/lit/ - Literature

[Anonymous No.5949883]

Why do right-wing Americans love a book that is all about forming a union to get rid of overpaid CEOs/managers/executives?

[Anonymous No.5949894]

>>5949883
because le libruls only care about muh feelings and want to degenerate society into a brown mess without white supremacy and civilization will be ruined; and all this will have been done by the jewminati

[Anonymous No.5949961]

>>5949883
Because the under classes still get fucked over in the end.
Also
>woman
>running a major corporation
>in a capitalist society
Hah funny joke Rand.

[Anonymous No.5949990]

Because they love trains

[Anonymous No.5950025]

I bought this at a Goodwill for under a dollar and am wondering if I should bother reading it. It's like a thousand pages of small print, which is a pretty decent commitment.

I don't give a fuck about politics. From what surface level reading I've done, I disagree with more or less everything Rand has to say, but don't have issues with separating the art from the artist.

Does this book have any merit outside of pushing some half-assed philosophical movement? Does it have other enjoyable qualities? Are the politics subtle or will I be gagging on Ayn Rand's cock?

[Anonymous No.5950036]

>>5950025
If you're out of high school there is no point in you reading it now. Rand is a complete charlatan whore for capitalism.

[Anonymous No.5950056]

>>5950025
holy shit atlas shrugged is over 1000 pages?

[Anonymous No.5950066]

Not even conservatives care about Ayn Rand, just teenage libertarians.

[Anonymous No.5950069]

>>5949894
I'm honestly not sure if this is sarcastic or not. I just can't tell anymore.

[Anonymous No.5950074]

>>5950066
Train lovers

[Anonymous No.5950081]

>>5950025
read it. if you're smart enough, you'll get much more out of it that /lit/ likes to claim

[Anonymous No.5950097]

>>5950069
Smile anyway.

[Anonymous No.5950267]

>>5950081
Liar, /lit/ doesn't like anything

[Anonymous No.5950391]

>>5950025
I listened to it on audiobook over the summer, honestly really enjoyed it. The 3 hour speech toward the end got a bit dry but I don't think any other characters in any book have evoked such intense emotions in me.

[Anonymous No.5950419]

/lit/ always hates on Rand but I've never seen one good response to this critique of the modern political climate
>witness the ever madder howling of the libertarian dogs who are baring their fangs more and more obviously and roam through the alleys of western culture. They seem opposites of the peacefully industrious democrats and ideologists of redistribution, and even more so of the doltish philosophasters and brotherhood enthusiasts who call themselves socialists and want a “free society;” and anti-Semitic screamers but in fact they are at one with the lot in their thorough and instinctive hostility to every other form of society except that of the autonomous herd (even to the point of repudiating the very concepts of “master” and “servant”—ni dieu ni maître runs a socialist formula). They are at one in their tough resistance to every special claim, every special right and privilege (which means in the last analysis, every right: for once all are equal nobody needs “rights” any more). They are at one in their mistrust of punitive justice (as if it were a violation of those who are weaker, a wrong against the necessary consequence of all previous society). But they are also at one in the religion of pity, in feeling with all who feel, live, and suffer (down to the animal, up to “God”—the excess of a “pity with God” belongs in a democratic age). They are at one, the lot of them, in the cry and the impatience of pity, in their deadly hatred of suffering generally, in their almost feminine inability to remain spectators, to let someone suffer. They are at one in their involuntary plunge into gloom and unmanly tenderness under whose spell the west seems threatened by a new Buddhism. They are at one in their faith in the morality of shared pity, as if that were morality in itself, being the height, the attained height of man, the sole hope of the future, the consolation of present man, the great absolution from all former guilt. They are at one, the lot of them, in their faith in the community as the savior, in short, in the herd, in “themselves”—

[Anonymous No.5950473]

>>5950419

yeah except these ingrained ideas are critiqued every fucking day in all forms of media. only you don't care/don't listen/don't pay attention.

[Anonymous No.5950518]

>>5950419
>iwishiwascarlylesofuckingbad.txt

[Anonymous No.5950581]

>>5950419
how is that even a critique of political climate. its just a bunch of rhetoric. u-rah-rah go libertarianism, beat democrats.

i tried to extract any substance from the passage, but all i can get are some extremely nebulous descriptions of libertarian political beliefs/positions (for example: "libertarians seem anti-semitic, but they aren't")

[Anonymous No.5950593]

>>5950581
>its just a bunch of rhetoric. u-rah-rah go libertarianism, beat democrats
Learn to read, the first two sentences make it clear (as is well known anyway) that Rand disliked Libertarians as much as she did Democrats.

>>5950473
What do you mean?

>>5950518
Nothing wrong with influence.

[Anonymous No.5950624]

>>5950593
>What do you mean?


it helps to read the arguments of your political opponents. those ideas are critiqued all the time, and have been for decades and decades. i could point you to some publications but i doubt you'd care because you are probably myopically looking for one paper or essay that addresses that very arbitrary paragraph you pasted.

[Anonymous No.5950640]

>>5950624
What ideas are critiqued all the time and where are they critiqued?

[Anonymous No.5950645]

>>5950419
Individualists dont fit agendas so are often dismissed after their time.

Also feminists hate her.

[Anonymous No.5950661]

>>5949961
>implying
oh jesus i love left-wingers

[Anonymous No.5950667]

>>5950645
>Also feminists hate her
Why? Her extreme individualism and her inclination in expressing it through very free ideas about sex in her books, and life, undeniably make her into a feminist.

