating and fearing. Instead, she bundles them into one undifferentiated ****ation.

 

 

Rand (Atlas Shrugged):

 

As the tunnel came closer, they saw, at the edge of the sky far to the south, in a void of space and rock, a spot of living fire twisting in the wind. They did not know what it was and did not care to learn.

 

It is said that catastrophes are a matter of pure chance, and there were those who would have said that the passengers of the Comet were not guilty or responsible for the thing that happened to them.

 

The man in Bedroom A, Car No. 1, was a professor of sociology who taught that individual ability is of no consequence, that individual effort is futile, that an individual conscience is a useless luxury, that there is no individual mind or character or achievement, that everything is achieved collectively, and that it’s masses that count, not men.

 

The man in Roomette 7, Car No. 2, was a journalist who wrote that it is proper and moral to use compulsion ‘for a good cause’ who believed that he had the right to unleash physical force upon others – to wreck lives, throttle ambitions, strangle desires, violate convictions, to imprison, to despoil, to murder – for the sake of whatever he chose to consider as his own idea of ‘a good cause’,which did not even have to be an idea, since he had never defined what he regarded as the good, but had merely stated that he went by ‘a feeling’ -a feeling unrestrained by any knowledge, since he considered emotion superior to knowledge and relied soley on his own ‘good intentions’ and on the power of a gun.

 

The woman in Roomette 10, Car No.3, was an elderly schoolteacher who had spent her life turning class after class of helpless children into miserable cowards, by teaching them that the will of the majority is the only standard of good and evil, and that a majority may do anything it pleases, that they must not assert their own personalities, but must do as others were doing.

 

The man in Drawing Room B, Car No. 4, was a newspaper publisher who believed that men are evil by nature and unfit for freedom, that their basic interests, if left unchecked, are to lie, to rob and murder one another – and, therefore, men must be ruled by means of lies, robbery and murder, which must be made the exclusive privilege of the rules, for the purpose of forcing men to work, teaching them to be moral and keeping them within the bounds of order and justice.

 

The man in Bedroom H, Car No. 5, was a businessman who had acquired his business, an ore mine, with the help of a government loan, under the Equalization of Opportunity Bill.

 

The man in Drawing Room A, Car No 6, was a financier who had made a fortune by buying ‘frozen’ railway bonds and getting his friends in Washington to ‘defreeze’ them.

 

The man in Seat 5, Car No.7, was a worker who believed that he had “a right†to a job, whether his employer wanted him or not.

 

The woman in Roomette 6, Car no. 8, was a lecturer who believed that, as a consumer, she had “a right†to transportation, whether the railroad people wished to provide it or not.

 

The man in Roomette 2, Car No. 9, was a professor of economics who advocated the abolition of private property, explaining that intelligence plays no part in industrial production, that man’s mind is conditioned by material tools, that anybody can run a factory or a railroad and it’s only a matter of seizing the machinery.

 

The woman in Bedroom D, Car No. 10, was a mother who had put her two children to sleep in the berth above her, carefully tucking them in, protecting them from drafts and jolts; a mother whose husband held a government job enforcing directives, which she defended by saying, ‘I don’t care, it’s only the rich that they hurt. After all, I must think of my children.’

 

The man in Roomette 3, Car No. 11, was a sniveling little neurotic who wrote cheap little plays into which, as a social message, he inserted cowardly little obscenities to the effect that all businessmen were scoundrels.

 

The woman in Roomette 9, Car No. 12, was a housewife who believed that she had the right to elect politicians, of whom she knew nothing, to control giant industries, of which she had no knowledge.

 

The man in Bedroom F, Car No.13, was a lawyer who had said, ‘Me? I’ll find a way to get along under any political system.’

