"...held to random..."

...for idiots to act selfishly. Bloody awful writer, too. To borrow from Humph, she's the writer who has done for philosophy. Oh, wait a minute. The writer who has done for philosophy what Cyril Smith has done for breakdancing.

and now here that those who dislike Rand's work seem to feel the need to direct personal insults at those who read her books. I don't think I've ever seen that happen with any other author or artist.

I don't know Rand's work but I'll certainly make a point of checking it out if it arouses such 'anti-reader' passions!

EDIT: Atlas, Fountainhead and Anthem ordered from Amazon. Looking forward to reading them and establishing if I'm "chuckleheaded" and a selfish idiot :-)

Doods writes "However there is not the same cult of Ayn Rand here that there is in the United States, which I suppose shows up the differences between us." You think that shows up the difference? Just that? Nothing else? Ok, then.

for Neil Peart saying he was a Rand fan. The NME vilified them

Old School by Tobias Wolff - the semi-autobiographical story of a private school boy in the 1950s with pretensions to becoming a writer. He describes very nicely the sensation of falling under Ayn Rand's spell (and falling out of it again).

that when Officer Barbrady learnt to read in South Park he was really happy. But when he read 'Atlas Shrugged' it put him off reading again for life as reading "totally sucks ass"

Having also read it, I can't help but agree

seems to be based around a society created by an Ayn Rand-type figure.

Anyhoo, I have a book of her articles somewhere and still chuckle at the thought of her chapter on "America's real oppressed minority - big business".

philosophy or -ism Rand's Objectivism has been interpreted positively by those who only seek validation for their own views in order to progress those views to a position of power by cherry-picking ideas that give them all the ideological benefits and none of the political or practical compromises that a representative democracy requires.

Like any other philosophy or -ism Rand's Objectivism has been interpreted negatively by those who only seek validation for their own views in order to progress those views to a position of power by cherry-picking ideas that give them all the ideological benefits and none of the political or practical compromises that a representative democracy requires.

The point about politics is that it is often the simple message that wins you the votes. No wonder Rand's views appeal and disgust to such extremes.

Have a go at these.

1. "the heroine in that book , who is, correct me if I am wrong , raped by the hero." You're wrong. Dominique is not raped (any more than Scarlett O'Hara was raped by Rhett Butler), and she marries Roark at the conclusion of the story.

2. "Leaden prose." Oh, really? Like these samples?

"She sat listening to the music. It was a symphony of triumph. The notes flowed up, they spoke of rising and they were the rising itself, they were the essence and the form of upward motion, they seemed to embody every human act and thought that had ascent as its motive. It was a sunburst of sound, breaking out of hiding and spreading open. It had the freedom of release and the tension of purpose. It swept space clean, and left nothing but the joy of an unobstructed effort. Only a faint echo within the sounds spoke of that from which the music had escaped, but spoke in laughing astonishment at the discovery that there was no ugliness or pain, and there never had had to be. It was the song of an immense deliverance.

"She thought: For just a few moments--while this lasts--it is all right to surrender completely -- to forget everything and just permit yourself to feel. She thought: Let go--drop the controls--this is it. [Atlas Shrugged, 1957]

"The men in the drafting rooms loved Peter Keating. He made them feel as if he had been there for a long time; he had always known how to become part of any place he entered; he came soft and bright as a sponge to be filled, unresisting, with the air and the mood of the place. His warm smile, his gay voice, the easy shrug of his shoulders seemed to say that nothing weighed too much within his soul and so he was not one to blame, to demand, to accuse anything.

