Ayn Rand Forum

In need of some help.

Wed, 20 May 2009 20:39:28 GMT

I know that Ms. Rand held the founding fathers in high esteem, but did she or anyone else write anything about them in connection with objectivism?

Hello, and thank you CrazyMike

Thu, 05 Mar 2009 05:33:11 GMT

I thank Mike for pointing me here, and it is a pleasure to join. Why I hadn't sought out a group like this previously baffles me, but just the same, I am happy to be here. Be warned, I am in the mood for lyrical rambling.

I mostly know Ayn Rand through a multitude of progressions through "Atlas Shrugged" and snippets taken here and there from her other works and inferences upon her character and history. I was gradually swept into the story in 2003, and have read it 10 times since. More accurately, the last reading was three years ago, and I was unable to make it through the full, usually tumultuously joyful round as modern politics and their gross similarities made me sick to my stomach. Since that point, I've attempted to get my friends to read it, and only no, for the first time ever, have I succeeded. Now I celebrate that success.

It has pleased me to have found a similarly minded person among my friends, and to him I have entrusted a copy of Atlas. He's just now reached the scene of Jimmy Taggart's wedding, and is salivating over the Francisco's speech to the point of sending me exultant text messages and posting the whole of it to his LJ. This from a young man who previously had been allergic to the written word, and had put up the notion of reading it strictly through affection for me.

That was yesterday, but this is today, and the same day that I first heard the words "Employee Free Choice Act." At first I was appalled and then turned to my boyfriend to discuss, current event buff that he is. Upon the discussion of its nature, we spoke of employers shrugging, and the case where one gentleman auctioned his equipment and bulldozed his factory shortly after the unions had descended. This is the point in the conversation where I left the room, sought out my copy of Atlas, and thumped it before him, to save him the effort of seeking it out. If we should live in times such as these, why not have the quasi-prophetic* manual? He hasn't read it in the three years I pointed it out, and it's a pity to present it in this fashion, I thought. But I figure if it worked for one, might it work for the rest?

So it is to this end, I shall shortly hunt the metro area for spare copies of the book, and take all duplicates I can afford from local half-priced book stores. These I shall deliver to local libraries (if they have no copies) and place in the hands of friends. I may need to hurry- in the past year, Atlas Shrugged has gone from #146 in ranking to #36, and the largest such store has only one expensive copy.

*I saw 'quasi' because I neither believe in prophecy nor do I believe that the scenarios described by Rand weren't predictable by many other obvious and social means. Fanatical and romantic I may be, but not in this sense.

Wall Street Journal Editorial: 'Atlas Shrugged from Fiction to Fact in 52 Years

Thu, 15 Jan 2009 14:28:54 GMT

I'm surprised no-one posted this yet - enjoy!

Original Link

'Atlas Shrugged': From Fiction to Fact in 52 Years

By Stephen Moore

Some years ago when I worked at the libertarian Cato Institute, we used to label any new hire who had not yet read "Atlas Shrugged" a "virgin." Being conversant in Ayn Rand's classic novel about the economic carnage caused by big government run amok was practically a job requirement. If only "Atlas" were required reading for every member of Congress and political appointee in the Obama administration. I'm confident that we'd get out of the current financial mess a lot faster.

Many of us who know Rand's work have noticed that with each passing week, and with each successive bailout plan and economic-stimulus scheme out of Washington, our current politicians are committing the very acts of economic lunacy that "Atlas Shrugged" parodied in 1957, when this 1,000-page novel was first published and became an instant hit.

Rand, who had come to America from Soviet Russia with striking insights into totalitarianism and the destructiveness of socialism, was already a celebrity. The left, naturally, hated her. But as recently as 1991, a survey by the Library of Congress and the Book of the Month Club found that readers rated "Atlas" as the second-most influential book in their lives, behind only the Bible.

For the uninitiated, the moral of the story is simply this: Politicians invariably respond to crises -- that in most cases they themselves created -- by spawning new government programs, laws and regulations. These, in turn, generate more havoc and poverty, which inspires the politicians to create more programs . . . and the downward spiral repeats itself until the productive sectors of the economy collapse under the collective weight of taxes and other burdens imposed in the name of fairness, equality and do-goodism.

In the book, these relentless wealth redistributionists and their programs are disparaged as "the looters and their laws." Every new act of government futility and stupidity carries with it a benevolent-sounding title. These include the "Anti-Greed Act" to redistribute income (sounds like Charlie Rangel's promises soak-the-rich tax bill) and the "Equalization of Opportunity Act" to prevent people from starting more than one business (to give other people a chance). My personal favorite, the "Anti Dog-Eat-Dog Act," aims to restrict cut-throat competition between firms and thus slow the wave of business bankruptcies. Why didn't Hank Paulson think of that?

These acts and edicts sound farcical, yes, but no more so than the actual events in Washington, circa 2008. We already have been served up the $700 billion "Emergency Economic Stabilization Act" and the "Auto Industry Financing and Restructuring Act." Now that Barack Obama is in town, he will soon sign into law with great urgency the "American Recovery and Reinvestment Plan." This latest Hail Mary pass will increase the federal budget (which has already expanded by $1.5 trillion in eight years under George Bush) by an additional $1 trillion -- in roughly his first 100 days in office.

The current economic strategy is right out of "Atlas Shrugged": The more incompetent you are in business, the more handouts the politicians will bestow on you. That's the justification for the $2 trillion of subsidies doled out already to keep afloat distressed insurance companies, banks, Wall Street investment houses, and auto companies -- while standing next in line for their share of the booty are real-estate developers, the steel industry, chemical companies, airlines, ethanol producers, construction firms and even catfish farmers. With each successive bailout to "calm the markets," another trillion of national wealth is subsequently lost. Yet, as "Atlas" grimly foretold, we now treat the incompetent who wreck their companies as victims, while those resourceful business owners who manage to make a profit are portrayed as recipients of illegitimate "windfalls."

When Rand was writing in the 1950s, one of the pillars of American industrial might was the railroads. In her novel the railroad owner, Dagny Taggart, an enterprising industrialist, has a FedEx-like vision for expansion and first-rate service by rail. But she is continuously badgered, cajoled, taxed, ruled and regulated -- always in the public interest -- into bankruptcy. Sound far-fetched? On the day I sat down to write this ode to "Atlas," a Wall Street Journal headline blared: "Rail Shippers Ask Congress to Regulate Freight Prices."

In one chapter of the book, an entrepreneur invents a new miracle metal -- stronger but lighter than steel. The government immediately appropriates the invention in "the public good." The politicians demand that the metal inventor come to Washington and sign over ownership of his invention or lose everything.

The scene is eerily similar to an event late last year when six bank presidents were summoned by Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson to Washington, and then shuttled into a conference room and told, in effect, that they could not leave until they collectively signed a document handing over percentages of their future profits to the government. The Treasury folks insisted that this shakedown, too, was all in "the public interest."

Ultimately, "Atlas Shrugged" is a celebration of the entrepreneur, the risk taker and the cultivator of wealth through human intellect. Critics dismissed the novel as simple-minded, and even some of Rand's political admirers complained that she lacked compassion. Yet one pertinent warning resounds throughout the book: When profits and wealth and creativity are denigrated in society, they start to disappear -- leaving everyone the poorer.

One memorable moment in "Atlas" occurs near the very end, when the economy has been rendered comatose by all the great economic minds in Washington. Finally, and out of desperation, the politicians come to the heroic businessman John Galt (who has resisted their assault on capitalism) and beg him to help them get the economy back on track. The discussion sounds much like what would happen today:

Galt: "You want me to be Economic Dictator?"

