GOOD has an interesting post up right now about how Ayn Rand squirmed her way into the canon.
The Ayn Rand Institute will cheerfully send out classroom sets of The Fountainhead or Anthem to any teacher who requests them. Just send an email to the Foundation and receive a box in the mail. The Institute also provides teaching guides and lessons.
But here’s my honest question on reading about this: Wouldn’t Ayn Rand have hated the idea of a foundation giving her books away for free?
I’m not for burning books but Ayn Rand’s bullshit is up there with L Ron Hubbard on the Grand Cosmic Scale of Bullshittery, and has fucked up immeasurable numbers of people with their Randroid gospel of selfish prickery. I’ll gladly light them on fire myself here. Also: fuck John Galt.
Not to defend Ayn Rand’s crazy objectivism shit, but I think she was more opposed to being FORCED to give stuff away for free (you know, the Evil-Socialism!). If people want to be charitable on their own, I don’t think she had a problem with that.
uh, i’m pretty sure she DID, @2. altruism of any sort was against her doctrine.
@2 @3 Yeah, her gospel boils down to “fuck you, I got my own”. Lovely cultural sentiment.
Is it altruism to give away books that make the kids dumber?
Seems to me the more copies of The Fountainhead or Anthem I put into your kids’ meaty knobgrabbers, and the fewer I have lying around for my own kid to stumble upon, the better my own can compete.
#2 is right, she was all about “voluntary government financing”, however the hell that would work.
A charitable donation might have meant paying less taxes, and I’m sure she wouldn’t have had a problem indulging in that aspect of our system.
Yeah, Rand hated charity of any kind. Coddling the weak.
When I had to read “The Fountainhead” in school I had to buy my own. What a nightmare that piece of shit is. Complain all you want about her half-baked philosophy; it’s her monumentally awful writing style that got to me.
@7 – I agree. I couldn’t get through it because of the poor writing. For a very long time I judged people harshly who liked the book because I couldn’t believe that anyone with half a brain could enjoy such shitty writing.
It’s weird anyone would teach this stuff. I already knew her deal before sampling any of her fiction, so my opinion was pretty colored from the first sentence, but I think I can objectively state that her writing isn’t good.
Seems like y’all learned something from her. Why deprive the youth of today from learning her interesting philosophy?
@10 – the only thing interesting about it is how overrated it is, which you can pretty much learn about from YouTube.
@11 – good point. kids should be watching more YouTube and reading less books anyway.
Funny story: The Ayn Rand Society is against volunteerism. So how did they form their Society?
Surely someone can think of something to do with several hundred copies of Ayn Rand books that the collective slog community orders from this company. Giant Sculpture? Playground? Ooh, paper mache pinatas for all! If they are willing to subject their bank account to our whims, we should take them up on it.
@12, can people who watch YouTube tell the difference between “less” and “fewer”?
The only good Ayn Rand follower is one working on a chain gang cleaning up the oil spills in the Gulf.
Objectivity my ass.
@15 – You seen how big Altas Shrugged is?
Rand loathed children (only in Atlas Shrugged do any make any appearance, and that is fleeting), so maybe the whole inflicting dreadful writing and bankrupt philosophy thing makes sense. As for charity, somehow she deigned to accept payment for her books in worthless fiat paper rather than gold . . . .
I wonder, if you give three away, does that mean you get the Foundation Trilogy award?
Seems like she’d rather blow up her books rather than have dumb people read them.
Here’s her perfect match:
http://www-news.uchicago.edu/releases/02…
I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again and again: But for the lack of a decent editor, she could have been one of the greatest romance novelists of the 20th Century.
Ugh. On so many levels.
@21 – Based on what little I’ve read, I’d say you’ve got a point. Comparing these two paragraphs, one Ayn Rand… well, you be the judge.
“Her leg, sculptured by the tight sheen of the stocking, its long line running straight, over an arched instep, to the tip of a foot in a high-heeled pump, had a feminine elegance that seemed out of place in the dusty train car and oddly incongruous with the rest of her. She wore a battered camel’s hair coat that had been expensive, wrapped shapelessly about her slender, nervous body.”
“She left her slicker hanging on a peg outside the kitchen, and took off her boots. They were noticeably smaller than any other pair there. She had tiny feet, and was so small she was almost a miniature. In flat shoes, her brother often teased her that she looked like a little girl, particularly with her long blond hair, which was still hanging wet down her back. She had small delicate hands, a perfect figure nothing like a child’s, although she was very slight and always just a little bit too thin, and a face like a cameo.”
Whoops, I forgot to mention the other paragraph was from a Danielle Steel novel.
“Fuck you, I got my own”. Lovely cultural sentiment.
As opposed to, ‘Fuck you, gimme me what ya got’
That’s not a sentiment, that’s called a mugging.
@23:
Selection #1 is Ayn Rand. Selection #2 is Ayn Coulter.
@23,
I’m guessing #2 is Danielle.
And as for #1, were coats really made from camel hair, I always thought that was in reference to the color. Seems like camel hair would be itchy, and not particularly warm.
That program is how I own ‘The Fountainhead’, ‘Atlas Shrugged’, and ‘Anthem’.
As someone who’s read all three there are obvious aspects of her philosophy that I disagree with but I’m inclined to other parts of it because it is a philosophy that focuses on the individual and is more relatable to specific instances. I have definitely used her characters (both protagonists and antagonists) to analyze behaviors or characteristics of other people.
Look at the hat in that pic–she looks like a model for the people in Codex Seraphinianus, LOL!
Lolz @25. Poor upper class. Forced at gunpoint by the society that allows them to make all their money to give a fraction of it back for the benefit of people who haven’t had the same opportunities. It’s like a tragedy.
You’re correct! She would be mortified! Thanks for finding the silver lining in this story, Paul. Otherwise the crux of it would be “Horrifyingly, more people are reading Ayn Rand”.
@17 I “seen” how big Atlas Shrugged is. I seen it is big!
The picture of Rand chosen for this post is wonderful. “(Speed) is a powerful drug.”
I thought this was a story on Ayn Rand. Who’s the ugly guy in the photo?
The thought occurs that these books should be ordered in mass quantities, and set fire to. Bankrupt the entire goddamned “foundation”.
“The thought occurs that these books should be ordered in mass quantities, and set fire to. Bankrupt the entire goddamned “foundation”. “
Seriously? Seriously?!!!?!!! SERIOUSLY?!!!???!!!!!! WTF is wrong with you people?