Acting Conservative leader, Rona Ambrose, is an admirer of Ayn Rand's thinking. She gets it, she buys it, she would love to live it if Ambrose and her like-minded could ever wrest fang and claw control of Canada.
Many of us read Atlas Shrugged so long ago that, today, it's a dim memory we associate with libertarianism, whatever that is. That's why it's worthwhile to hear it from the horse's mouth.
Heeere's Johnny:
Part Deux:
8 comments:
"Full, unregulated captialism." I understand she was quite willing to accept Social Security in her declining years, Mound.
Just for the record Owen, Rand did not accept Social Security in her declining years, She died at the age of 77 and she died a millionare. I disagree with her advocating "Full, unregulated capitalism", but their are a number of myths about her, that are just myths.
I paused it at 2:55, 'unregulated capitalism'. This is the reason behind the 2008 banking collapse and resulting meltdown:
1.Mortgage fraud.
2.Financial securities fraud.
3.Securities rating fraud.
4.Government deregulation.
5.Too-big-to-fail banks.
6.Massive bank bailouts.
Rand had rose coloured glasses on when it came to judging the US. She did not see in the early days of US imperialism their slaughter of the First Nations, nor did she see the enslavement of blacks, which contributed in no small part to the US's economic success.She also did not see the institutional racism which precipitated the civil rights movement. She actually believed, while blacks were fighting for equal rights, that blacks could, with individual effort, succeed the same as whites.Her view of America, came not from historical fact, but from American myths, particularly the myth of the "rugged individual." I wonder what she would think today if she saw that it is dogmatic Christian Fundamentalist that hail her work, not intelligent individuals that think for themselves.
There is very little that is interesting about Rand. Her so-called thought didn't much qualify as philosophy, her fiction was terrible and tedious. (I believe it was the Washington Post that considered Atlas Shrugged as the worst novel ever written.
The dead giveaway that Rand wasn't any sort of philosopher was that her entire oeuvre was a practice in performative contradiction. The reasoning goes like this - if one believes that selfishness is the ultimate virtue and that altruism is bad, it would be wrong or even immoral to broadcast this information. A philosophy of extreme self interest would dictate that you tell people that the best thing that they can do is act altruistically toward you. It would be folly to tell everyone to act in their self-interest since there would be no immediate benefit to yourself. Put more simply, a public profession of a philosophy of extreme self-interest is inherently self-defeating. It is a pretty basic logical problem that should be obvious to anyone who isn't desperately looking for a "philosophical" excuse for their own selfish behaviour.
In summary:
John Rogers
“There are two novels that can change a bookish fourteen-year old’s life: The Lord of the Rings and Atlas Shrugged. One is a childish fantasy that often engenders a lifelong obsession with its unbelievable heroes, leading to an emotionally stunted, socially crippled adulthood, unable to deal with the real world. The other, of course, involves orcs."
[Kung Fu Monkey -- Ephemera, blog post, March 19, 2009]”
Black enslavement didn't build the US's economic success, Unionism and immigrantion had more to do with building the US economy into a success, its what built the American middle class.
American Slavery benifited a few rich Southern jerks, and the slave traders.
Ayn Rand thought the beloved Reagan was a socialist.
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