Check out http://youtu.be/_RTL0g851ic
This is also at the Freeminds channel at:
http://www.youtube.com/user/freeminds?feature=guide
and so feel free to comment and express your views of Ayn Rand!
Tell Zen he's a fuddy-duddy.
Zen's Rant on Ayn Rand - intelligent responses appreciated
by Dogpatch 70 Replies latest forum announcements
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Terry
There are ways to examine a controversial figure without poisoning a discussion ahead of time. One legitimate way of doing this is to
take one quote at a time and dismantle it as to "why"you disagree.
But, simply sneering and bad-mouthing is mere opinionating with bad manners thrown in!
A slipshod (and intellectually dishonest) way of dissing something is to cut and paste critics only. After all, who really CARES if you like or hate
something unless you're able to create a well-reasoned and factual rebuttal?
This fellow ZEN apparently has not actually READ what he dismisses. He's done zero research. He can't even pronounce Ayn Rand correctly.
In his rush to judgement he doesn't allow Ayn Rand to speak for herself because he is busy building a Straw Man substitute for what Rand approves and disapproves.
Cheap shots do not an argument make.
The Conservatives of her era were as put off by her as the Liberals because she called them out with surgical precision. Willam F. Buckley, a deeply religious Catholic, was offended by Rand's atheism. He never addressed her philosophy with honesty because of this. Privately, he was friendly with her and fascinated by her views.
Rand was Russian and had to teach herself English the hard way. Like Vladimir Nabokov and Joseph Conrad (non-native writers), she used the English language with great success; otherwise why would her books remain bestsellers half a century after their debut?
Essentially, Rand invented a way of communicating philosophy using fiction as the delivery system of ideas. Who before her did this and as well?
I liked the Fountainhead as a novel. I could not get the hang of Atlas Shrugged, so, I switched to the books-on-tape version and made it through.
My personal preference is for the straight philosophy books. Her ideas are like perfectly cut diamonds.
I would suggest anybody wishing to get an honest glimpse into the wonders of her mind, TRY THIS:
Wide-ranging “Playboy” interview now online
April 29, 2009 by Jeff Scialabba
Playboy has posted its Interview with Ayn RAnd. In the interview, Rand discusses her work and some of the practical implications of her ideas. The frank, wide-ranging conversation is particularly notable for its breadth.
Among the topics covered: guilt, original sin, emotions, motherhood, religion, morality, romantic love, sex, hedonism, promiscuity, charity, compassion, literature, government, free will, foreign policy, nuclear treaties, politicians and others.
Rand’s words, as they so often do, resonate as if they were spoken yesterday.
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Terry
About Ayn Rand
- Where can I find out about Ayn Rand’s life?
- Where and when was Ayn Rand born?
- How do you pronounce “Ayn”?
- What is the origin of “Rand”?
- Did Ayn Rand have any children?
- Of what did Ayn Rand die? Where is she buried?
- What university did Ayn Rand attend and what subject did she study?
- Did Ayn Rand have any siblings?
- For which film studios did Ayn Rand work?
About Ayn Rand’s Writings
- Where can I read about Ayn Rand’s view on . . .?
- Can I purchase recordings of lectures by Ayn Rand and other ARI speakers?
- How can I find out more about Ayn Rand’s intellectual and artistic development?
- I would like to perform Miss Rand’s play Night of January 16th . To whom should I write?
- Where do I send a request for permission to reprint an article or essay by Miss Rand?
- Where can I find foreign editions of Miss Rand’s books?
- Is Howard Roark based on Frank Lloyd Wright?
- In Atlas Shrugged a number of major events occur on September 2. What significance, if any, did this date have in Miss Rand’s life?
- Have any of Miss Rand’s novels been made into movies?
- I’m a teacher. May I reproduce one of Ayn Rand’s essays for my class?
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Band on the Run
wikipedia for a start. Google.
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littlerockguy
Youtube also has clips of interviews when she appeared on talk shows before she died.
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Berengaria
How incredibly sad
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EntirelyPossible
Ayn Rand preached self interest, greed, against social programs. She had affairs with married men and eventually died with almost all of her followers gone, using the same social programs she preached against to get the medical case she needed.
Fark her.
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metatron
I enjoyed Ayn Rand's writings in the same way I might enjoy a fifth of bad vodka or a porn movie. Enjoyable, but not good for you.
OTOH, some of her ideas are needed today with regard to the US drifting into a mass loss of freedom.
metatron
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Terry
Rand on Christmas and GREED:
The charming aspect of Christmas is the fact that it expresses good will in a cheerful, happy, benevolent, non-sacrificial way. One says: “Merry Christmas”—not “Weep and Repent.” And the good will is expressed in a material, earthly form—by giving presents to one’s friends, or by sending them cards in token of remembrance . . . .
The best aspect of Christmas is the aspect usually decried by the mystics: the fact that Christmas has been commercialized. The gift-buying . . . stimulates an enormous outpouring of ingenuity in the creation of products devoted to a single purpose: to give men pleasure. And the street decorations put up by department stores and other institutions—the Christmas trees, the winking lights, the glittering colors—provide the city with a spectacular display, which only “commercial greed” could afford to give us. One would have to be terribly depressed to resist the wonderful gaiety of that spectacle.
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Terry
Ayn Rand on SELF INTEREST:
When one speaks of man’s right to exist for his own sake, for his own rational self-interest, most people assume automatically that this means his right to sacrifice others. Such an assumption is a confession of their own belief that to injure, enslave, rob or murder others is in man’s self-interest—which he must selflessly renounce. The idea that man’s self-interest can be served only by a non-sacrificial relationship with others has never occurred to those humanitarian apostles of unselfishness, who proclaim their desire to achieve the brotherhood of men. And it will not occur to them, or to anyone, so long as the concept “rational” is omitted from the context of “values,” “desires,” “self-interest” and ethics.