Teaching American literature, one of the key delights is running into the sort of student who’s an acolyte of the selfish and moronic “philosophy” of Ayn Rand. As Dan just pointed out, Randians love to preach about responsibility and individualism, while living large on the fact that the rest of society provides them with all sorts of benefits through those taxes they themselves don’t want to pay. The young readers who buy into Rand’s nonsense share two features in common: immense narcissism and utter cluelessness. They see themselves as heroic inviolate individuals, owing nothing to anyone, since everything they’ve achieved is due to their own genius and hard work. When you begin chipping away at this edifice of ego with pesky facts about the inter-relatedness of all people in our society, the many benefits they’ve gotten from others without realizing or acknowledging it, the response is the same glassy-eyed brain-shut-down that Biblical literalists display when the mutually exclusive and incoherent creation stories in Genesis are pointed out. You say every word of the Bible is literally true—OK, was the human race created as depicted in Genesis 1:27 or Genesis 2:7-24? Did God make man and woman in his own image, or create Adam out of dust, and then 20 verses later, add Eve?
With the Randians, it’s more like this: OK, if you think each person is a total individual, owing nothing to anyone else and deserving nothing from anyone else. Cool. Now let’s do a thought experiment where you live that way for one single day. Is it possible? No. In the end, you want to be a Randian, go to some desert island and live alone on the fruits of your labor. Of course, someone would have to help you get there, but perhaps it’d be for the best if we just let that little inconsistency slide.
Amen 50! And let’s not forget the courts, which are wild and crazy and slow, but essentially allow the rule of law. They are so much a part of the air we breathe that we are fortunate enough to forget their role most of the time.
without gummint
thugs woulda taken ayn rand and beat her to shit
they would taken her moolah from all those books
she might have done what many people did back in about 900 ad the last time we tried that no gumming thing–go up to some toher thugs and say “okay lord and master agree to be your serf, for life, and you will protect me from the viking rapist enslaver raiders and i will get one bowl of food right now so i do not die of starvation then i can work the rest of my life for you as a serf on susbsis tence level w you getting all excess corn i grow” and boy boy oh boy ayn rand woulda been sooooooo happy to become a serfslave like that in that free market no gummint nirvana because her choice to enserfify herself woulda been
A FREE INDIVIDUAL CHOICE!
So remember, there was a time of no government it was called the dark ages and boy oh boy did we allhave FREEDOM then and our FREE CONTRACTS gave us the mahvelous FREE MARKET BENEFITS of being serfs !!!
One thing that will never convince a solipsist of anything is the peep peep peep of the tiny little voices of the imaginary beings all around him telling him to reconsider his beliefs.
51
otherwise undesirable people might wander into our neighborhoods or go to school with our kids
I was about to make a comment just like @52’s.
Without my taxes (and everyone’s taxes) supporting government, it would be much, much worse than living on a desert island or living in the middle of the wilderness, as @16 wrote.
Without government supported by the taxes of the citizens, private corporations would have long ago bought up ALL the land and property. They would own everything and would control the costs and supply of everything. Want a loaf of bread? They can charge you $1000 for it because it’s unavailable anywhere else. Of course, since you don’t have the money to pay for that, they’ll happily loan you money from the company owned bank, charging whatever interest rates they want. And you’d take it because you’d have no other choice. You would be indebted to “the corporation” for the rest of your life, working for them to pay off the debt they gave you. You’d never escape.
That nightmare scenario is exactly the way things have operated in the past. Lords and serfs, Kings and peasants, corporations and labor.
I’m more worried about psychopaths than Randians.
PSYCHOPATHS AMONG US
http://www.hare.org/links/saturday.html
“And it’s really just beginning. Psychopathy may prove to be as important a construct in this century as IQ was in the last (and just as susceptible to abuse), because, thanks to Hare, we now understand that the great majority of psychopaths are not violent criminals and never will be. Hundreds of thousands of psychopaths live and work and prey among us. Your boss, your boyfriend, your mother could be what Hare calls a “subclinical” psychopath, someone who leaves a path of destruction and pain without a single pang of conscience. Even more worrisome is the fact that, at this stage, no one — not even Bob Hare — is quite sure what to do about it. “
@45 and @36 You both are either very stupid or deliberately being obtuse to try and prove the lie about Obama and the deficit. You must realize that the deficit will continue to grow each year from decisions made years ago by BushCo.Inc.TM. Wars in Iraq and Afghanistan add over 500-750 million a year. The Bush tax cuts for the richest 2% of America is adding almost a billion every year to the debt. I could go on but I’m easily bored with the same god damn argument every republican/libertarian/tea bagger likes to make.
The stupidest thing about Randians to me is that they must know it is almost impossible become a self-made successful person unless you live in a successful productive society. You can’t have that without some form of taxation.