Mr. Thompson: "Yes!"

"And you'll obey any order I give?"

"Implicitly!"

"Then start by abolishing all income taxes."

"Oh no!" screamed Mr. Thompson, leaping to his feet. "We couldn't do that . . . How would we pay government employees?"

"Fire your government employees."

"Oh, no!"

Abolishing the income tax. Now that really would be a genuine economic stimulus. But Mr. Obama and the Democrats in Washington want to do the opposite: to raise the income tax "for purposes of fairness" as Barack Obama puts it.

David Kelley, the president of the Atlas Society, which is dedicated to promoting Rand's ideas, explains that "the older the book gets, the more timely its message." He tells me that there are plans to make "Atlas Shrugged" into a major motion picture -- it is the only classic novel of recent decades that was never made into a movie. "We don't need to make a movie out of the book," Mr. Kelley jokes. "We are living it right now."

Mr. Moore is senior economics writer for The Wall Street Journal editorial page.

Lakota nation issues real money

Mon, 24 Nov 2008 23:54:09 GMT

The Free Lakota Bank is the world's first non-reserve, non-fractional bank that issues, accepts for deposit, and circulates REAL money...silver and gold. All of our deposits are liquid, meaning they can be withdrawn at any time in minted rounds.

According to http://www.kitco.com/market/ silver is trading for just over $10/oz.
Even the introductory price at 500 oz. has a hefty markup.
Is this typical?

objectivismonline's forum

Sat, 01 Nov 2008 01:47:36 GMT

G'day all,
Just wondering if anyone else is having trouble accessing the forum on objetivismonline.net? Maybe it's closed or getting updated? I hardly post there so I doubt that I've been blocked. Even after clicking help all I get is:

"Sorry, an error occurred. If you are unsure on how to use a feature, or don't know why you got this error message, try looking through the help files for more information.

The error returned was:
Sorry, you are not permitted to use this board"

The main part of the site works fine. There's people in the chat part of the forum so I guess it's not down.

Thanks in advance.

huge and long and x-posted all over the place ...

Thu, 30 Oct 2008 04:49:59 GMT

because it is that important. read it, and repost it all over. this needs to be known. an important voice has emerged.

Mr. Obama,

Given the uproar about the simple question asked you by Joe the plumber, and the persecution that has been heaped on him because he dared to question you, I find myself motivated to say a few things to you myself. While Joe aspires to start a business someday, I already have started not one, but 4 businesses. But first, let me introduce myself. You can call me "Cory the well driller". I am a 54 year old high school graduate. I didn't go to college like you, I was too ready to go "conquer the world" when I finished high school. 25 years ago at age 29, I started my own water well drilling business at a time when the economy here in East Texas was in a tailspin from the crash of the early 80's oil boom. I didn't get any help from the government, nor did I look for any. I borrowed what I could from my sister, my uncle, and even the pawn shop and managed to scrape together a homemade drill rig and a few tools to do my first job. My businesses did not start as a result of privilege. They are the result of my personal drive, personal ambition, self discipline, self reliance, and a determination to treat my customers fairly. From the very start my business provided one other (than myself) East Texan a full time job. I couldn't afford a backhoe the first few years (something every well drilling business had), so I and my helper had to dig the mud pits that are necessary for each and every job with hand shovels. I had to use my 10 year old, 1/2 ton pickup truck for my water tank truck (normally a job for at least a 2 ton truck).

I spent the next 10 years developing the reputation for being the most competent and most honest water well driller in East Texas. 2 years along the way, I hired another full time employee for the drilling business so that we could provide full time water well pump service as well as the well drilling. Also, 3 years along the path, I bought a water well screen service machine from a friend, starting business # 2. 5 years later I made a business loan for $100,000.00 to build a new, higher production, computer controlled screen service machine. I had designed the machine myself, and it didn't work out for 3 years so I had to make the loan payments without the benefit of any added income from the new machine. No government program was there to help me with the payments, or to help me sleep at night as I lay awake wondering how I would solve my machine problems or pay my bills. Finally, after 3 years, I got the screen machine working properly, and that provided another full time job for an East Texan in the screen service business.

2 years after that, I made another business loan, this time for $250,000.00, to buy another used drilling rig and all the support equipment needed to run another, larger, drill rig. This provided another 2 full time jobs for East Texans. Again, I spent a couple of years not knowing if I had made a smart move, or a move that would bankrupt me. For the third time in 13 years, I had placed everything I owned on the line, risking everything, in order to build a business.

A couple of years into this, I came up with a bright idea for a new kind of mud pump, a fundamentally necessary pump used on water well drill rigs. I spent my entire life savings to date (just $30,000.00), building a prototype of the pump and took it to the national water well convention to show it off. Customers immediately started coming out of the woodworks to buy the pumps, but there was a problem. I had depleted my assets making the prototype, and nobody would make me a business loan to start production of the new pumps. With several deposits for pump orders in hand, and nowhere to go, I finally started applying for as many credit card as I could find and took cash withdrawals on these cards to the tune of over $150,000.00 (including modest loans from my dear sister and brother), to get this 3rd business going.

Yes, once again, I had everything hanging over the line in an effort to start another business. I had never manufactured anything, and I had to design and bring into production a complex hydraulic machine from an untested prototype to a reliable production model (in six months). How many nights I lay awake wondering if I had just made the paramount mistake of my life I cannot tell you, but there were plenty. I managed to get the pumps into production, which immediately created another 2 full time jobs in East Texas. Some of the models in the first year suffered from quality issues due to the poor workmanship of one of my key suppliers, so I and an employee (another East Texan employed) had to drive across the country to repair customers' pumps, practically from coast to coast. I stood behind the product, and made payments to all the credit cards that had financed me (and my brother and sister). I spent the next 5 years improving and refining the product, building a reputation for the pump and the company, working to get the pump into drill rig manufacturers' product lines, and paying back credit cards. During all this time I continued to manage a growing water well business that was now operating 3 drill rig crews, and 2 well service crews. Also, the screen service business continued to grow. No government programs were there to help me, Mr. Obama, but that's ok, I didn't expect any, nor did I want any. I was too busy fighting to make success happen to sit around waiting for the government to help me.

Now, we have been manufacturing the mud pumps for 7 years, my combined businesses employ 32 full time employees, and distribute $5,000,000.00 annually through the local economy. Now, just 4 months ago I borrowed $1,254,000.00, purchasing computer controlled machining equipment to start my 4th business, a production machine shop. The machine shop will serve the mud pump company so that we can better manufacture our pumps that are being shipped worldwide. Of course, the machine shop will also do work for outside companies as well. This has already produced 2 more full time jobs, and 2 more should develop out of it in the next few months. This should work out, but if it doesn't it will be because you, and the other professional politicians like yourself, will have destroyed our countrys' (and the world) economy with your meddling with mortgage loan programs through your liberal manipulation and intimidation of loaning institutions to make sure that unqualified borrowers could get mortgages. You see, at the very time when I couldn't get a business loan to get my mud pumps into production, you were working with Acorn and the Community Reinvestment Act programs to make sure that unqualified borrowers could buy homes with no down payment, and even no credit or worse yet, bad credit. Even the infamous, liberal, Ninja loans (No Income, No Job or Assets). While these unqualified borrowers were enjoying unrealistically low interest rates, I was paying 22% to 24% interest on the credit cards that I had used to provide me the funds for the mud pump business that has created jobs for more East Texans. It's funny, because after 25 years of turning almost every dime of extra money back into my businesses to grow them, it has been only in the last two years that I have finally made enough money to be able to put a little away for retirement, and now the value of that has dropped 40% because of the policies you and your ilk have perpetrated on our country.

