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/lit/ - Literature

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5911234 No.5911234 [Reply] [Original]

Can someone explain why everyone hates author Ayn Rand and Atlas Shrugged.
I know nothing about either of the two.

>> No.5911251

/lit/ is full of commies.

>> No.5911258

/lit/ hates freedom

>> No.5911267

/lit/ hates retards

>> No.5911272
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5911272

/lit/ has NO chest

>> No.5911273

It's actually because Rand was a shit writer and her philosophy only hasn't been shot down by academics because it isn't worth the time.
Leftists hate her because she advocates selfishness and a complete lack of consideration for anyone but yourself.
Libertariansove her for the same reason.

>> No.5911275

>>5911258
>>5911251
>>5911267

Thanks for clearing that up.

>> No.5911301

>>5911234

/lit/ is full of commie freedom hating weaklings who want other people to support them while they sit around and contemplate suicide.

>> No.5911349

Many people hate Ayn Rand because of her economic and political views, particularly, her views on the economy being a laissez-fair free-market and that the US should deregulate their economy more for everyone to prosper.

Some people hate her and think she's a hypocrite, because she used Government programs, like Social Security and Medicaid, at the end of her life and survived off it. Even though she had a type of personality that was aligned with calling people who were on government assistance as 'bums', and that the idea of living off government assistance made everyone who did it lazy and unambitious.

She also said a few controversial comments at the sake of being the polar opposite of her Communist peers at the time, like saying the Native Americans deserved to have their land taken away, supporting Israel and calling the Arabs savages, criticizing draft dodgers even though she was against the Vietnam War, and calling homosexuality immoral.

She also collaborated with the House of un-American Activities, which is also kind of hypocritical of her views, as people were potentially about to get convicted, or even executed, for being alleged communist.

>> No.5911375

>>5911234
you fucking parasite stop leaching off the knowledge the of others

>> No.5911430

>>5911375
All knowledge already belongs to me; I have only to bring it under my power!

>> No.5911475

>>5911375
lol wut
why not sharing?
if the people think the knowledge was too hard earned to give away (whyever) they won't give it and if they give it, wot does it?

>> No.5911490

>>5911234
When I was reading Atlas Shrugged the thing that stood out the most to me was the romantic passages and those were well done. But Rands stance on morality is the most one dimensional and elemantary things in modern literature. Her philosophy is easily shut down. The end is reached in a haste. The entire book serves for a fucking 40 page monologue reeking of pretension. The whole thing is completely underdeveloped and basically tells the lower classes to go fuck themselves and they're in the positions they are because they have no ambitions or aspirations.

>> No.5911737
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5911737

One interesting thing about Rand's political views (interesting in a bad way, mind you) is that they are completely out of the context of improving society. In 'Anthem', literally nobody aside from the protagonist and his concubine benefit from the awesome power of its leading Mary Sue. The same goes for her other novels - the 'good' characters fight to 'save' society from the evils of collectivism, but nobody gains anything from this but Ayn's heroes. Ironic that an edgy atheist with a materialist view of the universe would be so obsessed with virtue ethics.

Another, perhaps more humorous irony, is that the protagonist in Atlas Shrugged is terrible at his job. He's asked to design a house for a born-again millionaire, full of Christian imagery, yet he completely goes against the order specifications and designs the place for himself rather than the client. And yet, we're supposed to view him as the pro-capitalist hero, when he refuses to do what he's paid to, like some sort of upside-down IWW worker.

>> No.5911854

>>5911490
>When I was reading Atlas Shrugged the thing that stood out the most to me was the romantic passages and those were well done

the romantic passages are among the most cackled at and satirized.

>> No.5911878

>>5911854
Maybe its because I read it in highschool and you're probably right. I would go back and see what I'd annotated but I'm afraid of the mad cringing. My grandma gave me a shit ton of Rand when I was young but all of it sits there unopened because Atlas was enough

>> No.5912229

>>5911854
Fucker, I hope you've actually read them

Better than most of the YA shit-tier stuff going around. Stop being a commie

>> No.5912248

"Conditional" egoism is probably the shittiest philosophical concept there is. It was a common Greek saying that the greatest reward of wealth is that one can afford to be honest. So it's egoism for wealthy people, of course you're never going to steal if you have a lot of money, and if you do you can rationalize it ("the Indians weren't using their land, etc. as Ayn Rand says). But if you're poor, there's nothing egoist about it, you're putting the welfare of people with property above your own.

Mind you, I'm not a leftist, I'm a Stirernist. I have nothing against egoism, whatever class you're in. But Ayn Rand's egoism is completely supported by spooks. Any egoist system short of Stirner's complete rejection of morality is not really egoism, because it demands you place another's well being above your own under certain circumstances.