 

The man in Bedroom A, Car No.14, was a professor of philosophy who taught that there is no mind – how do you know that the tunnel is dangerous? – no reality – how can you prove that the tunnel exists? – no logic – why do you claim that trains cannot move without motive power? – no principles – why should you be bound by the laws of cause and effect? – no rights – why shouldn’t you attach men to their jobs by force? – no morality – what’s moral about running a railroad? – no absolutes – what difference does it make to you whether you live or die anyway?. He taught that we know nothing – why oppose the orders of your superiors? – that we can never be certain of anything – how do you know you’re right? – that we must act on the expediency of the moment – you don’t want to risk your job do you?

 

The man in Drawing Room B, Car No.15, was an heir who had inherited his fortune, and who had kept repeating, ‘Why should Rearden be the only one permitted to manufacture Rearden Metal?’

 

The man in Bedroom A, Car no. 16, was a humanitarian who had said, ‘The men of ability? I do not care what or if they are made to suffer. They must be penalized in order to support the incompetent. Frankly, I do not care whether this is just or not. I take pride in not caring to grant any justice to the able, where mercy to the needy is concerned.’

 

These passengers were awake; there was not a man aboard the train who did not share one or more of their ideas. As the train went into the tunnel, the flame of Wyatt’s Torch was the last thing they saw on earth.â€

 

Now Rand may have believed that women (and their children) deserve death because their husbands have government jobs, or any other such nonsense, but it is beyond understanding how one get to the idea that Rand had anything but contempt for the vast majority of human beings.

[LMD]

I think she treats the masses and the elites equally. She is harsh on those that she characterizes as cowardly, lazy, corrupt and greedy. She celebrates those that are bold, hardworking, self-driven - regardless of their class. There are many, many secondary characters that are of the working man variety that she treats very respectfully. It's about their character not their class.

 

I don't disagree. I guess I'm thinking that her idea of masses was more to do with thought (or not) rather than class or standing.

 

To me the crash scene read like a calculated effort to illustrate the cost of stupidity on a large scale - meaning the greed and stupidity of the industrialists and politicians - and how that plays out for ordinary folks who are victims of circumstance. She did emphasize their ordinariness - but not to vilify them. [/Quote]

I agree with the bolded, however I read the rest as not being simply victims of circumstance - but the adults as consciously choosing to buy into and propagate the 'looting' mindframe, or to simply refuse to think to avoid any responsibility. I don't think they died because they were 'ordinary' - but because they ascribed to the looting doctrine and sealed their fate.

I also read into that particular scene quite a grave and sombre tone - maybe the closest she could come to pity? That may have just been my interpretation I admit.

Also, I didn't read anything about marching people to their deaths, rather standing back and letting them see their stupidity. Not an aggressive action but rather a passive one.

 

All that said, I am not an objectivist or randian by any stretch. But I did love atlas shrugged and it's subjects have afforded DH and I many interesting discussions.

[Stacy in NJ]

Have you actually read the book? It's fantastic that you can cut and paste the opinions of others that have read it, but context is everything. Possibly the reason you're not able to place this discussion in context is because you haven't read the book.

 

Try it; you might like it.

 

Exactly!

 

The conservative commentator Whittaker Chambers (no soul-mate of mine) was spot-on in his assessment of Rand in his famous review of Atlas Shrugged for the National Review. He (rightly) summarized her position as: "“To a gas chamber — go!â€

 

Chambers:

 

In Atlas Shrugged, all this debased inhuman riffraff is lumped as “looters.†This is a fairly inspired epithet. It enables the author to skewer on one invective word everything and everybody that she fears and hates. This spares her the plaguey business of performing one service that her fiction might have performed, namely: that of examining in human depth how so feeble a lot came to exist at all, let alone be powerful enough to be worth hating and fearing. Instead, she bundles them into one undifferentiated ****ation.

 

 

Rand (Atlas Shrugged):

 

As the tunnel came closer, they saw, at the edge of the sky far to the south, in a void of space and rock, a spot of living fire twisting in the wind. They did not know what it was and did not care to learn.

 

It is said that catastrophes are a matter of pure chance, and there were those who would have said that the passengers of the Comet were not guilty or responsible for the thing that happened to them.