You see, Mr. Obama, I'm the guy you intend to raise taxes on. I'm the guy who has spent 25 years toiling and sweating, fretting and fighting, stressing and risking, to build a business and get ahead. I'm the guy who has been on the very edge of bankruptcy more than a dozen times over the last 25 years, and all the while creating more and more jobs for East Texans who didn't want to take a risk, and would not demand from themselves what I have demanded from myself. I'm the guy you characterize as "the Americans who can afford it the most" that you believe should be taxed more to provide income redistribution "to spread the wealth" to those who have never toiled, sweated, fretted, fought, stressed, or risked anything. You want to characterize me as someone who has enjoyed a life of privilege and who needs to pay a higher percentage of my income than those who have bought into your entitlement culture. I resent you, Mr. Obama, as I resent all who want to use class warfare as a tool to advance their political career. What's worse, each year more Americans buy into your liberal entitlement culture, and turn to the government for their hope of a better life instead of themselves. Liberals are succeeding through more than 40 years of collaborative effort between the predominant liberal media, and liberal indoctrination programs in the public school systems across our land.

What is so terribly sad about this is this. America was made great by people who embraced the one-time American culture of self reliance, self motivation, self determination, self discipline, personal betterment, hard work, risk taking. A culture built around the concept that success was in reach of every able bodied American who would strive for it. Each year that less Americans embrace that culture, we all descend together. We descend down the socialist path that has brought country after country ultimately to bitter and unremarkable states. If you and your liberal comrades in the media and school systems would spend half as much effort cultivating a culture of can-do across America as you do cultivating your entitlement culture, we could see Americans at large embracing the conviction that they can elevate themselves through personal betterment, personal achievement, and self reliance. You see, when people embrace such ideals, they act on them. When people act on such ideals, they succeed. All of America could find herself elevating instead of deteriorating. But that would eliminate the need for liberal politicians, wouldn't it, Mr. Obama? The country would not need you if the country was convinced that problem solving was best left with individuals instead of the government. You and all your liberal comrades have got a vested interested in creating a dependent class in our country. It is the very business of liberals to create an ever expanding dependence on government. What's remarkable is that you, who have never produced a job in your life, are going to tax me to take more of my money and give it to people who wouldn't need my money if they would get off their entitlement mentality asses and apply themselves at work, demand more from themselves, and quit looking to liberal politicians to raise their station in life.

You see, I know because I've had them work for me before. Hundreds of them over these 25 years. People who simply will not show up to work on time. People who just will not work 5 days in a week, much less, 6 days. People always looking for a way to put less effort out. People who actually tell me that they would do more if I just would first pay them more. People who take off work to sit in government offices to apply to get free government handouts (gee, I wonder how things would have turned out for them if they had spent that time earning money and pleasing their employer?). You see, all of this comes from your entitlement mentality culture.

Oh, I know you will say I am uncompassionate. Sorry, Mr. Obama, wrong again. You see, I've seen what the average percentage of your income has been given to charities over the years of 2000 to 2004 (ignoring the years you started running for office - can you pronounce "politically motivated"), you averaged less than 1% annually. And your running mate, Joe Biden, averaged less than ¼% of his annual income in charitable contributions over the last 10 years. Like so many liberals, the two of you want to give to the needy, just as long as it is someone else's money you are giving to them. I won't say what I have given to charities over the last 25 years, but the percentage is several times more than you and Joe Biden. combined (don't you just hate google?). Tell me again how you feel my pain.

In short, Mr. Obama, your political philosophies represent everything that is wrong with our country. You represent the culture of government dependence instead of self reliance; Entitlement mentality instead of personal achievement; Penalization of the successful to reward the unmotivated; Political correctness instead of open mindedness and open debate. If you are successful, you may preside over the final transformation of America from being the greatest and most self-reliant culture on earth, to just another country of whiners and wimps, who sit around looking to the government to solve their problems. Like all of western Europe. All countries on the decline. All countries that, because of liberal socialistic mentalities, have a little less to offer mankind every year.

God help us...

Cory Miller

just a ordinary, extraordinary American, the way a lot of Americans used to be.

P.S. Yes, Mr. Obama, I am a real American... www.cmillerdrilling.com

- http://community.livejournal.com/conservatism/3069303.html

so obama never believed in wealth "redistribution"?

Mon, 27 Oct 2008 03:15:10 GMT

negative rights versus positive rights: here it is. the philosophical issue is joined.

a moderate, eh?

i strongly suggest you forward this as widely as you can. wealth redistribution is not american. not yet.

[ c/o http://community.livejournal.com/conservatism/3065491.html ]

this is a disaster waiting to happen - spread the word, broad and wide

Sun, 26 Oct 2008 20:06:46 GMT

ladies and gentlemen, i don't do alarmism or conspiracy theories, but this is an absolute catastrophe - and it is obscene that it is even being discussed.

Would Obama, Dems Kill 401(k) Plans?

House Democrats recently invited Teresa Ghilarducci, a professor at the New School of Social Research, to testify before a subcommittee on her idea to eliminate the preferential tax treatment of the popular retirement plans. In place of 401(k) plans, she would have workers transfer their dough into government-created "guaranteed retirement accounts" for every worker. The government would deposit $600 (inflation indexed) every year into the GRAs. Each worker would also have to save 5 percent of pay into the accounts, to which the government would pay a measly 3 percent return.

- http://www.usnews.com/blogs/capital-commerce/2008/10/23/would-obama-dems-kill-401k-plans.html

more (somewhat more partisan/inflamed) at: http://news.aol.com/political-machine/2008/10/24/obama-dems-seek-to-end-401-k-plans/

originally found in http://community.livejournal.com/conservatism/3064509.html

do i even need to adumbrate what withdrawing trillions of dollars of investment from the stock market would do to individuals and to the american economy? how many fewer business startups and expansions would find funding (in a time when india and china are rising)? what the consequences would be of turning trillions of investment funds over to government keeping - which would then pay in the form of more taxes - at a miserable return hardly even up to the present rate of inflation, not to mention the higher inflation under a more left-tending mixed economy?

says j. mcdermott (dem-wa, chairman of the house ways and means committee's subcommittee on income security and family support): "we have to start to think about whether or not we want to continue to invest that $80 billion for a policy that's not generating what we now say it should."

well "we" can decide what "we" want to do with our money ourselves, thank you. how about you stop addling the economy with your interventions?

these idiots think there's some sort of golden fountain from the exploitation of the poor oppressed workers that can just be infinitely siphoned from. they do not seem to know that the system is already battered and on its knees from their bad "management." this is yet another smashing blow. how long can a complex system endure such massive distortion?

this is insane. if this comes to pass, i might just started taking thomas jefferson's line about what's good every now and then. enough is enough.

[ horrifiedly x-posted all over ]

A more rigorous foundation.

Mon, 06 Oct 2008 19:43:08 GMT

Objectivism offers itself as a more rigorous foundation of the discoveries established in the Renaissance, but is there a more rigorous foundation for Objectivism somewhere that Ayn Rand, while providing the necessary foundations, may have not had the time to construct?

This might be of interest to Objectivist gamers.

Tue, 23 Sep 2008 16:18:13 GMT

I've just opted to create a petition to protect gamers who like the creations of highly pro-DRM companies. The reasoning behind this is that when purchasing articles of intellectual property, any inability of the consumer to use the software legally is a form of fraud. Furthermore, the basic thing stopping the continuity of the contract between the user and the producer is the fact that all data and infrastructure to make use of such data that's necessary to run a DRM intensive game gets destroyed when a company goes out of business. Way back in this country's history, problems like this could be solved simply by having someone buy the assets. Antitrust legislation makes this prohibitive, and common law simply provides no way for the owners of certain forms of businesses to be held accountable. This law fixes both things.

Government should allow successful economic entities to buy off assets of failing economic entities in the event that consumers who bought products from said failing entities had a perpetual, mutual obligation with consumers that involves said asset.

Any individual human being who does or assists in doing the destruction, hiding, or other form of abuse or neglect of said assets, whether they were political agents (such as government) or private agents (such as the failing entities) would be held accountable for a violation of the consumer's property rights regardless of any immunity laws (such as sovereign immunity or corporate immunity) in existence.

The new owner of said asset will then have the responsibility to continue to offer whatever goods or services the contracts obliges them to offer. Under no circumstances may the party that holds the assets terminate said contracts, nor may they make any revisions to any aspect of the contract except on an individual scale with the individual consent of any willing consumers.

This petition indicates that people recognise their right to consumers of products whose usage is dependant upon the perpetuity and mutuality of contracts to keep the fruit of their purchases even if the entity with whom they had a contract goes out of business, and any politician or businessperson who tries to breach said contract becomes liable for damages.

What do you think? I will be submitting this to a few places and would like to be able to bring people who have IM services into contact with each other for the final step, but you don't have to worry about that now, since right now I'm more into looking for suggestions in general on how to improve my petition.

anyone home at ARI?

Tue, 23 Sep 2008 06:19:38 GMT

maybe the folks at http://www.aynrand.org/ should get on the ball and get some reaction up to the present statist nightmare?

Two good (peer reviewed) papers on Objectivism

Tue, 23 Sep 2008 00:13:45 GMT

Tara Smith on Rand's concept of objectivity:

http://journals.cambridge.org/download.php?file=%2FSOY%2FSOY25_01%2FS0265052508080059a.pdf&code=cbb9cb7a9db0bd586798fcc5c0bfb3b2

Darryl Wright on Rand's theory of value. This one is extra good:

http://journals.cambridge.org/download.php?file=%2FSOY%2FSOY25_01%2FS0265052508080060a.pdf&code=cbb9cb7a9db0bd58ec9cdaa4de02bcf5

Both were published in a recent issue of Social Philosophy and Policy (a leading philosophy journal). The issue contains other papers on ethical objectivity, though not necessarily on Rand. Enjoy!

diet pills

Mon, 22 Sep 2008 02:47:37 GMT

I have read conflicting reports that say Ayn Rand took diet pills for decades. (Some sources even use the words "was addicted.")

I'm not sure what to make of it. Does anybody know about this?

interesting

Wed, 17 Sep 2008 17:01:45 GMT

http://www.objectivistparty.us/

[ c/o http://community.livejournal.com/libertarianism/2416325.html ]

anyone have any experience with them?

[ x-posted ]

semi-official word: "we the living" on DVD end of 2008

Wed, 03 Sep 2008 23:05:41 GMT

those interested in ayn rand will be interested to know that the 1942 italian "pirate" movie of rand's novel we the living - re-released on the big screen to generally strongly positive reviews in 1986 and then to VHS (still available) - will be released on DVD around the end of this year. i'll post more info as it's received.

producer's site: http://home.earthlink.net/~dscottprod/

no DVD news yet: http://www.wethelivingmovie.com/

IMDB: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0092194/

[ x-posted somewhat ]

Thu, 28 Aug 2008 00:06:12 GMT

What do you all think about this paragraph:

It's true that Objectivists denounce all modern philosophy without exception: they have no time for the pre-Kantian metaphysical or epistemological views of Galileo, Leibniz, Spinoza, Descartes, Hobbes, Locke, or Hume. To mindless mystics like myself, these writings constitute a glorious adventure of the human intellect, but to Objectivists they are nothing but foul-smelling garbage, from which "rational men" recoil like Count Dracula from a crucifix. And Russell's approach, for example, is undeniably similar to Hume's.

It's from this website: http://libertyunbound.com/archive/2002_08/steele-kant.html

Response to the philosophy community

Wed, 27 Aug 2008 09:06:46 GMT

In response to starblade-enkai. In particular, a response to this (and more specifically to this).

Why do philosophers ignore Ayn Rand?

It is clearly evident that not only are Ayn Rand's teachings sensible, at least in terms of people, or at least most people, being able to relate them to something completely knowable, but they are quite unique in that no philosopher before has made it a point to stand up for everything she is proposing. So why is it that philosophers pretend she doesn't exist? It's completely immature. They have a substantial amount to lose by people picking up on her teachings, so I'm guessing they ignore Ayn Rand so that they themselves aren't ignored by the public over whose eyes they have currently pulled the wool.

and

Track This
Well the first time anyone argues a position it's going to be full of holes, yes, but even if she's wrong about many of the issues there is something to be said about choosing the lesser of two evils. Or in this case the least of many evils. I myself find it difficult to follow her every word, for the reasons you mentioned above.

Granted, I can offer a better argument for capitalism than the one above. It appears to be a straw-man attack but I will give you the benefit of a doubt. In capitalism (at least Ayn Rand's version of it) the only thing exploited is the natural environment. If people are exploited it's because they let themselves be exploited, and why should we feel sorry for them? If people don't help themselves then why do they deserve help from others?

When you say "capitalism doesn't work" then for WHOM are you saying it doesn't work? As for the "never been tried" argument, there really hasn't been any politician who has tried capitalism, at least in the way Ayn Rand means it. This is due to the fact that Ayn Rand basically re-invented capitalism. Capitalism actually applies to a broad range of ideals, and Objectivism promotes a very specific form of it.

The second example, even I can't wrap my head around at times. But I understand her point about it. Historically, Kant really did start a very vehement trend of people who were opposed to classical enlightenment, and Rand was, in a sense, defending the classical enlightenment viewpoint.

Mostly, I think Ayn Rand would have developed her philosophy much better had she possessed the time. It is really up to the better of her followers to make better arguments. For example, OPAR was written by Leonard Peikoff and he does a good job explaining core issues. I myself wish to develop her philosophy with more rigor. However this is proving to be a challenge, and I suspect I may not be able to do it alone.

I will respond in four parts, to four points. Here's the first:

I.

"If people are exploited it's because they let themselves be exploited, and why should we feel sorry for them?"

Technically it's true to say "if people are exploited it's because they let themselves be exploited." But although it's true, it's not *helpful*. I find it very hard to explain to you why it's not helpful because it's a matter of going through years of experience at bad jobs, trying to scrape together enough money to both pay the rent and get additional training/education to improve your situation, or to work on creative projects.

If you emulate Howard Roark, you can convince yourself to take on more burdens than you otherwise would, which is often helpful toward getting you to a point where you're not personally exploited at all. People have done it and will continue to do it, and often enough they use their money and power to work toward enabling others to avoid being exploited, or toward making some kind of viable change in the world. But despite plenty of counterexamples, there's still just no guarantee that you'll successfully avoid being exploited at some point and still be successful.

Example from the Fountainhead: Roark refuses to compromise, so he ends up working in a quarry at hard physical labor that leaves him horribly exhausted and drained at the end of every day. He escapes the quarry because he's been able to put up buildings before he goes to work there. A millionaire sees one of the buildings, likes it, and hires him as an architect, allowing him to rebuild his career without compromise.

There is no logical reason that this has to happen. It's easy to imagine Roark just never getting the break that he needs to put up those first buildings (the weird contest with the mix-and-match architect he works for, IIRC.) It's easy to imagine Roark never being hired at all (he gets a chance to work in architecture in the first place as some kind of scheme involving Peter Keating.) It's easy to imagine the benevolent millionaire never finding Roark in the quarry and leaving him to grow old there until his body stops working and he no longer has the time or mental ability to keep up with new materials and technical advancements in building and architecture.

