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Ayn Rand

York_Curmudgeon

York_Curmudgeon

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I first read her books while in college and I would have to say that only her books have inspired strangers to come up to me and proceed to debate with me about the merits of her views.:shock: This occured many a time at my local coffee house :coffeepap and bookstore reading areas. Am I alone in this or is this a common occurance by those who read her books?

Any thoughts?


I'm re-reading Atlas Shrugged right now, if anyone wants to have a book discussion, we can get one going in another thread.
 
York_Curmudgeon said:
I first read her books while in college and I would have to say that only her books have inspired strangers to come up to me and proceed to debate with me about the merits of her views.:shock: This occured many a time at my local coffee house :coffeepap and bookstore reading areas. Am I alone in this or is this a common occurance by those who read her books?

Any thoughts?


I'm re-reading Atlas Shrugged right now, if anyone wants to have a book discussion, we can get one going in another thread.
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Do you like these books?

You identify yourself as a liberal, which would indicate you shouldn't, so any conversation wold have to start with your own opinions.

I find her stuff to be too obvious, too dogmatic, and completely devoid of charm, myself.
 
Ayn Rand is an over-hyped nasty mean 'ol bitch. 'Course Lachean flips out when you say that.
 
She had some interesting ideas, but her fiction sucked. There should have been a law against her trying to write a love scene...
 
Oftencold said:
I AM John Galt.
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How's the free-energy-from-thin-air engine coming along? :thinking

But, seriously, I'm a huge fan of Ayn Rand, but she is by no means representative of my philosophy as a whole. From the Anarcho-Capitalist point of view, she way too nationalist. Nobody's perfect, I guess.
 
Gardener said:
Do you like these books?

You identify yourself as a liberal, which would indicate you shouldn't, so any conversation wold have to start with your own opinions.

I find her stuff to be too obvious, too dogmatic, and completely devoid of charm, myself.
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I would have to say "yes" to your question. While I am a liberal, I am *libertarian* on civil liberties issues and the like. It's on the economics issue that I begin to depart from libertarianism, though I will admit that I am mulling over whether or not government intervention is a good thing. The jury is still out, so perhaps I should put myself in the independent category.
 
York_Curmudgeon said:
I would have to say "yes" to your question. While I am a liberal, I am *libertarian* on civil liberties issues and the like. It's on the economics issue that I begin to depart from libertarianism, though I will admit that I am mulling over whether or not government intervention is a good thing. The jury is still out, so perhaps I should put myself in the independent category.
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If you if you aren't all that libertarian on the economic front, you are pretty useless as a libertarian.
 
FlappyTheKinkajou said:
If you if you aren't all that libertarian on the economic front, you are pretty useless as a libertarian.
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Ha! Houston, we have a poser!

Me, on the other hand... I'm so libertarian I can pretty much walk on water. :2bow:
 
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There is a scholarship available with the following requirements:

The Atlas Shrugged Essay Contest is open to college/university and 12th grade students. To be eligible for this contest, you must write an essay of no fewer than 800 and no more than 1,600 words in length, double-spaced, on a topic related to Ayn Rand's novel, "Atlas Shrugged." Essays are judged on both style and content. The winning essay must demonstrate an outstanding grasp of the philosophic meaning of the book "Atlas Shrugged."

Choose one of the following topics


Hank Rearden does not apply the same philosophy to his personal life that he applies to his business. In what way does this contradiction harm him psychologically and practically? What is the central error that he makes? How does correcting his error improve his life?

2. In Atlas Shrugged, the heroes want to "make" money while the villains want, on the surface at least, to "have" money. What is the difference between these two views of money? Explain your answer by reference to actual events in the novel.

3. Choose one of the following pairs, and compare and contrast each character's approach to life and basic motivation:

a. Hank Rearden and Francisco d'Anconia

b. Dagny Taggart and Lillian Rearden

c. Eddie Willers and James Taggart



The scholarship is worth $10,000 and there are 49 awards to be given out

Deadline: Sept 17, 2009
FIRST PRIZE: $10,000
3 SECOND PRIZES: $2,000
5 THIRD PRIZES: $1,000
20 FINALISTS: $100
20 SEMIFINALISTS: $50


I had Atlas Shrugged in my Amazon cart a couple weeks back but opted for Leviathan instead. Damn.

Deadline is September 17th though. Hmm..
 
The silenced majority said:
Ayn Rand was a true Classic liberal
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I dispute this. Her books were inspiration to conservative icons like Milton Freedman and Ronald Reagan. The blind assertion that we are such perfect masters of our destinies as to shape them in every detail could ONLY come from the staunchest of conservatives.

But rather than just spam you with my view; What do you feel makes her liberal, exactly?
 
The problem with Ayn Rand is that she took over a thousand pages to cover topics that could have just as easily been covered in 200.
 
She was a perfect for the right, her verbosity was only supassed by her hypocrisy and selfishness.

She preached against any type of charity, yet she accepted help by everyone in her life.
 
As far as anti-socialist literature, I don't think she can touch Orwell when it comes to quality, but she holds the crown for sesquipedalianism.

I think Terry Goodkind channels her at points.
 
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While it's highly debatable whether or not selfishness is a virtue, in literature conciseness usually is.
 
How clueless. I hear her called a liberal and a nationalist.

What utter ignorance of her work and positions.
 
"Two novels can change a bookish fourteen-year old's life: The Lord of the Rings and Atlas Shrugged. One is a childish fantasy that often engenders a lifelong obsession with its unbelievable heroes, leading to an emotionally stunted, socially crippled adulthood, unable to deal with the real world. The other involves orcs."

Panache said:
As far as anti-socialist literature, I don't think she can touch Orwell when it comes to quality
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That probably has something to do with the fact that Orwell was himself a socialist and an anarchist sympathizer who served in a libertarian Marxist militia during the Spanish Civil War. :shrug:
 
That probably has something to do with the fact that Orwell was himself a socialist and an anarchist sympathizer who served in a libertarian Marxist militia during the Spanish Civil War.
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Ironic huh?
 
Ayn's market was free, and her back door easy.
 
"Not that there is anything wrong with that!"
 
Not for those who know the difference between Stalinism and socialism.
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Nah, its ironic any way you cut it. He lived and died a Democratic Socialist, tried to espouse his ideology to the world, and will always be remembered for a work that the vast majority regard as anti socialist.

That's irony. And not some wimpy Alanis Morissette pseudo-irony either.:lol:
 
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