I used to be an Ayn Rand disciple, in my youth, when I was a lot more ignorant and a lot more naïve than I am now. Her attempt to deduce her social philosophy from basic principles appealed to my theoretical physicist mind.
What she did not realize is that any system (not just pure Capitalism) would work with a sane species. Communism would work, Feudalism, Monarchy, benevolent dictatorship… name it – if people were following the rules of the system (and all leaders, claiming to serve the people – meant it), every system would work.
Her heroes were talented, productive people, benefiting everyone and certainly, we have had them all through history. She described the low-life parasites, both rich and poor – and we have them too. In Atlas Shrugged, she described a world in which the talented and productive go on strike and we certainly would feel the effect.
Ayn Rand was not an evil person as many claim today – she was a starry-eyed idealist who imagined a world in which no one would use force against others to get what they wanted, and the basis of human relationship would be mutual consent. She never dealt with fraud – the main method of humans to get what they want. All in all, Ayn Rand had some very valid observations, some totally naïve assessment of human psychology, a lot of wishful thinking and colossal ignorance of human history.
John Galt is easy to understand. He acted like a jungle animal who was born free and owed nobody anything. He says "Ever since I can remember, I had felt that I would kill the man who'd claim that I exist for the sake of his need”. He believed that the only possible (and moral) basis of human relationship is mutual consent.
On the surface, at first glance, the idea is seductive. Don’t force me to do charity. I will do it if I choose to do so, voluntarily, not because it is my duty but because I want to. Otherwise, leave me alone. Nobody likes to be forced to help others.
What he (and Ayn Rand) did not realize is that none of us was born into a level playing field. The cards have been stacked against most of us from the beginning, unless we were born into wealth and privilege. She never dealt with the issue of inherited wealth – the only comment she makes about it in all her writings is a lame and totally irrational statement in Galt’s speech: “Do not envy a worthless heir; his wealth is not yours and you would have done no better with it.”
How the inherited wealth was acquired in the first place, by what means, is totally outside the scope of her thinking. The playing field was not tilted by accident – a lot of people worked very hard to tilt it in their favour and keep it tilted. What she considers forced charity is often the attempt to untilt the field.
The other thing she did not realize is that we are born into a culture in which everything was handed down to us at birth: our language, our history, all the concepts of human coexistence, our basic education in reading, writing, arithmetic, etc. -- never mind the necessary nurturing that we received as infants and young children until we could stand on our own (jungle animal) feet.
We also inherited all the accumulated knowledge: science and technology that was made available to us in public libraries where we learned to be self-made-men. Not speaking about the Polio vaccine that we received as children, free, because Jonas Salk donated it to the public good.
Lastly, some people were born with exceptional abilities and/or exceptional luck, that she takes for granted and admires as achievement. Michael Faraday comes to mind, but he was very humble about it.
John Galt is easy to understand. We see them around us every day: people who think and live as if they owed nobody anything.
I know she knew that the field was not level. She preferred it that way. While she recognized that in an ideal (non-human species) society talent and ability alone would be enough to give you recognition, she did not know, nor did she care to know, how to deal with the issue of inherited wealth.
When you are born into this world, the field is so tilted towards the rich, most of who (and their ancestors) acquired the wealth by unethical means (wars, fraud, destructive behaviour, exploitation, etc.), that extremely few people can overcome the disadvantage of not being a club member.
There are very few John Galts (scientific genius who rose up from poverty) and very many James Taggarts and their victims.
The problem with many ideologues (of whom Rand was one) is that they never thought things through, following the cause-and-effect chains of human history. They have a pet idea and want to build a dream world around it -- a world that has nothing to do with reality.
The common cry of them all is: "If only people were different, this scheme would work!".
In the "Virtue of Selfishness" she makes the following hair-raising statement:
"There is no conflict among men if no one wants the unearned".
Dear Ms. Rand, please define "earned" with all the historical, economical, political, psychological, sociological and ethical connotations. I am all ears!
Ayn Rand's 'philosophy' -- a fairy tale
Re: Ayn Rand's 'philosophy' -- a fairy tale
I thought you were writing a physics book.
