Ayn Rand and the "New Intellectual" (1/3)

[AnubisEye009]

I recommend all of you study and read Aristotle. That's where she lays much of her credit, and will lead to greater understanding.

[TruthWithinRange]

I found the questions asked really allowed Ayn Rand to paint a good pictures of her veiws.

[91Tribual]

fantastisk kvinna

[monjiaitaly]

and that kind of man she is talking about today is Ron Paul 2012.

[erikal85]

"Racism is the lowest, most crudely primitive form of collectivism" - Ayn Rand

I love the videos, but i can't see how a supporter of "Sverige demokraterna" could like or agree with AR. The problem isn't immigration, it's taxes and welfare...

[shamayaify]

I can't believe how poorly Ayn Rand did on describing Immanuel Kant's philosophy, anyone who has read Kant would know he is a rationalist who held reason to be key.

[Fray2221]

@shamayaify I have a lot a respect for Rand, she was a brilliant individual with a profound understanding of politics. But yes, her comments on Kant and a few other modern philosophers are simply embarrassing. Rand simply didn't understand that being a philosopher is a full time profession. You can't be a full time political commentator, novelist, and cult leader and still find some spare time to refute the greatest philosophers of age.

[shamayaify]

@Fray2221 I agree, Ayn Rand was a good novelist, but took a major leap into philosophy without properly forming logical argumentation that provided solid truth functions in each premise and which coherently followed one another. If she didn't misrepresent Hume and Kant so bad, then I probably wouldn't mind her philosophy so much. I consider Kant to be a rationalist because he fused the traditional rationalist with scientific empiricism against Hume who was a skeptic empiricist.

[Fray2221]

@shamayaify I tell everyone I meet who I think is a little bit too into Ayn Rand to read 'Materialism and Empirio-Criticism' by Vladimir Lenin. The first time I read that book I was simply shocked by how much of her philosophy, at least in terms of metaphysics, that Rand had borrowed wholesale from Marxist dialectical materialism, up to and including Lenin's attacks on subjectivism and Kant's metaphysics.

[shamayaify]

@Fray2221 That's a good point, most of her outlook was based solely in romanticism for materialism and the men who can attain or create new materials. My experience with hardcore Rand fans is they have little knowledge of anybody other than her in the field of philosophy. Once people actually read somebody else like Kant or Spinoza, they will put Rand in her place as more of a public intellectual who liked to rant. She reminds me a lot of Nietzsche because of her ranting style.

[Fray2221]

@shamayaify I wouldn't describe Kant as a rationalist however. Kant had attempted to discover the limits of pure reason in uncovering objective truths.

Kant was in fact a major voice of the scientific enlightenment. His philosophy was a defense of scientific empiricism against those philosophers and theologians who had turned away from the world in favor of pure contemplation.

Much of Kantian ethics and metaphysics is really quite consistent with objectivism.

[geganobo]

Can someone tell what the difference is between what Ayn Rand is saying and the ubermensch of Nietzsche?

[mkloppel]

Short answer: No. She admired some of Nietzsche ideas but concluded his philosophy was totally irrational. A better place to get your answer would be one of two online (and official places)

aynrandlexicon (dot com) or objectivistanswers (dot com)

But I doubt you are serious so I do not expect you to actually be honest with yourself and seek answers which will actually lead to truth.

[ThePositiveAussie]

Atlas Shrugged the world was destroyed then Zeus destroyed Atlas.

[PrettoProductions]

I think her eyes are fascinating and beautiful. 

[ZFstonka]

reliefing



[KeithMcElwain]

John Gualt? You don't know him - like I know him.

[dmjarrington]

If your first reaction to this is, "this doesn't make sense", then you should probably just be quiet, lest you throw in with the mongrels and the low brows.

[0prahW]

@dmjarrington If people don't agree with you, they should be quiet? How odd.

[LordCalvinHastings]

The great part about Rand's philosophy is that there are no "converts". So it can't be called a cult. Those who have been "brainwashed" by her actually realized that they innately held the same views as her. (Personal experience).

[smurfieboo]

Her eyes scare me

[attemptingtobehumble]

@smurfieboo They should, she was a sociopath.

[coolkal81]

I love Ayn Rand's Philosophy, it is so true that, ordinary-boring-uninteresting people can never stomach it! Thanks for sharing the video and thoughts. Cheers, peace.

