/lit/ - Literature

>>19763599
>Thats all her critics can come up with. Fucking cringe
That and the whole huurrrr she took government aid which apparently never happened, as far as I looked into it.

>>19763556
If you're already read Atlas Shrugged, the general path is to read We The Living and The Fountainhead, then read her non-fiction, then you read The Philosophy of Ayn Rand by Peikoff, go on ARI Campus and watch their lectures to integrate all the branches of her philosophy ( https://www.atlassociety.org/post/philosophy-on-one-foot ) and read secondary material such as Peikoff's such as The Logical Leap and the Virtuous Egoist by Tara Smith. But then you realize that there are some inconsistencies in her philosophy (for example her views intellectual property and meta-ethics are objectively wrong) and you read about the Peikoff-Kelley split and read The Contested Legacy of Ayn Rand by David Kelley which makes you realize that merely parroting everything Ayn Rand said is dogmatism and goes against what she argued was her philosophy because you have to think for yourself on everything. From that, you start reading up on Neo-Objectivists and independently have to re-examine all branches of philosophy and spend time integrating everything into a cohesive ideology that you call your own but also adheres to the branches of philosophy that Ayn Rand outlined (Metaphysics: Existences exists, A is A; Epistemology: Reason; Morality: Rational egoism; Politics: Capitalism (note that her system also falls in line with anarcho-capitalism, despite her criticism of anarchists)). When you reach this point you have become not only the best philosopher of the world but the 0.0001% of objectivists by having the answers to everything and surpassed Ayn Rand herself.

>>13281313
>Bioshock
>Refuting Ayn Rand
Fucking lol. Andrew Ryan is basically a Robert Stadler character speaking Ayn Rand dialogue but compromising every step of the way.
>Ayn Rand advocates for a minamilist government
>Andrew Ryan acts as a dictator without any government, only allowing famous people run it
>Ayn Rand advocates free speech as an absolute
>Andrew Ryan gets triggered by the bible and bans it
>Ayn Rand advocates open immigration
>Andrew Ryan advocates isolationism
>Ayn Rand advocates a single police force controlled by the state to maintain peace
>Andrew Ryan has his own police force that openly violates the rights of others for information on Fountaine

The amount Bioshock got wrong on Ayn Rand is insane. It's so bad that you can argue that the game is advocating that if you compromise on what Ayn Rand argued, you will doom yourself.

>>13281828
Her philosophy can be summed up as: by your own strength and creativity, live without exploiting others. If you do not engage in your means to be self-sufficient, you will give up your survival in the hands of another. Her refutation of Nietzsche is why she is against will to power, as Nietzsche advocated independence but nevertheless argued that you could use others for your own benefit. Ayn Rand argues to not give a fuck about other by living for your own sake, never using others as a means to an end.

>>13283148
>If anything Ayn Rand's philosophy is also a product of slave morality to the status quo she lived in.
Bullshit. She was against slave morality in regards to altruism. Ayn Rand and Nietzsche are on the same page in regards to slave morality, but Ayn Rand disagreed with Nietzsche that people were born to be slaves. She argued that anyone that embraces altruism is dooming themselves to their own destruction, while Nietzsche just saw it as an attack on the strong.

>>11098716
>Humor is the denial of metaphysical importance to that which you laugh at.

>>10213062
>Anarchism is individualism dude
lol

>Anarchy, as a political concept, is a naive floating abstraction: a society without an organized government would be at the mercy of the first criminal who came along and who would precipitate it into the chaos of gang warfare. But the possibility of human immorality is not the only objection to anarchy: even a society whose every member were fully rational and faultlessly moral, could not function in a state of anarchy; it is the need of objective laws and of an arbiter for honest disagreements among men that necessitates the establishment of a government.
>If a society provided no organized protection against force, it would compel every citizen to go about armed, to turn his home into a fortress, to shoot any strangers approaching his door—or to join a protective gang of citizens who would fight other gangs, formed for the same purpose, and thus bring about the degeneration of that society into the chaos of gang-rule, i.e., rule by brute force, into perpetual tribal warfare of prehistorical savages.
>The use of physical force—even its retaliatory use—cannot be left at the discretion of individual citizens. Peaceful coexistence is impossible if a man has to live under the constant threat of force to be unleashed against him by any of his neighbors at any moment. Whether his neighbors’ intentions are good or bad, whether their judgment is rational or irrational, whether they are motivated by a sense of justice or by ignorance or by prejudice or by malice—the use of force against one man cannot be left to the arbitrary decision of another.

Stirner, and Stirnerfags, like Anarchy in so far as to have the freedom to do anything. Peak individuality is understanding that spooks exist to protect you, not to stop you from doing anything. Ayn Rand understood that a limited government was better than no government at all or else it would become mob rule or a state of nature. You want freedom without the responsibility.