All wealth and privilege are either gained or maintained by force - I agree with that. The winners win, the losers lose. So....? We collect wealth and use it to give our children advantages. People have done that since the dawn of civilization. It's how families, tribes, and countries survive.
Rand is kind of like you and Skip. Suppose she got what she wanted - all the smart people went off and created their own exclusive civilization. After a couple generations things would be back to the haves having taken more than the less endowed (i.e. they'd produce a lot of stupid children eventually). Now what? Do it all over again?
You want wealth spread out and past wrongs righted. Suppose we redistribute the wealth and after a few generations inequalities again arise because some people are smarter, or luckier? What then? If we keep churning the wealth and redistributing it with every generation, then much wealth will be utilized by incompetent people. That is an incredibly inefficient allocation of resources; so these resources would dry up and other countries would overtake us.
All wealth and privilege are either gained or maintained by force - I agree with that. The winners win, the losers lose. So....? We collect wealth and use it to give our children advantages. People have done that since the dawn of civilization. It's how families, tribes, and countries survive.
Rand is kind of like you and Skip. Suppose she got what she wanted - all the smart people went off and created their own exclusive civilization. After a couple generations things would be back to the haves having taken more than the less endowed (i.e. they'd produce a lot of stupid children eventually). Now what? Do it all over again?
You want wealth spread out and past wrongs righted. Suppose we redistribute the wealth and after a few generations inequalities again arise because some people are smarter, or luckier? What then? If we keep churning the wealth and redistributing it with every generation, then much wealth will be utilized by incompetent people. That is an incredibly inefficient allocation of resources; so these resources would dry up and other countries would overtake us.
Re: Ayn Rand's 'philosophy' -- a fairy tale
I am. I don't even look at the forum until the evening, after I have done my enjoyable thinking.Wyman wrote:I thought you were writing a physics book.
I don't want anything of the kind. I made one suggestion in the "Proposal for a new social contract" thread, with the caveat that even that compromise, even if it could be somehow achieved (which I doubt), would be corrupted sooner or later.You want wealth spread out and past wrongs righted.
Luckily, I will be dead in a decade or two and I don't have to worry about it.
Re: Ayn Rand's 'philosophy' -- a fairy tale
False.Ned wrote:I used to be an Ayn Rand disciple, in my youth, when I was a lot more ignorant and a lot more naïve than I am now. Her attempt to deduce her social philosophy from basic principles appealed to my theoretical physicist mind.
What she did not realize is that any system (not just pure Capitalism) would work with a sane species. Communism would work, Feudalism, Monarchy, benevolent dictatorship… name it – if people were following the rules of the system (and all leaders, claiming to serve the people – meant it), every system would work.
False.Her heroes were talented, productive people, benefiting everyone and certainly, we have had them all through history. She described the low-life parasites, both rich and poor – and we have them too. In Atlas Shrugged, she described a world in which the talented and productive go on strike and we certainly would feel the effect.
Ayn Rand was not an evil person as many claim today – she was a starry-eyed idealist who imagined a world in which no one would use force against others to get what they wanted, and the basis of human relationship would be mutual consent. She never dealt with fraud – the main method of humans to get what they want.
False.All in all, Ayn Rand had some very valid observations, some totally naïve assessment of human psychology, a lot of wishful thinking and colossal ignorance of human history.
False.John Galt is easy to understand. He acted like a jungle animal who was born free and owed nobody anything.
You are a colossally ignorant fuck-faced fool.He says "Ever since I can remember, I had felt that I would kill the man who'd claim that I exist for the sake of his need”. He believed that the only possible (and moral) basis of human relationship is mutual consent.
On the surface, at first glance, the idea is seductive. Don’t force me to do charity. I will do it if I choose to do so, voluntarily, not because it is my duty but because I want to. Otherwise, leave me alone. Nobody likes to be forced to help others.
What he (and Ayn Rand) did not realize is that none of us was born into a level playing field. The cards have been stacked against most of us from the beginning, unless we were born into wealth and privilege. She never dealt with the issue of inherited wealth – the only comment she makes about it in all her writings is a lame and totally irrational statement in Galt’s speech: “Do not envy a worthless heir; his wealth is not yours and you would have done no better with it.”
