Thursday, October 11, 2007

completely random blurb about ayn rand.



i've always wanted to make this comment, but i keep forgetting.

if a marauding bunch of communists decide to seize your father's property, thereby destroying your comfortable idyllic life at 12, an age when you're just beginning to develop your values and belief system, and you're already a precocious child... it wouldn't be a stretch of the imagination that you would grow up obsessing and writing manifestos about property ownership, keeping the fruits of your labor, individualism, anti-collectivism, and taking what you deserve (or at least what you believe you deserve), but in an almost extremist way. some people label her a selfish bitch; i think she was just reactionary.

in light of her childhood trauma, the development of her philosophy makes perfect sense. a reaction always has an equal and opposite reaction.

what i don't understand, however, is why people who haven't experienced such traumas get so rabidly fan-boy-esque about her works. like, chill. like, who oppressed you?!

4 comments:

Joe said...

"It's my PROPERTY, goddamn it! Libertarianism rules. Mine. Mine. Mine. Mine. Mine. My free will. My property. My money. My greed. Or My philanthropy. It's all about ME."

Narcissism. What's to not understand?

Pardon me, but I find most "Objectivists" to be douches (at least philosophically speaking).

FM said...

and how did these douches become the way they are? can't they just recognize that ayn rand ACTUALLY had the government take everything from her and hence she was a little, um, damaged... suffering from PTSD? none of these bozos will ever have marauding communists strip them of all of their property, so i really just don't get them.

Joe said...

Believe me, I wish I knew why they became the way they are.... because then maybe there'd be hope we could just come up with the technology to switch off that douche gene in utero.

Dominic said...

I agree that most Objectivists are douches....and bear in mind that this is coming from someone who would have no problem being labelled an Objectivist. I think it's because they treat Objectivism as a religion instead of a philosophy, and people get pretty touchy about their dogmas.
However, I find it interesting that most critiques of Objectivism, yours included, focuses on Ayn Rand's personal life instead of criticizing her ideas. That would be like saying that Plato's concept of absolutes was flawed because he only bathed on Thursdays. How about a reasoned critique of Objectivism rather than a personal attack?