Sales of “Atlas Shrugged” (by Ayn Rand) Soar in the Face of Economic Crisis (interviews as well/

Originally posted by kettlebellysmith
When one reads Rand's works, she comes across as being cold and unfeeling, but one can be objective, and still experience all the normal human emotions. But an objectivism point of view would look at these emotions and rationally come to the conclusion of whether acting on the emotion would be to your benefit or not.

It's not about having no emotions, it's about choosing to act or not to act.

Well, I quoted the Christian principle which Jesus espoused (clearly Rand thought he was not relevant?) and his altruistic theory is that evil people can still be good if they know how to give good gifts to their children.

If Ayn Rand had been being charged by the useage of the word "evil", there wouldn't be enough nickels from all her book sales to pay for it. Everything that didn't jibe with her (or which she couldn't understand) was labeled "evil". This includes any and all doctors of the mind. People who were intellectually above her but with whom she didn't agree were not even given audiecne or were cast out from her circle. This betrays a lack of confidence in her own ability to think. The classic Objectivist will leave the room rather than argue with someone who is being "irrational". It's so easy and fun to irritate them.

No Objectivist descending upon this thread with Ms. Rand's banner can deny that she used the word evil far too much to describe even the most mundane differences of opinion. This we find with all her drones also: There is an us-and-them framework to the Randian "rational worldview"

People who cleave to her without critizicising her obvious gaps in knowledge of humans, are not being objective.

There is a user on this thread who said it quite well, "I won't do the things it takes to become super-rich because I don't agree with what it takes to become super-rich." ...This person understands much whereas those who have sold their souls to money/mammon have clouded eyes and a rationality that proceeds from false premises.

Originally posted by smallpeeps
People who cleave to her without critizicising her obvious gaps in knowledge of humans, are not being objective.

One glaring thing about her work that I've said before is this - she's got some strange thoughts about human sexuality. She was REALLY into violent and degrading sex in The Fountainhead. (a frigid woman becomes a victim of violent rape and she loves being raped and falls in love with the rapist, who also falls in love with her) That violent sexuality came through a bit in Atlas Shrugged. I said I'd love to see her and Freud locked in a room for a few hours. That would be hysterical.

I think that Atlas Shrugged is a wonderfully written book and it is prophecy. Literally. When I read Atlas Shrugged I felt like I was watching a very, very, long black and white Clark Gable movie. It had that feel to it. And what happens in the book in regards to business and countries and looters and freeloaders ... it was prophetic IMHO.



[edit on 3/5/2009 by FlyersFan]

I cannot believe so many Americans are rushing out to buy this over blown gigantic book! I also in no way believe that even ten percent of the purchased books will be read. I tried, many a time, to read this snoozefest. Could not do it, and I am a bibliophile, speedreader, and wanted to get through it to see what all the talk was about.

Anyway, good luck reading this monstrosity, those who shelled out for it. Remember, just because one buys a book does not mean one reads it. This sounds like a current trend or something due to the fact a Movie is coming out sometime soon about the book. I am quite sure the movie coming out has nothing to do with increased book sales though, just the economy.

Here is the IMDB page on the movie. Like the book, the timetable for production is bloated as well, it is due in 2011.

Originally posted by maus80
reply to post by LoneGunMan

 

Why are you pooping all over a realist/objectivist thread with this sort of nonsense? If you believe that human's have secret supernatural super-powers, start a thread about that, it has squat to do with objectivism or this thread.

Because any animal is a realist/objectivist. Only a human can be of the higher self. All animals can display different levels of emotion, intelligence and using tools. The ONLY real difference between a cold calculating objectivist and an animal is the level of intelligence. One day in the far future we will have computers that can think and display emotions. We are not computers or just animals.

Once you grow out of the animal phase you can become something more. It is very natural and there is nothing supernatural about it. I understand you cannot see my point of view...at one time long ago I was just like you. I am not claiming to be better just evolved a bit further down the road away from my animal side.

Strive to do better, serve others and not just the self and do this not to get a pay off but because it is in your heart. That woman thinks like a really advanced computer. The meat computer is not who we are.

Thread Here

Rep. John Cambell gives all his interns copies of Atlas Shrugged.
Perhaps he's had a lot of interns and thus the rise in sales?

Originally posted by FlyersFan

Originally posted by smallpeeps
People who cleave to her without critizicising her obvious gaps in knowledge of humans, are not being objective.

One glaring thing about her work that I've said before is this - she's got some strange thoughts about human sexuality. She was REALLY into violent and degrading sex in The Fountainhead. (a frigid woman becomes a victim of violent rape and she loves being raped and falls in love with the rapist, who also falls in love with her) That violent sexuality came through a bit in Atlas Shrugged. I said I'd love to see her and Freud locked in a room for a few hours. That would be hysterical.

