How Much I Hate Ayn Rand

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18 September 2008 How Much I Hate Ayn Rand

As anyone who has ever broached the topic with me knows, I hate Ayn Rand. I think her ideas are a menace to society in that they encourage people (usually the ones who are already so inclined) to be total a**holes. Furthermore, her narration is too heavy-handed and her descriptions of character’s expressions and gestures are totally impossible to picture. Like this:

“She lifted an eyebrow in a way that made him understood immediately that she had been born under a full moon, ridiculed in the fifth grade for having braces, tripped on her own prom dress at the age of 17, and that she viewed the world around her as being entirely composed of rubber bands. She was also fat, which indicated that she was a corrupt and disgusting person.”

That may or may not be a direct quote. It is completely true, however, that her protagonists are all extremely thin (with the exception of a couple that are rugged and chiseled) and their stupid, corrupt enemies are not.

In Atlas Shrugged, which I am now reading, she also offends me by portraying all humanitarian/nonprofit endeavors as ill-conceived, inefficient, ultimately destructive to society, and operated exclusively by fat, spineless slugs who don’t have the grit to work for a real business. Ok, yes, charitable organizations aren’t always the tightest-run ships on the sea, but they care about budgets and results as much as a for-profit company does. They just have a different purpose, different pitfalls, and different ways of getting money. I could go into funding issues right now but I’m not going to, since I’m not actually speaking to Ms. Rand. But then again, I would never speak to Ms. Rand, even if she were alive and we were locked in a room together. I would just sit on the floor and try to communicate all my evil thoughts to her with the movements of my eyebrows.

But I’ll give her this much credit: it’s good for us hippy-dippy, do-gooder types to occasionally be reminded that just because a business of some kind is big and successful, it’s not necessarily bad. And even if some corporations are soul-less and destructive (and prone to going bankrupt and having to be bailed out by the feds or some British company), that doesn’t mean that capitalism is evil. And it’s a nice perk that the reminder comes in the form of a compelling narrative.

Honestly, I don’t feel like the merits of capitalism–or the merits of acting in one’s own self-interest, for that matter–are really something that should be up for debate. They seem pretty self-evident to me, but I also think it’s pretty self-evident that freedom and a free market aren’t going to solve all the world’s problems. And I think people who hold stiffly to the tenets of any particular economic or political ideology are basically hiding from the difficulties and complications of trying to balance the first truth against the second one. And don’t even get me started on people who want to scrap the current government and start over. Revolutionaries get under my skin even more than Ayn Rand novels do.

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Permalink # Rob Diego said

If you are going to comment on her style, why don’t you actually quote her instead of making something up and then attributing it to her? I don’t know of any government bureaucrat, leftist college professor or Fannie May CEO that would even consider that a valid method of argument, let alone a rational person who actually makes a living providing real values with his own effort…you know, the kind of people that would be protagonists in her novels.

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- Permalink # Paul said
  
  I think the use of a pseudo-quote was meant to be a joke. 😉
  
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  - Permalink # Frediano said
    
    A perfect match to a pseudo-argument.
Permalink # milestonemba said

Rob raised a good point. You write “That may or may not be a direct quote.” Why not do your homework before you jump to write a critique, and that too on such a remarkable figure like Ayn Rand?

About your statement:

“she also offends me by portraying all humanitarian/nonprofit endeavors as ill-conceived, inefficient, ultimately destructive to society, and operated exclusively by fat, spineless slugs who don’t have the grit to work for a real business.”

I don’t recollect reading this anywhere. Might have skipped it. Can you cite text from the novel to this effect?

I just have one point on this whole “Ayn Rand is evil” philosophy. You might debate capitalism Vs communism, profit vs non profit. But you can’t debate on one thing. Every human exists for his or her own sake. One has to respect oneself and do justice to his own self and his own pleasure. That is the whole point of life.

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- Permalink # coffeeshoptalk said
  
  Well, please enlighten me as to one single instance of Ayn Rand portraying a nonprofit or charity effort as effective or in any way good.
  
  And I do agree with you that all people are basically selfish, but I don’t think that that makes selfishness the golden standard of morality.
  
  By the way, I did do my homework. I have read Atlas Shrugged and The Fountainhead, and I think that my imaginary quote very aptly summarizes AR’s narrative attitude.
  
