Ayn Rand/Objectivism/Atlas Shrugged

[ajntornj]

Ok - I bookmooched 'Atlas Shrugged' by Ayn Rand about a year ago (note - before it suddenly became trendy to read it due to the collapsing economy) and have recently started reading it. Amusing parallels with regards to socio/politico/economic collapse aside I have noticed an interesting side effect when I mention my reading choice to people

Comments

[miss_soap]

I've only read The Fountainhead, which I liked.

[gedhrel]

Ideological; I don't like it because it's wrong. As well as being too long, and a vehicle for her to rant

[ajntornj]

And that final sentence is the bit that I don't get....

I'm only about a third of the way through the book and so have not formed any real opinion either way but assuming that her theory is as flawed as you describe, and that the book is an overlong rant espousing this, why do you have *quite* so much vitriol reserved for her?

I could understand a disinterested shrug, or a 'meh, it's poorly written and badly thought out tripe' but I can't (yet) understand what it is about her and her theories that make you loathe her so much.

Is it because many (capitalist) people seem to have bought into her ideas over the past 50 years and as a result she may be, to a lesser or greater extent, responsible for the general rape of the planet? Or is it something else?

[gedhrel]

Heh. More-or-less quoting Noam Chomsky :-)

I don't mind the author producing overlong diatripe enshrining their pet philosophies; usually I just avoid it, although I'm similarly glib about Heinlein. I do think it's a crying shame that idiots have kind of adopted Objectivism as (a distorted version of) the American Dream; it's a playground philosophy and people should know better.

That being said, I _am_ a long-haired hippy who thinks that "enough is plenty" and my moral stance on taking a free energy machine and holing up in a kibbutz for the elite with it is easy to guess :-)

[ajntornj]

Ah. That's OK then. I was having rather a lot of trouble reconciling your (apparent) vehemence on this with everything else about you, which is why I was somewhat perplexed...

[boblink]

Who? What? Does it involve sheep or rugby?