The Legacy of Ayn Rand

“http://onlinejournal.com/artman/publish/article_448.shtml

A Zogby poll conducted when Bush was re-elected showed American voters actually more worried about economic justice than abortion. Specifically, when asked to choose the most urgent moral crisis, 33 percent of voters chose ‘greed and materialism’ and 31 percent ‘poverty and economic justice.’ Twenty percent named abortion [1].

We’ve had no moral relief in the intervening year. More high profile businessmen have appeared in court after looting their clients; the Senate majority leader booked on money laundering charges; Martha Stewart, style-setter -- in and out of jail and grinning for the cameras. Those petro giants’ profits while some poor could not afford to buy gas; other people lined up in droves to file bankruptcies.

A recent poll shows 49 percent thinks Congress is corrupt [2]. The official line is that the place to find evil is in the Middle East.

Whichever way you connect this year’s dots, there is a shadow on the land.

My point: we haven’t been ambushed. We’re not entitled to surprise. This corruption is a slowly rising tide and plenty of time to notice, but once more, the public just doesn’t know what to do. Largely, we just stare. So typically, when New Orleans filled with water and FEMA did nothing, we stared, and we watched an old pattern unfold: where there are a lot of people in crisis, somebody will make formidable money.

We should have known it was coming.

If FEMA’s response had been swift and effective it would have looked heroic, for both the common person and for the common good. FEMA’s inaction was not a botch. There are deep corridors behind this.

It was close to what Ayn Rand’s disciples have in mind, and I believe there are plenty of Rand’s disciples in places of high influence.

Ayn Rand’s ideology, powerful since the 1940s, denies the common good. It actually prescribes not helping. In particular, selfishness and greed are virtues, altruism is a vice.

You laugh: that’s a stretch, nobody reads Rand anymore. Actually Rand’s ideology, an elaboration of the Nietzschean superman ethic which was carried in two novels, The Fountainhead and Atlas Shrugged and two books of essays [3] is still selling very well; one biographer estimates that after 50 years, Ayn Rand’s books and those of her followers are still printed worldwide at 400,000 copies a year [4] -- and I am guessing there are dog-eared copies on many American baby-boomer’s bookshelves.

While she was alive and touring, Rand’s oratory was persistently confrontational. She was restlessly negative and she did everything she could to hoist herself up to position of philosopher and authority, to establish her dogma. In practice she was a humorless bully, and she browbeat her students. Philosophers largely rejected her published harangues, but she did attain status as an ideologue of the era.

Rand’s toxic ideas of the good life, and how businesses should be conducted, are more than popular: they saturate upper business echelons. Alan Greenspan was a personal student of Rand’s; he contributed three of the essays to her Capitalism [5]. The Reagan administration was largely Randian [6]. And her values, expanded in derivatives such as Ringer’s popular Looking Out For Number One and Winning Through Intimidation were catalysts for the ‘me’ generation of the 1970s and 80s. They continue to spread.

The trademark arrogance in her ideas (and personally Rand always insisted on everything) also animates her novels’ protagonists. They were heroes who were no-holds-barred productive, and who were arrogance incarnate. Rand rewrote Nietzsche’s point that very successful people, the very strong, are categorically different from the rest of us. They are above public morality. Rand also insisted on no compromises, because compromise betrays weakness [7]. She argued for a return to the 1890s Golden Age style of business, monopolies run on personal will power, in which great fortunes were made, partly through inhumane exploitation of immigrants and the poor.

The dark side of business is nothing new, but in Rand’s utopia there was nothing wrong with letting the laggards perish. Rand was also a Social Darwinist. Social Darwinism was a robber baron-era philosophy which held that evolutionary pressures -- natural selection -- apply to humans. It held that you actually help the nation along by permitting the weak to fall by the wayside: thus welfare is a mistake because it interferes with nature’s way of weeding out the unfit. Absolute laissez-faire was Rand’s ideal -- no government constraint on business and no assistance to the poor, only glorious liberty to be as selfish as you want. This, she said, is also rational.

One of her novel’s heroes stated that a nation’s morality is its money. That was a silly thing to say; but modern Libertarians embrace these points, and many young readers still find her message uplifting.

My second point: if you tried to overlay the administration’s post-Katrina actions on Ayn Rand’s dogma, the fit would be snug.

In the days after hurricane Katrina folded death and despair into the doorways of New Orleans, the Wall Street Journal blithely ran a front page interview with a member of the city’s moneyed elite, whose house was largely spared, being on higher ground. Sipping a highball he told the reporter that after the worst was over he and his neighbors had plans for New Orleans to be rebuilt differently. New Orleans had a teeming underclass; and this Great Gatsby character was going to change all that. What local African American leaders fear now is that the moneyed elite plan a rebuilding which shifts the political base by largely excluding the poor and blacks [8].