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  - Permalink # Brad Anderson said
    
    They say it’s easier to point a finger than to lend a helping hand– Ayn Rand proved it.
  - Permalink # John McGinnis said
    
    I have read all of her novels. I do not remember this quote from any part of them. It does not even fit with the narrative of any of them. Complete fabrication!Judge this for yourselves.
Permalink # Ali said

In critiquing those characters involved in charity work, she focuses on the hypocrisy of the conniving and undeservedly rich who claim to be selfless to the core of their beings. The charity depicted in her books is always for the sake of looking charitable because someone else said it was the highest form or morality. It’s merely an example that helps to further explain what is so despicable about the antagonistic characters. If she were to humbly include all of the non-profit endeavors that don’t resemble her portrayal she wouldn’t be making a very strong impression, would she?

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- Permalink # coffeeshoptalk said
  
  Ali,
  
  So you think that ballanced viewpoints and accuracy should be sacrificed to make a strong point? Wouldn’t that make all strong points, by definition, wrong?
  
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Permalink # Amalia said

Thank you thank you!!! I feel the same way. The Fountainhead is utter crap too. love the way you made up a quote, ayn rand’s exactly like that, it’s pretty hilarious sometimes.

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- Permalink # coffeeshoptalk said
  
  Thanks, Amalia. Glad someone got it 🙂
  
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- Permalink # Brad Anderson said
  
  The Fountainhead is another example of Rand’s glorifying crony-capitalism– while Atlas Shrugged ignores the fact that railroad-empires were built on government subsidies of land and money, The Fountainhead ignores that real-state moguls are even worse. For example, Donald Trump is the JP Morgan of buildings, cutting special deals with city governments, and using bankruptcy-laws when his blunders don’t pay off.
  
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  - Permalink # Adam Bolton said
    
    I think there is a profound misunderstanding of Rand’s philosophy. She was opposed to crony capitalism and believed in free capitalism. Many Rand-haters currently conflate her ideas of a free market with what we currently have and have had in the past, which is mixed capitalism. Subsidies and government favoritism legislation (whether you support the favorite or not) distorts the market and makes it unfair.
    
    I agree that her characters are straw men and she doesn’t write good stories, though.
  - Permalink # John McGinnis said
    
    The government does not automatically own all of the land. Land “subsidies”? Like as though it were a “handout”? Please…
Permalink # alosia said

You summed up with eloquence exactly why I can’t stand Ayn Rand. I find her morally reprehensible + think she was a total a**hole and agree with everything you said. also her writing style is so terrible, it’s as though she’s intent on hammering stuff as literally as possible into your poor head.

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Permalink # Celia said

Ah, thank you so much for speaking out about this weird ideology!! I feel like every time someone dares to question Ayn Rand and her followers, you instantly get branded as being irrational. And instead of arguing the points, they tell you you’re just bad at arguing! I think it’s great to be responsible for yourself and to work hard and push yourself to your maximum potential, but at the same time it’s important to realize that, hey, you live in a society, deal with it!! There are other people that matter besides you! and understanding your role in a larger society doesn’t mean you have to sacrifice your individuality! c’mon people! you can love yourself but also be altruistic! By the way, the quote you made up was PERFECT 🙂 sounded just like her! :p

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- Permalink # Brad Anderson said
  
  ” I feel like every time someone dares to question Ayn Rand and her followers, you instantly get branded as being irrational.”
  
  That’s how it is with ANY cult’s dogma; if you don’t drink the kool-aid, you’re a HERETIC!
  
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Permalink # mmatic said

Let us not tip toe around the subject. She is a neo-nazi, and her “philosophy” is pure neo-fascism.

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- Permalink # David said
  
  Actually, I don’t think you could be further from the truth. Literally. You post is up there with saying black is white. Not only is it false, it’s actually the exact opposite. How you can portray a individual-loving, rationality proposing, and anti-government coercion endorsing philosophy as fascist is utterly fascinating.
  
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  - Permalink # coffeeshoptalk said
    
    David,
    I never said Ayn Rand was a fascist. But there are other ways of being socially dangerous than being fascist.
  - Permalink # Brad Anderson said
    
    ” You post is up there with saying black is white. Not only is it false, it’s actually the exact opposite.”
    
    Yes- while socialists say black is white, Rand says that white is black; just because two people disagree, doesn’t mean that either of them is right.
Permalink # Jim said

I don’t think it’s fair to say, in the case of Atlas Shrugged at least, that the protagonists care nothing for the fate of those around them. What the most of the protagonists at their core refuse with all of their being is the idea of being indebted to someone on the basis of “humanity”.

