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Ayn Rand

Somewhat ironically, my daughter informed us to-day that a few people (mostly boys, and one particularly odious girl) have been teasing her because she reads too much, and she's tall, thin and blonde.
 
Piscivore said:
Somewhat ironically, my daughter informed us to-day that a few people (mostly boys, and one particularly odious girl) have been teasing her because she reads too much, and she's tall, thin and blonde.
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She can always use the old someday you'll be asking me if I want fries with my order retort.
 
dann said:
That cowardice was never a virtue says it all about the so-called civilizations so far: The leaders are whisked away to a safe place in a hollowed out mountain and the peasants are encouraged to make a stand and fight bravely. Very hard to work into a Rand novel!
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Are you kidding? The end of Atlas Shrugged dealt with this plain as day! The masses are so stupid and selfish and lazy, they can't possibly field any kind of resistance. If the unwashed masses get upset, it only takes a few of epepke's big penised superheroes to handle it.

Here's the scene I was talking about earlier. I think it nicely demonstrates how little a threat the ignorant non-Objectivists pose.

Dagny walked straight toward the guard who stood at the door of "Project F." Her steps sounded purposeful, even and open, ringing in the silence of the path among the trees. She raised her head to a ray of moonlight, to let him recognize her face. "Let me in," she said.

"No admittance," he answered in the voice of a robot. "By order of Dr. Ferris."

"I am here by order of Mr. Thompson."

"Huh? … I … I don't know about that."

"I do."

"I mean, Dr. Ferris hasn't told me … ma'am."

"I am telling you."

"But I'm not supposed to take any orders from anyone excepting Dr. Ferris."

"Do you wish to disobey Mr. Thompson?"

“Oh, no, ma'am! But … but if Dr. Ferris said to let nobody in, that means nobody—" He added uncertainly and pleadingly, "—doesn't it?"

"Do you know that I am Dagny Taggart and that you've seen my pictures in the papers with Mr. Thompson and all the top leaders of the country?"

"Yes, ma'am."

"Then decide whether you wish to disobey their orders."

"Oh, no, ma'am! I don't!"

"Then let me in."

"But I can't disobey Dr. Ferris, either!"

"Then choose."

"But I can't choose, ma'am! Who am I to choose?"

"You'll have to."

"Look," he said hastily, pulling a key from his pocket and turning to the door, "I'll ask the chief. He—"

"No," she said.

Some quality in the tone of her voice made him whirl back to her: she was holding a gun pointed levelly at his heart.

"Listen carefully," she said. "Either you let me in or I shoot you. You may try to shoot me first, if you can. You have that choice—and no other. Now decide."

His mouth fell open and the key dropped from his hand.

"Get out of my way," she said.

He shook his head frantically, pressing his back against the door. "Oh Christ, ma'am!" he gulped in the whine of a desperate plea. "I can’t shoot at you, seeing as you come from Mr. Thompson! And I can't let you in against the word of Dr. Ferris! What am I to do? I'm only a little fellow! I'm only obeying orders! It's not up to me!"

"It's your life," she said.

"If you let me ask the chief, he'll tell me, he'll—"

"I won't let you ask anyone."

"But how do I know that you really have an order from Mr. Thompson?"

"You don't. Maybe I haven't. Maybe I'm acting on my own—and you'll be punished for obeying me. Maybe I have—and you'll be thrown in jail for disobeying. Maybe Dr. Ferris and Mr. Thompson agree about this. Maybe they don't—and you have to defy one or the other. These are the things you have to decide. There is no one to ask, no one to call, no one to tell you. You will have to decide them yourself."

"But I can't decide! Why me?"

"Because it's your body that's barring my way."

"But I can't decide! I'm not supposed to decide!"

"I'll count to three," she said. "Then I'll shoot."

"Wait! Wait! I haven't said yes or no!" he cried, cringing tighter against the door, as if immobility of mind and body were his best protection.

"One—" she counted; she could see his eyes staring at her in terror—"Two—" she could see that the gun held less terror for him than the alternative she offered—"Three."

Calmly and impersonally, she, who would have hesitated to fire at an animal, pulled the trigger and fired straight at the heart of a man who had wanted to exist without the responsibility of consciousness.

Her gun was equipped with a silencer; there was no sound to attract anyone's attention, only the thud of a body falling at her feet.

She picked up the key from the ground—then waited for a few brief moments, as had been agreed upon.
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Murder is cool with Rand (and don't you just love that realistic dialogue?)
 
I wonder how I'd fit on Rand's moral assessment? I'd have let Taggart go in...and shot in her in the back when she did so. Does that make me a mighty capitalist? Or is that only if I loot the corpse?
 
Skeptic said:
But that is Rand's philosophy, to wit: if you have a big enough penis, and you like violent sex, you can do anything, including disregard physics.

No you can't!
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Thanks! I'm going to use that in my relativity talk, though I think I'll change "prick" to "dick." Better alliteration.

