Hell is other people Ayn Rand
Another review from VICE - In Defense of Ayn Rand, Monster Under the Progressive Bed
There’s just one problem with all the preening and posturing this author is subjected to: In order to sneer at Rand, you have to read her. That’s why you’ll sometimes see ridiculous social media spectacles of angsty liberal bloggers and overwrought students burning copies of the Fountainhead. And just how many Vox bloggers have made it all the way through Atlas Shrugged? The next time someone is rude about that novel in your earshot, ask him to name a single character besides John Galt and you’ll see what I mean.
I think a lot of it is that she says what they want to hear. That it’s all total BS and not even she could survive without the system is irrelevant to them.
Meh, it’s 2015. I don’t need to read a primary source to know that I disagree with it.
Ugh. I read Atlas Shrugged, just because I couldn’t give a damn about her cardboard cutouts disguised as characters doesn’t mean it’s any good. I think one of them was named Dabney Targett?
That’s like saying Conservatives have to name another character besides Atticus from To Kill a Mockingbird to know that they should be nice to each other.
Dagny Taggart, which is pretty close since it’s been 18 years since I cracked that spine.
Thinking about it, I’d argue that if you’re going to espouse her beliefs you need to have read every portion of Galt’s radio speech. It would be one thing if the previous two thirds of the novel hadn’t said the same thing, but it is beating the hell out of that long-expired horse.
Is To Kill a Mockingbird the progressive bible?
Too much heavy lifting?
“I’ll pay someone else to do this”
It’s what I turn to when times get tough. “Have some compassion and think of things from someone else’s perspective” is a decent way to go through all this business.
I don’t disagree with you, but it seems that’s a common problem with many philosophies.
If her worshippers don’t have to get through her books to venerate, I don’t have to finish the whole thing either.
Are we talking about her pulp or something else entirely?
This is the great myth: people dislike Rand because they haven’t read her and don’t understand her. That’s the battle cry of every alienated teenage who has ever lived. “The world doesn’t understand me!”
Then, of course, her supporters turn around and point out that she’s the best selling novelist in history, outsold only by the bible. Somebody’s reading her!
The truth is that she’s an awful philosopher. Her grasp of logic is shaky at best, her knowledge of any philosopher other than Aristotle is non-existent, and her knowledge of Aristotle is really, really poor.
She’s a hack.
Other than serving as click bait, how does “sociopathic pixie” figure into the article or the review?
the attitude
At least Ayn Rand never linked to tvtropes. Who’s the real monster here?
I don’t know if it’s because Rand’s appeal is largely restricted to the US, or if I wasn’t paying attention, because I wasn’t aware of her before I moved here, which I suspect means I missed the window where her ideas would have appealed to me.
I haven’t read any of her books, and I don’t intend to.
Cardboard thin characters there to make speaches? Sounds kind of like Heinlein. And despite that, I like Heinlein, although his later works suffered with his lack of ability to figure out endings…
But now instead of reading the book, one can watch the thrilling movie trilogy ! That has to be at least marginally easier. Perhaps someone could make an amusing commentary dub to make it go down slightly more smoothly, but that may be an insurmountable challenge.
Here’s a pro-Ayn article from the Huffpost (??!!)
[Ayn Rand Haters Will Hate][1]
After reading Rand’s most famous work, Atlas Shrugged, I find my thoughts on politics and life profoundly inspired. Her characters and philosophical convictions are unapologetically pragmatic
and simply refreshing.
As a woman in 1957, Rand had the gumption to reframe overly politicized topics, like charity and love, which she thought threatened to obscure the value of the American dream.
[1]: Ayn Rand Haters Will Hate | HuffPost Entertainment
