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Ayn Rand

Dr. Trintignant said:
There are at least two objections to that from the Objectivist perspective. The first is that magic rings do not exist, and so the thought experiment is invalid.
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And John Galt's magic motor? Doesn't that invalidate the object lesson of Atlas Shrugged -- from the Objectivist perspective?
 
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hgc said:
And John Galt's magic motor? Doesn't that invalidate the object lesson of Atlas Shrugged -- from the Objectivist perspective?
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It depends on how fundamental you think it is. I don't think the message changes much if you replaced the magic motor with something more plausible--say, an incremental improvement on existing internal combustion engines. I'd say a more serious fault is the unrealistic way in which people tend to act in her books.

- Dr. Trintignant
 
karmicserenade said:
I hear you on that, they all seem rather eccentric....
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Well, the heros are supposed to be completely devoted to those things that make them happiest, to the exclusion of anything that doesn't. They are the ones who see the light, or can be shown said light. On the other hand, the antagonists are either bowing to social norms and conventions, or else embodiments of socialist evil who perpetuate those norms and conventions. There are very few "common folk" just going about their lives, since focussing on them wouldn't be of much interest to anyone at all.
 
Bottom Line: Ayn Rand heros are just superman right out of Nietzsche dressded up in Aristotalian clothing.
When it comes to Superman, I will take Clark Kent over John Gault any day of the week.
 
dudalb said:
When it comes to Superman, I will take Clark Kent over John Gault any day of the week.
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Yes, but which Clark Kent? The ever-changing comic book portrayal? George Reeves? Christopher Reeve? Dean Cain? Brandon Routh? Tom Welling? :D
 
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RobRoy said:
Well, the heros are supposed to be completely devoted to those things that make them happiest, to the exclusion of anything that doesn't. They are the ones who see the light, or can be shown said light. On the other hand, the antagonists are either bowing to social norms and conventions, or else embodiments of socialist evil who perpetuate those norms and conventions. There are very few "common folk" just going about their lives, since focussing on them wouldn't be of much interest to anyone at all.
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Pretty good explanation if I do say so myself :)
 
dudalb said:
Bottom Line: Ayn Rand heros are just superman right out of Nietzsche dressded up in Aristotalian clothing.
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Bingo. At least Nietzsche was intellectually honest in that his superman runs on pathos and thumos. Rand is trying to claim that Achilles is Socrates.
 
RobRoy said:
Sorry, why is this a bad thing?
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It's incoherent. Reason is not how Achilles rolls; spiritedness is.

The problem of what to do with Achilles, Alcibiades, Callicles, etc and their ilk has been dealt with by channeling their honour-seeking into commerce. Plato thought the solution was education and re-orientation towards civic virtue. Not so much. Set them loose as capitalists in a semi-free market where the State cages them in with economic policy and they just might produce wealth. (Or Enron, but better that then Troy).

But this doesn't make them avatars of reason. They are still thumotic bastards. Rand's elevation of reason as the absolute is wacky for all kinds of reasons, but it is palpably absurd when she tries to do the Achilles/Socrates switcheroo.
 
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D'rok the Lacone said:
But this doesn't make them avatars of reason. They are still thumotic bastards. Rand's elevation of reason as the absolute is wacky for all kinds of reasons, but it is palpably absurd when she tries to do the Achilles/Socrates switcheroo.
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And yet all of Rand's heros (and some of the villians for that matter), are schooled through both an institution and real world experience. Seems like she isn't pulling a "switcheroo" so much as she is, thematically, melding Achilles and Socrates.
 
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RobRoy said:
And yet all of Rand's heros (and some of the villians for that matter), are schooled through both an institution and real world experience. Seems like she isn't pulling a "switcheroo" so much as she is, thematically, melding Achilles and Socrates.
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That's closer to what Nietzsche was doing (but not exactly). Nietzsche wanted to re-introduce the pathos of Achilles into the European christianized "herd animal". Rand is claiming that reason is man's only absolute, but then she holds up as her ideal exactly the type of person who is driven by thumos - i.e., the successful, wealthy capitalist/industrialist. If she was thematically melding Achilles and Socrates, she couldn't subsume thumos into reason. What she ends up doing is trying to keep Achilles' victories while pretending that Socrates won them. It's philosophically incoherent.
 