Another thing about Rand: you can always tell which characters are good and which are bad by the names. The perfect Randroid names would be "Dick Biggs" and "Lysander Whitehead."
 
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TragicMonkey said:
I wonder how I'd fit on Rand's moral assessment? I'd have let Taggart go in...and shot in her in the back when she did so. Does that make me a mighty capitalist? Or is that only if I loot the corpse?
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You're almost there. Actually the correct response is to seduce her, then let her in, shoot her in the back and loot her corpse.
 
Her steps sounded purposeful, even and open, ringing in the silence of the path among the trees.
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You know, I'm still trying to understand how her steps could sound purposeful. Also, how do they ring when she's walking on a path?

She picked up the key from the ground—then waited for a few brief moments, as had been agreed upon.
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While I'm at it, "a few brief moments?" The American Heritage dictionary defines a moment as:
A brief, indefinite interval of time.
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It's redundant. But a "few moments" could just as easily be described as "a moment." So rather than write "then waited a moment..." Rand added three extra, stilted, redundant words. She's a brilliant author who chooses each word with care. :rolleyes:
 
Calmly and impersonally, she, who would have hesitated to fire at an animal, pulled the trigger and fired straight at the heart of a man who had wanted to exist without the responsibility of consciousness.
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So, people who stand in the way of Rand's heros are less than animals?
 
dann said:
The necessity of people to fight to protect their country exists as coercion. Don't all countries have laws like that? 'All able-bodied men' of a certain age etc.?
And then you also need a very good excuse to make it appear as if the war is somehow in the interest of common people (they are the ones who have to sacrifice their lives!): WMDs, Evil Empires, the Axis of Evil, for instance ...
That cowardice was never a virtue says it all about the so-called civilizations so far: The leaders are whisked away to a safe place in a hollowed out mountain and the peasants are encouraged to make a stand and fight bravely. Very hard to work into a Rand novel!
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The US hasn't had a draft in a long time. Everybody currently in the military joined willingly. Agree with the rest.
 
delphi_ote said:
The masses are so stupid and selfish and lazy, they can't possibly field any kind of resistance.
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Not quite. The masses in Atlas Shrugged had very little power.

Here's the scene I was talking about earlier. I think it nicely demonstrates how little a threat the ignorant non-Objectivists pose.
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No, that was an example of a guard that was hand-picked to obey authority and not think for himself, by the ruling elites who were similarly incapable of thinking but knew how do order people to do things.

Rand's authorial style would be better suited for 15th century Italy, and she's profoundly lacking my modern standards, but her philosophy is pretty much spot on. You don't have to be a genius demi-god to be worthy of regard in her system, but you do have to recognize the importance of reason and behave accordingly, which automatically rules out most of the general populace.
 
Meri said:
So, people who stand in the way of Rand's heros are less than animals?
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People who refuse to think for themselves and pass on all responsibility for thought to authorities are less than animals. Animals by and large do not possess the capacity for rationality (it's rather more complex than that, but that's the simple version). Humans that have rejected their capacity for rationality are thus worse than creatures that lack that capacity.

If you possessed the capacity to think rationally, you would have understood the messages in the text. You wouldn't necessarily have agreed with them, but you would have been able to know what they were. Instead you create strawmen because it's easier than working to understand.
 
Piscivore said:
Where is the syllogism that says it is okay to shoot someone who inconveniences you?
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If Rand had been suggesting that, there wouldn't be a supporting character left alive by the end of her novels.

Strawman. Stupid strawman. Next.
 
Melendwyr said:
If Rand had been suggesting that, there wouldn't be a supporting character left alive by the end of her novels.

Strawman. Stupid strawman. Next.
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No, actually, you just posted it:

P: People who refuse to think for themselves and pass on all responsibility for thought to authorities are less than animals.
P: (unstated) It is okay to kill animals
C: Dagny was justified in killing the guard.

Or am I wrong?

Shouting "strawman" when someone asks a question isn't productive. I am not making any claims about Rand's philosophy, only trying to get you to tell me what it is. She wrote, in the excerpt above, that Dagny casually murdered a guard who could probably have been circumlocuted in a less than lethal fashion, given his obvious lack of intestinal fortitude. Why did she choose to murder him, and was she justified in doing so according to Rand?
 
Vagabond said:
The US hasn't had a draft in a long time. Everybody currently in the military joined willingly. Agree with the rest.
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Yes, currently. That doesn't mean that the USA don't have the laws required to reintroduce the draft if necessary. I could be wrong, but I don't think that I am: "Don't all countries have laws like that? 'All able-bodied men' of a certain age etc.?"
I just saw Michael Moore's 9/11. In that documenatary there are a couple of examples of the way in which soldiers are recruited. They may have joined the military willingly, but many of them don't exactly seem very pleased to go to Iraq. The contractual obligation of people lured into the military because their living conditions and opportunities in American society seem even more desolate, just stresses that it is a very special kind of willingness we're talking about here.
 
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