Ayn Rand, sociopathic politics, go back to sleep

Ayn Rand, sociopathic politics « Left Blog:

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if Atlas Shrugged came with a summary it would look like this:

GO BACK TO SLEEP. THE CURRENT ECONOMIC SYSTEM IS GREAT. DON’T WORRY ABOUT IT. MIND YOUR OWN BUSINESS.

 At one point Ayn Rand referred to her own work as propaganda. It is militantly capitalistic; she vigorously campaigned for the demolition of the common good. She energetically promoted selfishness, and wrote to root out altruism.

Not only is her whole program diametrically opposed to liberal values, Ayn Rand’s ideals are profoundly undemocratic. She doesn’t just describe a world that was unfortunately Darwinian, but urges that it should bethat way.

She always put strength above morality; and she despised the average man. In a letter unearthed by Jeff Walker, she wrote, ”I am becoming more antisocial.”

Walker, her biographer, researched her personal journals and found an entry written when she was 30: “One puts oneself above all and crushes everything in one’s way to get the best for oneself. Fine!” (All this in the pursuit of happiness.)

This is belligerent contempt for your fellow man. Aggressively pushing your impulses at the expense your group is not normal behavior.  It destroys human bonds. It corrupts community.

It destroys trust. It is sociopathic.

Sound familiar? Yes, because Ayn Rand’s ideology still saturates today’s conservative thinking. Many in Reagan’s cabinet were Randians.

If you give a million dollars to a homeless alcoholic, he will be homeless again in a year. why should we have to sacrifice ourselves to help someone who cant help me or themselves? It’s the government that is giving bailout money to the banks that should be allowed to fail and make way for better banking practices but instead the federal government is keeping thees greedy crooks alive using our money, and thees are the people you want telling you whats right and wrong?

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Comment by Figaro | July 22, 2009 | Reply

• “Conquest and submission” and “savage and brutal,” eh? Typical baseless criticism.

  “Sex is a physical capacity, but its exercise is determined by man’s mind—by his choice of values, held consciously or subconsciously. To a rational man, sex is an expression of self-esteem—a celebration of himself and of existence. To the man who lacks self-esteem, sex is an attempt to fake it, to acquire its momentary illusion.

  Romantic love, in the full sense of the term, is an emotion possible only to the man (or woman) of unbreached self-esteem: it is his response to his own highest values in the person of another—an integrated response of mind and body, of love and sexual desire. Such a man (or woman) is incapable of experiencing a sexual desire divorced from spiritual values.” — Ayn Rand, “Of Living Death,” 1968.

  I’m sure that “Conan the Barbarian” would express similar sentiments!

  Figaro’s comments are just more vintage statist reaction to Rand’s ideas: perfunctory mischaracterizations, mindless and rabid disdain, topped with a firm commitment to never engage her ideas at all. Rand calls it “blanking out” or “evasion.”

  I call it: “When catching flak, you are over the target.”

  There’s a reason for that rabid disdain… It’s because the statist left is intellectually powerless to counter her ideas. And they’re starting to lose the popularity contest, too. Atlas Shrugged is well on its way to topping over half a million copies sold this year–over five decades after its publication. And why not? If you had to choose between a philosophy which upholds a morality defending the pursuit of your own happiness, as opposed to the tired old washed-up bromides of sacrificing your prosperity to an undefinable “society’s good,” which are you going to choose? No wonder the tide is turning.

  My advice for the statists is to get the integrity they’re going to need in order to continue their fraud by force–ban the sale of her books, before it’s too late. When Objectivist principles dominate the culture, there won’t be any room for the despotism which the statists advocate. Better hurry though. There are far too many people who, right now, are discovering the morality of rational self-interest. The fraudulent, immoral, life-destroying creed which immolates the individual to ‘Society’ or ‘God’ won’t be able to last much longer with these ideas floating around.

  For more of Rand’s thoughts on sex, which debunk Figaro’s mischaracterization: