I agree there are better libertarian writers pk..but few good FICTION writers who expressed their philosophy through stories like this.

Most libertarians in her time focused on economic issues..putting forth arguments in papers and editorials that were persuasive but very dry reading...not interesting at all to the masses. Central planning was a proven failure in the economic realm so there was already plenty of economic justification for free markets and individual liberty, but what was lacking was a MORAL justification for these things. Rand is one of the first to develop these ideas and express them through fiction. Many people who would not otherwise be interested in philosophy found her stories attractive. I'm not familiar at all with her nonfiction work but I'm sure it hasn't been read nearly as much as her novels.

^ Rothbard is a much sharper thinker, if you're looking for justifications for libertarianism. He is also very readable.

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Originally posted by pkcRAISTLIN man, i couldn't even tell you what ive read by her. its been at least a decade. im pretty sure i only ever read her non-fiction work though.

Read her fiction then. They are just great stories.

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Originally posted by Capitalizt I agree there are better libertarian writers pk..but few good FICTION writers who expressed their philosophy through stories like this. Most libertarians in her time focused on economic issues..putting forth arguments in papers and editorials that were persuasive but very dry reading...not interesting at all to the masses. Central planning was a proven failure in the economic realm so there was already plenty of economic justification for free markets and individual liberty, but what was lacking was a MORAL justification for these things. Rand is one of the first to develop these ideas and express them through fiction. Many people who would not otherwise be interested in philosophy found her stories attractive. I'm not familiar at all with her nonfiction work but I'm sure it hasn't been read nearly as much as her novels.

Sorry, but I don’t have that much respect for ideology through fictional prose. Not saying she didn't do a good job or anything, but its easy (in a relative sense) to write fiction from one's own ideological viewpoint than it is to produce a coherent philosophical undertaking that makes the world's intellectual elites stand up and take notice.

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Originally posted by Domesticated Read her fiction then. They are just great stories.

maybe one day, when my young hatred of her has died down. im not sure how many pages i could get through though, she makes me so angry.

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Originally posted by MrJiveBoJingles Rothbard is a much sharper thinker, if you're looking for justifications for libertarianism. He is also very readable.

i have a real amount of love for locke, smith and hume. especially given the times they were writing in. whereas hayek and rand are my two most hated.

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Seriously, fuck philosphy... I mean...

It has its merits, but sometimes it seems like a wasted human effort of the highest order...

The stories are okay as far as they go, but it's harder to enjoy them once you know that they're ultimately polemical vehicles for her political ideas.

She sets up a sharp dichotomy between the ugly, boring, whiny, deadbeats and the beautiful, interesting, and longsuffering productive people, shows the latter being oppressed under the weight of the former's idiocy and jealousy, and then delivers a big rhetorical punch toward the end in the form of a long speech expounding her philosophy. In the universe of her novels, the only people who don't support her ideas are characters that you can't help but hate because they're so obnoxious. This is done deliberately so that the reader will identify her philosophy with only the best sort of people, and everything that opposes it with the worst sort.

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Originally posted by MrJiveBoJingles The stories are okay as far as they go, but it's harder to enjoy them once you know that they're ultimately polemical vehicles for her political ideas. She sets up a sharp dichotomy between the ugly, boring, whiny, deadbeats and the beautiful, interesting, and longsuffering productive people, shows the latter being oppressed under the weight of the former's idiocy and jealousy, and then delivers a big rhetorical punch toward the end in the form of a long speech expounding her philosophy. In the universe of her novels, the only people who don't support her ideas are characters that you can't help but hate because they're so obnoxious. This is done deliberately so that the reader will identify her philosophy with only the best sort of people, and everything that opposes it with the worst sort.

Excellent...

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Originally posted by MrJiveBoJingles The stories are okay as far as they go, but it's harder to enjoy them once you know that they're ultimately polemical vehicles for her political ideas. She sets up a sharp dichotomy between the ugly, boring, whiny, deadbeats and the beautiful, interesting, and longsuffering productive people, shows the latter being oppressed under the weight of the former's idiocy and jealousy, and then delivers a big rhetorical punch toward the end in the form of a long speech expounding her philosophy. In the universe of her novels, the only people who don't support her ideas are characters that you can't help but hate because they're so obnoxious. This is done deliberately so that the reader will identify her philosophy with only the best sort of people, and everything that opposes it with the worst sort.

i started to write something similar, but you said this much bettter than i could have

I think that the reason the stories affect people so deeply, especially young people, is that they offer a new self-image. You too can be a Dagny Taggart or a Howard Roark and look down scornfully on all the sniveling "collectivists" who threaten to cramp your style. And this is what Rand herself did in practice, as captured in books written by former devotees and in a play written by Murray Rothbard called "Mozart Was a Red":

http://www.lewrockwell.com/rothbard/mozart.html (full text, short)

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Originally posted by MrJiveBoJingles The stories are okay as far as they go, but it's harder to enjoy them once you know that they're ultimately polemical vehicles for her political ideas.

That was half the reason I enjoyed her stuff in the first place. Most things you read are:

a) A story written purely for entertainment, a historical/factual account of oppressive/incorrect regimes or a ridiculously far-fetched piece of fiction (i.e 1984)

b) A boring piece of non-fiction with very little entertainment value. I just finished reading Edward W. Said's Orientalism. Fuck was that tedious!

The first time I read Ayn Rand, I thought "Hey, it's an interesting story but also has an actual message. It's more than just entertainment." I thought (and think) this is a rare and special combination.

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Originally posted by MrJiveBoJingles She sets up a sharp dichotomy between the ugly, boring, whiny, deadbeats and the beautiful, interesting, and longsuffering productive people, shows the latter being oppressed under the weight of the former's idiocy and jealousy, and then delivers a big rhetorical punch toward the end in the form of a long speech expounding her philosophy. In the universe of her novels, the only people who don't support her ideas are characters that you can't help but hate because they're so obnoxious. This is done deliberately so that the reader will identify her philosophy with only the best sort of people, and everything that opposes it with the worst sort.

This, however, I can't help but agree with. In Atlas Shrugged, I skipped over the chapter where John Galt makes that epic speech, it was just too much for me. I think you're right in that she relies too much on dichotomy and portrays the collectivist characters poorly to create bias against the very ideal.

However, in a less extreme sense, I see those kinds of characters every day. The people who whine because their employer didn't throw them a Christmas party, the people who claim that they shouldn't have to pay any tax whatsoever while "the wealthy people should", the people who file injury complaints against their employers when they've never actually been injured, or the people who are on government benefits when in reality they are too lazy to work. Their are examples of all this in every walk of life. Ayn Rand got it mostly correct; her only mistake was taking it to the absolute extreme.

Last edited by Domesticated on May-14-2009 at 07:01