Oh if you really want to laugh then find the college Q&A where some student calls her on this and she goes into detail about how it isn't rape. Well, I can remember long before I got my grubby hands on Atlas (which was forbidden reading in my parents house) I also got my hands on a few romance novels and yeah, the action there is the same.

As for her and Freud, I think it's funny how very much writing Rand did and how little research. I think she could have just relaxed a tiny bit and been happier. But she held to the idea that the industrialist is the prime mover which is not true.

Didn't you like in Atlas how Hank Rearden has no problems with his unions? She wrote pages and pages of diatribe but wrote like, two sentences on why this great industrialist is so loved by his workers. Hilarious really.

But she was great. A titan among humans. Please don't misunderstand me, I do love Ayn Rand very much. It's her followers who fail to hold their master's legacy to the light who are failing, imo. And as I mentioned, the people who are goldbugs and mammonists can be traced back to many others of the same cloth. Greenspan's essay on the Gold standard was written while he was in Rand's circle and appeared in official Objectivist publications. Here's a sample:

Greenspan on Gold 1966

In the absence of the gold standard, there is no way to protect savings from confiscation through inflation. There is no safe store of value. If there were, the government would have to make its holding illegal, as was done in the case of gold. If everyone decided, for example, to convert all his bank deposits to silver or copper or any other good, and thereafter declined to accept checks as payment for goods, bank deposits would lose their purchasing power and government-created bank credit would be worthless as a claim on goods. The financial policy of the welfare state requires that there be no way for the owners of wealth to protect themselves.

Dr. Alan Greenspan 1966

Twenty years later (1986) this man was president of the Fed and if you look at the credit bubbles he built from that point forward, one must surely say that Dr. Greenspan is not speculating in regards to when and how governments will confiscate gold. I have spoken about Gold Cops on other forums and been ignored, but I see Greenspan as a genius and what he is saying in this statement is actually a dialectic plan for what he knows will work. Notice that his tale of the Great Depression mentions nothing political at all. Politics is not a part of the Doc's volcabulary but you can see he understands where all the levers are on this gumball machine called the "economy".

Now where is he? He's shrugging.

[edit on 5-3-2009 by smallpeeps]

Originally posted by smallpeeps
she goes into detail about how it isn't rape.

It was definately rape. Her own character goes on and on about how she wants to shout from the rooftops about how she'd been raped. Not because of anger .. but because she was thrilled about it. Like it freed her from being frigid. Then these two main characters fall in love (if you can call it that). It's really sick.

That was too distracting for me to be able to enjoy Fountainhead.

Of course.

I go to London for the week, and somebody goes and starts an Ayn Rand thread. Now I have to take my sightseeing time to write in this thread.

Thanks alot OP.

On to business; I have yet to filter through ALL 6 pages of this thread, as even the detractors from Ayn Rand have something worthy to say I'm sure, but I wanted to add this.

If you have read any of her novels, good for you. If you stopped there, well then you really have only opened the door and shut it again. I recently traveled 200 miles, (400 round trip) to go to a cash only book store, just to pick up the books of essays that Rand and her co-authors wrote. (Includes Alan Greenspan, if you know who that is) These include the titles, but are not limited to, (btw, I know because they came on the plane with me)

"Capitalism- The Unknown Ideal"
"The Virtue of Selfishness"
"The New Left. The Anti-Industrial Revolution"

If you are in for some eye-opening reading, I highly reccomend these books. Mostly, however, I want to go back and read this thread. I am guessing, without even looking, that Ann will be attacked for three things, at minimum.
1) She will either be refered to as "cold" or "uncaring".
2) She is a Fascist.
3) People will attack her private life and her personal choices. (something that the same people would never allow of their dear King Obama)

So let me go back and read this thread, correct the blind ones, and I will await any questions from others, as Objectivism has been my life for the last ten years. (sorry OP, but I wish that you had at least read her books before you posted, as the videos are great, but I know you will be hit with all these questions from others that you couldn't possibly know the answers to.)
So I'm off, but will repost after I have read. -cheers, Jason

reply to post by smallpeeps


Couldn't even leave this page. Hate to tell you this, but anyone who wants anything from me, and they feel I "owe " them, has clearly crossed a line into evil.

Think about that before you post some snarky answer please.

reply to post by smallpeeps


Thanks for the insight smallpeeps. I didn't realize Greenspan was actually part of the fold. It baffles me, as from my understanding of Atlas beliefs, Fiat / debt based currency to the extent that Greenspan allowed it to go would be criminal. The passage that explains the true value of money as I remember it was very specific as to exactly what the value of money is based on. Did the apple fall that far from the tree (Greenspan) or am I completely wrong here? The Fed as I see it is a source of the very thing Atlas condemned?

