When Alan Met Ayn: "Atlas Shrugged" And Our Tanked

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Theatre of the Absurd topic

cdfox7: in a nutshell.

Why do her books sell so well, especially -Atlas Shrugged-.

25 million copies sold as of 2007, and 800,000 more being sold each year.

ruveyn

Because most people are stupid and find a simplistic answer more reassuring than the hard fact that life is complicated and a single philosophy isn't universally correct.

I'm surprised you didn't think of that considering how much loathing you have for the proles and their simplicity.

Most of he people I know who have read the book are educated and not knuckle dragging Proles. You ought to know there is a lot of anti-Union sentiment out there in the real world.

ruveyn

Most of it sponsored and pushed by anti-Union leaches who believe that they're worth much more than they are. As for your friends reading Atlas Shrugged, it seems to be a trendy thing for college kids to do; the problem is when they start believing the work of fiction is something that should be applied to real life.

Mein Kampf is also a best-seller. That is a poor logical deduction. I am disappointed, Mr. Ruveyn, that you think lots of books sold = correctness
And how many people who bought it actually agree with her? Lots of people buy books simply to read them, not to live their lives based on their principles. As cave_canem said, lots of people like her as a writer of fiction. However, her Objectivist philosophy is treated as a joke amongst philosophers. Its not even very original.

@Dox47: Just because the intelligent group of conservatives here doesn't necessarily believe Rush or Ayn is awesome and the most credible source doesn't mean people shouldn't complain about them. I have seen pictures of Tea Party rallies with signs such as 'I AM JOHN GALT' then, you get this Greenspan chode who pretty well let the economy tank because of his Objectivist viewpoints. Objectivism is a creed of failure, except for a handful of people who choose to use it to justify their morally questionable behavior. It shames the Human race that so many people at the top believe in that tripe, and millions of blind followers somehow think they can make it to that point by covering for these economic and social parasites

Last edited by Vigilans on 19 Apr 2011, 1:33 pm, edited 1 time in total.

I honestly find it completely illogical that people on the spectrum, many of whom live on the dole (so to speak), can see anything good about Objectivism. It makes about as much sense as a Jewish Nazi

Hmm... That reminds me.... Can anyone here spot the Objectivist?



https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Judendienstordnung

But, wouldn't supporting the dole because you personally are on it or expect to be on it be considered "selfish"? Is self interest OK when it comes to setting welfare policies but not when it comes to setting tax rates? I'm curious here, since this seems like an often made logical contradiction.

Also, just need to add my usual disclaimer when arguing this topic that to me Ayn Rand is just an author of fiction and that I don't place any great value in her philosophy; I just find some of the attacks on both to be disingenuous and enjoy arguing them. That is all.

I'm not on welfare myself, I work for a living and never expect to require welfare, but that doesn't give me feelings of superiority that some seem to have over those who are living with such minimal amounts of money. My support for welfare is not really grounded in self-interest but my own views on altruism and social safety for those who are unable to work. The people who decide on welfare policies are rarely those who are going to benefit from them, so I don't really see it as a selfish, unless they work at eliminating it for their own gain. Supporting welfare for one's own self-interest is hardly equatable to one going against it so they can keep making the big bucks and not contributing to society in any tangible way other than gambling on the stock market and lobbying politicians to give them more and more tax cuts so that they can let their wealth 'trickle down'. Most of these guys are also responsible for shipping jobs overseas and creating the bubble that is making more people require the safety net that they now lobby against. Its really vicious. I hope that someday the Disciples of Rand will be gone from this Earth, and people can stop using her garbage philosophy to justify their immorality

You know what annoys me about this? I survived a few rounds of layoffs back when I was working at Disney. They shipped the jobs overseas to Korean testing houses. And know what? They sucked! They were god awful at the job, they missed stuff, sometimes outright lied about bugs, and because they weren't native English speakers, their bug descriptions were near impossible to decipher at times.

But Disney continues to ship those jobs overseas as they're continually given more tax breaks.

So this myth about tax breaks saving jobs? BS. My friends would still have jobs if that were true. And it's also BS that the people who took their jobs did as good of a job. Despite conservatives hating America so much as to want everyone not mega-wealthy to starve, we still do better quality work.

So you put the "selfishness" of people who are on the bare margin of existence on an equal footing with the selfishness of those who adhere to a philosophy claiming that altruism is a vice?


The reason this topic exists is there are a lot of people who do take Ayn Rand seriously. If you don't, then good for you. No need to put on the "oh I'm so above this" attitude unless your goal is to be as passive aggressively irritating as possible.

Don't beat The Lord of the rings that sell more that 100 millions, and I hardly imagine Tolkien supporting objectivism.

Take the moralizing out of it, and it's the same calculation. Why is OK to support a welfare state because you stand to personally benefit, but not OK to support tax cuts that apply to you? I've seen this exact argument made repeatedly on this forum regarding AS people who hold free market economic opinions, so I'm curious how the logic works. Yes, I'm being black and white here, but considering where we are that seems appropriate. My income bracket certainly would make me likely to personally benefit more from bigger social programs than from tax cuts, but I hold my opinions separate from my personal circumstances.



Given my past experience with this forum, I've found that the disclaimer is necessary. Some people on here can't separate defending a position on rhetorical/logical grounds from endorsing it personally, so I make a point of distancing myself when debating something I'm not actually in favor of. You may see it as passive aggressive, I obviously see it differently.

Also, if I wanted to be maximally irritating I could come with some "clever" names to call people who disagree with me, but that's sorta been done to death here IMHO.

Different kinds of books entirely. Atlas Shrugged was a political/philosophical novel. LOTR was wonderful mythology. It is like comparing chicken to steak.

ruveyn

And so do I. My views have much less to do with my personal circumstances than they have to do my ideals of what is a fair society. I don't believe unfettered laissez-faire capitalism makes the cut. It really has nothing to do with "class interests" or anything so shallow. I realize there are people less fortunate than either you or I who really do need support, have little as it is, and would be up s**t creek without a paddle (for lack of a better term) if this country decided follow the ideology of Ayn Rand and completely dispense with social programs. I don't see "class warfare", I see real people who will suffer greatly if this country decides to take a certain direction.

I also find your complaints about "moralizing" odd since at the root of most political arguments is a conflict over moral principles, mainly principles of fairness. If unfettered laissez-fairists were truly free of this so-called "moralizing" you so often complain about, they would have absolutely zero grounds to argue that taxing the wealthy is wrong.

I think I'll say something that I've probably said before that I think bears repeating. I've looked long and hard at this stuff and I've ultimately reached the conclusion that politics is not about what is "best" in any objectively verifiable way as much as it is about who gets what. Even the etymology of the word has to do with the exercise of power. That's what it all comes down to when you cut through the rhetoric and rationalizations. It's also the reason why I view all utopian/essentialist/panacea political positions, especially one's claiming to be "objective" or "based on reason" with extreme cynicism and distrust.


No. What is irritating is criticizing people's rhetoric or level of passion towards a topic while ignoring the substance of the debate.

Had the country remained on the Gold Standard, as Greenspan advocated in his early days, we would have none of the financial problems that we now have.

Most of the problems plaguing the U.S. are government produced.

Ayn Rand advocated the Separation of Business and Government, not its unholy alliance which is what we now have.

ruveyn