How the inherited wealth was acquired in the first place, by what means, is totally outside the scope of her thinking. The playing field was not tilted by accident – a lot of people worked very hard to tilt it in their favour and keep it tilted. What she considers forced charity is often the attempt to untilt the field.
The other thing she did not realize is that we are born into a culture in which everything was handed down to us at birth: our language, our history, all the concepts of human coexistence, our basic education in reading, writing, arithmetic, etc. -- never mind the necessary nurturing that we received as infants and young children until we could stand on our own (jungle animal) feet.
We also inherited all the accumulated knowledge: science and technology that was made available to us in public libraries where we learned to be self-made-men. Not speaking about the Polio vaccine that we received as children, free, because Jonas Salk donated it to the public good.
Lastly, some people were born with exceptional abilities and/or exceptional luck, that she takes for granted and admires as achievement. Michael Faraday comes to mind, but he was very humble about it.
John Galt is easy to understand. We see them around us every day: people who think and live as if they owed nobody anything.
I know she knew that the field was not level. She preferred it that way. While she recognized that in an ideal (non-human species) society talent and ability alone would be enough to give you recognition, she did not know, nor did she care to know, how to deal with the issue of inherited wealth.
When you are born into this world, the field is so tilted towards the rich, most of who (and their ancestors) acquired the wealth by unethical means (wars, fraud, destructive behaviour, exploitation, etc.), that extremely few people can overcome the disadvantage of not being a club member.
There are very few John Galts (scientific genius who rose up from poverty) and very many James Taggarts and their victims.
The problem with many ideologues (of whom Rand was one) is that they never thought things through, following the cause-and-effect chains of human history. They have a pet idea and want to build a dream world around it -- a world that has nothing to do with reality.
The common cry of them all is: "If only people were different, this scheme would work!".
In the "Virtue of Selfishness" she makes the following hair-raising statement:
"There is no conflict among men if no one wants the unearned".
Dear Ms. Rand, please define "earned" with all the historical, economical, political, psychological, sociological and ethical connotations. I am all ears!
Re: Ayn Rand's 'philosophy' -- a fairy tale
You have two basically different options for social organization. One is based on the concept of co-operation, the other is based on the concept of competition.
The smallest social organization is the family and, in ideal situation, there is no competition, only co-operation. You don’t usually count how much you owe your wife or how much your children owe you. You just do what you can do best, the best way you know how, and it works out quite efficiently if all members of the family do the same. No waste, no fights, no time wasted on duplication and nothing gets neglected.
On the large social level of a country or the entire species, where life is based mostly on competition, the situation is vastly different. I have seen a UN report that calculated that humanity wastes up to 90% of its resources on competition, repetition, destruction and unnecessary complications. Most of all because they forever count, calculate and fight over, who owes how much to whom.
It seems to me that it is the classic stupidity of throwing the baby out with the bath water.
My advice: stop counting what you owe to whom and who owes how much to you – just do the best you can and it will work out in the end.
John Galt is easy to understand: he behaved as if he owed nobody anything in his society.
That is where the concept of owing came in. Do we have an obligation to our country/species beyond the commitments we voluntarily made with mutual consent? John Galt/Ayn Rand says: no, we do not.
Many of us feel that yes, we do: our survival depends on the survival of the tribe and the tribe has nurtured us all our lives, we owe the tribe our contribution as best as our abilities make it possible.
Apart from all that, it is the intelligent thing to do. If we co-operate and do our best, without fighting over who owes what to whom, we would all be better off, because instead of wasting 90% of our resources on this stupid fight, we could multiply our production of what we really need (like food, housing, health care, education) tenfold.
We could live like a functional family, instead of jungle animals ready to pounce on each other and tear each other's throats out in the competition game, every chance we get.
You tell me what would make more sense?
Ayn Rand was a typical example of human beings becoming victims of their ideology.
She was NOT an evil person.
She meant well.
She was honestly convinced that her philosophy would result in the greater happiness for the greater number of people.
Her values were tied to maximums, the pinnacles of human achievement and never noticed the little people who lay broken in the wake of 'progress' as defined by her historical era as 'heroic' achievements in art and in technology.
She was a victim of her upbringing, of her historical period and of her romantic inclinations.
What attracted me to Ayn Rand in my early twenties was the fact that she tried to build up her philosophy from fundamental principles: “no one has the right to initiate force in human relationships (self defense is allowed) to get what (s)he wants. Only mutual consent is allowed.
Being a theoretical physicist, this approach was easy for me to admire.
It took me a few more years to realize that human beings are not able to follow basic principles and apply them in practice in their daily lives. We always want it both ways, we will cheat if we have to in order to satisfy our desires.
There are only two basic principles logically possible for social organization: laissez faire Capitalism on one hand, or pure Communism (not the Soviet-style pretense) on the other.
Capitalism is based on mutual consent and contracts. Communism is based on “producing according to ability and consuming according to need”, like in any well functioning family. I have never seen any other basic principle from which a philosophy could be constructed.
Both were tried here and there, none lasted long – humans are very clever to corrupt any pure system in no time.
Socialism (or a mixed economy welfare Capitalism) is a compromise between the two, but it is undefined, therefore forever open to interpretation, waste, fights, wars, forever arguing about where to draw the line between freedom and compassion. I tried once, in a thread (Proposal for a new Social Contract), to propose a compromise that might work for a while, with no interest in it whatsoever.
So, Ayn Rand’s tragedy is that her entire philosophy was built on wishful thinking, loosely translated: “if human beings were sane, then my system would work”. Wake up, miss Rand – if human beings were sane, any system would work.
Ayn Rand saw the solution in pure Capitalism and in that she was dead wrong. Capitalism is inherently self-destructive -- the purer it is the faster it collapses, following the laws of human Psychology. She was, as I said, a starry-eyed idealist and ideologue who did not think things through and wrote very long novels based on wishful thinking.
And, of course, John Galt and friends were total fools to believe that they could go back and things would be different. If they did, for a while they could have their way because the people were desperate and needed the economy going again. However, once things were working and people became comfortable, human nature would manifest itself and things would start going down the same path as it did before.
The smallest social organization is the family and, in ideal situation, there is no competition, only co-operation. You don’t usually count how much you owe your wife or how much your children owe you. You just do what you can do best, the best way you know how, and it works out quite efficiently if all members of the family do the same. No waste, no fights, no time wasted on duplication and nothing gets neglected.
On the large social level of a country or the entire species, where life is based mostly on competition, the situation is vastly different. I have seen a UN report that calculated that humanity wastes up to 90% of its resources on competition, repetition, destruction and unnecessary complications. Most of all because they forever count, calculate and fight over, who owes how much to whom.
It seems to me that it is the classic stupidity of throwing the baby out with the bath water.
My advice: stop counting what you owe to whom and who owes how much to you – just do the best you can and it will work out in the end.
John Galt is easy to understand: he behaved as if he owed nobody anything in his society.
That is where the concept of owing came in. Do we have an obligation to our country/species beyond the commitments we voluntarily made with mutual consent? John Galt/Ayn Rand says: no, we do not.
Many of us feel that yes, we do: our survival depends on the survival of the tribe and the tribe has nurtured us all our lives, we owe the tribe our contribution as best as our abilities make it possible.
Apart from all that, it is the intelligent thing to do. If we co-operate and do our best, without fighting over who owes what to whom, we would all be better off, because instead of wasting 90% of our resources on this stupid fight, we could multiply our production of what we really need (like food, housing, health care, education) tenfold.
We could live like a functional family, instead of jungle animals ready to pounce on each other and tear each other's throats out in the competition game, every chance we get.
You tell me what would make more sense?
Ayn Rand was a typical example of human beings becoming victims of their ideology.
She was NOT an evil person.
She meant well.
She was honestly convinced that her philosophy would result in the greater happiness for the greater number of people.
Her values were tied to maximums, the pinnacles of human achievement and never noticed the little people who lay broken in the wake of 'progress' as defined by her historical era as 'heroic' achievements in art and in technology.
She was a victim of her upbringing, of her historical period and of her romantic inclinations.
What attracted me to Ayn Rand in my early twenties was the fact that she tried to build up her philosophy from fundamental principles: “no one has the right to initiate force in human relationships (self defense is allowed) to get what (s)he wants. Only mutual consent is allowed.
Being a theoretical physicist, this approach was easy for me to admire.
It took me a few more years to realize that human beings are not able to follow basic principles and apply them in practice in their daily lives. We always want it both ways, we will cheat if we have to in order to satisfy our desires.
There are only two basic principles logically possible for social organization: laissez faire Capitalism on one hand, or pure Communism (not the Soviet-style pretense) on the other.
Capitalism is based on mutual consent and contracts. Communism is based on “producing according to ability and consuming according to need”, like in any well functioning family. I have never seen any other basic principle from which a philosophy could be constructed.
Both were tried here and there, none lasted long – humans are very clever to corrupt any pure system in no time.
Socialism (or a mixed economy welfare Capitalism) is a compromise between the two, but it is undefined, therefore forever open to interpretation, waste, fights, wars, forever arguing about where to draw the line between freedom and compassion. I tried once, in a thread (Proposal for a new Social Contract), to propose a compromise that might work for a while, with no interest in it whatsoever.
So, Ayn Rand’s tragedy is that her entire philosophy was built on wishful thinking, loosely translated: “if human beings were sane, then my system would work”. Wake up, miss Rand – if human beings were sane, any system would work.
Ayn Rand saw the solution in pure Capitalism and in that she was dead wrong. Capitalism is inherently self-destructive -- the purer it is the faster it collapses, following the laws of human Psychology. She was, as I said, a starry-eyed idealist and ideologue who did not think things through and wrote very long novels based on wishful thinking.
And, of course, John Galt and friends were total fools to believe that they could go back and things would be different. If they did, for a while they could have their way because the people were desperate and needed the economy going again. However, once things were working and people became comfortable, human nature would manifest itself and things would start going down the same path as it did before.
Re: Ayn Rand's 'philosophy' -- a fairy tale
[quote="Ned"][/quote]
Get the fuck out of here, Ned. You're full of shit and wasting bandwidth.
Get the fuck out of here, Ned. You're full of shit and wasting bandwidth.
Re: Ayn Rand's 'philosophy' -- a fairy tale
Ayn Rand was born and raised in Russia in a wealthy family -- the wealth came to a sudden end with the Russian revolution.
She had her university education there and managed to immigrate to the US in her early twenties. Her cultural background is Russian literature: tragic, sad, violent, often bordering on the sadistic.
Keep that in mind when you read "Atlas Shrugged" that was written in post-war US – the heights of the shift from entrepreneurship to corporate conglomeration based not on talent, creativity and hard work, but on money and political pull. That is what she was railing against in her books.
Most people ignore the times in which the book was written: the violently anti-communist environment in the US that was reinforced by her experience in Russia (that had nothing to do with communism beyond the slogans) and the death throes of the best part of Capitalism that she admired.
She was aware of the wolves and vultures (James Taggart and friends) but, mistakenly, she imagined that if Capitalism were pure then they couldn't exist. She had her Russian experience and did not realize that some aspects of human nature are universal, regardless where she lives either in time or in space.
She started out as a pampered child in a wealthy family. She was 12 at the time of the Russian revolution that threw the family into near starvation during most of her adolescence and youth. Then she came to America and fell in love with the country that restored her life. She never let go of that first impression and fought for her vision of America till the end of her life.
It is not uncommon among immigrants: Edward Teller comes to mind (Hungarian refugee) who nurtured a blinding hatred against Communism till the end of his life, never realizing that what he had experienced in Hungary had nothing to do with the principles of Communism.
Ayn Rand fancied herself as a philosopher but she could never think beyond her blinkers -- very bad handicap for a philosopher.
A friend of mine once said that the heroes of "Atlas Shrugged" reminded him of the Monty Python movie: "The Life of Brian". There Brian is telling his 'worshipers' "You don't have to follow me, you don't have to follow anybody -- you are all individuals", and the crowd obediently chants, in total unison: "We don't have to follow you, we don't have to follow anybody -- we are all individuals!"
Ayn Rand's heroes do pretty well the same -- chanting, in perfect unison: "we are all individuals, we are all selfish, we all want gold!".
For me, the conflict is not between Communism and Capitalism and XXXism -- on one level they are all the same.
As I said before: with a sane species any system would work. With an insane one no system will.
That was the most important lesson I have ever learned regarding politics, ethics, economics, sociology, philosophy. This lesson was the intellectually most liberating for me because now I don't have to wreck my brain trying to find a solution that would work. I know that none will work longer than very brief honeymoon periods, after which it gets corrupted like any experiment and noble idea in human history.
There is slow progress if you look at it from far enough, considering millennia, but while social consciousness evolves linearly, our destructive technology grows exponentially, so there is a VERY good chance for self destruction before humanity's insanity is cured by evolution.
She had her university education there and managed to immigrate to the US in her early twenties. Her cultural background is Russian literature: tragic, sad, violent, often bordering on the sadistic.
Keep that in mind when you read "Atlas Shrugged" that was written in post-war US – the heights of the shift from entrepreneurship to corporate conglomeration based not on talent, creativity and hard work, but on money and political pull. That is what she was railing against in her books.
Most people ignore the times in which the book was written: the violently anti-communist environment in the US that was reinforced by her experience in Russia (that had nothing to do with communism beyond the slogans) and the death throes of the best part of Capitalism that she admired.
She was aware of the wolves and vultures (James Taggart and friends) but, mistakenly, she imagined that if Capitalism were pure then they couldn't exist. She had her Russian experience and did not realize that some aspects of human nature are universal, regardless where she lives either in time or in space.
She started out as a pampered child in a wealthy family. She was 12 at the time of the Russian revolution that threw the family into near starvation during most of her adolescence and youth. Then she came to America and fell in love with the country that restored her life. She never let go of that first impression and fought for her vision of America till the end of her life.
It is not uncommon among immigrants: Edward Teller comes to mind (Hungarian refugee) who nurtured a blinding hatred against Communism till the end of his life, never realizing that what he had experienced in Hungary had nothing to do with the principles of Communism.
Ayn Rand fancied herself as a philosopher but she could never think beyond her blinkers -- very bad handicap for a philosopher.
A friend of mine once said that the heroes of "Atlas Shrugged" reminded him of the Monty Python movie: "The Life of Brian". There Brian is telling his 'worshipers' "You don't have to follow me, you don't have to follow anybody -- you are all individuals", and the crowd obediently chants, in total unison: "We don't have to follow you, we don't have to follow anybody -- we are all individuals!"
Ayn Rand's heroes do pretty well the same -- chanting, in perfect unison: "we are all individuals, we are all selfish, we all want gold!".
For me, the conflict is not between Communism and Capitalism and XXXism -- on one level they are all the same.
As I said before: with a sane species any system would work. With an insane one no system will.
That was the most important lesson I have ever learned regarding politics, ethics, economics, sociology, philosophy. This lesson was the intellectually most liberating for me because now I don't have to wreck my brain trying to find a solution that would work. I know that none will work longer than very brief honeymoon periods, after which it gets corrupted like any experiment and noble idea in human history.
There is slow progress if you look at it from far enough, considering millennia, but while social consciousness evolves linearly, our destructive technology grows exponentially, so there is a VERY good chance for self destruction before humanity's insanity is cured by evolution.
Last edited by Ned on Wed May 27, 2015 2:47 am, edited 1 time in total.
Re: Ayn Rand's 'philosophy' -- a fairy tale
Go away, quit wasting our time. You have nothing worthwhile to say.
Re: Ayn Rand's 'philosophy' -- a fairy tale
Ned,
As always, I appreciate your candor and commitment and feel that you do not deserve the expletives above. I do have a serious question: Are you ALF?
As always, I appreciate your candor and commitment and feel that you do not deserve the expletives above. I do have a serious question: Are you ALF?
Re: Ayn Rand's 'philosophy' -- a fairy tale
Thank you, gary.garygary wrote:Ned,
As always, I appreciate your candor and commitment and feel that you do not deserve the expletives above.
Nobody deserves expletives. Using expletives is an admission of intellectual bankruptcy.