"As he sat now, watching Francon read the article, Francon raised his head to glance at him. Francon saw two eyes looking at him with immense approval--and two bright little points of contempt in the corners of Keating's mouth, like two musical notes of laughter visible the second before they were to be heard. Francon felt a great wave of comfort. The comfort came from the contempt. The approval, together with that wise half-smile, granted him a grandeur he did not have to earn; a blind admiration would have been precarious; a deserved admiration would have been a responsibility; an undeserved admiration was precious." [The Fountainhead, 1943]

"Kira had never been in love. The only hero she had known was a Viking whose story she had read as a child; a Viking whose eyes never looked farther than the point of his sword, but there was no boundary for the point of his sword; a Viking who walked through life, breaking barriers and reaping victories, who walked through ruins while the sun made a crown over his head, but he walked, light and straight, without noticing its weight; a Viking who aughed at kings, who laughed at priests, who looked at heaven only when he bent for a drink over a mountain brook and there, over-shadowing the sky, he saw his own picture; a Viking who lived but for the joy and the wonder and the glory of the god that was himself. Kira did not remember the books she read before that legend; she did not want to remember the ones she read after it." [We the Living, 1936]

Introduction to Objectivist Epistemology is on a 10-year-old level? That must be some prodigous 10-year-old!

"The building-block of man's knowledge is the concept of an "existent"—of something that exists, be it a thing, an attribute or an action. Since it is a concept, man cannot grasp it explicitly until he has reached the conceptual stage. But it is implicit in every percept (to perceive a thing is to perceive that it exists) and man grasps it implicitly on the perceptual level—i.e., he grasps the constituents of the concept "existent," the data which are later to be integrated by that concept. It is this implicit knowledge that permits his consciousness to develop further.

"(It may be supposed that the concept "existent" is implicit even on the level of sensations—-if and to the extent that a consciousness is able to discriminate on that level. A sensation is a sensation of something, as distinguished from the nothing of the preceding and
succeeding moments. A sensation does not tell man what exists, but only that it exists.)

"The (implicit) concept "existent" undergoes three stages of development in man's mind. The first stage is a child's awareness of objects, of things—which represents the (implicit) concept "entity." The second and closely allied stage is the awareness of specific, particular things which he can recognize and distinguish from the rest of his perceptual field—which represents the (implicit) concept "identity".

"The third stage consists of grasping relationships among these entities by grasping the similarities and differences of their identities. This requires the transformation of the (implicit) concept "entity" into the (implicit) concept "unit."

I eagerly await your replies.

--Harry (a 65-year-old, non-acned professor of philosophy).

Randroids

"the quote from "We The Living" is just awful prose."

What would you consider an example(s) of really good prose?

Something to compare and contrast with your quote from Atlas Shrugged:

"The hot afternoon passed slowly and Mick still sat on the steps by herself. This fellow Mozart's music was in her mind again. It was funny, but Mister Singer reminded her of this music. She wished there was some place where she could go to hum it out loud. Some kind of music was too private to sing in a house cram full of people. It was funny, too, how lonesome a person could be in a crowded house. Mick tried to think of some good private place where she could go and be by herself and study about this music. But though she thought about this a long time she knew in the beginning that there was no good place."

[Carson McCullers, The Heart Is A Lonely Hunter, 1940]

It happened, the blogosphere in action. I am not sure how the director of the Ayn Rand Institute found us, as the Word Magazine article in question remains not online, but the discussion turns up, say, here

http://www.wikio.com/fine_arts/books/authors/ayn_rand

As I said before, I have followed this from the outside, having tried Rand and tossed it aside a long time ago, but still have watched its fan club in wonder. I had also wondered about the unexpected lack on posts from some of her more spiky defenders who prowl the blogs, defending her honour. Instead, I for one do welcome the courteous and only slightly touchy (goodness knows we provoked it) Dr. Binswanger (I assume it is actually you...).

OK, let’s have another go. The chosen ground is the literary and not the political or philosophical or the ad hominem approach, so let’s stay with that. First, the phenomenon. There was a fuss a while ago about the “100 Best Novels Of The 20th Century” as voted by, in turn, The Board and The Reader of The Modern Library, a publishing company in the United States

http://www.randomhouse.com/modernlibrary/100bestnovels.html

The Board have as numbers one and two “Ulysses” and “The Great Gatsby”. The Reader (sic… I am going by their chosen apostrophe position) has “Atlas Shrugged” and “The Fountainhead”. The Board list has plenty of American authors in their Top 100, but not Ayn Rand.

