Objectivist Rant

[plutherus]

Yeah, sometimes I go off on the Randroids. They just really annoy me for some reason. Anyway, someone mentioned them on slashdot a day ago or so, I threw in a comment, was asked to expound, so I did. Thought I'd share:

Odd. In the thread above, it was explained that the Randists object to FORCED charity, yet these people objected to your totally voluntary fund-raiser. Is the explanation given in the thread above erroneous, or were those people a little too far to the left of the IQ curve?

Well, halivar, above, posted a few quotes from Rand showing an opposition to any charity, forced or not.

And, whether these quotes were taken out of context or not, this does seem to be the attitude of most of her followers.

It was also the impression I got from reading her books: Altruism was, at best, something to look down on and sneer at, at worst a dangerous concept likely to lead to the destruction of society. Of course, "society" itself was a pretty bad idea, as it led to people being forced to cooperate, which gets in the way of inherent selfishness, so is bad.

At one point in Atlas Shrugged, she has one character renting a car to another for a quarter. Why not just let him use it as a courtesy? Why because that would be selfless, thus horribly wrong to do.

Maybe in her other writings she's got a different point of view, but I've only read her novels. But I don't think I've encountered any "Objectivists" that have ever espoused any ideas not mentioned therein.

Also, are those logic holes in Rand's books themselves, or in the interpretations of those who seem to see her views as some kind of infallible truth?

In the books themselves.

For instance, in Atlas Shrugged, we have a bunch of industrialists - the "thinkers" of the world - fed up with having to work together for a common good so they go off, secede from society, and all work together, for the common good of themselves. Note that, of course, every "thinking" person in the world did this, leaving just the non-thinkers to try to run things. (Which, of course, makes it all fall apart.) Any of them could have made billions by betraying the group, but they won't because selfishness is a virtue, and thus they all selflessly support it.

When I mention "thinkers" and put it in quotes like that, that's because that's very much what Rand, and her followers, do. The world is divided into two classes, one of which is smaller but, by right of being able to think and understand better, is naturally the leader of the other, larger, class. All of Rand's followers, of course, believe themselves to be in this "elite" class which, conveniently, requires no actual deeds as proof that you belong there.

This division is especially pounded in in The Fountainhead, which centers on a young architect who, though of course brilliant and far superior to those around him, can't sell his designs. Never mind the idea that, by any kind of "objective" (to borrow a word and use it correctly for a change) measurement, a good architect would be one whose designs sell well. A thing is worth only what others will pay for it, right? No, in this case, everyone knows he's the better architect, but the senior architects are holding him back because they know if they let him go out unfettered he'll make them all look like the old has-beens they are. This is a very appealing philosophy for adolescent males, of course, and anybody else who wants to believe they are hidden geniuses but don't have any actual accomplishments to back it up.

This works in the worlds of Rand's novels, where everybody fits neatly into one of these two classes, and knows exactly which group they're in, and which group everyone else is in as well. The non-industrialists in Atlas Shrugged know that they're not fit to lead. They acknowledge that they just want to be in charge but, as they are the wrong class of people to be making decisions, want the industrialists to come back and think for them.

Comments

[reynard52.livejournal.com]

Ayn Rand followers...folks who make neocons look merely cuddly-yet-misguided. You're just jealous you know, because as long as one states they're one of the elite, then they are, but you've never stated elitism on your presonality resume so you're merely a low class drone! Of course, my answer to Randroids is always "give to GWoB" allowing them the same attention span for their rants as they allow for reason or kindness...that and helping them along into forced charity ~_^

Tell me if I'm off base here: so there's the people who drive huuuuge raised trucks which you and I believe to be desperate penile substututions, so maybe Ayn Rand is: The Monster Truck Ideology of the Pseudointellectual

...I'm just sayin'

[docscarabus.livejournal.com]

"The Monster Truck Ideology of the Pseudointellectual"


That turn of phrase is a thing of terrifying beauty!!!

[reynard52.livejournal.com]

THAT may be one of the nicest things I've ever been told....*MWAH!* THANK you! *kisses the Good Dr.'s cheek*

[rhonan.livejournal.com]

Everyone knows Randroids love SUVs.

[reynard52.livejournal.com]

Yooou ain't a'kiddin'! It's all the oil they're so keen on dredging up and refining for themselves, cuz you know, they're the Elite, they don't need nobody can they can doitall...shazam! ^_^

[amritarosa.livejournal.com]

brilliant!
You've just cheered up my sorry-assed evening.