-
henry quirk
- Posts: 14706
- Joined: Fri May 09, 2008 8:07 pm
- Location: Right here, a little less busy.
Re: Ayn Rand's 'philosophy' -- a fairy tale
Yes, each of us is an inheritor, but what any of us do with that inheritance is on each of us, as individuals.
Yes, there are vast and deep inequities, between persons, groups of persons...one can handwring, wag a finger, indulge envy, and work to take from those one views as unjustly advantaged, or, one can get to work with what one has and make the best of it (and one's self).
My advice: work to self-rely and leave envy in the crib.
Yes, there are vast and deep inequities, between persons, groups of persons...one can handwring, wag a finger, indulge envy, and work to take from those one views as unjustly advantaged, or, one can get to work with what one has and make the best of it (and one's self).
My advice: work to self-rely and leave envy in the crib.
Re: Ayn Rand's 'philosophy' -- a fairy tale
Yes, quite true.henry quirk wrote:Yes, each of us is an inheritor, but what any of us do with that inheritance is on each of us, as individuals.
Yes, there are vast and deep inequities, between persons, groups of persons...one can handwring, wag a finger, indulge envy, and work to take from those one views as unjustly advantaged, or, one can get to work with what one has and make the best of it (and one's self).
My advice: work to self-rely and leave envy in the crib.
Re: Ayn Rand's 'philosophy' -- a fairy tale
How did you guess?garygary wrote:Ned,
As always, I appreciate your candor and commitment and feel that you do not deserve the expletives above. I do have a serious question: Are you ALF?
-
henry quirk
- Posts: 14706
- Joined: Fri May 09, 2008 8:07 pm
- Location: Right here, a little less busy.
Re: Ayn Rand's 'philosophy' -- a fairy tale
Broadly, there are three groups (who would appropriate your shit) that you need to concern yourself with. These persons have always been and always will be.
The Guilty Advantaged. These hypocrites take pride in their accomplishments (as they should) but are overcome with guilt that others (not so bright or talented as they) are somehow deprived of 'their' just due. To dull the pain they feel, they wag fingers, moralize, and -- when all else fails -- micro-manage economies.
The Angry Parasite: Stupid from the start, lacking the will to self-preserve, these wastes jingle-jangle tin cups on the cultural street corner, lookin' to someone else for survival. Ironically, these persons will work twice as hard for handouts as they would if they just went out and got (or made) work for themselves.
The Sensitive Cosmopolitan: Feeling the pain of everyone, all the time; outraged by *injustice and predation, these 'intellectuals' -- like The Guilty Advantaged -- finger wag and moralize. Unlike The Guilty Advantaged (pussies, all) the Sensitive Cosmopolitan can and will take up arms (that they say they deplore), march up to 'you' and take your shit by force (vive la revolution!).
Beware any one who sez: 'you should!'...'I can't!'... 'gimme!'
'nuff said.
*in other words: Reality
The Guilty Advantaged. These hypocrites take pride in their accomplishments (as they should) but are overcome with guilt that others (not so bright or talented as they) are somehow deprived of 'their' just due. To dull the pain they feel, they wag fingers, moralize, and -- when all else fails -- micro-manage economies.
The Angry Parasite: Stupid from the start, lacking the will to self-preserve, these wastes jingle-jangle tin cups on the cultural street corner, lookin' to someone else for survival. Ironically, these persons will work twice as hard for handouts as they would if they just went out and got (or made) work for themselves.
The Sensitive Cosmopolitan: Feeling the pain of everyone, all the time; outraged by *injustice and predation, these 'intellectuals' -- like The Guilty Advantaged -- finger wag and moralize. Unlike The Guilty Advantaged (pussies, all) the Sensitive Cosmopolitan can and will take up arms (that they say they deplore), march up to 'you' and take your shit by force (vive la revolution!).
Beware any one who sez: 'you should!'...'I can't!'... 'gimme!'
'nuff said.
*in other words: Reality
Re: Ayn Rand's 'philosophy' -- a fairy tale
Sooner or later, someone literate will reply to this thread.
Till then, the howling chorus is welcome to howl.
Till then, the howling chorus is welcome to howl.