 

The man in Bedroom A, Car No. 1, was a professor of sociology who taught that individual ability is of no consequence, that individual effort is futile, that an individual conscience is a useless luxury, that there is no individual mind or character or achievement, that everything is achieved collectively, and that it’s masses that count, not men.

 

The man in Roomette 7, Car No. 2, was a journalist who wrote that it is proper and moral to use compulsion ‘for a good cause’ who believed that he had the right to unleash physical force upon others – to wreck lives, throttle ambitions, strangle desires, violate convictions, to imprison, to despoil, to murder – for the sake of whatever he chose to consider as his own idea of ‘a good cause’,which did not even have to be an idea, since he had never defined what he regarded as the good, but had merely stated that he went by ‘a feeling’ -a feeling unrestrained by any knowledge, since he considered emotion superior to knowledge and relied soley on his own ‘good intentions’ and on the power of a gun.

 

The woman in Roomette 10, Car No.3, was an elderly schoolteacher who had spent her life turning class after class of helpless children into miserable cowards, by teaching them that the will of the majority is the only standard of good and evil, and that a majority may do anything it pleases, that they must not assert their own personalities, but must do as others were doing.

 

The man in Drawing Room B, Car No. 4, was a newspaper publisher who believed that men are evil by nature and unfit for freedom, that their basic interests, if left unchecked, are to lie, to rob and murder one another – and, therefore, men must be ruled by means of lies, robbery and murder, which must be made the exclusive privilege of the rules, for the purpose of forcing men to work, teaching them to be moral and keeping them within the bounds of order and justice.

 

The man in Bedroom H, Car No. 5, was a businessman who had acquired his business, an ore mine, with the help of a government loan, under the Equalization of Opportunity Bill.

 

The man in Drawing Room A, Car No 6, was a financier who had made a fortune by buying ‘frozen’ railway bonds and getting his friends in Washington to ‘defreeze’ them.

 

The man in Seat 5, Car No.7, was a worker who believed that he had “a right†to a job, whether his employer wanted him or not.

 

The woman in Roomette 6, Car no. 8, was a lecturer who believed that, as a consumer, she had “a right†to transportation, whether the railroad people wished to provide it or not.

 

The man in Roomette 2, Car No. 9, was a professor of economics who advocated the abolition of private property, explaining that intelligence plays no part in industrial production, that man’s mind is conditioned by material tools, that anybody can run a factory or a railroad and it’s only a matter of seizing the machinery.

 

The woman in Bedroom D, Car No. 10, was a mother who had put her two children to sleep in the berth above her, carefully tucking them in, protecting them from drafts and jolts; a mother whose husband held a government job enforcing directives, which she defended by saying, ‘I don’t care, it’s only the rich that they hurt. After all, I must think of my children.’

 

The man in Roomette 3, Car No. 11, was a sniveling little neurotic who wrote cheap little plays into which, as a social message, he inserted cowardly little obscenities to the effect that all businessmen were scoundrels.

 

The woman in Roomette 9, Car No. 12, was a housewife who believed that she had the right to elect politicians, of whom she knew nothing, to control giant industries, of which she had no knowledge.

 

The man in Bedroom F, Car No.13, was a lawyer who had said, ‘Me? I’ll find a way to get along under any political system.’

 

The man in Bedroom A, Car No.14, was a professor of philosophy who taught that there is no mind – how do you know that the tunnel is dangerous? – no reality – how can you prove that the tunnel exists? – no logic – why do you claim that trains cannot move without motive power? – no principles – why should you be bound by the laws of cause and effect? – no rights – why shouldn’t you attach men to their jobs by force? – no morality – what’s moral about running a railroad? – no absolutes – what difference does it make to you whether you live or die anyway?. He taught that we know nothing – why oppose the orders of your superiors? – that we can never be certain of anything – how do you know you’re right? – that we must act on the expediency of the moment – you don’t want to risk your job do you?

