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

[shoujo-mallet.livejournal.com]

I cannot explain, but I feel compelled to say the following:

In Dirty Dancing, Robbie attempts to lend Baby a copy of The Fountainhead, offering it as justification for taking no responsibility in Penny's pregnancy. Shortly afterwards Baby pours a pitcher of ice water on his crotch.

Yeah, all my knowledge of Ayn Rand is jibes at her in popular culture.

[tiurin.livejournal.com]

You could probably get a decent summary just off wikipedia. But in a nutshell, objectivism is a shoddy philosophical(I use the term loosely) system based on assertions which are either tautological or unjustified. It's pretty much an entire philosophy founded around the phrase "Fuck off!"

[galbinus-caeli.livejournal.com]

"Me First!"

[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.

[hrafn.livejournal.com]

Since others have already given good summaries of Rand's philosophy, I feel okay saying this: IMNSHO, if you can get through multiple volumes of Goodkind's work, you can get through _Atlas Shrugged_. Frankly, I'd rather reread Rand than ever touch Goodkind again, and the only way I got through Atlas was pure stubbornness - I was not going to let that book get the better of me, no matter how much I hated it. After the first 3 volumes of Goodkind, I found his ideas so offensive and repulsive that I lost all respect for everything he'd written. Which is a shame; I'd enjoyed his world and plots a great deal for a while.

[sirroxton.livejournal.com]

Just a couple of tidbits to add to what has already been said.

Objectivism sees capitalism as a moral good. I mean, what's more moral than giving people what they want?

Rand once said that she preferred communists to the liberals of her day, "because at least they have an ideology." *shudder*

The "elites will do best" philosophy really encourages seeing the worse-off individual as being less deserving (rather than having fewer opportunities). To the extent that an Objectivist does not see things this way, he does believe that more opportunities would be available in a more Objectivist society. Consequently, when the subject of increased educational opportunities and social welfare for the underprivileged comes up, the Objectivist will say that the answer is less social assistance, not more.