Ayn Rand Exposed
The Lover of Hierarchy
The notion of hierarchy is integral to all forms of authoritarianism, yet this "libertarian" guru revels in it.
The man at the top of the intellectual pyramid contributes the most to all those below him, but gets nothing except his material payment, receiving no intellectual bonus from others to add to the value of his time. The man at the bottom who, left to himself, would starve in his hopeless ineptitude, contributes nothing to those above him, but receives the bonus of all of their brains. Such is the nature of the “competition” between the strong and the weak of the intellect. Such is the pattern of “exploitation” for which you have damned the strong
http://aynrandlexicon.com/lexicon/pyramid_of_ability.html
The Homophobe
[T]o proclaim spiritual sisterhood with lesbians... is so repulsive a set of premises from so loathsome a sense of life that an accurate commentary would require the kind of language I do not like to see in print."
The Philistine
Her hatred of "modern art" never rises above the cartoonish and is mirrored in every dictator and despot of the era.
Early in the twentieth century, for the first time in history, works purporting to be art were created that were not, in fact, art at all--bearing little or no resemblance to the painting, sculpture, literature, music, or dance that had come before. Whereas art had always integrated and made sense of human experience, this new work was invariably fragmented, disorienting, and unintelligible, often intentionally so. In many respects, it was more akin to madness, or to fraud, than to art.
http://www.aristos.org/editors/intro.htm
The Liar
She takes the most spun-out hippie world view and tries to make out like this was the philosophy of the New Left. She had to know she was lying.
Intellectually, the activists of the New Left are the most docile conformists. They have accepted as dogma all the philosophical beliefs of their elders for generations: the notions that faith and feeling are superior to reason, that material concerns are evil, that love is the solution to all problems, that the merging of one’s self with a tribe or a community is the noblest way to live. There is not a single basic principle of today’s Establishment which they do not share. Far from being rebels, they embody the philosophic trend of the past 200 years (or longer): the mysticism-altruism-collectivism axis, which has dominated Western philosophy from Kant to Hegel to James and on down http://aynrandlexicon.com/lexicon/new_left.html
Her Serial Killer Heart Throb
And finally, some compassion for this fifth-rate Nietzsche of the mini-malls.
http://www.slate.com/id/2233966/
Labels: Ayn Rand
posted by Larry Gambone at
5:29 PM
8 Comments:
Thanks for this, Larry!
"works purporting to be art were created that were not, in fact, art at all--bearing little or no resemblance to the painting, sculpture, literature, music, or dance that had come before."
Isn't that what Howard Roark did? I thought the whole point of her aesthetic philosophy was to stop recreating the past and start fresh. Nice summary. Rand has alot to recommend her, but it's important to pick and choose and dangerous to accept arguments based solely on her authority, as some objectivists seem to.
Rand was such a joke that I don't see how *anyone* on any part of the political/social spectrum can take her seriously.
The man at the top of the intellectual pyramid contributes the most to all those below him, but gets nothing except his material payment, receiving no intellectual bonus from others to add to the value of his time. The man at the bottom who, left to himself, would starve in his hopeless ineptitude, contributes nothing to those above him, but receives the bonus of all of their brains. Such is the nature of the “competition” between the strong and the weak of the intellect. Such is the pattern of “exploitation” for which you have damned the strong
How does one get to the top? They do with good schools with scholarships, healthcare that is affordable etc.
It's pretty easy - and pathetic - to be this selective and this out-of-context in one's treatment of a truly first-rate mind. You Rand-haters' days are numbered, because you simply cannot get away with this gross one-sided distortion and not be called on it at every turn - not for long. Whether it's due to ignorance, intellectual laziness, or flat-out malice, it's pathetic bigotry.
God damn it I wish blogger would let me post cartoons in comments. My mind has been working overtime on what would go with the title. Also the "numbering of days" is a great temptation as well.
Ultimate Philistine, Marx, Bakunin and Proudhon have been vilified by both the right and liberals for their occasional off-handed racist and anti-Semitic comments. But their prejudices were not integral to their theory and practice. For Rand on the other hand, her contempt for ordinary people and her loathing of democracy were integral parts of her ideology. Furthermore, her way of defeating the concepts or groups she hated was to use the logical fallacy of the straw man. Look only at the quote about the New Left. Her rendition of it is completely unrecognizable to anyone who, like myself, was actually part of that movement. She does the same with “collectivism” and “altruism”. In other words, Rand was an accomplished liar. Where she does say something of interest, it was said long before and many times better by Stirner and Nietzsche. She is a great philosopher and writer for people who don't know philosophy or writing.
She was also, as a commentator pointed out, a virulent racist. Here is what she thought about the First Nations:
“They didn't have any rights to the land, and there was no reason for anyone to grant them rights which they had not conceived and were not using . . . . What was it that they were fighting for, when they opposed white men on this continent? For their wish to continue a primitive existence, their 'right' to keep part of the earth untouched, unused and not even as property, but just keep everybody out so that you will live practically like an animal, or a few caves above it. Any white person who brings the element of civilization has the right to take over this continent.”
Crazy lady sure has cast a long shadow over our crazy lady loving province.
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