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RobRoy said:
Seems like she isn't pulling a "switcheroo" so much as she is, thematically, melding Achilles and Socrates.
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And you don't see the inherent laughability in this?

Achilles is not Socrates. Any economic theory that only works in a world where Achilles and Socrates can be successfully merged is not a viable economic theory. I might as well open a shoe factory based on the theory that nocturnal elves will come and assemble my trainers.
 
D'rok the Lacone said:
That's closer to what Nietzcshe was doing (but not exactly). Nietzche wanted to re-introduce the pathos of Achilles into the European christianized "herd animal". Rand is claiming that reason is man's only absolute, but then she holds up as her ideal exactly the type of person who is driven by thumos - i.e., the successful, wealthy capitalist/industrialist. If she was thematically melding Achilles and Socrates, she couldn't subsume thumos into reason. What she ends up doing is trying to keep Achilles' victories while pretending that Socrates won them. It's philosophically incoherent.
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Sorry, I suppose I'm dense. Why are "wealthy capitalist/industrialists" who embody the learned nature of Socrates and the "spiritedness" or drive of Achilles "philosophically incoherent"?

drkitten said:
Achilles is not Socrates.
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Well, of course they aren't. Socrates didn't do; he thought. Achilles didn't think, he did. It seems logical, then, to meld the two; especially if you're going to be creating your own hero, no?
 
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RobRoy said:
Sorry, I suppose I'm dense. Why are "wealthy capitalist/industrialists" who embody the learned nature of Socrates and the "spiritedness" or drive of Achilles "philosophically incoherent"?
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It's incoherent because she left Achilles' virtue (thumos/spiritedness/honour-seeking, etc) out of the equation. She's claiming that Achilles can "do" and achieve his same victories with reason as his only absolute.

If you want another analogy, try to picture Mr. Spock challenging Hector before the walls of Troy and you'll have a sense of where she's gone off the rails.
 
D'rok the Lacone said:
If you want another analogy, try to picture Mr. Spock challenging Hector before the walls of Troy and you'll have a sense of where she's gone off the rails.
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LOL. I see what you're saying (although I'm uncertain if you're playing to Mr. Spock's logic, or his martial ability; if the former, fine, if the latter . . . well, I shudder to expose my Trekkie roots). I guess I just see what Rand was trying to create as well.
 
RobRoy said:
LOL. I see what you're saying (although I'm uncertain if you're playing to Mr. Spock's logic, or his martial ability; if the former, fine, if the latter . . . well, I shudder to expose my Trekkie roots). I guess I just see what Rand was trying to create as well.
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Yah. After I wrote that I remembered that Spock could kick some serious ass when necessary. (The dork side is strong in me as well). I was referring to his logic.

But really...there is a genuine philosophical problem (in political philosophy at least) with how to reconcile Achilles with civil society. The very quality that drives him to succeed also drives him to destroy both himself and you and me. If Rand was honest, she would have proposed a solution. Instead, she just pretends the problem doesn't exist. It may be superficially appealing, but it doesn't have much philosophical depth.
 
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RobRoy said:
Well, of course they aren't. Socrates didn't do; he thought. Achilles didn't think, he did. It seems logical, then, to meld the two; especially if you're going to be creating your own hero, no?
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You're only looking at half of it. Achilles didn't just "do," he "did unthinkingly." He acted with passion instead of with logic. He'a archetypical not only for what he accomplished, but for how and why he accomplished it.

A "spirited" horse is one that will not respond to reasonable restraints. It is by definition "unreasonable." Thumos is almost in complete opposition to "logos," to "nous," to rationality. Similarly, Nietzsche defines his "will to power," (essentially, thumos) as instinctual, again in direct opposition to rationalism.

If you want to define Galt as a reasonable unreasonable person, then you are incoherent. But that's exactly what the merge of Socrates and Achilles does.
 
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