We all read the news. The tectonic divide between American rich and poor grows. American poverty is up [9], American hunger is up [10], more and more ordinary people are deeply in debt; and the nation itself is deeper than ever in deficit.

Trust is fading year by year [11]. Sun Tzu’s The Art of War is required reading in many corporate boardrooms. Citizens everywhere continue to buy guns.

In many quarters it appears the rich are disinterested in any but the rich. Whatever happened to the concept of the common good?

This is the threat: Without a focus on people helping one another, for the common good, it may be difficult to prevent a gradual decay into a war of all against all. But Ayn Rand’s propaganda -- and she insisted her ideology was propaganda [12] -- dismantles the common good. In Rand’s utopia, the good people are brass-knuckled individualists who are never interested in anything average; they despised the weak. The powerful are in splendid position to loot lesser people, and this never offended Social Darwinism.

So we read the news, and wonder: is the official policy in New Orleans a war on the poor?

I am saying there is nothing here that could not be predicted. This past year’s events in New Orleans are a legacy of sorts. We are where Rand in the 1960s wanted us to go. The concept of the common good has all but disappeared. This, I believe, goes hand in hand with the nation’s ebbing morality -- the common factor is a decline in altruism, which Rand actually insisted was incompatible with freedom [13] and destructive to civilization.

Pick that copy of Rand’s The Virtue of Selfishness off your bookshelf and glance through it:

“It is only on the basis of selfishness . . . that men can live together in. . . . society.” [p. 32]

Something out of a bad dream.

Ayn Rand is not with us any more, but the ideological boulders she pushed down from her heights are still falling; in fact they are gathering. Public corruption is getting worse.

After decades of “looking out for number one,” it is not surprising the left wing has been brought to a collapsing halt. It stands ideologically naked. Now in policy making, and now in business, Liberty exalts; Equality hides her face.

Social Darwinism is rising again. It is poisonously inegalitarian; it is a frontal threat to democracy. But we have heard so much, and with such insistence, that we have become cowed. We have become like dogs that bite the stones thrown at us, not the thrower.

In conversations with right-wing business people, I hear the same timbre: this insistence. Liberals, unfortunately, sound different. From them I hear a kind of thin and sophisticated despair, a hope that somehow this will all be humanized. But that is not enough to halt corruption.

There was no Ayn Rand of the left. So what are we supposed to be doing, and which direction to start?

As grim as Rand’s rants were, she reminded us ideas are everything.

The first order is awakening, a raising of consciousness and a reclaiming of our positions. Policy makers will hear us if we also start insisting.

Our values are not abandoned. Nor is reason. We can still watch for justice, pick up our concerns over greed and materialism which were dropped after the ‘60s. We should reclaim these basics: What is isn't the same as what is right. Might still does not make right. Selfishness is still a vice. Corruption is still wrong. Democracy is still precious. The common good exists.

Stand up. Bring it up.

Explain: We want our morality back.




Notes

1. “American voters say urgent moral issues are peace, poverty and greed,” The National Catholic Peace Movement -- Zogby International, 11/12/2004.

2. “Poll: -- Half believe Congress is dirty” CNN.com 1/3/2006.

3. Rand, A. Capitalism: the unknown ideal. New York: Signet Books, 1946 and The

virtue of selfishness. New York: Signet Books, 1961.

4. Walker, J. The Ayn Rand cult. Chicago, Ill. Open Court. 1999.

5. Rand, A. Capitalism: the unknown ideal. New York, Signet Books, 1946.

6. Walker, The Ayn Rand cult.

7. Rand, The virtue of selfishness, p. 68.

8. Cooper, C. “Old-line families escape worst of flood and plot the future.” Wall Street Journal. A1. 9/8/05.

9. Havemann, J., and Alonso-Valdevar, R. “US poverty rate rises again in 2004.” Los Angeles Times 31 August 2005 p. A 13. This article reports some recent US Census Bureau statistics, and other sources.

10. Nord, M., Andrtews, M., Carlson, S. Household Food Security in the United States, 2004. United States Department of Agriculture report ERS-ERR-11, October 2005.

11. Lane, R.E. The loss of happiness in market democracies. 2000. New Haven: Yale University Press.

12. Walker, The Ayn Rand cult. p. 288.

13. Rand, The virtue of selfishness. p. 94.”

“Greed is still one of the Seven Deadly Sins, non?

Sloth
Glutony
???”

“Hmmm.....I'm not sure that rant is targeted at the right person. I'd guess the source of some of the problems brought up in the article is the immoral collusion between business and gov't, whereas Randism/objectivism specifically rejects that.

And the ad hom didn't do much to establish credibility. Still, interesting.”

“Article had interesting points. The author does not understand Nietzsche much beyond the silly misuse of Nietzsche by the Nazi's and the stereotyping reaction of their enemies.
last edited: 1/25/06 9:48:59 PM”

““Ayn Rand (1905-1982) won over millions to the the moral values of individualism and liberty which had fallen out of fashion more than a century ago.”

http://www.libertystory.net/LSTHINKRAND.htm

“Rand's philosophical novels, especially The Fountainhead (1943) and Atlas Shrugged (1957), have sold some 20 million copies and continue to sell several hundred thousand copies a year -- without being advertised by publishers or assigned by professors. According to a survey by the Library of Congress and Book-of-the-Month Club, Atlas Shrugged ranked second after the Bible as the that most influenced people's lives.”




"My philosophy, in essence, is the concept of man as a heroic being, with his own happiness as the moral purpose of his life, with productive achievement as his noblest activity, and reason his only absolute."
--Atlas Shrugged

Freedom vs. dictatorship
"What is the basic, the essential, the crucial principle that differentiates freedom from slavery? It is the principle of voluntary action versus physical coercion or compulsion...The issue is not slavery for a 'good' cause versus slavery for a 'bad' cause; the issue is not dictatorship by a 'good' gang versus dictatorship by a 'bad; gang. The issue is freedom versus dictatorship."
--Capitalism, the Unknown Ideal


Capitalism is a social system based on the recognition of individual rights, including property rights, in which all property is privately owned."

"Capitalism cannot work with slave labor. It was the agrarian, feudal South that maintained slavery. It was the industrial, capitalistic North that wiped it out -- as capitalism wiped out slavery and serfdom in the whole civilized world of the nineteenth century.

"What greater virtue can one ascribe to a social system than the fact that it leaves no possibility for any man to serve his own interests by enslaving other men? What nobler system could be desired by anyone whose goal is man's well-being?"

"Let those who are actually concerned with peace observe that capitalism gave mankind the longest period of peace in history -- a period during which there were no wars involving the entire civilized world -- from the end of the Napoleonic wars in 1815 to the oubreak of World War I in 1914.

"It must be remembered that the political systems of the nineteenth century were not pure capitalism, but mixed economies. The element of freedom, however, was dominant; it was as close to a century of capitalism as mankind has come."
--Capitalism, the Unknown Ideal

"Intellectual freedom cannot exist without political freedom; political freedom cannot exist without economic freedom; a free mind and a free market are corollaries."
--For the New Intellectual






Hope you didn’t spend much time reading that stupid leftist drivel, violin. Stalin, Pol Pot, Che, Mao, ...

Leftists have a long history of moral behavior. But it's not the type of moral behavior a rational being believes in.


Violin, you and your leftist buddies are in the minority...once again...


"Ayn Rand’s philosophy of reason and freedom has inspired thousands, and a Library of Congress survey found "Atlas Shrugged" to be the second most influential book on people’s lives. "Atlas Shrugged" was recently voted into the top 100 favourite books in the ABC survey."

http://www.prweb.com/releases/2005/2/prwebxml204055.php






The following is an excerpt from Atlas Shrugged, © Copyright, 1957, by Ayn Rand. It is reprinted with permission from the Estate of Ayn Rand.

"So you think that money is the root of all evil?" said Francisco d'Anconia. "Have you ever asked what is the root of money? Money is a tool of exchange, which can't exist unless there are goods produced and men able to produce them. Money is the material shape of the principle that men who wish to deal with one another must deal by trade and give value for value. Money is not the tool of the moochers, who claim your product by tears, or of the looters, who take it from you by force. Money is made possible only by the men who produce. Is this what you consider evil?

"When you accept money in payment for your effort, you do so only on the conviction that you will exchange it for the product of the effort of others. It is not the moochers or the looters who give value to money. Not an ocean of tears not all the guns in the world can transform those pieces of paper in your wallet into the bread you will need to survive tomorrow. Those pieces of paper, which should have been gold, are a token of honor—your claim upon the energy of the men who produce. Your wallet is your statement of hope that somewhere in the world around you there are men who will not default on that moral principle which is the root of money, Is this what you consider evil?

"Have you ever looked for the root of production? Take a look at an electric generator and dare tell yourself that it was created by the muscular effort of unthinking brutes. Try to grow a seed of wheat without the knowledge left to you by men who had to discover it for the first time. Try to obtain your food by means of nothing but physical motions—and you'll learn that man's mind is the root of all the goods produced and of all the wealth that has ever existed on earth.

"But you say that money is made by the strong at the expense of the weak? What strength do you mean? It is not the strength of guns or muscles. Wealth is the product of man's capacity to think. Then is money made by the man who invents a motor at the expense of those who did not invent it? Is money made by the intelligent at the expense of the fools? By the able at the expense of the incompetent? By the ambitious at the expense of the lazy? Money is made—before it can be looted or mooched—made by the effort of every honest man, each to the extent of his ability. An honest man is one who knows that he can't consume more than he has produced.'

