/lit/ - Literature

[Anonymous No.1810884]

Ok, so...
I recently started reading this book. I live in a very liberal part of the US and am quite liberal myself. I'm reading it because Rand seems like a fascinating person to me and I want to understand her and the discussion surrounding her better. Whenever people see that I'm reading Atlas Shrugged, they almost invariably have quite negative reactions. Even people who have known me for years seem to think I'm turning into an Objectivist douchebag (I'm not, even though I'm enjoying the book) and I have to convince them otherwise. It seems to me that hardly anyone has a neutral opinion of Ayn Rand; everyone who's heard of her either loves her or hates her. One friend of mine even called her "worse than Hitler" (?). So without meaning to start a giant shitstorm (which may well happen anyway), my question is this: why all the hate, and why all the love of Ayn Rand? Why can't people just calmly observe her work and her life without going to extremes in one direction or another? I feel like if I was reading Mien Kampf or The Communist Manifesto people wouldn't immediately assume I'm a Nazi/Communist. Why is it different for Atlas Shrugged?

[Anonymous No.1810887]

She's a woman.

[Anonymous No.1810896]

Because Rand is the libertarian equivalent of Marx. Instead of a naive utopian society in which the common man overthrows the bourgeois, Rand argues for a naive utopian society in which the bourgeois keep the common man firmly in his place. Whereas Marx demonizes wealthy capitalists and idealizes the common worker, Rand demonizes the common worker and idealizes the wealthy capitalist.

It's basically the handbook for modern conservatism.

[Anonymous No.1810900]

she gives her characters really, really ugly names

howard roark and dagny taggart sound like dry heaves

[Anonymous No.1810918]

She's laughable and is dismissed as easily as New Age mysticism, her writing not worth the paper it's printed on.

There should be no reaction against Ayn Rand, she should be looked down upon and everyone that takes her seriously laughed at. And that would be the end of her.

[Anonymous No.1810930]

>>1810896

>libertarian equivalent of Marx

No, this implies that Rand had some kind of basis and facts. She does not. And no, Marx did not demonize capitalists - he admired capitalism for its strengths and he wanted to use them.

[Anonymous No.1810932]

>>1810896
That's a really great synopsis, brah. Seriously. The evil twist comes from modern conservativism being able to sell Rand's ideas to the working class as being this modern Horatio Alger kind of thing, like you can just pull yourself up into fabulous wealth if only you abandon 'liberalism' and such.

[Anonymous No.1810933]

>Even people who have known me for years seem to think I'm turning into an Objectivist douchebag

I hate when that shit happens.

It's not like you're ONLY ALLOWED TO READ THINGS YOU AGREE WITH or something.

[Oneiros !!Pyxq6/fy8DM No.1810941]

Because only people who agree with her "philosophy" can wade through hundreds of pages of her lifeless, unrealistic characters making speeches at each other.

I personally hate her because I think she's overrated, her ideas are completely derivative, and the people who believe in them seemingly have no idea how terrible the world would be if Rand was in charge of it. She basically uses logic to attempt to rationalize her superiority-complex, and has no empathy for people who aren't at the top of the social-hierarchy.

[Anonymous No.1810942]

>>1810930

Spoken like someone who hasn't read Marx or Rand.

[Anonymous No.1810944]

>>1810941

>has no empathy for people who aren't at the top of the social-hierarchy.

But Howard Roark.

[Oneiros !!Pyxq6/fy8DM No.1810956]

>>1810944

OP specifically said Atlas Shrugged, not The Fountainhead.

The Fountainhead is more about the exceptionally talented, and disgust for "second-handers" who leach off of them.

[Anonymous No.1810962]

>>1810956

You should be more specific then, because:

>She basically uses logic to attempt to rationalize her superiority-complex, and has no empathy for people who aren't at the top of the social-hierarchy.

Sounds like you're talking about her ideas in a general sense. Not as they are in Atlas Shrugged.

[Anonymous No.1810964]

>>1810942

Spoken like someone who only read the summaries on wikipedia + his textbook and got called out on his bullshit.

[Anonymous No.1810967]

>>1810964

Oh sorry! I quoted the wrong person. I meant to quote:

>>1810896

[Anonymous No.1810972]

If everyone strived to be the best, then we would live in a better world, with less people whining about how badly their life sucks. End of story

[Oneiros !!Pyxq6/fy8DM No.1810974]

>>1810962

More specific? The thread has a picture of Atlas at the top. You yourself pointed out how the point I made doesn't apply to The Fountainhead.

If it makes you happy, I revise my statement to Rand has no empathy for people who aren't exceptional.

[Anonymous No.1810973]

>>1810967

Okay

[Anonymous No.1810995]

Postmodernism happened.

[deleted No.1811262]

I just finsished reading Atlas Pissed.

Meh.

[Anonymous No.1811351]

This honestly enrages me. People are fucking stupid. Read what you want and tell your friends to fuck off if they can't handle you checking out a book. Better yet, tell them to read a book--ANY book--and stop watching whatever media conglomerate they're hooked on. Life isn't about politics the way TV and the internet make it out to be.

yesimad.jpg

[Anonymous No.1811356]

>>1811351

hate to burst your rage-bubble but major publishers are owned by media conglomerates as well

[Anonymous No.1811363]

>>1811356
This is true, but is another argument entirely. Media conglomerate was probably a poor choice of words. I think the point I was making is still evident, though.

