I've got to admit that as a college freshman, trying to fulfill elective requirements and spacing out the tougher STEM courses, I signed up for a class called "Introduction to Fiction". One of the book we were made to read was "Atlas Shrugged". In fact, that was the book the prof assigned to the class for a book report type paper, and it had an effect on my impressionable mind that lasted a while. I think mine was pretentiously titled "Metaphysics, Epistemology, Ethics, Logic, Politics and Aesthetics: Objectivism - A Complete Philosophy."
A few years later I remembered that the class was supposed to be about fiction. Ah, and the obligatory quote:
“There are two novels that can change a bookish fourteen-year old’s life: The Lord of the Rings and Atlas Shrugged. One is a childish fantasy that often engenders a lifelong obsession with its unbelievable heroes, leading to an emotionally stunted, socially crippled adulthood, unable to deal with the real world. The other, of course, involves orcs." ― John Rogers
"Her philosophy then is just her personal vendetta. And it’s the most ironic thing — she calls this philosophy “Objectivism.”
So this explains Rand, but I never understood her appeal to the American libertarian. I struggled to plod through Atlas Shrugged as a youth because I always kept thinking "why don't these private enterprise superheros stop whining and just capture the collectivist government and make it their bitch?", which is what real oligarchs did in the US and later, Russia.
What do the rabid Russian immigrant libertarians think of her? Why didn't they also ask themselves the same question and become uber oligarchs in Putin's Russia instead of raging against socialist institutions and ideology in the US?
Is it just simple and stupid hypocrisy? "Social Darwinism for thee, Social Security for me."
That wonderful Romantic, Alan Greenspan, met Ayn Rand in th '50's. He later married Andrea Mitchell who guided U.S. television Israel consciousness. It was Ayn Rand's ghost painting Romantic Realism onto the Federal Reserve and the evening news. Greenspan and Mitchell: Mr and Mrs Hammer and Sickle
"forced her as a teenager to sign a contract in which she has to read Atlas Shrugged or he wouldn’t pay for her college."
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Now THAT was a truly novel form of child abuse...
:D
I've got to admit that as a college freshman, trying to fulfill elective requirements and spacing out the tougher STEM courses, I signed up for a class called "Introduction to Fiction". One of the book we were made to read was "Atlas Shrugged". In fact, that was the book the prof assigned to the class for a book report type paper, and it had an effect on my impressionable mind that lasted a while. I think mine was pretentiously titled "Metaphysics, Epistemology, Ethics, Logic, Politics and Aesthetics: Objectivism - A Complete Philosophy."
A few years later I remembered that the class was supposed to be about fiction. Ah, and the obligatory quote:
“There are two novels that can change a bookish fourteen-year old’s life: The Lord of the Rings and Atlas Shrugged. One is a childish fantasy that often engenders a lifelong obsession with its unbelievable heroes, leading to an emotionally stunted, socially crippled adulthood, unable to deal with the real world. The other, of course, involves orcs." ― John Rogers
"Her philosophy then is just her personal vendetta. And it’s the most ironic thing — she calls this philosophy “Objectivism.”
So this explains Rand, but I never understood her appeal to the American libertarian. I struggled to plod through Atlas Shrugged as a youth because I always kept thinking "why don't these private enterprise superheros stop whining and just capture the collectivist government and make it their bitch?", which is what real oligarchs did in the US and later, Russia.
What do the rabid Russian immigrant libertarians think of her? Why didn't they also ask themselves the same question and become uber oligarchs in Putin's Russia instead of raging against socialist institutions and ideology in the US?
Is it just simple and stupid hypocrisy? "Social Darwinism for thee, Social Security for me."
Hateful person who lived a hateful life.
That wonderful Romantic, Alan Greenspan, met Ayn Rand in th '50's. He later married Andrea Mitchell who guided U.S. television Israel consciousness. It was Ayn Rand's ghost painting Romantic Realism onto the Federal Reserve and the evening news. Greenspan and Mitchell: Mr and Mrs Hammer and Sickle