 

The man in Drawing Room B, Car No.15, was an heir who had inherited his fortune, and who had kept repeating, ‘Why should Rearden be the only one permitted to manufacture Rearden Metal?’

 

The man in Bedroom A, Car no. 16, was a humanitarian who had said, ‘The men of ability? I do not care what or if they are made to suffer. They must be penalized in order to support the incompetent. Frankly, I do not care whether this is just or not. I take pride in not caring to grant any justice to the able, where mercy to the needy is concerned.’

 

These passengers were awake; there was not a man aboard the train who did not share one or more of their ideas. As the train went into the tunnel, the flame of Wyatt’s Torch was the last thing they saw on earth.â€

 

Now Rand may have believed that women (and their children) deserve death because their husbands have government jobs, or any other such nonsense, but it is beyond understanding how one get to the idea that Rand had anything but contempt for the vast majority of human beings.

[Roadrunner]

I don't disagree. I guess I'm thinking that her idea of masses was more to do with thought (or not) rather than class or standing.

 

 

This is exactly how I saw it as well.

[Spy Car]

Have you actually read the book? It's fantastic that you can cut and paste the opinions of others that have read it, but context is everything. Possibly the reason you're not able to place this discussion in context is because you haven't read the book.

 

Try it; you might like it.

 

I'd really like to ask you the same question, as it seems you've entirely missed the point of a work that is, if little else, obvious.

 

I've read it and many other works by Rand. I think they are morally reprehensible.

 

One needs to "cut and paste" only because you deny the central thesis of Rand's novel and I felt compelled to counter this distortion with Rand's own words.

 

Bill

[Stacy in NJ]

Particularly the bolded part. I think she was rather merciless to all the "looters", but looters were identified by their behavior rather than their class. To say, as spycar did, that she identified the masses as parasites was very far off the mark from my reading.

 

I'm no Randian either. I simply read the books to learn a thing or two about a thing or two. I didn't enjoy her writing style but did enjoy the themes of the books.

 

I don't disagree. I guess I'm thinking that her idea of masses was more to do with thought (or not) rather than class or standing.

 

I agree with the bolded, however I read the rest as not being simply victims of circumstance - but the adults as consciously choosing to buy into and propagate the 'looting' mindframe, or to simply refuse to think to avoid any responsibility. I don't think they died because they were 'ordinary' - but because they ascribed to the looting doctrine and sealed their fate.

I also read into that particular scene quite a grave and sombre tone - maybe the closest she could come to pity? That may have just been my interpretation I admit.

Also, I didn't read anything about marching people to their deaths, rather standing back and letting them see their stupidity. Not an aggressive action but rather a passive one.

 

All that said, I am not an objectivist or randian by any stretch. But I did love atlas shrugged and it's subjects have afforded DH and I many interesting discussions.

[Stacy in NJ]

I'd really like to ask you the same question, as it seems you've entirely missed the point of a work that is, if little else, obvious.

 

I've read it and many other works by Rand. I think they are morally reprehensible.

 

One needs to "cut and paste" only because you deny the central thesis of Rand's novel and I felt compelled to counter this distortion with Rand's own words.

 

Bill

 

No. I didn't miss the primary points. I think you have firmly held beliefs that distort your ability to see it as it actually is rather than how you prefer to view it. They seem of an almost religious quality. You seem quite talented in discussing what others (some type of expert) has said or written of Atlas, but you're not really discussing it as personal experience, which I find odd.

 

You placed your project outside of the full context of the chapter. I encourage you to review the entire chapter.

[Spy Car]

I did not say Rand divided looters (or parasites) from the "creators" based on "social class." She would have cast many wealthy among her parasites.

 

The point remains there is a very narrow sliver of humanity that in Rand's view is deserving of enjoying the fruits of their own labors (including ultimately life) and the rest of humanity are parasites who deserve nothing but death.