Obviously there are exceptions, but the exceptions are not the point. The characters who do begin to “get it” albeit to late, such as the young government lad working in Rearden’s factory, are taken care of as best as is possible. Rearden both pities and respects him.

The characters who are mocked, who are made out to be disgusting leeches, are rightly deserving. Phillip Rearden is one of the more standout examples of this.

What I like to think Rand was showing in Atlas Shrugged was the extreme of an altruistic philosophy. You should, I would hope, not need me to explain how this is dangerous anymore than you would need to explain to me how unfettered capitalism could be dangerous.

For the record, I do think that in certain ways society has moved in a somewhat dangerous direction. While things like the elimination of games like “Dodgeball”, increasing emotional sensitivity to grading students, and further nannying spread like wildfire, I feel it is a novel worthy at least of a read, if not further attention.

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- Permalink # Brad Anderson said
  
  “I don’t think it’s fair to say, in the case of Atlas Shrugged at least, that the protagonists care nothing for the fate of those around them.”
  
  Yes, but they care in an elite, condescending way, i.e. the way that the fedudal rich “cared” for their servants, or masters for their slaves. Rand is an elitist, who protested collectivism not because it destroyed freedom, but because she believed in Aristrocratic rule– i.e. Social Darwinism.
  
  What idiots just can’t seem to understand, is that fiction is a STRAWMAN from square one! In fiction, Stephen Hawking can beat Mike Tyson at boxing– but lose to him at physics. Thus, Rand is simply a witch-doctor sticking pins in voodoo-dolls of her real-life adversaries, and her fans say “OOOH! That’s GOTTA hurt!”
  Oo, ee, oo aah-ahh, ting-tang, walla-walla bing-bang!”
  
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Permalink # spoing said

Hey good on you. I *love* your assessment of that black-hearted, hate mongering fraud – a fake philosopher and a third-rate author, if ever there was one. I recall picking up Atlas Shrugged from my mother’s bookshelf as a child. I lasted one chapter before even my child’s mind recognized it to be what it is – liner for the hamster’s cage.

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Permalink # coffeeshoptalk said

Jim,

“Humanity” is not something I like to see in quotation marks. Yes, it’s a somewhat abstract concept. No, being human doesn’t make you “indebted” to other humans. But the level of indifference that the protagonists of Atlas Shrugs display towards people who need help makes me glad that they have such scorn for being in charge.

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Permalink # ES said

Dear CoffeeShop Talk,
I must say that I’m sorry to hear you hate Ayn Rand and her novels. I had always considered myself a democrat, but after reading Atlas Shrugged (which I found to be an incredible experience), it really challenged a lot of my views and made me “check my premises,” as she says. After I finished to book, I admit that I struggled to resolve a lot of the same misconceptions many people have – the heroes are evil and care only for themselves, etc.

Many of these popular notions are just wrong. For example, Objectivists (followers of Rand’s philosophy) have no problem with charity – just so long as it is voluntary and not extorted by force of the government. Likewise, Rand had no problem with non-profit organizations in general – what she was against was the common (Kantian) idea that charity, self-sacrifice (i.e. altruism) were moral imperatives.

I suppose you could say the Ayn Rand’s humanity is embodied in her view that one not demand the unearned – nor be required to grant it. That’s why all of the heroes in her novels behave like they do.

Anyway, I guess I just want to encourage you to not dismiss Rand so quickly. It takes time and a serious effort to really understand. And for the record, all modern Objectivists (who really understand the philosophy) whom I have corresponded with are kind, honest, and genuinely happy people – not conniving, fraudulent louts. Leonard Peikoff, who knew Rand for many decades, speaks of Rand the same way – contrary to the common belief that she was a bitter old hag.

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- Permalink # Renee said
  
  This is a good explanation of Ayn Rand’s philosophy. No one should be forced to live for another. Everyone should have their choices. One can still be charitable according to their own moral imperative they see fit, which you could say is ‘selfish’ in that you are fulfilling that part of yourself you care about. When Ayn Rand uses the word selfish, it’s meant in a context people don’t seem to understand.
  
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- Permalink # Dave said
  
  I wish people would read your words slowly. Then reread it. Slowly. Think. What is there to object to?
  