One of Ayn Rand's core beliefs is "the benevolent universe": a sense that if you work hard, use reason, and behave honestly, you will reap rewards. I like the fact that Ayn Rand believed this (I think I'd actually like her pretty well personally, at least like--pre-1959 or so), and I'd like to believe it too. But do you see that there's just no logical argument for this being the case?

And if the benevolent universe is not a necessary phenomenon in the world, then it's perfectly possible for Roark to be Roark in every way and yet end up exploited to the end of his days, unable to get to a position where he's in control of his own life beyond receiving a wage for day labor.

You can argue that that's not exploitation because he wants to do it, but it's not a very convincing argument. When most people talk about workers being "exploited", they're talking about situations like that: where the only available jobs do not pay well and are not able to recognize and reward talent.

Like our next example from life: Let's assume that all of the allegations that Nike uses forced/slave labor in their Malaysian factories are false, and that Nike plant workers and Nike managers there are engaging in a free and uncoerced exchange of labor for wages. A person who works in a Nike plant in Malaysia for $1/day is acting rationally in letting themselves be exploited, if that's the best wage-to-hours ratio they can find. Nike knows that their labor is worth more than $1/day--or would be in America, anyway, because Americans know to demand more than $1/day for their labor. Nike deliberately operates in Malaysia and other impoverished areas because they know that in doing so, they have fewer costs, so they can sell their shoes for a higher profit margin without necessarily increasing price, do more business, and increase the overall supply of reasonably well-made shoes in the world. I actually agree with Ayn Rand that it's undeniably useful for corporations to produce more goods, and that there are any number of benefits for disadvantaged people all over the world for more Nike shoes being thrown away or sold cheaply by second-hand stores.

Where I disagree with Ayn Rand is the notion that this one value (productive labor) is in and of itself a viable justification for totally ignoring another value (benevolence.) Nike knows that the caliber of their workers is going to be pretty much exactly the same, on average, as the workers they'd have in the USA for $8/hour, or $64/day. I don't care what arguments Nike marshals about the expenses of training, shipping, etc: there's no possible reason that there's a 64:1 ratio in how much two workers doing identical jobs gets paid.

And money is power. The American Nike worker can--with a lot of hard work, frugality, and probably some kind of outside assistance--go to college, produce some kind of artistic work, buy a house, live whatever dream he has. The Malaysian Nike worker--despite the difference in how much $1/day versus $64/day buys in different countries--just does not have the same options. They can't save up to go to America and start working for Nike there. Yet they're behaving rationally, doing what they can to lead a good life.

Nike would rather use the saved labor costs to grow their business.
Nike could pay the Malaysian workers more; for this reason, it won't. But that's just what exploitation means. The workers are letting themselves be exploited by Nike because that's probably the best choice they have. The fact that it's the best choice they have doesn't change the fact that it's exploitation.

And we should maybe feel sorry for these workers because the fact that their fate differs from our own depends entirely on their being born one place and our being born another. Of course there's no way to argue that someone "should" feel one way versus another. Whatever you feel is what you feel; there's not a way to hardwire or change your emotions at someone's request.

I won't ask you to change your emotions or say that you're a monster or something for having the emotions you say you have. At the same time, I'd like you to recognize that this is what most people feel like when someone says stuff like "Why should I feel sorry for people who let themselves be exploited?":

Most people do feel sorry for such people, and they do have reasons for feeling sorry: they've experienced how unjust capitalism as it's practiced can be, they've been to these countries, etc. When you say "Why should I feel sorry for X?", people who do feel sorry for X and know why they feel sorry for X now either think (1) that you're a monster/sociopath/whatever for not feeling sorry for X, or (2) that you're just not aware of the facts or experiences that make them feel sorry for X. If they think (1) they're probably angry with you, if they think (2) they probably feel sorry or sad for you.

And yes it's true that feelings aren't tools of rationally perceiving the world, as Ayn Rand says, but you just need to be aware that when you say things like this that is how people will feel. Feel and say whatever you want, but recognize the consequences of this, okay?

II.

If people don't help themselves then why do they deserve help from others?

I don't like the notion that help from others should have to be "earned." I do find it to be true, nine times out of ten, that if someone accuses you of not helping them enough/demands your help/insults you for not being "generous" or whatever that you should avoid that person like the plague, because they are, as Rand describes, using your guilt effectively to beguile and rob you. But I don't think that can be logically defended: it's a matter of experience and noticing patterns. I also don't think it's that common to experience people who are actively working to beguile and rob you through guilt, or at least I've been lucky enough not to encounter a lot of it.

But here's my point: no one is forcing you to do anything by saying that it's just better to help people in distress as long as they're not deliberately leeching off of you. If you see someone in pain, you will usually feel better and remain more engaged with the world if you help them. But it's not like on some deep logical level you will be evil or unfit for life if you don't help them. You will just be widely disliked by many people, which will result in severely limited opportunities for you in every aspect of your life. You will also, whether you know it or not, feel a little bit worse every day for knowing that you passed by someone in need. And neither of those things is going to change, ever.

Helping people is not about "blood sacrifices" or "slaves and masters" or any of the language Ayn Rand uses constantly. If you do it rationally and without preconceptions, it's about taking a change you want to see in the world--a friend who wants to start a successful business, a friend who's hungry, a group of people in your community who always seem totally miserable/downtrodden--and then taking action to bring about that change--giving money to a friend who needs it to start a business, cooking a meal for a friend who's down and out, volunteering at a soup kitchen, any of these things. It's using some of your energy to change the world in a way that you like. It is a creative act.

Ayn Rand's example of this kind of "helping people" in Atlas Shrugged is like--Rearden giving his brother a check that his brother doesn't even want and that he knows will be used for absolutely nothing. Rearden's problem isn't that he's evilly helping people, gasp--it's that he's helping people because he feels guilty. I prefer the Fountainhead, where Roark gives money to his sculptor pal--Mallory, I think--and explicitly says that he's doing it because he likes Mallory's work, he likes his company, and he wants him to be able to work without having to do hack commercial assignments or starve himself.

If you read Ayn Rand's biography she's just obviously aware of the difference between these two things in her own life, but aside from a mention in one of her books about the importance of "benevolence" as a virtue, there's just not any emphasis on this completely vital distinction in her philosophy. Rand treats the act of helping people almost invariably as an issue of "altruism" and "moral chains" corrupting people's minds, or as an issue of some group exerting force over another to rob people. Yes, there are cases in which these things are true. But because of Objectivism's skewed presentation, too many Objectivists who don't have much experience in the world yet treat the act of "helping people" as inherently evil/suspect.

I've been there, and I'm going to tell you right now what you're thinking: "Objectivism teaches me that there are no inherently good or evil acts!" True, that's what Objectivism says. But you seriously do not know until you're out of Rand's force field how much you're affected by what she chooses to emphasize or not emphasize. I'm not going to ask you to take that on faith, but I'd like you to remember it, I guess.

III.

Historically, Kant really did start a very vehement trend of people who were opposed to classical enlightenment, and Rand was, in a sense, defending the classical enlightenment viewpoint.

"Historically, Kant really did start a very vehement trend of people who were opposed to classical enlightenment, and Rand was, in a sense, defending the classical enlightenment viewpoint."