>> No.5912250

>>5911737
Improvement is a spook

>> No.5912257

Her virtue ethics are god awful. Yes, Aristotelian virtue ethics strongly support hierarchy and recognizing one superiority, but they don't support looking down on other people as shit like Ayn Rand's characters do. Ayn Rand's characters are hubris incarnate.

>> No.5912281
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5912281

>>5912257
>Her virtue ethics are god awful
>criticism based on feelings and not evidence

>> No.5912326

As a writer she sucks.

Her quixotic utopia is completely founded in psychological non sequiturs and some weird, objectivist morality, which one can argue due to the relativistic nature of morality in the first place that it wouldn't even hold up.

You know, for all of the broad generalizations Rand makes, she is probably better off just looking at the effects the modes of exchange have on people. Instead of viewing how people's psychological behavior affects the modes of exchange and the regulations therein. Adam Smith's work largely rationalizes a lot of human economic progression with a lot of basic, biological and salient needs that people have in general. It is this approach, I think, that is most effective. Why waste time trying to categorize people into one of two arbitrary categories when you can just realize that those categories only exist because of politics? Looking at the broader picture then, one can plainly see that socialism no longer plays a role and the entire reason intellectual property regulations exist in the first place is because the internal processes of the post-industrial workforce multiply in a geometrical rate over time, much like how the industrial factory's workmen did.

But on top of all of that, she's idiotic. No taxes should exist, and A should equal A. No shit. A=A. Novel concept. That's an axiom, a tenet of her philosophy. Hard work gets to A, right? Well it just so happens, because of her myopic view, she never seems to get the systems of economy that have even allowed her to work in the train industry in the first place. You really think that systems of transportation existed like that without no help from a centralized command? Moreover Ayn Rand, do you REALLY believe that the free market, this admittedly selfish Smithian invisible hand, will benefit the state and help plan the member's future livelihoods? I'm sure in this world of caveat emptor, everyone is looking out for the best interests of society as a whole. No degeneration would occur with isolated production lines, no secrets would proliferate with complete privatization, and absolutely no idleness would occur once these owners of the largely successful companies spent their money: they would absolutely be 100% productive with their profit.

I usually don't post in these threads, but come the fuck on. If you're still taking Rand seriously wake the fuck up. Adam Smith does what Rand does but better: he rationalizes a lot of economic behavior into a teleologically sound progression, with administrative setbacks. Just read some of his works on economics or ethics and stop fucking with Rand for Christ's sake.

>> No.5912331

>>5912281
I just presented evidence. "Awful" does not exist independent of criteria for what "awful" is. I provided the criteria, her virtue ethics are awful by the criteria of "awful" in classical virtue ethics.

>> No.5912334

>>5912331
Which is based on feelings.

>> No.5912336

>>5912334
So is logic.

>> No.5912337
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5912337

>>5912336

>> No.5912339

>>5912337
I was actually referencing Hume.

>> No.5912340

laissez-fair capitalism is empirically wrong, selfishness is not a virtue, and Rand is just a terrible writer.

>> No.5912342

>>5911273
>writes an entire paragraph
>only legitimate reason included is she's selfish

>> No.5912346

>>5912339
Hume has been dead for over 200 years, that's why he didn't know shit about logic.

>> No.5912352

>>5912346
Logic is thousands of years old. Greek mathematicians invented deductive logic, Aristotle invented term logic.

>> No.5912357

>>5912352
So? Anaximenes thought everything was made of air. The ancients aren't exempt from being wrong.

>> No.5912359

>>5912357
>Anaximenes thought everything was made of air
it has nothing to do with logic, logic doesn't care what consists of what

>> No.5912363

>>5912359
>it has nothing to do with logic, logic doesn't care what consists of what
You totally missed the point. Filtered.

>> No.5912364

I thought anthem was pretty good..

>> No.5912368

>>5912342
>meme arrows
>being this butt mad assblasted

>> No.5912380

>>5911234
Let's see:
paper-thin plots that run on contrivance.
Cardboard characters with ridiculous motivations and very limited development.
Frequent jarring author filibusters.
Mary Sue protagonists.

As a writer Rand was a mediocre novelist.

Objectivism was never really properly described as a true philosophy, despite Rand and her fans insisting it is one. When examined as a philosophy, however, it is very obviously fatally flawed beginning with a series of obviously false premises.

As a philosopher Rand was a mediocre novelist

>> No.5912388

>>5912363
booty befuddled

>> No.5912395
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5912395

all this being said, her shortest novel, Anthem, is good.

>> No.5912405

/lit/ and much of the modern world hates libertarians because they hate freedom and responsibility.