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Permalink # coffeeshoptalk said

ES,

Unfortunately I have not had the luxury of dismissing Ms. Rand quickly. I’ve debated her ideas with very intelligent people who in some wise agree with them, and I still think what I think. (For a more nuanced and intelligent version of what I think, please see my post “How Much I Hate Ayn Rand, Redux”)

I also believe firmly, after a lot of deep and serious thought on the subject, that well-placed charity IS a moral imperative.

Thanks for your well-thought-out, non-angry response; I appreciate it. However, it seems we disagree on a very basic point.

Again, thanks for your input.

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- Permalink # Frediano said
  
  The issue is forced association vs free association; when you say you believe well-placed charity is a moral imperative, what is stopping you from administering charity? What you really mean is, you regard it as a moral imperative sufficient to justify the forced association of others with your view of charity. There is no charity in a world based on forced association; only compulsion. If you are going to embrace forced association, then embrace it, proudly, but call it what it is.
  
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Permalink # Brad Anderson said

Let’s just look a the facts: Ayn Rand was a knee-jerk extremist-reactionary to Marxism, which was likewise a knee-jer extremist reaction to Feudalism– particularly the neo-conservative Feudalism that cropped up during the Industrial Era under the Lincoln Administration, that falsely called itself “capitalism,” but was actually simply modern Plutocracy… and gave rise to modern chaos.

Rand was a priveleged-class child whose life of wealth and prestige was subverted by the Communist Revolution, and so she reacted emotionally to the concept, and perpetuated the cycle of hatred,

Philosophically, Rand is definitely a pseudo-intellectual who operates by emotional-reasoning; for example, she states that “selflessness is not immoral, therefore it’s moral to be selfish.” This is a blatant logical fallacy called a false reversal, which is like saying “if the ground is not wet then it’s not raining; therefore if the ground is wet then it is raining.” It’s possible not to be immoral, without being moral; by simply being a-moral: for example, an animal acts in its own interest, but it isn’t moral– it’s simply a- moral.
Morality, meanwhile, is more of a positive and complex concept, than simply the absence of immorality, However, this is Rand’s entire argument– and it’s based on a similar fallacy.
And she protests too much to believe the protesting: the tone of Ayn Rand’s philosophy– like most hamfisted control-oriented “authoritarian authors–” is likewise always one of intellectualized emotion, which doesn’t support her acclaimed argument; likewise, her evidence is always anecdotal or fictitious, and never scientific.
She personally attacks and faults motives, rather than reasoning; for example, she simplistically calls those who practice double-standards “hypocrites,” and accuses them of being corrupt and selfish; in contrast, modern psychologists instead analyzed the causes of what tey termed the “Actor-Observer bias.”
Likewise, she accuses poor people of being “lazy,” and claims that “anyone who is truly successful, worked hard.” This is another false-reversal, since here she implies “anyone who works hard will be truly successful.”

Simply put, Rand– like any pseudo-intellectual– simply skips over factors as if they don’t exist, construes them emotionally while claiming to do so logially, and then– like any desperate soul– simply blames her opposition. While this might be personally satisifying to Ms. Rand in her vendetta to “restore the ruling elite to their rightful place,” it simply exacerbates the situation by supplanting reason with conflict.
In short, Rand is quickets to point out the “sanctity of man’s mind–” but willfully ignores that no man is an island.
She does start out by making some good points, such as the fundamental role of philosophy in all reasoning– but all famous charlatans have to make some sense, or else they wouldn’t be famous.

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Permalink # mtbieker said

Rand is wrong. Selfishness is bad

I wonder what would happen if someone handed Rand
“The Box”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Button,_Button_(The_Twilight_Zone)

Basically a stranger comes to your door and offers you money if you push the button. If you push it then someone you don’t know will die. People push the button and get the money, then the stranger takes the box and promises to give it “to someone you don’t know”

hehehe…I think that’s the most clever argument against the idiocy of Ayn Rand’s EXTREME views.

Basically selfishness and selflessness need to be balanced. .

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- Permalink # Kiki said
  
  Thus proving that you, along with most of the people here, have no idea what you’re talking about.
  Individual human life is her boiled-down standard of morality. And she says that for individuals to survive, they must pursue their own interests (selfishness), while respecting others’ right to do the same. If confronted with “The Box,” she or her characters would destroy the device and possibly find a way to put an end to the entire practice. Your ‘argument’ is not one at all.
  
