Ayn Rand

[asterroc]

I haven't ever read Ayn Rand, and I have no intention of doing so. However, I am told that the author of the series I am currently reading, Terry Goodkind, is heavily influenced by her works, and her concepts of "objectivism" and "enlightened self interest." Anyone care to explain these concepts to me in shorter form?

Comments

[seekingferret.livejournal.com]

I haven't read "Atlas Shrugged", which tends to be where Rand-ites draw most of their direct inspiration. But I've read "The Fountainhead" and some of her essays and can give you some sense of what objectivism is.

Rand, in an essay, praised what she termed 'the virtue of selfishness'. This is beyond an argument that 'me first' is what's best for an individual, but an argument that 'me first' is actually what is best for society.

In "The Fountainhead", Roark is an architect of tremendous personal vision who cannot realize his artistic creations because they have to be mediated by others, viz construction workers, financeers, etc... The argument broached is that the best way to promote societal improvement is to let singleminded, completely selfish creatures like Roark do whatever they want because they know better than the groupmind of society does.

Objectivism is the extension of this. gemini6ice has a nice little nutshell definition. A society that lets individuals act as individuals will provided the greatest benefit to all.

Needless to say, there are a lot of obvious flaws with this reasoning and an even larger boatload of less obvious flaws. But it's a worldview that offers certain attractions to some.

[zandperl.livejournal.com]

Well then, "The Faith of the Fallen" is an outright homage to "The Fountainhead" then. In the climax of the novel the main character has been acting as a stonemason to carve hideous sculptures dictated by the rulers, but decides the only way to be true to himself is to throw off those bounds and carve a thing for beauty for himself. It is set upon a backdrop of thick bureaucracy where his employers aren't able to get enough steel to build a palace b/c the bureaucrats say it's unfair for certain movers to carry more steel than others even though the others don't have a working cart, and it's unfair for certain producers of steel to sell more than others even though the other producers don't have any, and so on. In the end the beautiful sculpture that the main character creates inspires the populace to revolt against their masters.

I did think this situation was ridiculously unrealistic; knowing it's copied from someone else makes me like it even less.

[seekingferret.livejournal.com]

Wow... it sounds like not only did he rip off "The Fountainhead", he delivered its central message in an even cruder way than Rand did. And that's no easy thing to do.