And we’re in agreement on a lot of points. Objectivism needs to be balanced with spirituality (not traditional “religion” as used by most conservatives and fundamentalist type thinkers).

Originally posted by FlyersFan

Originally posted by smallpeeps
she goes into detail about how it isn't rape.

It was definately rape. Her own character goes on and on about how she wants to shout from the rooftops about how she'd been raped. Not because of anger .. but because she was thrilled about it. Like it freed her from being frigid. Then these two main characters fall in love (if you can call it that). It's really sick.

That was too distracting for me to be able to enjoy Fountainhead.

I think both men and women have a part of themselves that thrills at being able to give up control. Now this applies to either sex and both sexes are envigorated by power-games within the bedroom, so perhaps we could say that bedroom shenanigans don't change much really in that we are all humans and we like to playfully tug at the rope of our partner's control over us. Obviously we now know that she could have talked at length about human sexuality and I personally would find it much more interesting to hear her rant about smooching rather than mooching.

Ayn Rand was a woman, a human, as complex and as wonderful as any of us who are impressed by her clarity of vision. I am glad she is being discussed and I don't want to be too critical of her because her harshness in regards to altruism wasn't really her true self as she was quite charitable with her friends. One can see that those big eyes have a huge heart behind them.

[edit on 5-3-2009 by smallpeeps]

If Ayn Rand had been being charged by the useage of the word "evil", there wouldn't be enough nickels from all her book sales to pay for it. Everything that didn't jibe with her (or which she couldn't understand) was labeled "evil". This includes any and all doctors of the mind. People who were intellectually above her but with whom she didn't agree were not even given audiecne or were cast out from her circle. This betrays a lack of confidence in her own ability to think.

One glaring thing about her work that I've said before is this - she's got some strange thoughts about human sexuality. She was REALLY into violent and degrading sex in The Fountainhead.

Remember, Ayn Rand was a human being before she was an objectivist. No one of us is perfect. The sexual fantasies of most people would be considered 'disturbing' to others.

There is a user on this thread who said it quite well, "I won't do the things it takes to become super-rich because I don't agree with what it takes to become super-rich." ...This person understands much whereas those who have sold their souls to money/mammon have clouded eyes and a rationality that proceeds from false premises.

Oy-yoy-yoy!:shk:

Some more thoughts:

Why did Rand abhor altruism?

Because altruism requires victims.

What is the definition of selfishness?

Concern for ones' own interests.

It's true, we can't keep the book in our bookstore. Sell out after sell out.

Just went to the book store today and bought Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand and Revolution by Ron Paul.

Atlas Shrugged is huge! Gonna take a while to read that one. The Ron Paul one is short though..only hundred or so pages.

Atlas Shrugged was 25 dollars. It should be worth it though.

Originally posted by jsobecky
Some more thoughts:

Why did Rand abhor altruism?

Because altruism requires victims.

Yeah but did she really need to "abhor" it?

Really now, couldn't she have just, disliked it?

Altruism means letting people feel good about just giving stuff away. Why did she have such a problem with it?

What is the definition of selfishness?

Concern for ones' own interests.

Oh here's the part where I get syntactially and verbally instructed via definitions of words. Okay let's play that game.

Selfishness is never defined as concern for ones interest except perhaps in dictionaries and other obtuse places. Most people know what being selfish means: When you want more and others have little.

[edit on 5-3-2009 by smallpeeps]

Originally posted by smallpeeps

Obviously we now know that she could have talked at length about human sexuality and I personally would find it much more interesting to hear her rant about smooching rather than mooching.

Just as an idea unexpressed in physical action is contemptible hypocrisy, so is platonic love—and just as physical action unguided by an idea is a fool’s self-fraud, so is sex when cut off from one’s code of values . . . . Only the man who extols the purity of a love devoid of desire, is capable of the depravity of a desire devoid of love.

snip

The man who despises himself tries to gain self-esteem from sexual adventures—which can’t be done, because sex is not the cause, but an effect and an expression of a man’s sense of his own value . . .

The men who think that wealth comes from material resources and has no intellectual root or meaning, are the men who think—for the same reason—that sex is a physical capacity which functions independently of one’s mind, choice or code of values. They think that your body creates a desire and makes a choice for you just about in some such way as if iron ore transformed itself into railroad rails of its own volition. Love is blind, they say; sex is impervious to reason and mocks the power of all philosophers. But, in fact, a man’s sexual choice is the result and the sum of his fundamental convictions. Tell me what a man finds sexually attractive and I will tell you his entire philosophy of life. Show me the woman he sleeps with and I will tell you his valuation of himself. No matter what corruption he’s taught about the virtue of selflessness, sex is the most profoundly selfish of all acts, an act which he cannot perform for any motive but his own enjoyment—just try to think of performing it in a spirit of selfless charity!—an act which is not possible in self-abasement, only in self-exaltation, only in the confidence of being desired and being worthy of desire. It is an act that forces him to stand naked in spirit, as well as in body, and to accept his real ego as his standard of value. He will always be attracted to the woman who reflects his deepest vision of himself, the woman whose surrender permits him to experience—or to fake—a sense of self-esteem . . . . Love is our response to our highest values—and can be nothing else.