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- Permalink # Frediano said
  
  When you need to manufacture ‘the box’ to make your point, the lesson is, don’t build worlds with ‘the box’ in it. If that strawman is the ‘most clever argument against the idiocy of Ayn Rand’s EXTREME views’ then … there ain’t much.
  
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Permalink # coffeeshoptalk said

@mtbieker:

Interesting. I’m a big fan of The Twilight Zone.

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- Permalink # coffeeshoptalk said
  
  @Kiki:
  I’m not sure you’ve read the post and comments very closely, or even the Rand books for that matter. Rand respects individual human lives insofar as they are self-supporting. That’s my whole beef: she doesn’t really handle the issue of the inevitable interconnectedness of society very well.
  
  I don’t know that an Objectivist would be more or less likely to use “The Box” than any other person.
  
  I do know that mtbieker wasn’t making an argument, just a point about the importance of caring about people you don’t know, which is not something Rand seems to place a high premium on.
  
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  - Permalink # Kiki said
    
    You are the one who doesn’t seem to have read the books very closely. Your entire arguments are based in misconceptions of them.
Permalink # coffeeshoptalk said

@Kiki:
I’m not sure you’ve read the post and comments very closely, or even the Rand books for that matter. Rand respects individual human lives insofar as they are self-supporting. That’s my whole beef: she doesn’t really handle the issue of the inevitable interconnectedness of society very well.

I don’t know that an Objectivist would be more or less likely to use “The Box” than any other person.

I do know that mtbieker wasn’t making an argument, just a point about the importance of caring about people you don’t know, which is not something Rand seems to place a high premium on.

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Permalink # coffeeshoptalk said

@Kiki:

I guess we’ll have to agree to disagree, then.

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Permalink # Jason said

Where most people mess up with Rand is that the word “selfish” is always misunderstood to mean short term. I personally am selfish and so are all people. We are all following what we personally believe to be in the best interest of our own personal desires. True altruism is a myth since I have never known anyone who does “charity work” and hates it. They are deriving pleasure for their endeavor and usually getting social kudos that give them this false sense of elitism because very few people will do their charity in secret. Limousine liberals are famous for this type showy type of behavior.

Mother Teresa was one of the most selfish people in the world, everything she was doing was to get her closer to her God. She didn’t care about material things, she selfishly wanted to be closer to her personal selfish goal. Just because it helped hundreds of poor people makes no difference in her motives. Microsoft created a computer software that raised the words GDP by at least 3% since it was created. This selfish mentality helped more people out of poverty than 1000 mother Teresa’s. Was Bill Gates selfish in a bad way?

Why is handing out sandwiches and ladling soup better than doing the very best you can with the skills you have? Only a moron would have a brain surgeon take his valuable skills away from saving people and instead have him do the work that a high school dropout could do.

What Rand was against was the USE OF FORCE. She was not against charity in its own right but the idea that you “have to do it”. Why can’t people just be free as long as they don’t use force or coercion. The reason (and Rand understood this) was that many of these “great ideas” are just bad ideas wrapped in sweet words and smiling faces.

What people just seem to fail to grasp is that the government and any organization for that matter takes on a life of its own that will do anything to perpetuate its own survival. Individuals acting with individuals through peaceful exchange of goods and services is the ideal arrangement.

I could go on and on about the failures of these large organizations be they NGO’s in Africa, to the United Nations in Darfur, our own failed government programs that are robbing from our future generations but that would be stating the obvious.

Reread the book and pay attention to who is the one using FORCE to attain their goals.

-Jason

The issue most

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- Permalink # Eidir said
  
  “Mother Teresa was one of the most selfish people in the world, everything she was doing was to get her closer to her God”
  
  I stopped reading after this. It’s well documented she didn’t believe in God. If you’re going to make an argument, make sure you have your facts straight first.
  
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  - Permalink # Renee said
    
    It doesn’t dismiss the fact that what Jason says it true. Whether she does it for God or not is not the point to be made. She is doing what makes HER happy. Whatever we do to makes ourselves feel happy and good is a selfish act. Address the point please.
- Permalink # Renee said
  
  Excellent!
  
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Permalink # Alero said

Its nice to forget about cartels, firms using dominant strategies in game theory to lie to each other, and raising prices beyond reasonable means by lying about costs to maximize profits. Of course, we don’t live in a world where we can forget that. Rand never addresses the real world issues within a free-market system.