>> No.5912416

>>5912395
Fountainhead was enjoyable enough

>> No.5912427

>>5912395
Seriously? Its interesting until the end when its just the main character jerking himself off in the woods.

>> No.5912442

>>5912416
WHich part, the completely unrealistic characterization, the part where the female protagonist falls in love the the male protagonist *because* he violently raped her, or when the main character blew up other people's property in direct violation of his own (very, very, very) often repeated code of morality?

>> No.5912445

>>5912442
Sounds like maybe you didn't get it, upset with your own inadequacies as well possibly? Want to talk about it?

>> No.5912449

>>5912442
The scene where he demonstrates the light bulb to the scholars. I found it amusing.

>> No.5912462

>>5912445
LOL.
No, I got it. It was spelled out in very simple words and repeated quite often.
Go peddle your ayndroid wares elsewhere - most people on /lit/ have read books other than YA stuff.

>> No.5912468

>>5912449
That was Anthem

>> No.5912499

>>5911273
>her philosophy only hasn't been shot down by academics because it isn't worth the time
But it has. Countless times. Only, not in academic publications, beause it's such a stupid philosophy that they probably felt embarassed.

>> No.5912531

>>5912468
oh shit

>> No.5912578

Nevermibd the philosophy AS was just a boring book, it was an absolute chore and I got about two thirds through and cut my losses, wiah I had've dropped it sooner.

>> No.5912617

>>5912248
>you're never going to steal if you have a lot of money

Not true at all, wealthy people commit fraud and tax dodging constantly. Of course their unlikely to perform negro tier night robbery but clearly that's not the only way to steal.

>> No.5912636

>>5912331
you did well brah. he is trying to troll.

>> No.5912644

>>5912357
it is true actually. emptiness between atoms make up like %98 of materials. go learn physics faggot.

>> No.5912671
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5912671

>>5911234
because /lit/fags are intellectuals and intellectuals think that society needs them in order to run without problems and Ayn Rand's vision of society has no need for intellectuals

>> No.5912736

Objectivism is actually a pretty interesting theory about human interaction.

Sure, it's "wrong" in that science has moved on enough that we know for a fact human minds don't work the way she thought, but it's still fascinating. I don't get the hate.

>> No.5912757

>>5912671
>here come the /pol/-jpgs!

>> No.5912786

>>5912736

it's be an interesting curiosity if only people didn't still actually believe the nonsense to this day and voted on and wrote actual public policy that we all have to fucking live with based on it (ron and rand paul, ted cruz...)

>> No.5912867

>>5911272
kek

>> No.5912908

>>5912671
Ayn Rands utopia still needs intellectuals, but their 'intellectualising' would actually have to be productive. This means no shitty nietsche fedoracore postmodernism, this means potato growth investigation.

>> No.5912910

Austro-Libertarian here, this is what i think of Ayn Rand:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KIk5C2qsRH8

tl;dr She was a smug shitter that cared more about dogma than truth.

Furthermore, objectivism is false because the Malevolent Universe Premise is true. She also strawmans this. You really have to be retarded to do that.

>> No.5912912

>>5912786
yikes

>> No.5912939

Politics and philosophy aside. Rand is just a terrible writer.

All socialists are one-dimensionally evil. All capitalists are one-dimensionally good.

No room for character nuance.

>> No.5912998

>>5912617
It's unlike Ayn Rand would consider tax dodging to be a violation of her brand of egosim. She would probably be light on fraud too, if it's done the right way.

>> No.5913245

>>5912939
>only reading Atlas Shrugged

Yes, the philosophical tract created with the intention of embodying her philosophy is a morality play that shows her philosophy to be right! How terrible!

You're not supposed to read it like a normal novel. It doesn't work like that. Do you get mad that Socrates always wins his arguments in the Dialogues, or that the Dialogues have flat characters? Do you think Thus Spake Zarathustra is shit because it embodies Nietzche's beliefs?

If you want actual prose, without ulterior motives, from Rand, it's possible. Anthem is a short little book from her that's obviously fueled by her own outlook, but is still a story.

>> No.5913285

>>5911234
Poorly demonstrated arguments that forget how the rich need large masses of slaves or idiots to keep their decadence intact.
This is because she came from an authoritarian shithole that branded itself communist.
Not only does she buy into the very ideology she is challenging, her own is just as deluded.
>dumb bitch with dumb ideology misses the point of how communism is bad.

>> No.5914013

>>5912368
Not mad just pointing out that your response was shitty.

>> No.5914021

>>5912380
Care to explain why it's flawed friend? I disagree with it too but all you did was say it's flawed because of obvious flaws..