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Frazzled
why are you assuming that I'm assuming?
(white) christians as a general rule advocate the same kind of economic policies that ayn rand did, they both vote to the right, people like palin appeal to both groups. basically they're in political alliance. personal experience too. conservativism makes strange bedfellows

Warboss
yes A=A. which is of course a truism.
if she had been truer to the law of identity she would have looked around her at how people actually behave before writing a book about how they ought to behave. No matter how much she wished people would behave like her superheros, they do not and cannot. she ignored the law of identity. AF

Ah, I see.

Again, to be fair, Rand was very open about the fact that her protagonists were idealised.

true. I dont really disagree with her idea that art ought to motivate people to be the best they can be. the part about using your full potential and being dedicated to your work is one of my favorite aspects of objectivism. surely its a contradiction to present purposely unrealistic portraits of people on the one hand, and on the other to insist that the problem with all her villains in the book is that they dont adhere to reality......? But yeah like you said at least shes open about it.

WARBOSS TZOO wrote:Ah, I see.

Again, to be fair, Rand was very open about the fact that her protagonists were idealised.

True, but when your entire philosophy is based upon people who act in no way shape or form like people then it's nonsense. Believe me, I'd love to dream of a world where every woman was a raging bisexual but the moment I start to espouse a world view and philosophy built upon that I'm just talking out of my ass.

Tyyr wrote:Believe me, I'd love to dream of a world where every woman was a raging bisexual but the moment I start to espouse a world view and philosophy built upon that I'm just talking out of my ass.

You seriously didn't know?

I believe the goal was to identify the potential John Galt in everyone reading it. The unfortunate truth is that most people who read that book and felt inspired by it are quite simply not genius enough to pull off the uberman thing. Heck I liked it when I first read it, but I was 16 years old and kind of naive about the realities of life. At that time I was witty, educated, in great shape, curious, knowledgable about all sorts of wierd things (most of which I have conveniently forgotten) and I truly believed that I could be the world's next super-hero. Nowadays, 20 years of life experience later, I feel almost embarrassed that I behaved like that as a kid. Reality trumps idealism and that's really all there is to it. Objectivism isn't really that objective unless you are a naive teenager who hasn't dealt with life yet. Maybe miss Rand was lucky and never had to live in the 'real' world of drudgerous day jobs and bitchy spouses, so she simply didn't know any better than to idealise her heroes as what she wanted in a perfect man, and her heroines as her idealized version of herself. It's as if she is writing a bad romance novel, but to embarrassed to admit it, so trying to disguise it as a half-assed philosophy "Everyone can achieve but for being held back by the meek and the weak and the leeches". Just say that in the first page of the book, stick Fabio on the cover and get it over with lady.

I don't understand the underpinnings. I've met many CEOs, CFOs etc. Some have been brilliant. Most weren't.

As the immortal bard once said:"Its not what you know, its who you know."

Frazzled wrote:I don't understand the underpinnings. I've met many CEOs, CFOs etc. Some have been brilliant. Most weren't.

As the immortal bard once said:"Its not what you know, its who you know."

Great hair helps a lot as well.