GRITtv: Corey Robin on Ayn Rand: Selling Herself

[AdamDLDixon]

Gotta love the rightist butthurt here

[nunyamyob1]

True, Wittgenstein never (to my knowledge) claimed to have been the “greatest thinker of all time” (who has?), he merely claimed to have “solved all philosophical problems”. I gather this overly jiggly windbag, Corey Robin, hasn’t gotten round to reading the 1918 preface to the Tractatus. Did Rand make a comparable claim? When she acknowledged she didn’t have a philosophy of science? Note she didn’t deal with Induction, and acknowledged that gap as well.

[whoo689]

Even a little profit is better than nothing.

[whoo689]

You're gonna put all those people out of work and just say "sayonara" to business?

WHO has ever "Gone Galt" of any significance in our economy?? NO ONE! IT DOESN'T HAPPEN, nor will ever happen, at least not in the U.S.

[whoo689]

Federal help is what gave life to it. What ENABLED the market to grow so it could be privatized with several corporations running various railroads! Just like electricity and lots of other natural monopolies

Why she chose railroads, of all things, is beyond me. And "going Galt" is just insane. You're gonna fuck over your entire community that DEPENDS on you to hire all those workers (let alone the service your co. provides) just b/c you feel "too regulated"? Asshole

[whoo689]

Her book "Atlas Shrugged" has gotta have the DUMBEST premise (not to mention an IRRITATINGLY LONG 74-page speech; wtf) ever- a bunch of railroad company-owning corporate giants supposedly get targeted by the bureaucracy for "being too selfish" or some shit, and the regulators decide to 'ration' how much they can own or whatever.

Right... Even though the railroads STARTED with federal help and money. It wasn't the private sector "initiative" that got things off the ground.

[whoo689]

Ayn Rand was a moron... Fuck her and her idiotic, selfishness-justifying, laissez-faire bullshit.

[Hoobifta]

Meh! I like Ayn Rand, she's compatible for all and they need to listen.

[wblakesx]

sociopathy is Good. stalin was a genius

[MalistadMusic]

Lol. This guy is a tool. Hey guess what Corey I like Ayn Rand. And I dislike you. I think you suck. Ayn Rand didn't tell me to think that so I bet you didn't see that one coming. LAWL.

[eqsmooth]

Horse shit. This guy is a nimrod. I doubt he has read anything by or about Ayn Rand.

[islamiscrap8888]

Wow, so Corey Robin is saying that Ayn Rand wasn't interested in talking about her ideas only how great of a thinker she. Well Corey, what the hell do you think you're doing?

[MagisterPridgen]

It's no wonder an institution that begs for money to fund itself is against Ayn Rand. I've read many of her books and I don't recall her ever claiming to be the greatest thinker, or greatest anything else. Of course she was proud of what she accomplished, and justly so, but I've never read anything where she brags about her accomplishments. Braggarts are insecure about themselves and Ms. Rand was anything but. Sour grapes.

[MrDanielBowman74]

She is wrong, bc she is arrogant. Nice. Following this logic, Jesus was so wrong he was probably made of wrong-matter. Or he would say 'Love thy neighbor as you love yourself....but maybe not I don't want to come across as arrogant...you should check out human sacrifice too.'

[poopster102]

"Well the reason I don't like Ayn Rand is because she thought she was good at what she did."

Ok... was she? Pretty much every famous person has thought that they were good at what they did. These democrats just find reasons to dislike her instead of just saying the real reason, they dislike her because they are democrats.

[Crystalgirlist]

Kantian whores!

[greg0879]

So true. Blind Ayn Rand followers accept every single thing she professed without dismissing the parts of her ideology that was outside her realm of expertise. Sure, she has a philosophy toward finding happiness in life that works for many people, but should we really be listening to her economic theories? She had no hands-on experience with or educational focus in that area. Put it this way, anyone want to buy a 100% unregulated OTC derivative?

[MagisterPridgen]

@greg0879 They weren't actually her theories. They came from the Austrian school of economics, from people like Ludwig von Mises. So if you disagree take it up with them, not with Ms. Rand. Besides she's dead and can no longer speak for herself. So long as you are thinking for yourself and taking responsibility for your mistakes then it's all good, so try chilling out a little.

[MiaoPurrington]

Corey Robin's idea of kitsch is the actual definiton of pretention. Kitsch is just "bad" art, campy art. Anyway,accusing Ayn Rand's philosophy of being kitsch is as ignorant as it is offensive.

[Darkdehoe88]

lmao this is garbage

[biggj41]

They give no real reasons they just talk and expect you to accept it, kinda like their definition of kitsch. Its funny how most people are self loathers

[Ph3L1z14n0]

@biggj41 Well, to be fair, Rand does the same thing, she puts forth the disaster created by the Starnes on the Twentieth Century Motors as proof that collectivism and altruism are simply wrong.

But accepting her explanation would simply be taking her word for it.

[stapleonions]

i wanted to bash this but it turns out 5 people already beat me to it.

[pperezklein]

GRITtv: independently produced bullshit.

Even if Ayn Rand had said that she was the best philospher of the 20th Century, does that mean that she is not? Why is it the sign of a great philosopher not acknowledge his/her capacity?

Humility and arrogance are not opposites, they are two sides of the same coin: inablity to value themeselves properly.

[shovelcharge]

Just a tip kids, if you want to discuss or praise or blame a person, you might want to try discussing what a person's ideas are, then proving why they are bad or good. Think: explaining why Wittgenstein's irrational gibberish is valuable, why the essential ideas of Ayn Rand's philosophy is wrong.

[shovelcharge]

This absolute garbage. Ayn Rand would be the first person to tell you that the greatest philosopher is Aristotle, and that she is NOT better than him. Ya, let's hear more of some random guy giving his ignorant opinions about Rand and her ideas. In fact, Rand didn't really try to sell herself. She didn't want to save the world primarily and she didn't want to be an intellectual leader or a teacher. She just wanted to write about ideal people in her novels.

[greysoks]

Of course, Rand never claimed to be the greatest thinker since Aristotle. Robin conveniently fails to cite a source for this claim. According to some of her friends and followers, she would get angry at those who would raise her to such a high level.

[WarVideo]

Certainly much better than these "thinkers", but I don't ever remember ever coming across any of her writings where she said that she was the greatest thinker since Aristotle. But if she did say that I would agree with her.