54, love how some people on this blog pigeonhole everyone. This is way better than the day Cato told me I was a Republican Nazi wannabe. THAT was offensive. YOU, calling me a white seattle liberal are merely clueless and annoying.
I like to replace every incidence of ‘Randian’ in this post with ‘Libertarian.’
58
now dear, don’t pout-
white seattle liberal was merely agreeing with you.
Ha!
Can you imagine a Randian raising a whole entire fetus? It’s my take that it takes years of pouring culture, or whatever it is, into a baby to make a person. I think the fetus people are overlooking that, or indicating they have no connection to their own children’s childhood. No worries–hate that crap myself–it’s just what our species requires, boots on the ground. (monkey noises)
Slow news day? Nothing better to do than to call people names and make lazy generalizations?
@47
Indeed, I agree. I was indicating a failing of the middle-class Randian worshipers. They would be laughed out of the Rand universe as being mere peons, as they lack “genius,” “innovation,” and a chiseled jaw. So, to fill this gap in logic, they equate the only virtue Rand recognizes (genius et al) w/ “working hard.” It certainly does not.
I did not mean to suggest that all labor is equal. I also don’t hold w/ the idea that the Magical Free Market will reward the labor that society values the most and give a pittance for the labor that is of lesser value. I think Bush’s bank bailout is a perfect example of why.
Oh, and Mr. Wingnut Troll– It’s useless to repeat the talking points you got off the cable networks. Most people who post on the Slog saw through those lies when they were first spouted. Parroting them only re-inforces the image of conservatives as totally lacking in critical thinking skills. If that’s your goal, by all means, continue. Otherwise, come up w/ your own thoughts and interpretations on politics. We can smell ditto-heads a mile away.
63
Sorry you’re bored.
I’ll admit, the racist ‘abort the blacks’ posts from the regulars are a new one for us-
We didn’t realize Seattle hipsters were so overt in their racism.
“Well, it’s no trick to make a lot of money… if all you want to do is make a lot of money. ” — Citizen Kane
One of life’s more depressing realities is that stupid people who make a lot of money (because all they want to do is make a lot of money) think they’re smarter than smart people who make very little money because they have other interests. The stupid people with money may then mistakenly come to believe that, since they’re smarter than the smart people with less money, they’re also better suited to leading, governing and making policy.
Ask a businessman who’s smarter — Donald Trump or Thomas Jefferson — the businessman will probably tell you that they are each geniuses in their own way; the implication being that Donald Trump is as much a genius at making money as Jefferson was at legal philosophy and politics. The fact that what Jefferson was doing was both more difficult and more important than making money will probably not occur to the businessman.
Of course, if Noam Chomsky teaches us anything, it’s that genius in one field (linguistics) does not necessarily translate into genius in all fields (politics, media studies). But as a practical matter, genius at making money is approximately equivalent, as a purely intellectual feat, to genius at Missile Command. And as a display of ethical fortitude, it’s pretty much on the level of dropping a rock into a bucket. It’s certainly nothing, on its own, to recommend a person as anything other than someone who has a lot of money.
@56
Perhaps psychopaths and Randians are not that far apart? After all, she was an admirer of William Edward Hickman, a forger, an armed robber, a child kidnapper, and a multiple murderer.
see http://www.michaelprescott.net/hickman.h…
@65: One reasonable answer to that is there’s never enough money. Remember the descriptions of the competition among people who scored in the software bubble? That was wolfish.
Did you know that 57% of ALL U.S. corporations paid ZERO federal income tax for at least one year between 1998 and 2005?
They’re parasites. How else do you describe them? They benefit from all sorts of institutions paid for by US citizens—the highway system, the courts, public schools, etc.—but just don’t feel like paying their share.
Meant to include a reference:
http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSN1249…
The only type of functioning government I’ve ever heard of that didn’t use taxes to fund the running of society was Communism…
“The ironing is delicious!”-Bart Simpson
@ #9:
You’re making the obvious mistake from your perspective, seeing the “Randian” label and assuming that it means “Objectivist” as well. As the behavior of all too many of the “Randians” mentioned in these sorts of articles will tell, rational thought is about the last thing on the mind of these so-called “Ayn Rand-inspired free thinkers”. Objectivism is a school of thought, an ideal of behavior to strive for, and the basis for an ethical code. Reading Atlas Shrugged once (… and let’s admit it, Galt’s speech is damn long, so they skipped it…) does not make you an objective thinker, even though to some it gives a spark of recognition to something they themselves have always felt but never been able to see the shape of. All too many instead get the idea that it’d be great to live in Candy Mountain instead, and like Charlie the Unicorn you find that your first instinct (disbelief of that fantasy) will leave you with more kidneys in the morning.