This isn't true. Read some of the philosophers who came between Descartes and Kant. Descartes discovered one of the central problems of modern philosophy in the Meditations: the question of how we know we can treat reality as a knowable, usable quantity rather than some kind of evil dream, etc. Descartes failed to find a good answer for this (his answer, beyond "cogito ergo sum", relies heavily on circular proofs of God and was probably written to keep him out of jail.) But once you raise this question, you must answer it.

Ayn Rand's answer to the question raised by Descartes is something like:

- Our fundamental value is survival as a human being, which means (1) not dying and (2) using reason to thrive.
- In order to meet our goal of not dying, we must act as though the world as it appears is both (1) knowable to our reason and (2) true.
- Therefore existence exists.

Seriously, take a look at that argument. Do you see how it misses the point entirely? No one--literally no one, outside of maybe a few suicidal cults--argues that we should consistently reject the idea that reason allows us to survive 99% of the time, or that we should act in a common-sense way with respect to the world: eating, pursuing goals, etc. Neither do most people believe that we should live like animals rather than creatures who pursue goals: certainly not academic philosophers, as it's really pretty difficult to get a PhD and requires a great deal of time, thought, effort, and creativity.

Yet despite sharing Ayn Rand's basic values and basic ethos of "approach the world as if it were real", academic philosophers don't share her opinion that therefore existence exists. It's just not logically necessary that acting as though the world were real means that therefore the world *is* real.

Think about it. Put down the Ayn Rand book and think about it. Why could you not have a system in which the world is essentially a puzzle set down for you to solve by Loki, yet a world which is functionally identical to our own? There's literally nothing preventing this from being the truth, even within the Objectivist system. The best we get is a vague ethical argument that thinking this way is not the best use of our time, or language like "Only a filthy depraved degenerate who lowers all mankind by his drivel would think this way", which is not an argument.

Kant, by contrast, does actually address the possibility that the world is a puzzle sent to us by Loki. He does this by explicitly saying that even if the world is a puzzle sent by Loki, this information can't possibly matter, because it would be unknowable to human reason.

If you look at history, this is the moment where religion loses all valid claims to be a political force. Previously, reason was said to function because God functioned (this is Descartes' eventual, lame proof in the Meditations, IIRC.) After Kant, reason just *functions*, and is our primary means of acquiring knowledge and developing technology. Religion is off in its own crazy corner to do whatever it wants, with increasingly less and less power to influence people's actions.

In the past, the task of philosophy (particularly the Scholastics) was often to do just that: to use reason to prove the societally-approved religion. Pre-Kant, if you go against Christianity, you were going against reason itself. Post-Kant, the Christians have to pull out an argument about Hell that has zero logical basis. And so fewer and fewer people become Christians or any other religion, and the ones who do go for religion more often than not don't try to convince others to join their religion.

This is just the opposite of starting "a very vehement trend of people who were opposed to classical enlightenment": this was enabling the classical enlightenment to function in all domains of society.

Have you ever gotten into an argument with a religious person? In our post-Kantian world, it'll almost invariably end with you saying "But there's no proof that the Bible is the word of God," and the other party saying "You have to take it on faith!" This isn't a convincing argument for most people, so the argument ends. In a pre-Kantian world, the fact that you can argue in the first place is meant to prove the existence of God, and no one (to my knowledge or recollection) had actually come up with a counter-argument for this.

Kant is "allowing you to mix science and faith", yes: you can, under a Kantian metaphysics, believe equally in Jesus and the ability to split the atom. But under a Kantian metaphysics, you just can't use reason to argue with someone else that Jesus existed and was the Messiah. Arguments about God are by definition outside of the sphere of reason altogether.

IV.

Why do philosophers ignore Ayn Rand?

Finally: why Ayn Rand is not taken seriously in universities.

It is clearly evident that not only are Ayn Rand's teachings sensible, at least in terms of people, or at least most people, being able to relate them to something completely knowable,

There are lots of things that are sensible. My explaining to someone how to fix a car or what the best train to take from Queens to Manhattan is sensible, and can be related to something knowable. That doesn't make it philosophy.

but they are quite unique in that no philosopher before has made it a point to stand up for everything she is proposing.

Check your premises! Wittgenstein was willing to go to the mat for everything he believed, especially his belief in the Christian God. Foucault for the most part lived everything he wrote about. Socrates practiced what he preached, if you believe Plato, as did Heraclitus. There are plenty of other examples: read more philosophy!

Whether or not she's unique in standing up for her teachings, though: that's just not relevant as to whether someone can/should be studied in the classroom, as I'll explain.

So why is it that philosophers pretend she doesn't exist? It's completely immature.

First: philosophers don't pretend she doesn't exist. Many professional philosophers got into philosophy because of Ayn Rand. I got into philosophy because of two things: reading a book about Descartes when I was very young, and reading Ayn Rand. I think plenty of philosophers have read her and believed in her very much at some point.

But here's the reason Ayn Rand isn't discussed in the classroom that often.

There are three tests for evaluating philosophies or philosophical papers in academia:

(1) Is the philosophy internally consistent and logical?
(2) Can the philosophy be used to generate or frame meaningful statements about the world?
(3) Can the philosophy be used to answer questions posed by other philosophies, or can it be used to critique answers proposed by other philosophies?

Ayn Rand fails on (1). i_am_lane wrote a very good essay in the philosophy community about why, and I really wish I could track it down to show you: ask him nicely about it. The gist of it, as I remember, is that there's no logical chain of inference from the axiom "A=A" to the rest of Objectivism, which is central to many of Rand's arguments about the value of her own philosophy.

Ayn Rand succeeds in parts of (2) and fails in others. Notably, she succeeds in providing an ethical defense--however good or bad it ultimately is--of capitalism. Her defense of capitalism is influential in America (plenty of people in the Reagan cabinet believed in it and acted according to it, as did Alan Greenspan) and is thus influential around the world. This at least deserves more study than it's gotten--again, however good or bad her defense turns out to be, and I don't think it's great for the reasons mentioned in parts I and II, it's worth studying and discussing in a philosophy class.

Ayn Rand fails completely at (3). She never read Kant, but talks about him as history's greatest monster. She read to my knowledge something like three books by Nietzsche: Zarathustra, Beyond Good And Evil, and The Birth of Tragedy. Her judgment of Nietzsche and Nietzscheans (as she said, exemplified by Gail Wynand in the Fountainhead) isn't great because she views Nietzsche as obsessed above all with power/ruling those inferior to you, which is not actually what Nietzsche's about. (Read The Anti-Christ, read Twilight of the Idols, read The Gay Science, read Untimely Meditations, read lots of Nietzsche and you'll see what I mean.)

As far as I know her only academic training was on Plato, Aristotle, and a series of medieval/scholastic philosophers. (My source on this is a page on the Internet about Ayn Rand's college transcript, here.) When talking about Plato, she exclusively talks about the Republic. When talking about Aristotle, she exclusively talks about his emphasis on reason and science, with occasional comments about how the Nicomachean Ethics is bad for unspecified reasons. When talking about medieval philosophers, she exclusively talks about how some of them (Aquinas) are almost good, but they're fatally flawed by their belief in irrational Christianity.

So to recap: Ayn Rand is not logically rigorous. She claims her philosophy is an integrated unit and that to take one part of it seriously, you must take the whole. Her argument for this is that her entire philosophy derives from the axiom "A=A, existence exists." This is just not true.

Objectivism is only partially useful for generating statements relevant to the world.

Objectivism does not interact in any meaningful way with other philosophies or traditions.

So let's ask ourselves: what's the point of academia? Big question, but here's my answer:

(1) to support a living body of scholars who can preserve important/canonical texts for future generations, and who can attempt to relate those texts and new texts to current problems and situations in the world.
(2) to provide students with both professional training and some measure of roundness and wisdom before they enter their working/adult life.