>>10143499
Just because desires are irrational doesn't mean following through with them serves your self-interest. Telling yourself that there's nothing you can do and that you're at the mercy of your own desires is your own limits, nothing more.
But of course, I would be dishonest if I said that anyone has absolute control over their desires, something people that follow Ayn Rand philosophies have trouble with, as they ultimately advocate the suppression of emotions for pure rationality, which only makes emotions bubble up over time.
Nietzsche's criticism of the will denying nature any sense of control is realized fully with Ayn Rand's life and philosophies.

Kant was so autistic about guilt he was fine with telling killers where to find his friends.
Imagine having a friend of yours telling killers your location to kill you because he doesn't want to feel guilty by lying. Valuing guilt is more important than your well being. And then going 'yeah maybe you'll just be gone, or the killer won't find you, or some police will randomly stop him' because consequences don't have causal links.
What a 'good' friend and moral code to have.

>>10104715
>>10104725
>Humans must go back to the collective
>the answer is fascism
>the answer is marxism

By creating, imposing your will on the world and the pursuit of happiness without infringing the rights of others.

>>9407199
The term you're looking for is 'parasite'.

>>9380433
Oh, and what does being correct about racism entail? Do tell us!
Should we exterminate all of those who have a lower IQ? Should specific individuals represent their collective and thus, all IQ are identical to the collect they represent? Do all Asians have over 106 IQ? Should people not love others for who they are, rather than in service or duty towards their collective?

>>9329270
>Why do people rant about how great Diogenes was?
Because he was a true Ubermensch and his witty quotes and anecdotes are funny. But to consider the man influential as an idol is to be disingenuous. He was hilarious as a troll, living by example in the purest way possible against the pseudo intellectual of his era, but people seem to mostly enjoy his hilarity, rather than what he stood for.

Most people who say that he's their favorite philosopher are just a tryhard idiot trying to look cool. There's not much else to say about the man or why people hate him.

>>9321726
Your life is the standard by which morality is built, as should be held as such.

Art is the balance dichotomy between learning about existence through value judgments, and entertainment by evoking emotional responses through interactions with the art itself.

I'm surprised that art is so hard to define for people.

>>9285067
>Should I love my clan, lit?
Depends by what you mean by love.
Do you mean 'give up everything you own and have to create a greater standard of living for them at your expense'?
There is nothing wrong with loving your clan so long as it does not come at your expense or becomes a sacrifice. If you find happiness being among your clan, then by all means, spend your money with them and do whatever you want.
But if you do so out of duty or obligation, then no, you should not love your clan because you are forced to do so by spook and duty. The value of family's depends on your own personal individual values and whether it provides you happiness. Nothing more and nothing less.
If being among your 'clan' and family does not provide any measure of happiness, you have no obligation or duty to love or help your clan.

>Does this stand on its own as a good book
No. This coming from someone who actually likes Ayn Rand on an individualistic front.

The first 300 or so pages are actually pretty good (until the part where Dagny leaves her company to save it) and then becomes horribly boring. The middle drags on forever and is so boring. There's only one interesting part, and I still don't know if it's intentional. Dagny and Readen guy start having an obvious affair and some random guy just blantantly says ''you guys are cheating, that's just wrong''. Both of them are taken aback and try to bullshit that it's fine but they're clearly distraught, and it seems like not even Ayn Rand knew how to defend her archetype ideals. It's interesting if you know the historical downfall of Nathaniel Branden Institute with Ayn Rand cucking her husband who then got cucked herself and hell broke lose.
The third part of the novel is equally meh by going to hell with society crumbling. You find out who is John Galt and it's so fucking shit. He's a literal vanilla blank state with zero personality. A literal walking microphone of her philosophy with none of the attributes associated with her characters. It's such a let down. Then you get the infamous Galt speech. Conceptually, it's genius, as it's the ''final speech of the world, and here's why you suck and go fuck yourself'' but it's so tedious. The reason why people overly hate the speech is not because it's shit, but because the villains feel cartoonish and you don't understand how these archetypes could exist. Though if you imagine Ayn Rand talking directly to people the internet names 'SJW', then she's entirely correct on every front.

The Fountainhead is a much better book.

It's the dead end of nihilism.
Hedonism is the doctrine which holds that the good is whatever gives you pleasure and, therefore, pleasure is the standard of morality. Pleasure cannot be rationally quantifiable, and leads to everything being permissible, and if applied morally, only becomes utilitarian. Not only that, but it means that your morality is dictated by your feelings, your desires, rather than values. Happiness and pleasure are not mutually exclusives, but one does not necessarily leads to the other.

That existence exists.