You weren’t suckered into commenting, you just made an invalid assumption about the precepts of the argument. Unfortunately, there are a lot of people out there who saw something they liked in Ayn Rand’s body of work (that Ayn herself would have been aghast to see attributed to her) because they don’t want to pay taxes, or because they think it gives them permission to do whatever they want because they are “rugged individualists” (read: “mavericks”). I don’t think it’s fair to blame the works of Ayn Rand for the wrongheadedness that people try to apply it to in ways it was never meant to go, but it certainly IS fair to blame these “Randians”, aka those who got some message out of Atlas Shrugged, but not enough to lead down the path to objective, rational thought as a founding principle of their life.
No. Rand attracts the most massive of morons indeed but that’s just because you need to consider the entire book to really understand what she’s talking about.
A lot of right wingers conveniently forget the part where the workers, competent ones of course, are paid very highly for their service and are not mistreated. Nor do the heroes treat their workers like mindless drones and suck out as much as they can.
ALSO, in the book itself, there are things more important than money. Like values, where Francisco is happy with just a small operation as long as it is all his. Giving up a multinational corporation because his values are worth more than money.
AND the reason why you are wrong Chicago fan, is that in Randian philosophy (before she jumped off the deep end),
you pay other people for their work!!!!
That’s it, it’s that simple, you give equal value for the value you receive. You don’t take what’s not yours, you trade for what you want!!
Don’t be obtuse.
Damn. Mentioning Ayn Rand really draws all the unregistered Aspergin’ trolls out of the woodwork.
I think I’m gonna go play Bioshock again.
I bet the randroids here got the book from the library.
It’s free, donchyuknow?
Poor Ayn Rand! She was one of the best romance novelists of the 20th Century. Was it her fault she had a lousy editor?
As for her “philosophy”, it’s perfectly excusable for a college freshman who is being supported by his or her parents to adopt it for a semester. Anything longer than that shows a shocking naivete, and is probably a sign that they shouldn’t be trusted with money, or given any real responsibility.
I agree with you Catalina, and have been waiting for some one to mention it. I’ve only read Atlas Shrugged and The Fountainhead, but what I took away from them (aside from the fact that the society she posited was untenable) was that they provide a pretty interesting peek into what made Miss Rand feel all tingly in her bathing suit area. It’s as if she couldn’t find spank books that spoke to her particular fantasy of The Great Dark Man ( to borrow from Quentin Crisp) so she wrote them herself. Porn for the thinking girl as it were.
This is why the content of owning ideas bothers me to no end. How can you lay claim on an idea that someone else helped you create? Can anyone say they’ve come up with a truly independent thought in the last few thousand years? Without building on previous knowledge nothing in this world would be possible. And while I understand the monetary economics of protecting your business idea from “theft” in the market place the right wing concept of taking these idea with you to the grave, and the state will continue to (try, because they’re utterly useless at it) restrict the access to this content based on the notion that your idea should continue to make you, your kids, their kids and their kids money, is laughable. Whatever I create should be mine, and when the time comes that idea should be given to all of humanity, before I die. If a business person can’t come up with a new idea once every 30ish years they have no purpose in our society and they deserve to lose the state’s protection over their co-dependent ideas.
Or we could continue to obsess over the coulda woulda shoulda that this conservative montra creates in people’s head. They repeat “but if you’re making millions of dollars a year wouldn’t you want to keep all of it for yourself?”. News flash, the possibility of me, or anyone of these internet commenters, making millions of dollars a year is astronomical, I have a better shot at winning the lottery, and even if I did you could tax me at 95% and I’d still be making boatloads more money than I’m, and everyone else, making now. But for some reason these people want to protect that which will never happen, this dream that one day they’ll be millionaires, if only they protect the existing wealth in the system. How come people don’t see this as a cult, and how can we show them the light of having real independent thoughts?
@77:
And there you’ve hit the nail squarely on the head. So long as these right-wing minions continue to believe the myth that, if they could only, somehow, make a gazillion dollars, then they too would be able to enjoy all the economic, social and political benefits of such prosperity, then their bosses are perfectly safe. Because, what they continue to fail to understand is that, with the merest handful of exceptions THEY’RE NEVER GONNA GET INTO THAT CLUB. The fat cats at the top have only one objective: to STAY on top. And since their Capitalistic economic model only allows for a relative handful to occupy the upper level of the pyramid, they’ll do everything in their quite considerable power to limit access to that level to everyone except the few they choose to let in.
Now, some on the Right will attempt to counter this argument by pointing out that in the past decade or so, more people have become millionaires than at any point in history, and that would be true, so far as it goes. But, as I’m sure anyone who’s been paying attention for the last 30 or 40 years has already realized, a million (or 2 or even 10) isn’t what it used to be. What they again fail to take into account is that, while there are more millionaires, having a few million in assets these days is still considered solidly “middle class” (if we’re to accept Senator McCain’s estimation), and therefore places mere millionaires very much on the mid-tiers of the pyramid. Meanwhile, those at the top continue to amass wealth at an obscene rate. And so, they remain on top, because the threshold for reaching the upper levels is continuously moved out of reach of those below.