If Objectivism isn't logically consistent yet claims to be, it would not be wise to follow it.
If Objectivism isn't good at making predictive statements about the world, it would not be wise to spend too much time studying it.
If Objectivism doesn't interact meaningfully with other texts, then studying it will only make us well-rounded if Objectivism scores very high on conditions (1) and (2)--which it does not.

So there's just no reason for Objectivism to be studied in academia. It's not a subject that rewards much intense study: if you look at it too closely it falls apart.

In addition, lots of people who are very interested in Objectivism are not very pleasant to have in the classroom. This sounds insulting, but it's true. Objectivists--young ones--as a rule are not interested in talking to people, challenging their beliefs, or growing. They're interested in defending Ayn Rand's beliefs because on some level they want to be Howard Roark, and Howard Roark does not compromise; he fights! The people who are deeply and honestly interested in Objectivism usually give it up after they read other philosophers and realize how much *better* other philosophers are, or they don't really study philosophy and just use Objectivism as a supplement to a common-sense approach to life, which works probably as often as using any philosophy as a common-sense approach to life would (Plato: "Don't be fooled!" Aristotle: "Work in right measure", Wittgenstein: "Arguing about words gets you nowhere", Nietzsche: "Love your fate, if you can", etc.)

I'm not saying that if a person likes Objectivism, they are a jerk. But I've been in philosophy classes full of jerks who liked Objectivism. I was in Amy Peikoff's Ethics class at UT in 2003 (wife of Leonard.) One of her students asked her on the first day if "Leonard would be showing up, because honestly, I thought he would be teaching this class and I'm disappointed." I sat through a meeting of UT Objectivists in which someone brought out a copy of Hispanic Business magazine as an example of an evil publication. I've seen people storm out of rooms because they think they're standing up for Ayn Rand; I've stormed out of rooms because I thought I was standing up for Ayn Rand. Something about the philosophy or the way it's presented makes young people act obnoxious and irritating, and makes them do this because they believe that it's noble and right to do so.

Because Objectivism attracts jerks, professors don't usually want to teach it. Imagine you're them. (1) This philosophy is not interesting to teach. (2) If I add an Ayn Rand book to my syllabus, I will have to deal with obnoxious students who literally do not want to learn anything from me; they want me to confirm the ideas of Ayn Rand, who I know is not a good philosopher. Would you want to teach Ayn Rand in your class?

Regardless: I think universities would benefit by throwing Ayn Rand into freshman seminars, specifically to talk about why this does not work as philosophy. Reading Ayn Rand when you're in your teens and kind of lonely does get you fired up about life when you're that age, and not many writers can do that as well as she can in some ways. But reading Ayn Rand also nine times out of ten sets you back as a human being who can deal with other human beings and who can read, understand, and evaluate a large variety of texts using nothing but their brains. If the university just arbitrarily ignores her, people read her on their own and get the full effect of the benefits and the hazards. If the university evaluates her to some extent, people can get some of the benefits while avoiding most of the hazards, seeing where the pitfalls and gaps in the logic are. She does have an influence on the world and is widely read by lots of young people who go into philosophy programs. Philosophy programs should at least recognize and respond to this, taking her seriously as a force (if not as a philosopher.)

They have a substantial amount to lose by people picking up on her teachings, so I'm guessing they ignore Ayn Rand so that they themselves aren't ignored by the public over whose eyes they have currently pulled the wool.

Check your premises.

(a) What would philosophers have to lose?
(b) How are people not already picking up on her teachings? I'll bet you anything that Atlas Shrugged sales over the past five years far exceed the sales of all of Michel Foucault's books over the last five years combined.
(c) How are philosophers pulling the wool over the public's eyes? Literally, what are they doing to pull the wool over the public's eyes? If I'm a PhD and professional philosopher, how can I pull the wool over the public's eyes? What steps do I take?
(d) Why does it matter if the public ignores professional/academic philosophers? Can you name five currently working academic philosophers (outside of your own university?) What would the consequences be for philosophers if the public ignored them in favor of Ayn Rand? Would those consequences be serious enough for philosophers to embark on a deliberate campaign of excluding Ayn Rand from the canon and beguiling the public?
(e) Why is it either/or, Ayn Rand or professional philosophers? Don't just latch onto the fact that either/or is an Ayn Rand buzzword--actually think about it! Are Ayn Rand and professional philosophy actually logically incompatible, and if so, how?

Thanks for reading, if you did. Ayn Rand Forum everyone

Misconceptions of Objectivism

Wed, 27 Aug 2008 04:18:40 GMT

Hmm pretty quiet here... I hope some people are still around?

I'm trying to compile a list of common misconceptions of Objectivism. I find so many people have misunderstandings (or maybe purposeful 'misinterpretations') on different forums, I'd like to have an easy to access reply. This is what I have so far, please critique, add, and everything else :)

Misconceptions of Objectivism

1. Self-sacrifice

A true objectivist would never stop to help a stranger who has a flat tire on the side of the road, he would never donate money to help starving children in Africa, and he would never jump in front of a bullet to save another's life. Because all these constitute self-sacrifice, right? Wrong. Ayn Rand defined sacrifice as "…the surrender of a greater value for the sake of a lesser one or of a nonvalue."1 Most people understand this to mean a dollar value, this is an error. Let's look at the first example, stopping to help a stranger on the side of the road. This does not necessarily constitute a sacrifice, helping people can give one a sense of value; it can make you feel good about yourself. Because of me someone will get home to their family, I was able to turn a negative situation around for someone and that makes me proud of myself. Now, let's say you are rushing to get your injured or pregnant wife to the hospital, and you see a stranger stranded on the side of the road. Stopping then obviously WOULD constitute a sacrifice and would be anti-objectivist.

2. Selfishness

"Selfishness" to most people means thinking only about yourself and happily stepping on other to get what you want. This is not the "rational self-interest" Ayn Rand meant. To an objectivist, the right to pursue your own happiness also means respecting another's right to do the same. Ayn Rand said: "If [a Machiavellian type] decides to follow his own self-interest but to respect nobody else's, he is no longer on an objective moral base, but on a hedonistic, whim-worshipping base. If so, he has disqualified himself; he is claiming a contradiction. If he wants to maintain rationally his own self-interest, and claim he has a case for his right to self-interest, then he must concede that the ground on which he claims his right to self-interest also applies to every other human being."2 Another clarifying passage: "The Objectivist ethics holds that human good does not require human sacrifices and cannot be achieved by the sacrifice of anyone to anyone. It holds that the rational interests of men do not clash—that there is no conflict of interests among men who do not desire the unearned, who do not make sacrifices nor accept them, who deal with one another as traders, giving value for value."3

1. “The Ethics of Emergencies,” The Virtue of Selfishness, pg 44.
2. Ayn Rand Answers, pg 110.
3. “The Objectivist Ethics,” The Virtue of Selfishness, 31.

nationalization of oil companies threatened

Fri, 23 May 2008 02:07:20 GMT

melvin_udall is reporting that maxine waters uttered approximately the following in today's congressional oil hearings:

"this liberal will call for socializ... ... ... taking over of the oil companies."

- http://melvin-udall.livejournal.com/425602.html

did anyone else witness this? google news shows nothing for the string as yet.