"To trade by means of money is the code of the men of good will. Money rests on the axiom that every man is the owner of his mind and his effort. Money allows no power to prescribe the value of your effort except the voluntary choice of the man who is willing to trade you his effort in return. Money permits you to obtain for your goods and your labor that which they are worth to the men who buy them, but no more. Money permits no deals except those to mutual benefit by the unforced judgment of the traders. Money demands of you the recognition that men must work for their own benefit, not for their own injury, for their gain, not their loss—the recognition that they are not beasts of burden, born to carry the weight of your misery—that you must offer them values, not wounds—that the common bond among men is not the exchange of suffering, but the exchange of goods. Money demands that you sell, not your weakness to men's stupidity, but your talent to their reason; it demands that you buy, not the shoddiest they offer, but the best that your money can find. And when men live by trade—with reason, not force, as their final arbiter—it is the best product that wins, the best performance, the man of best judgment and highest ability—and the degree of a man's productiveness is the degree of his reward. This is the code of existence whose tool and symbol is money. Is this what you consider evil?

"But money is only a tool. It will take you wherever you wish, but it will not replace you as the driver. It will give you the means for the satisfaction of your desires, but it will not provide you with desires. Money is the scourge of the men who attempt to reverse the law of causality—the men who seek to replace the mind by seizing the products of the mind.

"Money will not purchase happiness for the man who has no concept of what he wants: money will not give him a code of values, if he's evaded the knowledge of what to value, and it will not provide him with a purpose, if he's evaded the choice of what to seek. Money will not buy intelligence for the fool, or admiration for the coward, or respect for the incompetent. The man who attempts to purchase the brains of his superiors to serve him, with his money replacing his judgment, ends up by becoming the victim of his inferiors. The men of intelligence desert him, but the cheats and the frauds come flocking to him, drawn by a law which he has not discovered: that no man may be smaller than his money. Is this the reason why you call it evil?

"Only the man who does not need it, is fit to inherit wealth—the man who would make his own fortune no matter where he started. If an heir is equal to his money, it serves him; if not, it destroys him. But you look on and you cry that money corrupted him. Did it? Or did he corrupt his money? Do not envy a worthless heir; his wealth is not yours and you would have done no better with it. Do not think that it should have been distributed among you; loading the world with fifty parasites instead of one, would not bring back the dead virtue which was the fortune. Money is a living power that dies without its root. Money will not serve the mind that cannot match it. Is this the reason why you call it evil?

"Money is your means of survival. The verdict you pronounce upon the source of your livelihood is the verdict you pronounce upon your life. If the source is corrupt, you have damned your own existence. Did you get your money by fraud? By pandering to men's vices or men's stupidity? By catering to fools, in the hope of getting more than your ability deserves? By lowering your standards? By doing work you despise for purchasers you scorn? If so, then your money will not give you a moment's or a penny's worth of joy. Then all the things you buy will become, not a tribute to you, but a reproach; not an achievement, but a reminder of shame. Then you'll scream that money is evil. Evil, because it would not pinch-hit for your self-respect? Evil, because it would not let you enjoy your depravity? Is this the root of your hatred of money?

"Money will always remain an effect and refuse to replace you as the cause. Money is the product of virtue, but it will not give you virtue and it will not redeem your vices. Money will not give you the unearned, neither in matter nor in spirit. Is this the root of your hatred of money?

"Or did you say it's the love of money that's the root of all evil? To love a thing is to know and love its nature. To love money is to know and love the fact that money is the creation of the best power within you, and your passkey to trade your effort for the effort of the best among men. It's the person who would sell his soul for a nickel, who is loudest in proclaiming his hatred of money—and he has good reason to hate it. The lovers of money are willing to work for it. They know they are able to deserve it.

"Let me give you a tip on a clue to men's characters: the man who damns money has obtained it dishonorably; the man who respects it has earned it.

"Run for your life from any man who tells you that money is evil. That sentence is the leper's bell of an approaching looter. So long as men live together on earth and need means to deal with one another—their only substitute, if they abandon money, is the muzzle of a gun.

"But money demands of you the highest virtues, if you wish to make it or to keep it. Men who have no courage, pride or self-esteem, men who have no moral sense of their right to their money and are not willing to defend it as they defend their life, men who apologize for being rich—will not remain rich for long. They are the natural bait for the swarms of looters that stay under rocks for centuries, but come crawling out at the first smell of a man who begs to be forgiven for the guilt of owning wealth. They will hasten to relieve him of the guilt—and of his life, as he deserves.

