Ayn Rand

[JAMESBJOHNSON]

Ayn Rand published 2 how to write books worth the candles to read. One for fiction, one for non-fiction. The non-fiction volume includes a decent how-to easy hypnosis section. She was a cheerleader for using your subconscious to do the heavy lifting. And she explores all the problems writers collide with, including writers blox: You have nothing to say, or one of your principal premises is flawed and stopped the writing machine till you got your mind right.

Where Rand and I part company is with her insistence that stories take 2 forms only: Romantic and Natural. In the Natural Form shit happens to human pawns, and no plot is possible. ITS ALWAYS SUMTHIN! In the Romantic Form all are masters and commanders of their Fates, and its PLOT-LAND. I AM WOMAN HEAR ME ROAR.

I think the proposition gives her books a turgid, constipated aspect. I think, too, characters (and people) dwell in worlds both fortuitous/determined and free-willed (even where choices are few).

 

[oggbashan]

I have read some Ayn Rand, but Amicus' insistence that she is a goddess who can solve all the world's problems has deterred me from revisiting her work.

She has some ideas but her prescriptive answers are too simplistic. Like Amicus, she sees alternatives as one or the other without recognising that life's problems are rarely that easy.

When do we ever get choices that are signposted "Good" and "Bad"? We tend to get a range of choices from 'Good-ish with bad parts' and multiples ending with 'Bad-ish with good parts'. And we never have all the information to make the best choice until we have committed ourselves.

At best, Ayn Rand can make one think. At worst, she makes one think WTF!.

 

[JAMESBJOHNSON]

I have read some Ayn Rand, but Amicus' insistence that she is a goddess who can solve all the world's problems has deterred me from revisiting her work.

She has some ideas but her prescriptive answers are too simplistic. Like Amicus, she sees alternatives as one or the other without recognising that life's problems are rarely that easy.

When do we ever get choices that are signposted "Good" and "Bad"? We tend to get a range of choices from 'Good-ish with bad parts' and multiples ending with 'Bad-ish with good parts'. And we never have all the information to make the best choice until we have committed ourselves.

At best, Ayn Rand can make one think. At worst, she makes one think WTF!.

Of course. Her objectivist philosophy is nifty but few want to hang their miscreant children, regardless of how it improves the world.

 

[StrangeLife]

She had a lot of profound things to say, this being one of my favorites...

http://www.thomasvan.com/wp-content/files/ayn-rand-quotes4.jpg






However she would occasionally demonstrate a complete lack of understanding of how men think and work. For instance...

http://s30.postimg.org/5406ovhc1/a_creative_man_is_motivated_by_the_desire_to_ach.jpg


Yeah right!

 

[ishtat]

One of life's small ironies is that Karl Marx and Ayn Rand had two things in common - they were two of the most tedious writers whoever put ink on a page and they each thought they had all the answers. Marx was, however, a first rate economic historian - but whenever he strayed into other subjects he was sadly wrong. Ayn Rand was in every respect a second rater.

 

[sheablue]

I have read some Ayn Rand, but Amicus' insistence that she is a goddess who can solve all the world's problems has deterred me from revisiting her work.

She has some ideas but her prescriptive answers are too simplistic. Like Amicus, she sees alternatives as one or the other without recognising that life's problems are rarely that easy.

When do we ever get choices that are signposted "Good" and "Bad"? We tend to get a range of choices from 'Good-ish with bad parts' and multiples ending with 'Bad-ish with good parts'. And we never have all the information to make the best choice until we have committed ourselves.

At best, Ayn Rand can make one think. At worst, she makes one think WTF!.

Brilliant, Ogg!

I was intrigued by her when I was in college, but now I think it's all much ado about nothing.

Interesting philosophies, but not really applicable to real people in real life.

 

[JAMESBJOHNSON]

Brilliant, Ogg!

I was intrigued by her when I was in college, but now I think it's all much ado about nothing.

Interesting philosophies, but not really applicable to real people in real life.

Your comment applies to everyone, doesn't it? Rand was a force of Nature, and we aren't, are we? We rise to her knees and kick her shins.

Before Richard Dawkins went squishy he championed the same objectivist-ego centric paradigm as Ayn Rand, then he stopped getting faculty party invitations, and fell to his knees in humility. Today he's a socialist mystic spewing word-salad.

 

[StrangeLife]

One of life's small ironies is that Karl Marx and Ayn Rand had two things in common - they were two of the most tedious writers whoever put ink on a page and they each thought they had all the answers. Marx was, however, a first rate economic historian - but whenever he strayed into other subjects he was sadly wrong. Ayn Rand was in every respect a second rater.

On the other hand Marx recently had his principles applied in a large scale experiment that failed miserably and was indirectly responsible for more death and suffering than Adolf himself.

You might say that the influence of Ayn Rand is somewhat more benign...

 

[AMoveableBeast]

Any Rand was a smart, extremely self-confident woman who applied small solutions to big problems. Writers exist in a miniature world, for a good part of the time, one in which they pull of the strings. It's easy to play SimCity and clean up the disasters when you're the one calling the tornados.

In real life, things are significantly harder. You can't take over the world with an army of toy soldiers, no matter how meticulously painted and detailed they might be.

 

[patientlee]

I read Anthem. I was glad it was short.

 

[JAMESBJOHNSON]

Any Rand was a smart, extremely self-confident woman who applied small solutions to big problems. Writers exist in a miniature world, for a good part of the time, one in which they pull of the strings. It's easy to play SimCity and clean up the disasters when you're the one calling the tornados.