[ concernedly x-posted ]

edit: report confirmed

edit, part deux: pending actual audio, here's another transcription: " ... this Liberal will be all about Taking Over, and Running, all of your companies ... " - http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20080522165031AAxWmWV - second answerer

Why Unregulated Capitalism is the Only Moral Social System - Full Lecture

Sat, 10 May 2008 22:46:19 GMT

Part 1 of 6:

(Part 6)

(Question 1 of 10 of the Q and A)

The Ayn Rand Institute's Objectivist Academic Center

Sun, 20 Apr 2008 01:13:24 GMT

The Early Admission deadline is April 16, 2008; the Regular Admission deadline is July 30, 2008.

Ayn Rand in the news... sort of

Mon, 14 Apr 2008 01:44:17 GMT

This is a smear article if I ever saw one.
Found in today's Detroit News; original source = Bloomberg

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=newsarchive&sid=as6BR0QV4KE8

CEOs Pushing Ayn Rand Studies Use Money to Overcome Resistance

By Matthew Keenan

April 11 (Bloomberg) -- Ayn Rand's novels of headstrong entrepreneurs' battles against convention enjoy a devoted following in business circles. While academia has failed to embrace Rand, calling her philosophy simplistic, schools have agreed to teach her works in exchange for a donation.

The charitable arm of BB&T Corp., a banking company, pledged $1 million to the University of North Carolina Charlotte in 2005 and obtained an agreement that Rand's novel ``Atlas Shrugged'' would become required reading for students. Marshall University in Huntington, West Virginia, and Johnson C. Smith University in Charlotte, North Carolina, say they also took grants and agreed to teach Rand.

The author, who died in 1982, used her self-righteous heroes to promote objectivism, a philosophy that embraces reason and individualism, while rejecting religion. While Rand, an advocate of free markets, would support a university's getting paid to teach her works, the idea riles academic ethicists.

``A corporation crosses a line and a university is complicit in crossing the line if it accepts money'' and accedes to a request to assign specific books, said Jonathan Knight, director of the program on academic freedom, tenure and governance for the American Association of University Professors, in Washington. ``It's unique in my experience.'' Knight has worked in the field for 31 years.

As universities seek ways to bolster finances, such as with top level sports teams, donations to dictate curricula are still rare. Yaron Brook, the executive director of the Ayn Rand Institute, a nonprofit organization in Irvine, California, that promotes objectivism, said some professors are re-evaluating Rand.

``We're definitely seeing more of an interest in the academic world,'' Brook said. He said he senses a softening of opposition from academics and sees more conferences and articles about Rand.

`Absolutist Ethics'

``Ayn Rand has a kind of absolutist ethics,'' Brook said. ``She believes in right or wrong, good and evil, but based on secular principles, not religious principles, and I think there's an appeal for that now.''

Alan Greenspan, later the U.S. Federal Reserve chairman, was among Rand's early disciples, in the 1950s. Mark Cuban, the billionaire owner of the National Basketball Association's Dallas Mavericks, calls Rand's ``The Fountainhead'' one of his favorite business books. John Allison, chief executive officer of BB&T, deems ``Atlas Shrugged'' the best defense of capitalism ever written, and requires managers to read it.

Rand believed American universities had been taken over in the 20th century by thinkers who rejected her notion that many of life's questions have one right answer, said Judith Wilt, an English professor at Boston College.

`Places for Discourse'

``Universities as places for discourse and argument and a kind of searching tend to be more interested in what Rand would call vagueness,'' said Wilt, 66, who is teaching a seminar on Rand and contemporaries such as John Steinbeck and Arthur Miller. ``Universities tend to be interested not in closing the argument, but in keeping it open.''

Rand was born in Russia in 1905 and emigrated to the U.S. in 1926. Businessmen who were guided by their own consciences or self-interest were the heroes of her novels. ``The Fountainhead,'' published in 1943, tells the story of architect Howard Roark, who blows up a housing project he designed rather than compromise his vision.

`I Love It'

``I love it because it's so motivating,'' Cuban, 49, said in an e-mail. ``It's about an individual standing up for and believing in himself, ignoring what others think.''

In ``Atlas Shrugged,'' Rand describes the collapse of the U.S. economy when the most productive industrialists, led by John Galt, withdraw from society.

``Atlas Shrugged'' has sold 6 million copies since its first printing in 1957. After sales sagged to an average of 77,000 a year in the 1980s, they climbed steadily and topped 185,000 last year, the Rand institute said, citing publishers' data.

Allison's BB&T, based in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, in March pledged $2 million to establish the first U.S. chair in the study of objectivism, at the University of Texas at Austin.

That school and 27 others have accepted an aggregate $30 million from the bank's foundation in the last decade.

``These gifts are really about the study of capitalism from a moral perspective and all we want is to make Rand part of the dialogue,'' said Bob Denham, a spokesman for BB&T, the parent of Branch Banking & Trust Co.

The BB&T Charitable Foundation made a five-year, $1 million commitment to the University of North Carolina Charlotte in January 2005 after a dinner meeting between Allison and Claude Lilly, then dean of UNC Charlotte's business school.

`Required Reading'

The grant agreement described ``Atlas Shrugged'' as ``required reading'' in a course about the fundamentals of capitalism.

BB&T donated $500,000 last year to Johnson C. Smith University to help endow a professorship on capitalism and free markets, with lessons including ``Atlas Shrugged.'' It's the fourth endowed chair at the historically black college in Charlotte.

`` I don't believe I have to advocate that people accept Ayn Rand's philosophy,'' said Patricia Roberson-Saunders, who holds the chair. Roberson-Saunders, who will present Rand with other texts, said students will benefit from reading about a world view held by ``people with whom they will have to work and for whom they will have to work.''

Marshall announced in January that it received $1 million to establish the BB&T Center for the Advancement of American Capitalism. As part of the curriculum, an upper-level course will focus on ``Atlas Shrugged'' and Adam Smith's ``The Wealth of Nations.''

Marshall spokesman Dave Wellman wasn't immediately available for comment.

`Crossing the Line'

After BB&T mandated that some schools teach ``Atlas Shrugged,'' grant seekers became aware of Allison's interest and now tailor their applications by stating up front their interest in Rand, Denham said.

Scholars scoff at the Rand bounty, saying her ideas are too shallow to build courses around her.

``Rand could not write her way out of a paper bag,'' said Harold Bloom, a professor of the humanities and English at Yale University in New Haven, Connecticut. Bloom, 77, is the author of ``The Western Canon: The Books and School of the Ages'' (Harcourt, 1994), an examination of the most important works in Western literature. Rand isn't on the list.

URGENT: Hillsdale College has book burning group

Fri, 11 Apr 2008 20:53:45 GMT

48 student members on a campus of around 2000 people

Want to burn Constitution

http://www.hillsdalecollegian.com/home/index.cfm?event=displayArticle&ustory_id=7e0cb6b8-fdd3-4e86-8fc7-4e840e2aae21

Consider posting a comment.

Theme: Modeling, Jack Kerouac, Shane MacGowan, Ayn Rand, Hunter S. Thompson, The Dandy Warhols

Mon, 03 Mar 2008 21:55:21 GMT

» Do not alter these icons in any way.
» If provided, click icon to see original and full-sized image (hfimages).
» Specify in comment for further information (textures, fonts or methods used on certain icon).
» Give credit to hficons if you put any to use.

( The icons. )

"-Entries linking to articles, websites, services, or products which would be of interest or value to those interested in Ayn Rand's novels and philosophy."

first book?

Wed, 27 Feb 2008 19:35:47 GMT

Hi. I'm interested in Ayn Rand's ideas, and I got Atlas Shrugged and tried to read it, but I found it too dry and the book so intimidatingly long. I'm wondering if there are any other smaller books or pamphlets which she wrote that explain her philosophy and way of life, that you could reccomend to a busy college student who doesn't have time to read 1000+ pages of a giant novel? :)

Peace and thanks!