"Then you will see the rise of the men of the double standard—the men who live by force, yet count on those who live by trade to create the value of their looted money—the men who are the hitchhikers of virtue. In a moral society, these are the criminals, and the statutes are written to protect you against them. But when a society establishes criminals-by-right and looters-by-law—men who use force to seize the wealth of disarmed victims—then money becomes its creators' avenger. Such looters believe it safe to rob defenseless men, once they've passed a law to disarm them. But their loot becomes the magnet for other looters, who get it from them as they got it. Then the race goes, not to the ablest at production, but to those most ruthless at brutality. When force is the standard, the murderer wins over the pickpocket. And then that society vanishes, in a spread of ruins and slaughter.

"Do you wish to know whether that day is coming? Watch money. Money is the barometer of a society's virtue. When you see that trading is done, not by consent, but by compulsion—when you see that in order to produce, you need to obtain permission from men who produce nothing—when you see that money is flowing to those who deal, not in goods, but in favors—when you see that men get richer by graft and by pull than by work, and your laws don't protect you against them, but protect them against you—when you see corruption being rewarded and honesty becoming a self-sacrifice—you may know that your society is doomed. Money is so noble a medium that is does not compete with guns and it does not make terms with brutality. It will not permit a country to survive as half-property, half-loot.

"Whenever destroyers appear among men, they start by destroying money, for money is men's protection and the base of a moral existence. Destroyers seize gold and leave to its owners a counterfeit pile of paper. This kills all objective standards and delivers men into the arbitrary power of an arbitrary setter of values. Gold was an objective value, an equivalent of wealth produced. Paper is a mortgage on wealth that does not exist, backed by a gun aimed at those who are expected to produce it. Paper is a check drawn by legal looters upon an account which is not theirs: upon the virtue of the victims. Watch for the day when it bounces, marked, 'Account overdrawn.'

"When you have made evil the means of survival, do not expect men to remain good. Do not expect them to stay moral and lose their lives for the purpose of becoming the fodder of the immoral. Do not expect them to produce, when production is punished and looting rewarded. Do not ask, 'Who is destroying the world? You are.

"You stand in the midst of the greatest achievements of the greatest productive civilization and you wonder why it's crumbling around you, while you're damning its life-blood—money. You look upon money as the savages did before you, and you wonder why the jungle is creeping back to the edge of your cities. Throughout men's history, money was always seized by looters of one brand or another, whose names changed, but whose method remained the same: to seize wealth by force and to keep the producers bound, demeaned, defamed, deprived of honor. That phrase about the evil of money, which you mouth with such righteous recklessness, comes from a time when wealth was produced by the labor of slaves—slaves who repeated the motions once discovered by somebody's mind and left unimproved for centuries. So long as production was ruled by force, and wealth was obtained by conquest, there was little to conquer, Yet through all the centuries of stagnation and starvation, men exalted the looters, as aristocrats of the sword, as aristocrats of birth, as aristocrats of the bureau, and despised the producers, as slaves, as traders, as shopkeepers—as industrialists.

"To the glory of mankind, there was, for the first and only time in history, a country of money—and I have no higher, more reverent tribute to pay to America, for this means: a country of reason, justice, freedom, production, achievement. For the first time, man's mind and money were set free, and there were no fortunes-by-conquest, but only fortunes-by-work, and instead of swordsmen and slaves, there appeared the real maker of wealth, the greatest worker, the highest type of human being—the self-made man—the American industrialist.

"If you ask me to name the proudest distinction of Americans, I would choose—because it contains all the others—the fact that they were the people who created the phrase 'to make money.' No other language or nation had ever used these words before; men had always thought of wealth as a static quantity—to be seized, begged, inherited, shared, looted of obtained as a favor. Americans were the first to understand that wealth has to be created. The words 'to make money' hold the essence of human morality.

"Yet these were the words for which Americans were denounced by the rotted cultures of the looters' continents. Now the looters' credo has brought you to regard your proudest achievements as a hallmark of shame, your prosperity as guilt, your greatest men, the industrialists, as blackguards, and your magnificent factories as the product and property of muscular labor, the labor of whip-driven slaves, like the pyramids of Egypt. The rotter who simpers that he sees no difference between the power of the dollar and the power of the whip, ought to learn the difference on his own hide— as, I think, he will.

"Until and unless you discover that money is the root of all good, you ask for your own destruction. When money ceases to be the tool by which men deal with one another, then men become the tools of men. Blood, whips and guns—or dollars. Take your choice—there is no other—and your time is running out."

The above is an excerpt from Atlas Shrugged, © Copyright, 1957, by Ayn Rand. It is reprinted with permission from the Estate of Ayn Rand.
last edited: 1/27/06 4:02:32 PM”

“Thanks for reminding us of how out of touch her sense of history was.”

“she's toast. Her ashes were accidentally eaten while car camping. They were mixed with the lime green jello.”