Yes, governments can be bad and totalitarianism is horrible, but that’s only telling a part of the story of the human spectrum. Sure, she is an interesting read, but agreeing with her is like trying to live in only part of the world.

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- Permalink # Deco said
  
  >lie to eachother
  >lying about costs
  >>lie
  
  It must be easy for you to forget/ignore the fact that these things would be fraud and quickly punished in Rand’s proposed system.
  
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  - Permalink # coffeeshoptalk said
    
    Karl,
    
    I know you’re talking to Jason, but it’s my blog and you bashed me in your comment so I’m going to jump in.
    
    First, I want to point out that I don’t actually know anything at all about Ayn Rand’s philosophy beyond what is presented in The Fountainhead and Atlas Shrugged and what I’ve gleaned from talking to a very few of her supporters. So if you’re commenting with the idea that I have some sort of compendious knowledge of Rand’s philosophy, you are quite mistaken. On the other hand, I never claimed to have such knowledge, so I feel it would be unfair for someone to attack me on this point. I would also like to point out that her novels, whatever I may think of their literary quality, are much more accessible to readers than straight philosophy. For that reason I feel justified in only addressing her ideas as they come across in her two major novels rather than as they are explained explicitly in other works.
    
    Second, I actually don’t think that helping others with zero or negative gain is morally superior to helping with personal gain. I have a whole other post to the effect that my ideal life situation is to be helping others while at the same time serving my own interests. To put it simply, I love win-win situations.
    
    I’m not going to address your economic argument since I don’t know anything about economics. However, I would like to point out that heavy government aid programs do not necessarily lead to Soviet police states. Please see modern day north/western Europe.
    
    Third, I happen to teach kindergarten, and every teacher knows that “if everyone can’t have some of your candy, then no one should have any” is not actually fair or even a moral issue at all. It’s just something we tell kids to get them to stop playing with their candy and pay attention to the lesson. Beyond that, helping out the people around you doesn’t just “feel right.” It’s only logical that living in a neighborhood where you have a fancy house and everyone else is starving is going to be a much more tenuous situation than living in a neighborhood where you have a reasonably nice house and everyone else can get what they need from the Salvation Army. What I’m trying to say is that altruism does actually help you in the long run if it creates a better social environment for you to live in.
    
    Fourth, to all these people who think that Ayn Rand doesn’t advocate the use of force…have you read the kinky sex scenes? Hard to get “force is bad” from those bits. Again, just speaking as someone who only read the novels.
    
    Finally, if you still think I’m slowly lobotomizing our great country, I promise that I will volunteer to be first against the wall when the revolution comes.
  - Permalink # Alero said
    
    A world without incentives is a world that doesn’t exist.
  - Permalink # Deco said
    
    @Alero
    >A world without incentives is a world that doesn’t exist.
    
    What does that have to do with anything said here?
Permalink # Karl Wulf said

Jason,
You are getting close to the hotbutton of the statists on this thread, when you get them to consider force and value as the issues on which Rand’s arguments turn.

coffeeshoptalk says that her hate for Rand is mostly based on her disagreement that people are morally bound to help other people, ideally with zero or negative benefit (value) to themselves. To help while gaining positive value for one’s self is presumably less moral than helping with negative personal value.

Statists contend that without government to force people to help others, help would not be adequately given. The level of “adequacy” of the help somehow always is raised higher and higher, to the point now where the unfunded liability to the “needy” is over 100 trillion dollars over the next 10 years, an unattainable feat, since the US GDP is only $14T/yr gross. Of course this arbitrary entitlement imperative, along with the intentional sabotage of the housing market, is the scam by which the state is slowly slipping its tentacles around every aspect of business operations and individual behavior.

Egalitarians are loving this initially, because imposing their kindergarten morality of “if everyone can’t have some of your candy, then no one should have any” feels right, feels fair. But as the growing fascist control and oligarchy slowly strangles entrepreneurship and punishes success so severely as to hammer everyone down into a French bureaucratic mediocrity, and ultimately a Soviet police state, you statists will see how a once great nation becomes lobotomized by an ostensibly benevolent, but truly inhuman tyranny.

The modern statist is a parasite on human survival. You are making us collectively weaker. You embrace force as the means to your utopia, but it is a Faustian bargain. Ask any Venezuelan.

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Permalink # James said

I love to argue, but there’s no point in arguing with someone who is an Ayn Rand supporter. They are like Scientologists – not in any theological or philosophic sense, but in terms of how the adherents behave. Ironically, Ayn Rand supporters would make really great Scientologists, and although entirely dissimilar, the basic tenets are not orthogonal.

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- Permalink # Frediano said
  
  I feel the same way about religious Progressives. I’ve read Scott Nearing, Durkheim, Marx, etc., and it is clear where their visions come from; frustrated religious zealotry.
  
  For example, where is the management of unavoidable risk anywhere addressed in Marx’s childish model of economies? He is like the child who shows up at the dock only after the fishing boats return from sea(those that do)and demands his share of PRICE=COST+PROFIT …. only after the downside of risk has been avoided.
  
  ROI at risk is not guaranteed ROI as discounted wages, which reflects the value of the guarantee. Marx and his don’t recognize any value in the guarantee of risk free ROI as negotiated wages.
  
  The ethics of capitalism comes from recognition of the fact that risk is unavoidable in the universe; unethical business practices attempt to shed risk unwillingly onto others via forced association. (These types of businessmen were by far the most evil villains in any of Rands novels; the government power grubbers were just willing middlemen, clerks selling the guns of government and pointing them where they were told.).
  
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Permalink # Brad Anderson said

Ayn Rand is the funniest person in history. Her two top books are about a real-estate magnate and a railroad mogul, and she says they’re about “Capitalism–” but real-estate and railroads are the two biggest recipients of government favors and subsidies!
She is also from a family that benfitted from corrupt feudalism prior to the Bolshevik Revolution, and she claims that it has NOTHING to do with a person’s future income and social status– to her, the Horatio Alger Myth is an absolute FACT. She also pretends to logic, but no one weaves a more tangled web of nonsense.
She just protests too much to believe the protesting, and she gives lassez-faire capitalism a bad name.by pretending we ever HAD it.

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- Permalink # Frediano said
  
  The history of railroads in America is much more complex than that; the Great Northern was not the Union Pacific. But moot; the principle at the foundation of capitalism is free association in commerce. If you don’t like free association, then proudly embrace forced association, and tell us why that is such a great and necessary fascia to line up an march behind. Again.
  
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Permalink # L said

I can’t stand her fatuous frigid self either! And I like the sheer contempt of the made up quote. You really need to pick on her further. I don’t like philosophies that justify meanness.

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Permalink # PJ said

I believe that Ann Rand in her intelligence and through her books spreads and justifies a self-centered point of view that is totally wrapped up in ‘indifference’. She seems to have found a perfect view that fit her and has been glorified by others when all I see is a mean and angered woman that used others in her life for her own purpose.
Her ‘philosophies’ have never been regarded as true philosophies. Usually they are the ‘teen-ager’ stage of mentality.

When one looks at her life – she is a woman that has no God inside or out of her. I also don’t believe she ever knew what real love was about. This is someone others
are ‘glorifying’ as one that has something to teach or enlighten others on?

Look at her life – She ends up wealthy but I do not believe she ever lived with true joy or knew what that was. She conveys a very hostile and angered point of view and while she clips and chips good men down and finds others weaknesses in characters – she is satisfied and justified.

Nah – she and her followers or ‘enlightened’ ones remind me of those I need to proceed with extreme caution in life with. The self centeredness they have adopted will create a reality for which the mentality and ability to love and be love is not possible. Yet, joy is the outcome reality to both to live with had both parties understood living and being love verses the living and being a solo act in life.

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Permalink # pages said

Perhaps some of Rand’s characters are a**holes, but how can you fault a philosophy that suggests we have some integrity and be individuals? I’d much rather be Howard Roark than Toohey. I’d much rather be able to say ‘I am happy with what I am doing’ rather than rely on people to give me purpose in life. Deary me.

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Permalink # Ayn rand fan said

You need to have a higher I.Q. In order to appreciate and interpret her works. Just saying…..

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Permalink # coffeeshoptalk said

@Pages: Part of my problem is that her work forces the reader into that extremely false dichotomy – between the pansy, corrupt, fake-dogooders and the a**holes with integrity. You can have integrity without being an a**hole, and you can genuinely do good for the less fortunate without dragging the whole world into an economic apocalypse.