[Anonymous No.1811460]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sO_QntXc-c4

This is the soundtrack to an Ayn Rand apologist's life.

[Anonymous No.1811592]

OP, please describe your attitude and reception to your reading of this book. I could not get through it, and I want to know why you can.

This is the thing about Rand. She wrote some books. Where most major philosophers just write impressive doctrines and a book about their beliefs or some issue, Ayn Rand wrote FICTION NOVELS. Granted, there are a few others who wrote books also, but it suddenly occurs to me that there is only a practical difference between a philosopher and literary writer.

Besides the fact that books are easier, the very roots of Rand's philosophy have more of a captivating effect. What everyone here should understand is that EVERYTHING that Rand says, writes, or does stems back to an inherent fear of an abstract concept. "Collectivism" is the boogie-man for all objectivists. Her narration, beliefs, and story arcs are all based on observations. Observations that are correct, of course, but she is a lot like any other goddam women I've ever met in that she scans over a series of events, computes what morals and ideas constitute them, and makes a conclusion without contemplating the cause and effect portion of the phenomena.

So, in Laymen's terms, WHEN PEOPLE WRITE BOOKS ABOUT THINGS OF WHICH THEY HAVE LIMITED KNOWLEDGE, PEOPLE WHO ALSO HAVE LIMITED KNOWLEDGE WILL FAWN OVER IT.

[d4rk000kingof/mu/ !!TlP6M7PkNVH No.1811605]

>>1811592

THIS.

It's why babby athiests fawn over Dawkins like he actually had anything original or compelling to say.

[Anonymous No.1811642]

>>1811592
Honestly, at the moment I'm only about 80 pages in. So far I've found myself enjoying the writing style (which I REALLY didn't expect to do), but I may run out of steam after a few hundred pages, I really don't know.
I don't see the issue with using fiction to convey philosophical meaning. Besides, Rand wrote some nonfiction books describing her philosophy as well. They're not as well known or widely read as her novels, but she did write them. But I understand your statement here; her inherent bias undoubtedly affected her work.

I'd like to reiterate a question from my first post: why is it that people hold such extreme opinions about Rand's work, rather than treating it like the work of any other author (discussing it rationally and pointing out the ups and downs: "I like the way X emotion was conveyed," "I disliked Character Y because...") and instead either groaning/recoiling whenever the name comes up or reading all her books repeatedly and quoting them as flawless truth and refusing to see flaws in them? Other writers had more positive effects on the world. Others had more negative effects. But people seem to be able to hold mixed feelings about, say, Mien Kampf even if the obviously disagree with it, or at least understanding that someone might want to read it for historical purposes rather than because he or she agrees with it. I haven't seen this happen with Ayn Rand.

[Anonymous No.1811732]

>>1811642
Very few people have actually read Mein Kampf - I would suppose the same is true for Rand's work; doesn't stop them from detracting from them.

[Anonymous No.1811741]

>>1811592
>I could not get through it, and I want to know why you can

If you're halfway literate, there's no reason you should be unable to get through AS. Her style reads very quickly, if tediously. If you can't bear to read someone you disagree with politically, you should probably consider detaching yourself from ideology and living in reality for a while.

[Anonymous No.1811746]

>>1811741
>if tediously
Word. Pg.180 or so at the moment, and it's hot and humid and I really can't be bothered.

[Anonymous No.1811780]

>>1811642
fwiw, I read the fountainhead for much the same reason you're reading atlas shrugged

in the end, I found it to be a mostly tedious piece of literature with 1-dimensional characters, and I could almost hear rand screaming her philosophical points through the plot/characters

but yeah, it is a novel and should be treated as any other
and I think rand's work (the fountainhead at the very least) is subpar because of a lack of literary value (flat characters, didactic presentation)

if you want an author who makes points through a narrative, I would suggest Twain, Vonnegut -- pretty much anyone else

[Anonymous No.1811785]

>>1811642
>>1811642
>>1811642

i have considered this question for a while now, and I have come up with a few possible reasons:

1) Ayn Rand is extreme. I don't mean extreme in a sort of political sense (though she is). But rather Ayn Rand attached moral weight to the labels that she used. Someone who was not a productive member of society was labeled, by Rand, to be a parasite. The word 'parasite' obviously had moral connotations attached. Such language meant that Rand would never be attractive in a mainstream sense. She leaves herself too open to attacks on moral grounds, meaning that your hippy friends have lots of juicy soundbites to fall back on. And honestly, they wouldn't be wrong. By attaching such moral weight, she leaves little to no room for criticism that is not as extreme in nature.

2) Rand did not approach policy or philosophy from a traditional vector. Her philosophy is discounted by most scholars because she essentially bypassed issues of perception and reality that most serious scholars considered prerequisites for attempting to explain something as complicated as political economy. This irreverence has cascaded down to people that do not understand it, but still take ques from those who do.

3) Rand was often considered to be a hypocrite in the eyes of many, due to the fact that she had an affair that had serious repercussions for her organization. It was clearly not a rational decision, and critics argued that if she herself could not adhere to her own philosophy, than on one ever would.

I've always admired Rand, and I think philosophically that I have many similarities, but ultimately, she is too extreme.

Thoughts?

[Anonymous No.1812392]

Because she was an insane polarizing uncaring twat.
I find it difficult to believe anyone didn't hate her.
I can believe people liking objectivism but not Rand.