>>8932171
Funny enough, the one time Ayn Rand went full feminine is when she broke her own philosophy just to be with a man. I honestly wish she were still alive so that I could ask her directly why she did that. I just want to ask her why couldn't she disregard her own emotions and be rational like her philosophy says. We'll never know.

>be Ayn Rand
>escape communist russia after seen the horrors of collectivism
>love the individualism of America
>vow to make everyone understand that collectivism sucks
>argue that the ultimate goal in life is to obtain happiness
>marry some 10/10 actor who gets drunk due to neglect
>write the Fountainhead
>no one wants to publish it and it becomes an encapsulation of your entire philosophy that greatness can't be accepted by the masses
>book doesn't become a critical hit but through word of mouth, it gets popular, just like Roark
>some 18 yo university student hottie from Canada comes by your house to talk about why your book deeply influenced him
>he creates an institution and does lectures for you which become very popular
>form a group called 'The Collective' which is tragically ironic as it was meant to be ironic in name only but actually became a collective under your tyrannical control
>start having an open affair with that 18yo kid who's now an adult
>the guy's wife and your husband are somewhat alright okay with the whole ordeal??
>there's basically a 20 year gap between the two of you and he feels awkward because you're kinda old
>he starts to have another affair with some blond bimbo whom he loves
>the guy's wife can't stand it anymore and tells you about that second affair
>lose your shit
>call him to see you
>he says nothing as you call him a moral degenerate
>you remind him that he changed his name to have the word RAND in it and that everything he has was because of you
>ask why would he do such a thing
>he simply says ''because I love her and she makes me happy''
>slap him and tell him to never come back
>destroy the institute and unsuccessfully try to ruin him
>the guy lives a happy life but his blonde bimbo whom he sacrificed everything dies seven years later by drowning in the house pool
>go into financial troubles as you no longer want anything you've worked for
>your husband dies due to neglect and alcoholism
>develop lung cancer from smoking because saying you can observe the universe objectively doesn't mean you know everything about the universe objectively
>die a miserable death
>at least some of your old colleagues care for you enough to pay for your funeral and place a large $ sign near your casket
>people still quote and loot your ideas about capitalism being great while not understanding what you were arguing for individualism
>people only point that you took social benefits as any rebuttal towards your philosophy you worked decades to built
Being Ayn Rand is suffering. Sometimes I wonder what would have happened had the NBI not collapsed due to Ayn Rand betrayal of her philosophy.

>>8870219
You cannot be unsuccessful without leaching off the success of others, either from your parents or the government. Without either, you would not be relaxed.

No. Humanity will always fear the unknown and the only way to lose that fear is to lose your humanity.
Without the anxiety of death, we lose all concept of values and worth. Life and the fear of death, gives meaning to the world.
You might not think about it, you might accept death, you might indulge in hedonistic pleasure to the point where you feel numb and cannot feel the anxiety, but it always returns. It must always be there.

You must accept that anxiety and use whatever time you have left to do whatever you want that will give you happiness.

>>8869170
>we shouldn't fear the unknown simply because we know nothing of it

>>8841843
Revenge.

>>8760081
She never advocated being an asshole, only following your rational self interest. If being an asshole is not serving your self interest, then it's not rational.

It's not that hard.
It's like businesses that open shop by lowering their price compared to the competition. You can be an asshole and charge higher than everyone else, but you know that you'll only get more customers by being more enticing than the competition. So you act purposefully altruistic and charitable because it serves your self interest. You don't do it because it makes other feel good, but because you know it'll help you down the line.

If you're talking to someone whom you don't care about because he has nothing to offer, has nothing insightful to say and isn't interesting or funny, would you spend time with that person or care about him/her?

>>8716099
They're fighting collectivist who think that destroying (or criticizing) western culture and values is the best way to go, and the only tools they've found that can match collectivist, are collectivism rhetoric.

They have this feeling that the left is pushing against the establishment but to an extent where they don't care if everything is destroyed, and are feeling left out culturally. Whether this is true or not does not dismiss that it is what they are feeling. As such, they have to act like mongoloids as their last ditch effort to obtain power, fighting leftist collectivist with collectivism of the right, but not upholding tradition and Christianity as its shield. But by simply not having a core identity, anyone who disagrees with neoliberalism and the old right can be considered an alt right. It lacks an identity. It only has an enemy and nothing else.

The appeal is that they have a purpose in protecting values they hold to be what makes western civilization great compared to the rest of the world.

The consequences of a deterministic world is the assumption that we have no volition as justification to destroy the will of others.
By embracing a deterministic world, you are embracing a nihilistic world.

That is not to say that the will isn't binded by a multitude of deterministic factor, but you cannot reject the volition. Civilization and the criminal code is built on this concept.