[Anonymous No.5950684]

>>5950593
ah, i see you are correct in the reading. nonetheless, its still hardly a critique, let alone of the 'modern political climate.'

so i still stand by my first point. its just rhetoric. a bunch of adjectives, metaphors, similes, etc. theres no substance. what little substance there is is statements about political beliefs and attitudes, then denigrating them with adjectives. no actual political, historical, logical, or philosophical engagement with the ideas. she's just like, "look at these guys. they believe these things and act this way, how pathetic i think that is."

if her point about libertarians being 'feminine spectators' was true, she could support it by saying they haven't tried to become elected officials, they haven't tried to push their legislation. but of course they have, and for awhile. they aren't mere spectators as she insinuates.

second point, it isn't relevant. the 'modern political climate' doesn't look today like what she is viewing. it didnt even look quite like that at her time of writing. the very first thing i think of is that things were and especially now are far more international. the paragraph doesnt account for things like trade treaties, protectionism, and so on which are actually far more relevant to her own free market ideology than viewing things as a struggle between political parties within a single nation-state.

[Anonymous No.5950754]

>>5950684
>if her point about libertarians being 'feminine spectators' was true, she could support it by saying they haven't tried to become elected officials, they haven't tried to push their legislation. but of course they have, and for awhile. they aren't mere spectators as she insinuates.
Wrong again. She is saying that because they can't handle the idea of suffering being good in some cases. Not because they refuse to participate in politics.

[Anonymous No.5950774]

why do people still read this literal bourgeoisie who fled her own country

[Anonymous No.5950797]

>>5950774
like how is this bitch gonna tell me how the world works she had everything handed to her in life, fuck that

[Anonymous No.5950994]

>>5950661
>go on imageboard
>see something that makes me :(
>not have an argument
>green text, that'll do it
>cleverly type out
>implying
LIBRETARIANS

[Anonymous No.5951036]

>>5950593
Yeah, the writer in her wanted to write that fiery old prose, and the ideologue had no lost love for some coronies and nepoists build on the back of the state. She wanted the same Carlylean heroic persona that emerges in utter spontaneity and takes charge through the sheer force of personify and arbits the destiny of mankind in pure will in all ignorance of history and it's inevitable taint of public opinion.
They are part of the same vile strain of morally aesthetic idealism.

[Anonymous No.5951191]

Because saying they like a book and watch news (fox) makes them feel like intellectuals

[Anonymous No.5951283]

>>5950025

i thought you were talking about the toasted bread.

in any case, why would you buy bread thats already toasted for you when you can buy bread for its own sake and do it yourself.

thats how i feel about ayn rand.

[Anonymous No.5952189]

>>5950419

It isn't any worst a critique than most other political statements you'll find on the right or the left, but it certainly isn't bulletproof. The implications that those forming a majority or wanting to use solidarity and organization to make up for their individual weakness and to overpower stronger individuals are somehow less individualistic is a classic shibboleth elitists use to degrade populists, even though a populist can be just as individualist as an elitist. The theory of whether elites or the mob are dragging down individuals is a constant debate that cannot ever be won, and for my money the members of the mob are in themselves individuals so I have a hard time calling the opposition to them by one person "individualistic". Isn't the thing favored by the most individuals the most individualistic thing? Why is being the lone opposing voice more individualistic? One could argue that the person who puts themselves above others is tapping into the herd mentality, is trying to degrade people into stopping being individuals and into being sheep.

And the accusations of lacking masculinity seem more like a rhetorical tactic to insult and shame ideological opponents on a basis of gender norms that hardly seem to fit within an individualistic worldview.

[Anonymous No.5952365]

It's a powerful novel and I enjoyed reading it. I won't join the anti-Rand circle jerk.

[Anonymous No.5952840]

>>5951036
>>5952189
Is that the best you've got?

[Anonymous No.5953189]

>>5950419
One can still agree with that Nietzsche's quote and think Rand is an idiot. Actually, Nietzsche himself thought capitalism is total shit.

[Anonymous No.5953370]

Most just hate Rand because she tears down the whole self-sacrifice notion that people, regardless if they're liberals or not, still want to see applied.

[Anonymous No.5953980]

>>5953370

I don't think that is true though. You can hate the idea of the Big Other and oppose finding another lofty ideal besides altruism to fetishize. The idealized transcendent man, better than everyone around him, is just as anti-individualistic and dehumanizing as the cult of the martyr and the giving tree.

[Anonymous No.5954068]

>>5949883
Because they're also too stupid to read any of the passages that deal with religion.

[Anonymous No.5954099]

>>5950066
I wish that was the case. Do you even Alan Greenspan?

[Anonymous No.5954126]

>>5950056
Yeah, Rand is a pretty terrible writer. I only read Fountainhead, and it could've been half its size and still have unnecessary dialogue (and then she just plot-dumps her entire point on a couple of pages towards the end)
Not a great book, but her ideas on individualism were somewhat interesting at the time, which I guess is why it took off like it did.

I disagree with her basics but a case can be made against the at the time prevalant mentality of self-sacrifice for faceless entities. That mentality still exists nowadays, though far less since christianity lost influence.

[Anonymous No.5954156]

>>5949883

>What's the difference between the Fountainhead and Atlas Shrugged?

>The Fountainhead burns hotter but Atlas Shrugged burns longer.

[Anonymous No.5954719]

>>5950081
If you're smart enough you'll realize Ayn Rand never overcame the childhood trauma of having the commies take her daddy's store and it completely fucked her up for the rest of her life.

[Anonymous No.5954733]

>>5950593
Great. She says libertarians aren't selfish assholes enough for her taste. How inspiring.

[Anonymous No.5954739]

>>5950667
It might have to do with her unyielding penis envy.

[Anonymous No.5954744]

>>5950081
Andrew Ryan please go.

[Anonymous No.5954745]

>>5952840
>failed attempt to hide the btfoing