“I like Asimov over Rand. As a writer, an intellect, and a free thinker.”

“Rand's political views were radically pro-capitalist, anti-statist, and anti-communist. Her writings praised above all the human individual and the creative genius of which one is capable. She exalted what she saw as the heroic American values of egoism and individualism. Rand also had a strong dislike for mysticism, religion, and compulsory charity, all of which she believed helped foster a crippling culture of resentment towards individual human happiness and success. Rand detested many prominent liberal and conservative politicians of her time, even including prominent anti-communist crusaders like Presidents Harry S. Truman and Ronald Reagan and Senators Hubert H. Humphrey and Joseph McCarthy (though she argued that "McCarthyism" was a myth, and that the accusation of McCarthyism was used as an ad hominem argument to discredit anti-communists).

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ayn_Rand”

“Definitely wouldn't approve of Dubya (bold is mine):

was best known for her philosophy of Objectivism and her novels We the Living, Anthem, The Fountainhead, and Atlas Shrugged. Her philosophy and her fiction both emphasize, above all, her concepts of individualism, rational egoism ("rational self-interest"), and capitalism. Believing government has a legitimate but relatively minimal role in a free society, she was not an anarchist, but a minarchist

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ayn_Rand


Then again, sounds like she was a nut! LOL!
last edited: 1/27/06 8:50:55 PM”

“I think she did a service in that she took the ideals of communism and turned them on their head - embraced a philosophy that was the exact opposite in some sense. What is odd and unfortunate are the Ayn Rand cult people - who worship he as some sort of prophet. In my experience they are very seldom the kind of people who play well with others (or produce much of interest and value). There are notable exceptions and I don't blame her for them anymore than I blame Nietzsche for the f-d up Nietzscheans who waved his banner over the yers.”

“Azimov’s Foundation Trilogy may be my favorite collected work, bearmagnet. I’m a big Azimov fan but don’t worship him.




What is truly sad is that some people are incapable of culling valuable insights from philosophy. Instead they choose to swallow, or reject, philosophical dogma whole. This has been shown to be true in our current political climate. Many people completely ignore the opinions and philosophies of others.

Most people who believe in the Bible don’t take the entire collection of books as truth. They recognize the good aspects of its philosophy. Then there are those who take it as gospel truth, and those who dismiss it completely.


So the leftists believe that Ayn Rand is not moral because she advocates individual choice rather than acting collectively.

Excerpts from violin’s post:

“Ayn Rand’s ideology, powerful since the 1940s, denies the common good.”
“Whatever happened to the concept of the common good?”
“The common good exists. Stand up. Bring it up. Explain: We want our morality back.”


This is obviously a person who has not bothered to understand many of Rand’s ideas. He pulls the book quotes with which he disagrees. This makes it easy for him to dismiss her entire philosophy.




The rhetoric that I’ve heard from leftists, and many current leaders in the Democratic Party, is some very sick stuff. There is a lot of codependent thinking among those inclined to leftist economic views:



How do I know if I’m codependent?
What are some of the symptoms?

controlling behavior
caretaking behavior



Why do we become codependent? What causes it?
General rules set-up within families that may cause codependency may include:

Don’t be selfish



How Do Co-Dependent People Behave?

Co-dependents have low self-esteem and look for anything outside of themselves to make them feel better.

They have good intentions. They try to take care of a person who is experiencing difficulty, but the caretaking becomes compulsive and defeating. Co-dependents often take on a martyr’s role and become “benefactors” to an individual in need.



Characteristics of Co-Dependent People Are:

An exaggerated sense of responsibility for the actions of others.
A tendency to confuse love and pity, with the tendency to “love” people they can pity and rescue.
A tendency to become hurt when people don’t recognize their efforts.
An extreme need for approval and recognition.
A compelling need to control others.
Mental attention is focused on protecting others.
Mental attention is focused on manipulating you to do it my way.
Self-esteem is bolstered by solving the problems of others.
Self-esteem is bolstered by relieving the pain of others.
Use giving as a way of feeling safe in a relationship.
The dreams I have for my future are linked to others.
The quality of my life is in relation to the quality of others.
Belief that others cause or are responsible for the codependent's emotions.
Tendency to look for "victims" to help.



Are you codependent?

Do you feel responsible for other people--their feelings, thoughts, actions, choices, wants, needs, well-being and destiny?

Do you feel compelled to help people solve their problems or by trying to take care of their feelings?



Questionnaire To Identify Signs Of Co-Dependency:

Do you think people in your life would go downhill without your constant efforts?
Do you frequently wish someone could help you get things done?
Do you have difficulty talking to people in authority, such as the police or your boss?
Do you have trouble saying “no” when asked for help?
Do you have trouble asking for help?




I know a few folks on this site who might want to take a good honest look at themselves.”

