The chief defect of Ayn Rand

.... was her sex, of course. I am not being facetious - I mean that it
is an easily seen fact that no woman has ever written anything of
interest philosophically, and that includes her. The hypocrisy of her
movement is well known; that it did not tolerate any dissent despite
being ostensibly devoted to reason, which, all should agree, requires
open debate.

Her megalomania convinced her that what she came up with was The Truth
and that all disagreement with it was somehow evil. Yes, that
describes all manner of cult leaders (though I believe that many are
just faking it - certainly not in her case), but not many have
explicitly invoked reason as their one and only support. Of course,
this effectively holds reason as a form of revelation, which is
basically a contradiction in terms and so silly that only a woman was
likely to come up with it.

Objectivism, and libertarianism in general, are ideologies for losers
in the money/power/status game that wish to fantasise about being
winners; and the easiest way to sucker them is to convince them that
they'd be winners if not for the damned government! This appeals to
the vanity in all of us that tells us that 'Though not all people can
be winners, _I_ am a 'natural winner' that ought to end up
successful'. If there is any such thing as 'natural winners',
independently of any particular social arrangement, it would be those
of highest intelligence. While social success is always correlated
with intelligence, for several different reasons, it is never as much
as they would have one believe. This is because general intelligence
is not the trait most highly valued by those that control the power.

Government is not the problem in this respect, but I do not hold
government to be good in itself. It has the capacity for evil as much
as for good, and in reality it can only be a function of who
effectively controls it. This is why I am a socialist, albeit an anti-
authoritarian one - and yes, for the first time I am not afraid to use
the word 'socialist', it is exactly the word that describes it - and I
would like to communicate to ordinary men that the only way that
outcomes can be improved for people like them is by controlling the
ruling classes' co-option of our society.

Andrew Usher

SUrely not!

The chief defect of Ayn Rand was that she had both
a very silly surname and a very silly given name.

-- w.f. Chatterton Taylor

On Fri, 28 Nov 2008 20:53:42 -0800 (PST), Bill Taylor
wrote:

SUrely not!

The chief defect of Ayn Rand was that she had both
a very silly surname and a very silly given name.

-- w.f. Chatterton Taylor

While I enjoy a good off-topic ramble as much as the next idiot,
I fail to see what any of this has to do with sci.math.

(No doubt galathaea will soon be along to explain ...)

--
Angus Rodgers

Andrew Usher writes:
... was her sex, of course.


She was a pretty feisty writer, I'm sure her sex was
quite vigorous and exciting.

Do you instead have a problem with her gender?

Phil
--
I tried the Vista speech recognition by running the tutorial. I was
amazed, it was awesome, recognised every word I said. Then I said the
wrong word ... and it typed the right one. It was actually just
detecting a sound and printing the expected word! -- pbhj on /.

Anastasia Beaverhausen wrote:
On Fri, 28 Nov 2008 20:53:42 -0800 (PST), Bill Taylor
wrote:

SUrely not!

The chief defect of Ayn Rand was that she had both
a very silly surname and a very silly given name.

-- w.f. Chatterton Taylor

While I enjoy a good off-topic ramble as much as the next idiot,
I fail to see what any of this has to do with sci.math.

No math nor science knowledge was one of her defects. She also
had limited knowledge in how real work got done; IMO this was
the major flaw in her philosophy. The OP
should really read her biography before spouting about something
he doesn't know about and then track the lifetimes of her
students.

snip

/BAH

On Nov 29, 5:52 am, Phil Carmody
wrote:
Andrew Usher writes:
... was her sex, of course.

She was a pretty feisty writer, I'm sure her sex was
quite vigorous and exciting.

Probably not so much as that in her books ...

Do you instead have a problem with her gender?

I think that was the obvious meaning.

Andrew Usher

On Nov 29, 3:27 pm, (the wharf rat) wrote:

Objectivism, and libertarianism in general, are ideologies for losers ...

Objectivism is not a liberal philosohpy. Your agenda is showing.

Oh, crap, but it IS libertarian. Sorry. (Your agenda is
still obvious, though.)

What do you think my agenda is?

BTW, libertarianism is an ideology for *winners*, being based on
the Golden Rule. That's my personal objection to it; complete lack
of either compassion or social responsibility.

That's also mine. But you misunderstand; though libertarianism _seems_
to be an ideology for winners, look at who supports it politically -
it is not
the rich or upper class. That's because they've already succeeded;
they don't
need a movement that claims it would help them succeed.

Andrew Usher

Andrew Usher wrote:
On Nov 29, 3:27 pm, (the wharf rat) wrote:

Objectivism, and libertarianism in general, are ideologies for losers ...

Objectivism is not a liberal philosohpy. Your agenda is showing.

Oh, crap, but it IS libertarian. Sorry. (Your agenda is
still obvious, though.)

What do you think my agenda is?

BTW, libertarianism is an ideology for *winners*, being based on
the Golden Rule. That's my personal objection to it; complete lack
of either compassion or social responsibility.

That's also mine. But you misunderstand; though libertarianism _seems_
to be an ideology for winners, look at who supports it politically -
it is not
the rich or upper class. That's because they've already succeeded;
they don't
need a movement that claims it would help them succeed.

The rich generally support the status quo simply because that is what
enables their wealth. In another form of society they may well not make it.

--
Dirk

http://www.transcendence.me.uk/ - Transcendence UK
http://www.theconsensus.org/ - A UK political party
http://www.onetribe.me.uk/wordpress/?cat=5 - Our podcasts on weird stuff

Andrew Usher wrote:
On Nov 29, 3:27 pm, (the wharf rat) wrote:

Objectivism, and libertarianism in general, are ideologies for losers ...

Objectivism is not a liberal philosohpy. Your agenda is showing.

Oh, crap, but it IS libertarian. Sorry. (Your agenda is
still obvious, though.)

What do you think my agenda is?

BTW, libertarianism is an ideology for *winners*, being based on
the Golden Rule. That's my personal objection to it; complete lack
of either compassion or social responsibility.

That's also mine. But you misunderstand; though libertarianism _seems_
to be an ideology for winners, look at who supports it politically -
it is not
the rich or upper class. That's because they've already succeeded;
they don't
need a movement that claims it would help them succeed.

Find out the difference between liberal and Liberal, as it is
used in today's politics.

/BAH

On Nov 30, 7:50 am, Frederick Williams
wrote:
Andrew Usher wrote:

... was her sex, of course. I am not being facetious - I mean that it
is an easily seen fact that no woman has ever written anything of
interest philosophically, and that includes her.

While it is true that Ayn Rand has never written anything of interest
philosophically, that is far from true of women generally.

Could you give a counter-example?

One can say mo Ayn Rand has never written anything of interest.

My only reading of Rand was back in school when a teacher
recommended I read 'The Fountainhead'. I only halfway through it or
so when I quit, dismissing it as ridiculous and unrealistic. Since I
have
heard that 'Atlas Shrugged' is much worse, it's hard to believe how
she
could attract any followers.

Andrew Usher