To a British sensibility this seems up there with the year BBC Radio One listeners voted “ I Owe You Nothing” by Bros as the greatest song ever made, or when Kemal Ataturk mysteriously was the front runner for Man Of The Century on BBC Radio last millennium. Clearly word gets round among the faithful : L. Ron Hubbard was number 3 for goodness sake : so no, the old story, popularity is not necessarily a guide of worth, but still a little puzzling on this side of the pond. If you like, a difference between us.

Secondly, the quotes. Some select quotations have been offered. Clearly these passages have resonance with Dr. Binswanger, but for me the peculiar triumphalism of “the joy of an unobstructed effort” , “immense deliverance”, and “an undeserved admiration was precious” seems a bit creepy, with in its bombast, recycled Wagner and the echo of personality cults.

Compared to Joyce and Fitzgerald, these passages are not in the same league as, say, the final paragraphs of Joyce’s “The Dead” or the closing pages of “The Great Gatsby”. On the other hand, what is ?

Actually we can’t really get away from the political. We watch the self-styled conservative backlash in the US, the Tea Party people, and, coincidental with this, articles proclaiming that this is the moment for Ayn Rand and John Galt. The events of the last week in the US Congress have brought out no end of contributors, beating a path even to the liberal British news sites, insisting that this public healthcare system is sinful and the road to serfdom. Today, for example, Fox News cited Ayn Rand, describing proponents of such a system as “moochers and looters.” Now while I am not saying no-one in the UK thinks this, and we will probably have a Conservative administration soon, all the virtue of selfishness stuff does not really play here in the same way at all.

Meanwhile, Mr. Bray hasn’t yet deigned to join the fray. And Harry, you still haven’t told us your favourite Beatle. Kind regards.

First, I am not the director of the Ayn Rand Institute. That's Dr. Yaron Brook. But I am a member of its Board of Directors.

I found your site because I have a Google Alert for "Ayn Rand." There's no hiding in the age of the 'net.

We might, as you suggest, be dealing with a difference in national "sensibilities." Stiff upper lip, eh what?

I see passion, not "triumphalism" (a vague term), in the passages I quoted. Where one gets "personality cult" is beyond me. By the way, Ayn Rand once described Wagner's music as "vulgar." Her favorites were Chopin and Rachmaninoff. But we were really talking about style, not content. And I judge the style of those passages as anything but "leaden" (your term). "Leaden" would well characterize the passage about Mick Still and Mozart from Carson McCullers.

My favorite Beatle's song would probably be "Golden Slumbers" from the Abbey Road album.

"...In a striking costume like Mephistopheles, I might quite easily pull off something pretty impressive. Colour does make a difference. Look at newts. During the courting season the male newt is brilliantly coloured. It helps him a lot."

"But you aren't a male newt."

"I wish I were. Do you know how a male newt proposes, Bertie? He just stands in front of the female newt vibrating his tail and bending his body in a semi-circle. I could do that on my head. No, you wouldn't find me grousing if I were a male newt."

"But if you were a male newt, Madeline Bassett wouldn't look at you. Not with the eye of love, I mean."

"She would, if she were a female newt."

"But she isn't a female newt."

"No, but suppose she was."

"Well, if she was, you wouldn't be in love with her."

"Yes, I would, if I were a male newt."

A slight throbbing about the temples told me that this discussion had reached saturation point.

P. G. Wodehouse - Right Ho, Jeeves.

And if you're after something that's not as much fun...

A Saturday afternoon in November was approaching the time of twilight, and the vast tract of unenclosed wild known as Egdon Heath embrowned itself moment by moment. Overhead the hollow stretch of whitish cloud shutting out the sky was as a tent which had the whole heath for its floor.

