Post by Shannon on Dec 10, 2009 13:35:16 GMT -5
I read The Fountainhead when I was around 20-21. Liked it well enough.
Read Atlas Shrugged at 26-27 and agreed with alto of her philosophies.
Read We the Living at 30 and thought, "WTF is this crap?" Poorly written, ridiculous, and teeming with sociopathic tendencies and hypocrisies. I thought, "Well, it was her first novel. Some things can be forgiven in youth." FFS, she was older than me when it was published. Replace Kira with Bella, Leo with Edward, Jacob with Andrei and Communism with mortality and you've got Twilight.
Under closer examination, and with a little help from research, you can clearly see how utterly ridiculous and hypocritical she is. She doesn't hate Communism. She hates the personal pain she went through during a communistic event. If it had happened under Capitalism she would have written about that. Ironically, her idea of the individual, value, and mortality is it's own form of Communism: Randunism. Men have to prove their value to deserve life. Well, they wouldn't be doing it for the 'Collective', but if you have to officially prove you've been of some value by means of labor, creation or education to earn bread, millet or oil- then that's pretty much the same thing as being a union member for a ration card. Idiot.
"Man should live for his own pleasure." What she means is, Man should live for HER pleasure, and his pleasure should be hers. No other pleasure, no other pursuit, is acceptable. It is amoral and without value to live in a reality that is not Ayn Rands. How objective.
I'm still impatient with the entitled, the users, the willfully ignorant- but Ayn Rand is the biggest offender of all! And one of the most dangerous, as her offenses are neatly and deceptively wrapped.
I also don't completely loathe Ayn Rand, I think she was on to something- even a broken clock is right twice-but I think mental illness and arrogance clouded whatever intelligence and genius she did have. I'm not even sure she was a genius. I think she was aggressive. And insane. I do like her idea that if we love all man, unconditionally, then love holds no value. "A whole line of zeroes is still nothing." Though, actually, it IS something.... And she made the most ridiculous 'philosophical' statement in WTL. "...Man is a word for which there is no plural." Um, Ayn? It's Men. Men! You freaking idiot! I do agree that it's wrong to turn our 'best' into slaves for the masses- but then, who decides what 'best' is, anyhow?
And that sort of pondering is the something good that comes out of her works, at least.
(Thanks for killing it for me, WTL. I mean that sincerely.)
Read Atlas Shrugged at 26-27 and agreed with alto of her philosophies.
Read We the Living at 30 and thought, "WTF is this crap?" Poorly written, ridiculous, and teeming with sociopathic tendencies and hypocrisies. I thought, "Well, it was her first novel. Some things can be forgiven in youth." FFS, she was older than me when it was published. Replace Kira with Bella, Leo with Edward, Jacob with Andrei and Communism with mortality and you've got Twilight.
Under closer examination, and with a little help from research, you can clearly see how utterly ridiculous and hypocritical she is. She doesn't hate Communism. She hates the personal pain she went through during a communistic event. If it had happened under Capitalism she would have written about that. Ironically, her idea of the individual, value, and mortality is it's own form of Communism: Randunism. Men have to prove their value to deserve life. Well, they wouldn't be doing it for the 'Collective', but if you have to officially prove you've been of some value by means of labor, creation or education to earn bread, millet or oil- then that's pretty much the same thing as being a union member for a ration card. Idiot.
"Man should live for his own pleasure." What she means is, Man should live for HER pleasure, and his pleasure should be hers. No other pleasure, no other pursuit, is acceptable. It is amoral and without value to live in a reality that is not Ayn Rands. How objective.
I'm still impatient with the entitled, the users, the willfully ignorant- but Ayn Rand is the biggest offender of all! And one of the most dangerous, as her offenses are neatly and deceptively wrapped.
I also don't completely loathe Ayn Rand, I think she was on to something- even a broken clock is right twice-but I think mental illness and arrogance clouded whatever intelligence and genius she did have. I'm not even sure she was a genius. I think she was aggressive. And insane. I do like her idea that if we love all man, unconditionally, then love holds no value. "A whole line of zeroes is still nothing." Though, actually, it IS something.... And she made the most ridiculous 'philosophical' statement in WTL. "...Man is a word for which there is no plural." Um, Ayn? It's Men. Men! You freaking idiot! I do agree that it's wrong to turn our 'best' into slaves for the masses- but then, who decides what 'best' is, anyhow?
And that sort of pondering is the something good that comes out of her works, at least.
(Thanks for killing it for me, WTL. I mean that sincerely.)