@Ayn rand fan: I love commenters like you. You make me giggle.

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Permalink # Anon said

I hate Ayn Rand. Her only motivation for writing is that she got but-hurt over the communist takeover of her Jewish finances. That sow was completely motivated by revenge and contempt

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- Permalink # Frediano said
  
  It even looks like a swastika. I suspect you are a plant to make Ayn Rand critics look like tools.
  
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Permalink # social scientist said

i think Rand was just plain depressed… if you dont pass out of that phase at a certain point you tend to get frustated… i am not sure if all this is connected to her er… condition

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Permalink # Jack Plant said

The irrational paroxysms of rage that Rand illicits in her critics is astonishing and belies their underlying psychological problem, the hatred of self.

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- Permalink # Frediano said
  
  Wait until she’s dead.
  
  Wait a minute…she’s been dead for three decades.
  
  For those who have never read her, should make them wonder; what is it, exactly, that she advocated that has people of a certain bent so lathered up so long after her death?
  
  Hate Ayn Rand? Apparently, that hatred is never going to go away. Meaning, it actually defines some people. As in, there but for the grace of God go …well, “God bless you.” (Those last three words are an actual Rand quote.)
  
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Permalink # Neil D said

Jack Plant: So anybody that disagrees with Rands beliefs has a psycholigical problem, and hates themselves?

I very much hope that was a quote/misquote/joke/troll comment.

I can’t possibly imagine that there are people in the world with an ego large enough to say that in such a po-faced manner.

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Permalink # whatsurvives said

Let me point out to you Rand-followers why Objectivism does NOT work. Let me show you exhibit A: Ayn Rand herself. She often depicted herself as the VERY effigy of reason, and yet when her young-enough-to-be-her-son-student-turned-lover wanted to break up with her, she went on an emotional rampage and slapped him in the foyer of a big apartment building. This guy by the way was the forerunner of the Objectivist movement and responsible for giving her an institution. Then she goes publishing an incoherent break-up letter in her “Objectivist” column. Yeah that’s real reason being put to use. Also, for someone SO competent, she died on the hand out of social security. Her own caricatures from Atlas Shrugged would have spat at her face had that been made public sooner.

I also love how she blames altruism for the downfall of her beloved Russia (and incidentally, her family’s wealth). It didn’t occur to her that the reason why communism didn’t work was due to the VERY self-interests praised by her philosophy of Stalin. Stalin didn’t hide under incompetence and altruism. He was VERY competent and took everything via force.

By the way, the writer does NOT need to dig through the horrendous novels to give you an actual quote of her distasteful narratives. I can literally open Atlas Shrugged and quote the gymnastic sex scenes between Ayn R-… I mean Dagny and Rearden. You will NOT see the difference.

Also, if you need to make caricatures to prove to the world your philosophy can work, then obviously it can’t work. Because guess what? Humanity is dynamic. Not static.

Also interesting, Rand gushed about notorious murderer Hickman (who mutilated a little girl) in her journals. And editors play it off like he was falsely accused. Look up the story and see that it was a very real crime. Rand had psychological issues. Period. One just has to look at HER life to see what a complete fraud she is.

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Permalink # coffeeshoptalk said

A couple of things.

First: Commentors, please note dates and see that this post was made years ago. I’m not sure why people are still leaving comments. I think we’ve covered everything.

Second: In the time since writing this I have been unwillingly exposed to lots more Randian stuff, and I must admit that when Ms. Rand is talking about her philosophy in a straightforward, non-fictional context, especially for in-person interviews, she makes Objectivism sound kind of interesting and almost logical. I’m sure she as a person had all kinds of issues and eccentricities, but my main beef with her is that she wrote Atlas Shrugged, which is a horrifically written piece of literature and lends itself to the interpretation that “oh, I see, I’m actually better than everyone else and should be an emotionally disengaged jackass to everyone around me.” Kind of like how Twilight is a horrifically written piece of literature that lends itself to the interpretation of “oh, I see, I shouldn’t be satisfied with any partner who isn’t a perfect, glittery, obsessive stalker.” Both messages seem to appeal disturbingly to certain demographics.

I wish young adults who love horrifically written literature would stick with Animorphs, which at least lends itself to the message of “Oh, I see, I as a young person should take on more responsibility, try to improve my society, let my friends help me with emotional problems, be kind to animals, and try to see situations from multiple viewpoints.”

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