From "The New Intellectual"

Sex is one of the most important aspects of man’s life and, therefore, must never be approached lightly or casually. A sexual relationship is proper only on the ground of the highest values one can find in a human being. Sex must not be anything other than a response to values. And that is why I consider promiscuity immoral. Not because sex is evil, but because sex is too good and too important . . . .

[Sex should] involve . . . a very serious relationship. Whether that relationship should or should not become a marriage is a question which depends on the circumstances and the context of the two persons’ lives. I consider marriage a very important institution, but it is important when and if two people have found the person with whom they wish to spend the rest of their lives—a question of which no man or woman can be automatically certain. When one is certain that one’s choice is final, then marriage is, of course, a desirable state. But this does not mean that any relationship based on less than total certainty is improper. I think the question of an affair or a marriage depends on the knowledge and the position of the two persons involved and should be left up to them. Either is moral, provided only that both parties take the relationship seriously and that it is based on values.

“Playboy’s Interview with Ayn Rand,” March 1964. Bolding mine.

I am glad she is being discussed and I don't want to be too critical of her because her harshness in regards to altruism wasn't really her true self as she was quite charitable with her friends. One can see that those big eyes have a huge heart behind them.

She would tell you that she didn't give to her friends by sacrificing herself, she gave them "charity" because she valued them and that she loved them selfishly because their presence, their morals, their principles, their ideas she enjoyed selfishly.

[edit on 5-3-2009 by Cool Hand Luke]

reply to post by smallpeeps

Originally posted by smallpeeps

Originally posted by jsobecky
Some more thoughts:

Why did Rand abhor altruism?

Because altruism requires victims.

Yeah but did she really need to "abhor" it?

Really now, couldn't she have just, disliked it?

I guess she could have just shunned it.

Or scorned it.

Or panned it.

Or...

What is the definition of selfishness?

Concern for ones' own interests.

Oh here's the part where I get syntactially and verbally instructed via definitions of words. Okay let's play that game.

Selfishness is never defined as concern for ones interest except perhaps in dictionaries and other obtuse places. Most people know what being selfish means: When you want more and others have little.

Ah, so you know the 'real, eclectic' meaning of words.

Damn that Ayn Rand for trying to be esoteric with us!


[edit on 5-3-2009 by jsobecky]

Originally posted by Cool Hand Luke

Just as an idea unexpressed in physical action is contemptible hypocrisy, so is platonic love

There is nothing about smooching in your post. It's all about the higher reasons for love and all that. She was just one "s" away from true revelation.

No, I'm being way too harsh. I do really love her. It's like she needed another 100 years and yes, I wish she were alive. I'd be happy to debate her.

[edit on 5-3-2009 by smallpeeps]

Originally posted by smallpeeps

Yeah but did she really need to "abhor" it?

Yes because her definition of altruism was sacrificing oneself to others. Now that could be someone's happiness, values, principles, material goods, self esteem, achievements, etc. She said that men are not sacrificial animals. She said that men should have self esteem. Which means that happiness is every individuals goal and only the individual can decide what it is that makes him happy.

Really now, couldn't she have just, disliked it?

Suppose someone tells you that they need all the material things you have earned throughout your lifetime for them to be happy. Altruism tells you you have no choice but to sacrifice everything you have ever earned to someone not because he traded something of equal value to you, not because you believe he has earned it or value him as a person, but because he "needs."

Altruism means letting people feel good about just giving stuff away. Why did she have such a problem with it?

Again you have determine whether you are sacrificing your happiness for another person's, or doing something that truly makes you happy, which would mean you are selfish because you are doing it for your own pleasure.

I would like to ask you a question. If you believe in altruism, why not live it fully? Why not remove the word NO from your mind and refuse nothing anybody asks of you? What kind of life would you be living? How much thinking would you accomplish if you never had to make a judgement and be a mere slave at the whim of your neighbors?

What is the definition of selfishness?

To love one self, to want happiness, to seek pleasure, in other words choosing to live.

Selfishness is never defined as concern for ones interest except perhaps in dictionaries and other obtuse places. Most people know what being selfish means: When you want more and others have little.

Are you saying that the "others that have little" don't want more happiness, more clean water, more electronics, more houses, more roads, more ________? Talk to some of these people who have none of these things and tell me if they don't want more of them. What seperates us from the animals is the fact that we can choose to live like humans or live like animals.

[edit on 5-3-2009 by Cool Hand Luke]