Well I understand why it feels uncomfortable, even wrong, to call that position racist. The thing is though, I think you have to have white privilege to even see that as a viable position to have. To even conceive of the idea that there is ever, was ever and will ever be an equal playing field requires such a fantastically blind point-of-view, that it requires the ability to not only ignore the existence of other realities, but to be blind enough to continue not to see them. It’s not an passive act to have that kind of a position, and it’s not simply a a lack of empathy. I just think it’s a willful act from a group that never really cares about the consequences of others, which will only affect some white people but the majority if not most minorities, everyone who is not a white man.
Open carry… It’s like Johnny Cash says “Don’t take your guns to Town.”
I guess @scottagibson best sums up my feelings about it.
Or corruption. Or just bad actors.
It’s like communism. Sounds great as long as everyone is Jesus or Buddha, but once actual people get involved everything goes pear-shaped almost instantly.
I don’t know much about her, so I went to wikipedia, the source of all knowledge.
So:
Rand supported philosophical realism, and opposed anything she regarded as mysticism or supernaturalism, including all forms of religion
Sounds fine to me. Maybe a bit red liney because I don’t mind mysticism etc, but don’t think it should be the status quo.
She rejected all claims of non-perceptual or a priori knowledge, including "‘instinct,’ ‘intuition,’ ‘revelation,’ or any form of 'just knowing
Well that’s just weird… and scientifically incorrect I believe.
She said the individual should “exist for his own sake, neither sacrificing himself to others nor sacrificing others to himself”.
You know what, if people acted like that things would be smoother. However it ignores human nature. People will sacrifice others unto themselves.
held that the initiation of force was evil and irrational
fairly non committal stance, one that sounds right. But there’s always the “what about self defence?” counter argument.
Rand’s political philosophy emphasized individual rights (including property rights),[117] and she considered laissez-faire capitalism the only moral social system because in her view it was the only system based on the protection of those rights.[4] She opposed statism, which she understood to include theocracy, absolute monarchy, Nazism, fascism, communism, democratic socialism, and dictatorship.[118] Rand believed that natural rights should be enforced by a constitutionally limited government.[119] Although her political views are often classified as conservative or libertarian, she preferred the term “radical for capitalism”. She worked with conservatives on political projects, but disagreed with them over issues such as religion and ethics.[120] She denounced libertarianism, which she associated with anarchism.[121] She rejected anarchism as a naïve theory based in subjectivism that could only lead to collectivism in practice.[122]
I get the sense that your Tea party people using her as a source are conveniently ignoring parts of this.
I’m a property owner so obviously biased in favour of property rights, and I am also, in principle, opposed to theocracy, absolute monarchy etc.
I say in principle, because I’m not concerned enough about it to go on a protest or actually do anything about it, and if I had any spare cash I’d probably invest it in a profitable company even if that company was somewhat tainted (at least until the level where I had more spare cash and had more flexibility) so I am not a crusader by any means.
remarked that in the history of philosophy she could only recommend “three A’s”—Aristotle, Aquinas, and Ayn Rand.[127]
Anyone that arrogant deserves knocking down a peg or 2, or should become President (which reminds me, anyone going to vote for Kanye?)
So, I’m not seeing how Rand is such a destructive force?
Enlighten me (genuine proposition, not internet flame bait. Man caveating communications online…:( )
That’s profound!
Obligatory comic (check footnotes for full explanation) :
Ironically, the guy who made that comic is probably most famous for criticizing Elon Musk by comparing him to the government moochers portrayed in Atlas Shrugged.
For folks who are actually interested in Ayn Rand, read “Anthem”. It much more succinctly describes the core principles of objectivism, which ultimately is just a rejection of collectivism. And given Ayn Rand’s personal experiences with the Soviets, her perspective is extremely understandable. Her family was a fairly successful, essentially upper middle class family and her father was a pharmacist. When the Russian revolution happened, they lost everything, and were reduced to literal starvation at times.
Objectivism is less a workable philosophy in its own right, and more of a counterbalance to force you to consider the downsides to ideas and policies which may otherwise be designed to be good, but which have unforeseen negative consequences.
Ayn Rand is often simplistically caricatured by both over-zealous followers and folks on the far left, not really considering the context of her writings or the writings themselves in most cases. To be fair, some of her more in depth works, like Atlas Shrugged, are really dense and honestly not really that much fun as fiction.
That’s why I suggest Anthem. it’s actually a cool little sci-fi story, and you can read the whole thing in a day.
lol, no. He’s a bog-standard “Fuck you, I got mine” Republican. He occasionally says things “libertarian-ish”, but his actual record says otherwise.
The end of that comic is actually what we do every day.
Use what we want and throw it away.
Edit: and isn’t capitalism essentially based on greed? 😕
Edit:
Capitalism, with out regulation or force results in the concentration of wealth in the hands of the few.
That’s why most nations have some sort of regulations.
Ayn Rand and Adam Smith both claim that “greed is good”. But to Smith, greed is good as a means to another end. To Rand, it is an end in itself.
So if we injected Smith into the comic, he might be inclined to give the poor man some bread and then point out that capitalism is responsible for making that bread. Capitalism allows bread to be produced as efficiently as possible, but once it’s produced Smith would prefer to see it donated to the poor than thrown in the trash.
Rand would disagree. To her, not only is it wrong for the state to help the poor, it is wrong for anyone to support the poor. Even voluntarily.
So if you feel the urge to help someone who would offer nothing in return, Rand would argue that you should actually suppress the urge, walk away, and spend the money on yourself instead. Or just throw the money in the trash, because any form of altruism would actually debase you. This is what she means when she rejects all forms self-sacrifice.
Not being flippant but isn’t that where we are now?
With the inequality approaching rather…interesting levels.
I read somewhere that extreme inequality usually precedes a collapse (or reset) of a society.
Food for thought.
Yeah, check the name of the thread. This isn’t exactly the good news thread.
I think I agree with this.
I try to throw away as little food as possible and it hurts a little every time I see stuff getting thrown away.😫
At the very least recycle it for biofuel or pigswill or natural fertiliser.
But that’s just retarded and actively goes against Human nature.
And yes I do mean to use the word retarded.
Ayup. Rand can be boiled down to the simple maxim “Anything that benefits the self is good, anything that does not is bad.” (Which explains Paul Ryan and large swathes of the Republican party.)
Yes, it goes against pretty much every other system of ethics, which is the point of the comic. And that’s why Ayn Rand is so frequently criticized.
I thought the title was just about trump whereas the discussion on wealth is rather larger.
We’ve nicely digressed slightly, starting with the rand quote, and you have all been educational and interesting, so thanks.
Seems to me she was saying some rather obvious things but extrapolating some rather bizarre conclusions.
Also, greedy (and other immoral) people will use any justification, regardless of what label it is.
This isn’t an accurate portrayal. Even in Rand’s literary works, individual drive for wealth is presented as beneficial through the creation of technology and innovations. It’s also not an accurate portrayal that it can be boiled down to “greed is good”, because the antagonists in Rand’s works are no less greedy.
Greed is not presented as the ideal. Individual drive, and the freedom to pursue it and benefit from the fruits of one’s own labor is.
Well, I think Rand and Smith would agree that greed is not the only good. But it is good. In other words, in both systems an intelligent, industrious person who is motivated to increase his wealth is better than an intelligent, industrious person who is not interested in money.