In real life, things are significantly harder. You can't take over the world with an army of toy soldiers, no matter how meticulously painted and detailed they might be.

Sure. I beat the crap outta small critters but my wand don't work so well with gorillas.

 

[Desiremakesmeweak]

Did absolutely NOT think I was going to post ANYTHING ever again about Rand - I had hoped she had gone away forever and only those hoping RAND PAUL wouldn't get to run for Rep. Prez would still be huddling together somewhere discussing the idiot Ayn Rand.

But,

Agree with Ishtat;

and JBJ's 'socialist mystic spewing word-salad' is priceless. Yeah, when Dawkins started he made a lot of sense, and then, suddenly, he's turned fucking i-don't-know-what, stressed and under pressure, it seems. Where the fuck did all the confidence of his science and objectivity go?

A lot of these types of feted people - Dawkins, Ayn Rand, Marx - they all have some sort of point tucked away deep inside the pretentiousness: subsconscious doing the heavy lifting is an interesting idea, but not if by subconscious one means only whatever Freud said when he was being stubborn and wrong!!

Really bad writers who have somehow managed to get a bunch of followers? Ayn Rand, Karl Marx, L. Ron Hubbard - and I would have added Adolf Hitler but I think he was autistic, frankly, and that's why he repeated whole chapters over and over and over again.

Socialist mystic spewing word-salad... Fucking brilliant.

 

[Desiremakesmeweak]

As promised... This post has now been excised of any part that could have offended the tactical planning of the team.

...Or its marketing arm which spews out media fairy tales for the mass consumption of voters - who democratically elect the governments they want and select all by themselves.

 

[Desiremakesmeweak]

And I'm going to delete that last post in a few hours. Whoever reads it between now and then shouldn't repeat it too much...

 

[lovecraft68]

She had a lot of profound things to say, this being one of my favorites...

http://www.thomasvan.com/wp-content/files/ayn-rand-quotes4.jpg

This. I have it on my vision board

 

[JAMESBJOHNSON]

Did absolutely NOT think I was going to post ANYTHING ever again about Rand - I had hoped she had gone away forever and only those hoping RAND PAUL wouldn't get to run for Rep. Prez would still be huddling together somewhere discussing the idiot Ayn Rand.

But,

Agree with Ishtat;

and JBJ's 'socialist mystic spewing word-salad' is priceless. Yeah, when Dawkins started he made a lot of sense, and then, suddenly, he's turned fucking i-don't-know-what, stressed and under pressure, it seems. Where the fuck did all the confidence of his science and objectivity go?

A lot of these types of feted people - Dawkins, Ayn Rand, Marx - they all have some sort of point tucked away deep inside the pretentiousness: subsconscious doing the heavy lifting is an interesting idea, but not if by subconscious one means only whatever Freud said when he was being stubborn and wrong!!

Really bad writers who have somehow managed to get a bunch of followers? Ayn Rand, Karl Marx, L. Ron Hubbard - and I would have added Adolf Hitler but I think he was autistic, frankly, and that's why he repeated whole chapters over and over and over again.

Socialist mystic spewing word-salad... Fucking brilliant.

I steal hubcaps and hood ornaments from people like Ayn Rand, and the rest. I like to leave their philosophies atop cinder blocks. Dawkins and E.O.Wilson brewed some good stuff back in the 70s. Vincent Sarich fomented riots in his classes at Berkley when he characterized blacks as niche looters. These people gave science a pulse until Carl Sagan handed science over to the poets and troubadours.

I blame their wives. They are weary of being shunned and ignored for Nobel Prizes and the T-Ball trophies the President awards to irrelevant celebrities. FOR CHRISTS SAKE, RICHARD, ITS A REAL NIGHT OUT WITH A FREE MEAL, AND I'M SICK OF STARING AT YOUR SOUR PUSS ACROSS THE TABLE.

 

[lovecraft68]

Did absolutely NOT think I was going to post ANYTHING ever again about Rand - I had hoped she had gone away forever and only those hoping RAND PAUL wouldn't get to run for Rep. Prez would still be huddling together somewhere discussing the idiot Ayn Rand.

But,

Agree with Ishtat;

and JBJ's 'socialist mystic spewing word-salad' is priceless. Yeah, when Dawkins started he made a lot of sense, and then, suddenly, he's turned fucking i-don't-know-what, stressed and under pressure, it seems. Where the fuck did all the confidence of his science and objectivity go?

A lot of these types of feted people - Dawkins, Ayn Rand, Marx - they all have some sort of point tucked away deep inside the pretentiousness: subsconscious doing the heavy lifting is an interesting idea, but not if by subconscious one means only whatever Freud said when he was being stubborn and wrong!!

Really bad writers who have somehow managed to get a bunch of followers? Ayn Rand, Karl Marx, L. Ron Hubbard - and I would have added Adolf Hitler but I think he was autistic, frankly, and that's why he repeated whole chapters over and over and over again.

Socialist mystic spewing word-salad... Fucking brilliant.

LEMMINGS.

These people thrived on lemmings and with society today there should be plenty of room for more people like them.

 

[Handley_Page]

Until I joined Lit, I'd never heard of Miss Rosenbaum.

 

[Hypoxia]

LEMMINGS.

The suicidal lemming meme was invented by Disney. You have been Moused.

Until I joined Lit, I'd never heard of Miss Rosenbaum.

You missed little, if anything. Now, if you haven't heard of Bucky Fuller, you're deprived.