 

This is what John Gault's strike is about. The "creatives" withdraw their genius and industry from society and leave the parasites—who Rand believes are too stupid, lazy, and unworthy to care for themselves—to parish in what is tantamount to a genocide.

 

Nice "philosophy."

 

It is: "To a gas chamber—go," Whittaker Chambers had it just right.

 

Bill

[LMD]

I did not say Rand divided looters (or parasites) from the "creators" based on "social class." She would have cast many wealthy among her parasites.

 

The point remains there is a very narrow sliver of humanity that in Rand's view is deserving of enjoying the fruits of their own labors (including ultimately life) and the rest of humanity are parasites who deserve nothing but death.

 

This is what John Gault's strike is about. The "creatives" withdraw their genius and industry from society and leave the parasites—who Rand believes are too stupid, lazy, and unworthy to care for themselves—to perish in what is tantamount to a genocide.

 

Nice "philosophy."

 

It is: "To a gas chamber—go," Whittaker Chambers had it just right.

 

Bill

 

I disagree with the bolded part Bill.

 

I believe she has no problem with people enjoying the fruit of their own labours. But if you refuse to labour - think or work - then what? I don't see it as creators vs plebians, but rather that the masses are worthy and able to care for themselves, to realise that they have the same innate ability to be creators, if they choose to see it. Instead of sacrificing their conscience and their value for ease and conformity. I would like to think that this Rands ideal - people seeing their value and living it - rather than mass carnage.

 

But then, I'm only taking from it what I want to - I'm sure Rand would hate me for it. :001_smile:

Edited December 14, 2011 by LMD

[Spy Car]

 

But then, I'm only taking from it what I want to - I'm sure Rand would hate me for it. :001_smile:

 

I'm sure you're right, but don't feel bad as Rand pretty much hated everyone. Her's was not an ideology of love.

 

Bill

[Roadrunner]

Is there anybody here from former communist countries? I am interested on their take on the book.

[LMD]

I'm sure you're right, but don't feel bad as Rand pretty much hated everyone. Her's was not an ideology of love.

 

Bill

 

I don't feel the slightest, itty bittiest bit bad. :lol:

[LMD]

Is there anybody here from former communist countries? I am interested on their take on the book.

 

I'm not, but my DH's parents and both sets of grandparents emigrated to Australia to escape a communist country. His grandparents especially have stories - some they have shared - that are horrific. They're not big readers though, I can't see them getting through it...

[Stacy in NJ]

Your words:

 

"The Communists branded Capitalists "parasites" who suck the blood of the laboring masses, and Rand just turned it around and made it the masses who suck the blood of Capitalists. Either way you have one group that is lionized as a higher form of humanity, and another who are presented as sub-humans."

 

 

 

 

I did not say Rand divided looters (or parasites) from the "creators" based on "social class." She would have cast many wealthy among her parasites.

 

The point remains there is a very narrow sliver of humanity that in Rand's view is deserving of enjoying the fruits of their own labors (including ultimately life) and the rest of humanity are parasites who deserve nothing but death.

 

This is what John Gault's strike is about. The "creatives" withdraw their genius and industry from society and leave the parasites—who Rand believes are too stupid, lazy, and unworthy to care for themselves—to parish in what is tantamount to a genocide.

 

Nice "philosophy."

 

It is: "To a gas chamber—go," Whittaker Chambers had it just right.

 

Bill

Edited December 14, 2011 by Stacy in NJ

[Spy Car]

No. You created a false equivalency.

 

Your words:

 

"The Communists branded Capitalists "parasites" who suck the blood of the laboring masses, and Rand just turned it around and made it the masses who suck the blood of Capitalists. Either way you have one group that is lionized as a higher form of humanity, and another who are presented as sub-humans."

 

Not a false equivalency but precisely the case.

 

Both Rand and the Soviet Communists may have found some common enemies such as Priests, Bishops, Nuns, and other religious figures. And both would have despised certain bourgeois elements that they felt lived on inherited wealth or other undeserved enrichments.