[reynard52.livejournal.com]

Tsk...babies :( Nooooooo....there is no way I should be the cheering up of your evening. Want me to go pull a diva and yell at the director for you? Betcha' I can glean at least an extra 20 seconds of QC for ya! :D

[amritarosa.livejournal.com]

I bet you could :)

No, the problem is not the director. Cliff Baker's one of my favorite fellas. And the cast seems cool so far.

No, the problem is shortage of manpower and a double workload (not my fault). And me being sick (not my fault). And not quite finished with a wig I should have been done with this weekend (erm, well not _entirely_ my fault). Tech will be hard, but we'll just have to move slow and figure it all out one step at a time. Nothing new about that :)

It's just the perfectionist in me hates to have to rehearse a quick change at all. I try for getting it right first try, which just ain't happenin' on this one. Not even for, like, four more days.

Makes me feel good that you're cheering for me/us though :)

So I need to chill out a bit and not be so damned wound up about it.

Thanks, babes
love ya
*mwah*

Randy NeoCons

[dar205.livejournal.com]

There is a fair amount of overlap, typified by Greenfield, between the NeoCons and Randroids.

[thevirtualjim.livejournal.com]

I think alot of Rands ideas come from the fact that she was a kid in communist USSR and hated it so saw pure captialism and pure independent-ness as an ideal to aspire to.

[reynard52.livejournal.com]

Agreed. I also think Rand is one thing, but it's the whole "Lord save us from your followers" thing that bugs us. I actually think she's a pretty important writer. The ideas she espouses are useful to at least consider and refer to, even if distasteful, to look at.

[thevirtualjim.livejournal.com]

we read the fountainhead in 11th grade, and omg us students were talking about that book for the rest of the year! I got into her books alot. some of the stuff is really appealing, but yea it goes too far in many aspects. it was what got me interested in philosophy however.

as an aside...being a GWOB person...if you have been following my LJ, i am having problems accessing my files on a PATA drive of mine(maxtor 120 gig). all maxtor utility scans show it is physically fine, it just is inaccessable by windows(i cant even do a dskscn or defrag on it). there still are a few things i will be trying, but do you have any ideas?

[reynard52.livejournal.com]

Suggetions and Questions.
1. Was this a boot drive?
2. If so, have you tried to run FIXMBR from the Recovery Console yet?
3. Have you tried booting to a Linux livecd like Knoppix to see if Linux can see the files?

[thevirtualjim.livejournal.com]

not a boot disk (i used it as a drive to store data like pictures, music, anime, movies, etc)
I tried knoppix and anytime konppix tried to do anything with the drive it gets an I/O error..like when it tries to mount it, or load it, or whatever.

[plutherus.livejournal.com]

Oh, sorry, I was going to respond earlier...

The drive? So, it's recognizable by the utilities? So I take it the BIOS also recognizes it correctly?

Is it first in boot order? Is it even a bootable drive?
Have you tried going to the command line in Windows and seeing if you can get to it that way?

Is there another drive in the system that you're booting from to run these utilities?

Yeah, as reynard52 suggests, try booting from a knoppix CD and see if you can recognize the drive. If so, you should at the very least be able to copy the data you want off of it, before fdisk-ing and reformatting.

I take it this drive used to work on this system? Or did you move it from a different system? If that's the case, you probably need to adjust a jumper setting. Same if you've moved the IDE cables around (as in, if it used to be on one, but now it's on a different one, or if you've installed any other new devices.)

Any other changes to hardware or software made before it stopped working?

Let me know if any of that works, and I'll try to think of what else may be. It's strange that it's recognized, but can't be read. But not unheard of.

[thevirtualjim.livejournal.com]

not a bootable drive, it was for storage purposes. Same system, just started having all kinds of drive problems a bit back. I 1st thought it was the boot drive, so i ordered a new drive, but b4 the new drive got here the boot drive started working again randomly, but ONLY when my 2nd drive was not plugged in.

once my new drive came(SATA), i installed that, took out my old boot drive, put in the 2nd drive(both old drives are PATA), and the comp works perfectly fine, BIOS sees the 2nd drive, but windows can't access it at all (but it shows up as a local drive in the 'my computer' window), even to defrag or ckdsk. Maxtor utility progs show the drive as fine. Knoppix also cannot access it. Knoppix shows I/O error when trying to do anything with it.

when i try to access it via a line command prompt, i get the same thing as when i try to get to it via windows: "the file or directory is corrupted and unreadable"