So, keep dreaming that BIG Dream all you would-be conservative power-brokers, because, so long as you do, and so long as you continue to drink the Kool-Ade of future wealth and access, so long as you continue to work against your own economic and social best interests, the ones at the top pulling your strings will have absolutely nothing about which to worry.
If it wasn’t for Ayn Rand we wouldn’t have 2112, so all you haters can kindly fuck off. 😉
Any Rand is to philosophy what L. Ron Hubbard is to Religion.
I read only Virtue of Selfishness. It was a good read, made some good points. Made me realize it was OK to do things for yourself, instead of for other people (and she has nothing against doing things for other people, if it gives you pleasure – then you’re doing it for yourself anyway.) So I am now comfortable with being selfish. Thanks Ayn!
heheheheheh. Deep dicking Asia…
http://somethingpositive.net/
The young readers who buy into Rand’s nonsense share two features in common: immense narcissism and utter cluelessness…
Well that wasn’t me. I was intensely into Rand during that period of time in my life too, and I didn’t regard myself as a heroic inviolate genius who owed nothing to anyone. I was a little techno geek and what I thought I’d discovered in Rand was a simple, elegant solution to creating workable peaceful and productive human societies. It was the engineering, not the self aggrandizement. I thought I’d discovered the answer to all the world’s problems. It was a revelation. You get those at that age.
I’m sure…wait…I Know, a lot of Randians are self absorbed assholes. But a lot of folks are bedazzled as I was by the beautiful simplicity and certainty of it all. Those will eventually figure out that, as Mencken said about every complex problem having an answer that is clear, simple, and wrong, Rand was absolutely brilliant at coming up with those kinds of answers.
What @61 said. There’s a reason that Atlas Shrugged is 1,000 pages long and children are mentioned only once (the children in Galt’s Gulch are uncannily well behaved). Because you’re not supposed to love anyone unless they pay you back. Well, I can tell you, not a lot of folks get a lot of payback from changing a poopy diaper. You can invest a lot of time and effort in a kid, not knowing whether you’ll get a future psycho serial axe-murderer. Ain’t no coincidence Ayn Rand couldn’t make her marriage work and never had kids. If we were all followers of Objectivism, we’d vanish at the same rate as the other religions that survive only through conversion and not through reproduction.
@71 – You created a parallel to Charlie the Unicorn, in a discussion about Ayn Rand. Not only that, but this seems to be your first registered comment here? Bravo sir/madam- I am in awe.
@73 – Glad I’m not the only one who thinks about it when Rand comes up. I just finished Bioshock2 last week.
objectivist paradise = marxist paradise = totally a dream
The Author of this article has pulled an Anne Coulter!
And there are six easy steps to an Anne Coulter Argument
1) Reduce extremely complex ideas into an oversimplified base understanding of the actual content of the subject at hand.
2) Write (or yell) in an overly passionate manner about those new ideas you made from the basic concept of the old ones, which are now completely backwards.
3) Add random quotes from the bible that are taken completely out of context and use them in an irrational manner.
4) Make fun of people who don’t agree with you to invalidate their character, instead of engaging in an actual discussion. Use the word “faggot” if possible to de-masculinize them if possible.
5) ?????????
6) PROFIT from people who like hearing other people yell a lot or will jump on any bandwagon that comes their way.
There is a long dark road you are heading down, and it leads ultimately to no one legitimate taking you seriously ever and people constantly trying to throw pies at you in public. Are you ok with this?
Also I was totally trolled. 10/10, would troll again.
@84: Sorry, can’t agree with you that parenthood is a selfless pursuit. Most of the parents I know are extremely self-absorbed individuals who had children in order to Xerox themselves, to satisfy societal expectations to reproduce, or to have little minions who will put up with their parents’ crap because that’s what society expects offspring to do. If you’re truly selfless in the arena of children and parenting, you adopt older or other hard-to-place children.
It always happens this way. The comment thread starts on a tangent and then goes completely off the tracks. The tendency is to stop reading half way through, scroll quickly to the bottom, and end up adding to the distraction by seeing a comment that you can not resist replying to regardless of how far off the subject it is. I am sorry to contribute to that process.
#83 Well put!
#84, I think that the current human population can take a few generations off the exponential baby mill. Haven’t checked in a while, but pretty sure we just flew by the 7 Billion mark. The world population has increased more in the last decade than the preceding 2 millennia (not centuries). I am so sick and tired of people talking about what a thankless, yet noble, job parenting a child is. If you are going to multiply, that is your choice and it is not obligatory for any of us to admire you for it. I think this is part (on a superficial level) of understanding where Rand was coming from.