 

But—in the main—Rand lionized a small minority of "creators" while castigating the overwhelming majority of people as looters, moochers, and parasites who she felt did not deserve love nor life.

 

Bill

[jenbrdsly]

Whoa! This thread is getting a bit crazy. I just thought I'd point out that from my view, it is very clear that like me, Bill has extensively read the works of Ayn Rand, as well as the commentaries about her. I can 100% tell that from the comments he has made.

 

But has anyone watched the sketchy Helen Mirren movie "The Passions of Ayn Rand", or only me? :tongue_smilie:

[Roadrunner]

 

But has anyone watched the sketchy Helen Mirren movie "The Passions of Ayn Rand", or only me? :tongue_smilie:

 

I haven't. Anything interesting in there we haven't learned from this thread? :001_smile:

[jenbrdsly]

I haven't. Anything interesting in there we haven't learned from this thread? :001_smile:

 

Only the part about Ayn Rand and Nathaniel Branden.

Nathaniel Branden and his wife Barbara were Any Rand's best friends and protégés, even though they were significantly younger than her. They were the two most important people in her collective, besides Rand herself.

Ayn Rand convinced Barbara and her husband Frank that Ayn and Nathaniel should have, umm... regular days to conduct an affair, because Ayn and Nathaniel were the two most "hero-like" people in existence. (I'm not making this up. I've read several books about it now.)

So Frank would take off every Wednesday or something, and Nathaniel would come over. It was really hard on both Barbra and Frank as you can imagine. But if they protested, they would lose Ayn Rand's good graces.

This went on for years and years. It got to the point where Nathaniel even wanted to break it off, but couldn’t because he would lose Ayn’s favor. Finally, Nathaniel met a younger woman, and broke things off with both Ayn and his wife Barbara. Ayn was furious and banished him from the collective, but Barbara stayed for a while.

Nobody in the collective knew about the affair. Finally Baraba came out with it, and Ayn denied it and then banished Barbara. Everyone, including Alan Greesnpban, believed Ayn, even though it wasn't true. The whole collective was so brainwashed by her, they couldn't look at facts and think for themselves that this point.

We haven't even mentioned Alan Greenspan because this board is not supposed to be political, but he and Ayn were also good buddies (but not in the Nathaniel way).

[Roadrunner]

Only the part about Ayn Rand and Nathaniel Branden.

 

Nathaniel Branden and his wife Barbara were Any Rand's best friends and protégés, even though they were significantly younger than her. They were the two most important people in her collective, besides Rand herself.

 

Ayn Rand convinced Barbara and her husband Frank that Ayn and Nathaniel should have, umm... regular days to conduct an affair, because Ayn and Nathaniel were the two most "hero-like" people in existence. (I'm not making this up. I've read several books about it now.)

 

So Frank would take off every Wednesday or something, and Nathaniel would come over. It was really hard on both Barbra and Frank as you can imagine. But if they protested, they would lose Ayn Rand's good graces.

 

This went on for years and years. It got to the point where Nathaniel even wanted to break it off, but couldn’t because he would lose Ayn’s favor. Finally, Nathaniel met a younger woman, and broke things off with both Ayn and his wife Barbara. Ayn was furious and banished him from the collective, but Barbara stayed for a while.

 

Nobody in the collective knew about the affair. Finally Baraba came out with it, and Ayn denied it and then banished Barbara. Everyone, including Alan Greesnpban, believed Ayn, even though it wasn't true. The whole collective was so brainwashed by her, they couldn't look at facts and think for themselves that this point.

 

We haven't even mentioned Alan Greenspan because this board is not supposed to be political, but he and Ayn were also good buddies (but not in the Nathaniel way).

 

I have got to see this movie! :lol:

I wonder if she was always like this, or she became increasingly full of herself with age.