“I don't worship Asimov. I do agree an awful lot with him.”

“"I like Asimov over Rand. As a writer, an intellect, and a free thinker."

“I don't worship Asimov. I do agree an awful lot with him.”

bearmagnet



So you like Azimov over Rand, bearmagnet? Would you mind sharing your views about those statements?


As a writer? Do you believe he was better at literary expression, or do you prefer the genres in which he wrote?

As an intellect? In what way? Do you think that science fiction and science writers have more intellect than philosophers, do you find the genres more intellectual, or do you have access to IQ scores?

As a free thinker? Would you mind explaining what you mean by “free thinking”? Exactly what books by Azimov, have you read completely, that express his ideas of “free thinking”? What books by Rand, have you read completely, that you use to contrast her ideas of “free thinking”?

You agree with him? About what specifically do you agree with Azimov that you use to contrast with Rand’s ideas?
last edited: 1/29/06 11:03:41 AM”

“"Genre"? Asimov was hardly limited to a genre. As is often noted, Asimov completely spans the Dewey Decimal system.

Asimov was an intellect, a humanist, and certainly a Philosopher. And on occasion, a damn good Sci Fi writer.

Edit: I've read Rand. I like Asimov more. I like Asimov more than Bradbury or Vonnegut. More than pavic or Voltaire. More than Gould and Dawkins.

I guess I'm saying no one compares to asimov. K?
last edited: 1/29/06 11:42:50 AM”

“i didnt expect a sort of spanish inquisition!”

“No one expects the Spanish Inquisition!”

“Vonnegut kicks Asimov's literary butt.”

“No way, man! Take that back or we have a "problem"!”

“You want a piece of me?”

“You and any other vonnegut wusses!”

“Well.........let's git it on, you two!!”

“Asimov could also be very funny. Limmericks, jokes, etc. Way back when there was a series of "Sensuous" books coming out (The Sensuous Woman by J, the Sensuous Man by M, the Sensuous Couple by X, the Sensuous Gay Man by B or whatever the initials were) - I, being an obnoxious kid got my dad "The Sensuous Dirty Old Man" by A. He never read it, but I did and it was hysterical. It turned out "A" was Isaac Asimov. It's a classic.”

“who were m, b, a, x, and j?”

“And I’m saying you’re vague, bearmagnet. What you posted wasn’t very helpful in answering my questions and enforces my doubt about your knowledge of the subject you’re discussing.

I was a member of The Science Fiction Book Club from elementary school through high school. I am now a member of the Easton Press’s Masterpieces of Science Fiction club. I’m very familiar with Azimov’s science fiction having read:

Pebble In The Sky
I, Robot
The Caves of Steel
The Naked Sun
The Robots of Dawn
Robots and Empire
The End of Eternity
The Gods Themselves
The Foundation Trilogy
Foundation's Edge
Foundation and Earth
Prelude to Foundation
Forward the Foundation
Nightfall

I’ve also read a number of his short stories. Azimov wrote the vast majority of his work in the genres of science fiction and science. He wrote a couple of mysteries. He wrote some history. He wrote guides to The Bible and to literature. He even wrote a few books of humor and satire.


But you know what? I just can’t seem to find anything he wrote on philosophy.

So what particular Azimov works do you find so fascinatingly “free thinking?” Will you avoid this question once again?

You didn’t bother to mention what Rand works you’ve read. Have you actually read any Rand novels completely? I’ll bet you can quote book titles. Can you actually discuss what was written between the covers? What particular ideas of hers do you find lacking? What philosophy does Azimov express that you prefer?




I agree with the codependent pinhead who said that “Vonnegut kicks Azimov’s literary butt.” IMHO, Vonnegut is a much better writer than Azimov. I think most literary critics would agree with that. Although I have enjoyed Azimov’s work more than I have enjoyed Vonnegut’s (or Joyce’s for that matter).




Yeah, pedxing, I found those books on an Isaac Azimov website:

http://www.asimovonline.com/

I’ve never read them so I don’t have enough info to comment on his humorous writings nor his “free thinking.” The only humor I’ve ever read by Azimov was in his introductions to the Hugo winners. I laughed out loud at a few of them. He’s obviously got a petty healthy sense of humor. His introduction (I think it was) for Harlan Ellison’s, I have no mouth, and I must scream, was just hysterically funny: …. “Let’s kill him now.”

But I’d have to say that Mark Twain is probably my favorite humorist.

Letters From the Earth... a classic
last edited: 1/29/06 5:13:41 PM”

“I’ll bet you can quote book titles. Can you actually discuss what was written between the covers?

You're always so adversarial, aren't you?

I like Dali better than Monet.

I like Green better than Orange.

Wanna discuss those also?

Anyway.........

Asimov was a frequent contributor to "Free Inquiry" Magazine and was elected a Humanist Laureate of the International Academy of Humanism.

