by cappytan 80 Replies latest jw friends
For those of you familiar with Ayn Rand and her ideas on morality, rationality and reason, what is your opinion of those ideas?
I'm talking about her actual ideas, not the ideals that Libertarianism has adopted and, in some cases, perverted.
Do you think she's a Charlatan? Free-thinker? Misguided idealist? Smart cookie? Misunderstood Genius? Idealist for the sake of marketing her books?
If you're unfamiliar with her, here's an interview Mike Wallace conducted with her in 1959:
I partially agree with her expressed ideology of loving those who only deserve to be loved by rational objective morality.
But it kind of stops a bit short of expressing love for those who are disadvantaged within humanity.
Maybe a bit too narrow of a conceptual ideology.
What little I know about Ayn Rand doesn't particularly endear her to me.
I do, however, find it funny that so many conservatives hold her in high regard, particularly since they're so often religious whilst she was such a staunch atheist.
Evil, without a social conscience. People would starve and go homeless in her utopia simply because there would not be enough jobs.
Hypocrite, she was a chain smoker who suffered from lung cancer and had surgery paid for by Social Security.
She was a selfish hypocrite concerned only with herself and promoting her poorly thought out ideas.
Also what VI said.
Evil, without a social conscience. People would starve and go homeless in her utopia simply because there would not be enough jobs.
Interesting take.
Personally, I wouldn't say evil but I would say misguided and naive.
I personally have always been of the opinion, though, that it's folly to rely on others when it comes to survival. *Relying* on others can only make you complacent. You *have* to rely on yourself to truly survive and to truly get satisfaction out of whatever it is you do. In that respect, I agree with her.
I differ with her on other opinions when it comes to social welfare. I feel, though, that it's more beneficial to teach a man to fish than to give a man a fish.
Providing an education and marketable skills to disadvantaged is more valuable than providing them a check to last them another week.
To get a more cleaer understanding upon her philosophy one should view the entire interview by Mike Wallace in 1959.
Here's part 2 of that interview
cappytan: "Personally, I wouldn't say evil but I would say misguided and naïve."
Not her.
As for teaching a person to fish that is fine if there are any fish available. In this outsourced economy even good jobs like tool die makers are no longer needed in the US (I know two in that predicament). We cannot compete with China.
....and here is part 3
My own impression is she inherently derived her conceptual philosophy from out of the oppressive communistic ideology growing up in Russia. She moved to the United States to get away from that oppressiveness but perhaps went too far in her philosophy of unregulated governance to achieve individual opportunism.