The heaven being spread with this pallid screen and the earth with the darkest vegetation, their meeting-line at the horizon was clearly marked. In such contrast the heath wore the appearance of an instalment of night which had taken up its place before its astronomical hour was come: darkness had to a great extent arrived hereon, while day stood distinct in the sky. Looking upwards, a furze-cutter would have been inclined to continue work; looking down, he would have decided to finish his faggot and go home. The distant rims of the world and of the firmament seemed to be a division in time no less than a division in matter. The face of the heath by its mere complexion added half an hour to evening; it could in like manner retard the dawn, sadden noon, anticipate the frowning of storms scarcely generated, and intensify the opacity of a moonless midnight to a cause of shaking and dread.

Thomas Hardy - The Return Of The Native.

I've no doubt you're a longstanding member of The Massive, so this sort of thing will be familiar to you:
http://www.wordmagazine.co.uk/content/songs-passive-aggression

...he's gone, guys. We can talk about music again now.

I think that highlights the difference between our two countries.

Coat, door etc.

Some scatter-shot replies.

1. "You disappoint with your response to the quote from The Heart Is A Lonely Hunter. You take a criticism applied to Rand's prose and apply the same criticism to a quote from another book by a different writer. A bit predictable and lazy don't you think?"

Yes, you nailed me there. I was thinking of doing a stylistic analysis (not my field) but wearied at the thought that if you don't see the value of the writing, what will all my labored efforts accomplish? In a bit, I will post Ayn Rand's own analysis of a section of her writing (time permitting).

2. Oh, favorite Beatle, not song. Sorry. It would be Paul for his fantastic melodies. I'm not a lyrics guy; melody is all, in my case. Now I'm talking about Paul as he wrote up to about 1971. His later stuff is mournful and boring to me.

3. Wodehouse is enjoyable. Not a great stylist, but a fun read. Thomas Hardy is terrific. So is Melville (and many others). If you can appreciate them, you should like Ayn Rand's writing, too.

4. "of the religious right (who are neither synonymous with nor mutally exclusive to Rand's devotees) who will happily stomp all over Darwin's work on evolution, then blithely turn around and espouse it as a social doctrine - which is applicable to Rand."

Religion, or more broadly any form of mysticism, is absolutely antithetical to Objectivism. Objectivists here in the States are scared stiff by the Religious Right. I voted Democratic (but not for Obama--I abstained) in 2008 to stop them. Darwin is so congenial (in biology) to Objectivism, that I wrote a book integrating natural selection with the philosophy (The Biological Basis of Teleological Concepts, it's at Amazon). Social Darwinism is thorougly anti-Objectivist, being not only factually false but riding on a collectivist premise (the good of the species). Objectivism advocates laissez-faire capitalism because it advocates individualism and individual rights.

"If you follow Rand's philosophy, what they do with their lives is none of your damn business"

That's right.

"yet if the underprivileged demand some of your cake to feed their children, you'll oppose them?"

Most definitely. And they're not "underprivileged." Maybe under-productive, under-self-responsible.

"How? With some form of Government action? Militarily?"
No, with intellectual arguments.

Rush was mentioned. Neal Peart is a fan of Rand's novelette Anthem, which was first published in the UK BTW. It's set in a future collectivist dystopia, in which the very word "I" has been expunged from people's vocabulary, and only plural pronouns are used.

So I thought I'd try again. How's this for the opening of a novelette?

"It is a sin to write this.It is a sin to think words no others think and to put them down upon a paper no others are to see. It is base and evil. It is as if we were speaking alone to no ears but our own. And we know well that there is no transgression blacker than to do or think alone. We have broken the laws. The laws say that men may not write unless the Council of Vocations bid them so. May we be forgiven!

"But this is not the only sin upon us. We have committed a greater crime, and for this crime there is no name. What punishment awaits us if it be discovered we know not, for no such crime has come in the memory of men and there are no laws to provide for it.

"It is dark here. The flame of the candle stands still in the air. Nothing moves in this tunnel save our hand on the paper. We are alone here under the earth. It is a fearful word, alone. The laws say that none among men may be alone, ever and at any time, for this is the great transgression and the root of all evil. But we have broken many laws. And now there is nothing here save our one body, and it is strange to see only two legs stretched on the ground, and on the wall before us the shadow of our one head."

Let's get a drink!

he's back. Tin hats all round :)