Some of his philosophical thoughts can be found in "The Roving Mind"

Now, since he doesn't have a book out with a title such as "Philosophy: Who Needs It", like ms. Rand, must mean he's not a philosopher, eh?







Sorry. You know I just had to "quote a book title"

;)”

“sounds like its time for a beer party.............”

“I'm drinking Scotch right now.”

“excuse me, didn't mean to interrupt............cheers.......”

“Aw man.....

It looks like I shoulda motored on down to D.C. this weekend!”

“Almost gone...”

“marko, bring more scotch, we'll meet at bearmagnets and peruse his asimov collection.

btw, i'm drinking brown ale.”

“ummmmm, bearmagnet, email me your address, i'm filling my growlers now. you're gonna love this brown ale.”

“Pshaw!!

I'm drinkin' black coffee!





This just arrived last Wednesday!!
last edited: 1/29/06 6:11:36 PM”

“I'll bring a few sixes of Brooklyn Lager and we'll talk about arclite behind his back.”

“i'm gonna drink your brooklyn lager, but i'm not for talking about arclite.

i agree with him as often as i don't.”

“Maybe he could use a drink?”

“marlo, where you keep coming up with theswe deals man? if you find any more of these on ebay, email me the auction address so i can get one. i need to learn how to play a guitar.


and... email me your snail mail addy so i can return your cd's. thanks.”

“I'm gonna write a song about that dude!!


Pictures Of Ayn Rand
Made my life so wonderful
Pictures of Ayn Rand
Helped me sleep at night

And then one day when things weren't quite so fine
I fell in love with Ayn Rand
I asked my Dad where Ayn Rand I could find
He said, "son now don't be silly"
She's been dead since 1969
Oh how I cried that night
If only I'd been born in Ayn Rand's time
It would be alright”

“the older yamaha's were good guitars i take it?”

“I like arclite just fine. I like messing with him even more.”

“Man, talk about thread degeneration!!

The '60s and '70s Yamahas are nice and way cheaper than something with Martin or Gibson on the headstock.

Henry and I wanted something small-bodied.

That one was $147.50, shipped.

Look at Yamaha FG 110's and FG 331's.
The 110's are an older made in Japan model, same size and the 331's are made in Taiwan.

My first acoustic was a 1972 Yamaha FG 180(copy of a D-28???) made in Taiwan......it's long gone.
THAT model has been selling for $200-$300 on eBay.....go figure.
last edited: 1/29/06 6:26:56 PM”

“thanks”

“I'm going to have to let you find me a guitar too.

I got a peice of crap Washburn for my daughter for Christmas. It sounds OK for $100 and has a built-in tuner but I'm sure that one sounds a whole lot better. If she continues to enjoy it, I'll look to upgrade.
last edited: 1/29/06 6:28:43 PM”

“Nice!!

Playability is important to hold one's interest and give satisfaction and motivation to practice.

But hey, you're a fiddler.”

“My destiny was to be a rock star but an accident with a grass trimmer when I was 15 cut that career short - sliced my left ring finger right down the middle and damaged the nerves. Putting my finger on a steel string felt like a live wire for years. The world will never know what it lost.
last edited: 1/29/06 6:41:26 PM”

“Flip it over and play lefty......."lefty"”

“I can't even pick my nose lefty.

Did I have the 'look' or what?


last edited: 1/29/06 7:10:09 PM”

“And my life would be less without you, violin. I know for sure that many of the discussions on this site would be infinitely more boring without you. My God man, sometimes you’re the only one on a thread who makes any sense. That is a truly scary thought.

You like to stir the pot, you like to prairie-dog, you deal in absurdity, and you are absolutely one of my favorite people on this site. You know I wouldn’t tease anybody who wasn’t from NJ like I tease you…
…. Well….maybe not.

It’s obvious that the injury to your hand didn’t hinder your ability to jerk off.




On this thread you’re in good company.




I suppose I am controversial when confronted with BS, bearmagnet. I have a blunt way of asking questions and I don’t suffer fools gladly. But the people who I’ve hiked with usually say I’m not what they expected.

I’m sure you’re a fine fellow for discussing the weather, or have-a-nice-day conversation, but you’re a complete waste of space when someone asks you to explain yourself in more depth.




Get drunk for me boys. I’ve got to go read.
last edited: 1/30/06 6:38:19 PM”

“You are so cute, arclite.

I have no desire to explain myself to you in depth here. Why should I?

To do so would require an effort on my part. In other words, I would have to care what you thought.

Enjoy your reading. I imagine you do it at a coffee house in an attempt to impress people.

Which is the vibe you give me here.

btw - you really need to read some of Asimov's stuff outside sci fi
last edited: 1/30/06 6:42:59 PM”