[Spy Car]

Whoa! This thread is getting a bit crazy. I just thought I'd point out that from my view, it is very clear that like me, Bill has extensively read the works of Ayn Rand, as well as the commentaries about her. I can 100% tell that from the comments he has made.

 

But has anyone watched the sketchy Helen Mirren movie "The Passions of Ayn Rand", or only me? :tongue_smilie:

 

Err, I did :D

 

Watch the movie, I mean.

 

Bill

[Tullia]

I have got to see this movie! :lol:

I wonder if she was always like this, or she became increasingly full of herself with age.

 

I'd guess that she was always an extremely difficult person. Based on some interviews I've seen which she gave near the end of her life I'd describe her more as having given up on people recognizing her supposed superiority and cherishing a growing bitterness about that. I don't remember anymore which show she appeared on, but I think some of the interviews are available on the internet.

 

ETA: I was thinking of the Phil Donahue show. If you search for "Ayn Rand youtube" you'll find a 5-part series. I also saw a couple of interviews with Mike Wallace from 1959 which I had not watched--no surprise since my family did not have television in '59 and I wasn't old enough to be interested.

Edited December 14, 2011 by Martha in NM

[Spy Car]

I have got to see this movie! :lol:

I wonder if she was always like this, or she became increasingly full of herself with age.

 

From the biographies I've read—and Rand's writings affirm this—she was pretty much always the way she was. An egoist of the highest magnitude. Her venom for the Soviet Communists was not due so much to their greater crimes against humanity, but due to her losing her position and prospects.

 

Her family got her out of Russia, and she pretty much abandoned them. She "used" relations in the US and them dumped them when they were no longer useful to her. Her professional career was the same way. She was a striver and a back-stabber who had no interest in anyone else other than in what they could do for her.

 

Numerous members of her "Collective" (weird name for radical individualists when you think about it) were "excommunicated" for crossing her. Branden felt forced into a sexual relationship by Rand (who was 24 or 25 years his senior). He tried to make excuses as the affair wore on that he was having sexual difficulties and other such things when the truth was he found Rand increasingly repulsive but he was trapped in the relationship and knew what would happen if he broke it off.

 

When one look at the personal life of Ayn Rand one finds exactly the sort of miserable life one would expect of a complete egotist. Hers was not a pretty life. Her treatment of her husband was despicable. While she claimed to be fueled by "reason" the truth was she was fueled by amphetamines.

 

After ridiculing the mounting scientific evidence that cigarettes cause cancer (which was untrue government propaganda in her mind) Ayn Rand, a two pack a day smoker, developed lung cancer. She drew on Medicare and Social Security (two programs that in her works she equated using with being "enslaved") to help pay for her medical care. She drew those benefits under the name Ann O'Connor.

 

There is a lot more. Including her admiration for a serial-killer who murdered, mutilated and then dismembered a 12 year old girl in Los Angeles. The young Rand, who was then in Hollywood trying to break into the movies thought this killer's "what's good for me is right" credo was heroic as a Nietzschian manifestation of the Ãœbermensch who is not bound by conventional morality. And she attacked those who were repelled by the crime.

 

From her Journals:

 

"The first thing that impresses me about the case is the ferocious rage of a whole society against one man. No matter what the man did, there is always something loathsome in the 'virtuous' indignation and mass-hatred of the 'majority.'... It is repulsive to see all these beings with worse sins and crimes in their own lives, virtuously condemning a criminal...

 

"This is not just the case of a terrible crime. It is not the crime alone that has raised the fury of public hatred. It is the case of a daring challenge to society. It is the fact that a crime has been committed by one man, alone; that this man knew it was against all laws of humanity and intended that way; that he does not want to recognize it as a crime and that he feels superior to all. It is the amazing picture of a man with no regard whatever for all that society holds sacred, and with a consciousness all his own. A man who really stands alone, in action and in soul."

 

One could go on and on.

 

This was a deeply damaged person. And not one to look to for a ideology of good living.

 

Bill

Edited December 14, 2011 by Spy Car