[Nades129]

Haha, Ayn Rand is a cock whore who just wants to get famous and get fucked. She's the Paris Hilton of the past.

[GalneGunnarTV]

@EdwardsComment

You are incorrect!

An individuals personal happiness is never contingent on the happiness of another human being.

Ayn rand is right, and you are wrong.

[EdwardsComment]

@GalneGunnarTV I require potent evidence for that statement. Actually, I'll just go with "some" evidence. Stab away.

[dialogpolisen]

@GalneGunnarTV I don't agree with EdwardsComment about needing strangers to be happy in order to be happy myself, but you can't possibly mean that you are capable of being happy if your closest family and friends are suffering?

[EdwardsComment]

@GalneGunnarTV The argument stands, I will consider your response whenever you're ready. When you can tell me why I'm wrong, I'll be obliged to respond myself.

Only for the sociopathic and the psychopathic is the happiness of others is trivial to their own. When terrorist organizations reach across the globe to murder the children of their most distant neighbors, you should realize that there is no Wall between the world of happiness and the world of misery.

[LordCalvinHastings]

@EdwardsComment She never said the happiness of others is trivial. You misunderstand the idea of altruism. When you love someone, or when someone is important to you, it is in your self-interest (read: selfishness) to make them happy, because you value that person. What Ayn Rand condemns is the idea that making total strangers (i.e., people who are not important to you) happy is a MORAL VIRTUE. You are totally free to donate to charity, but it doesn't make you morally superior to someone who

[LordCalvinHastings]

@LordCalvinHastings *to someone who doesn't. Selfishness as used by Rand doesn't refer to abject egotism. It means that you shouldn't relegate those who are important to you (yourself, your family, friends, etc.) to positions secondary to those who are not important to you. If you deprive your family of food just so your neighbor's family can have more on their table, THAT's altruism, and that is what Rand says is evil.

[EdwardsComment]

@LordCalvinHastings You define altruism as the act of mistreating those close to a person in the interest of total strangers. Please forgive me for saying, but I can't find support for this definition at all. Altruism is described as the innate desire to give assistance to strangers of the same species, but you're definition implies that this could only be done at Cost to an individual's personal happiness. That is an extraneous injunction, so I have to disagree.

[EdwardsComment]

@EdwardsComment I am also unable to find good reason why altruism should imply any set of moral precepts. If it happens to feel good to commit altruism, there need not be any higher motivation. If I feel rewarded by seeing the hungry fed; even if it is only the satisfaction of empathetic neurons firing in my brain, no moral framework has to be considered.

And what of complete strangers whose unhappiness brings suicide bombing and plane crashes? Can I truly secure my happiness without theirs?

[LordCalvinHastings]

@EdwardsComment Maybe altruism doesn't itself mean that, but the idea of sacrifice certainly does - which is in many cases central to the idea of altruism. You see, when you feel rewarded by seeing the hungry feed, then it's perfectly all right to do so. Rand doesn't say charity is immoral. If you rationally know that that's what you want to do, then by all means do it. And you would have to be a total misanthrope if others' suffering did not affect you.

[LordCalvinHastings]

@LordCalvinHastings But it's a personal choice - not, as religions and humanists and other groups tend to say, a moral virtue or an obligation. So if you donate just for the donating and for the good feeling it gives you, it's fine. But when you donate because you want to feel superior to your miserly brother-in-law, that's immoral. And when it comes to sacrifice, Rand singularly condemns that. BUT she's particular about what kinds of giving away can be termed sacrifices.

[LordCalvinHastings]

@LordCalvinHastings A sacrifice is defined as giving something of value in exchange for something of lesser value. If you had a choice between donating money to a charity and saving up for your kid's college education, Rand says it would be immoral to do the former.

[LordCalvinHastings]

@LordCalvinHastings Also, Rand's take on suicide bombers is pretty clear. It may be in their self-interest to blow others up, BUT it impinges on the freedom of others AND it involves the use of unprovoked violence. She has been pretty clear in her take on both.

[LordCalvinHastings]

@LordCalvinHastings Oh sorry, I didn't read what you'd written. Well, I think it would take a really weak and obsequious person to propitiate psychos. And in any case, you do know that suicide bombing is a product of religion, which is an irrational, faith-based school of thought. You can't expect them to think rationally or expect them not to blow places up.

So here's my lame solution to this: Trust in the police and the armed forces. Well, it's better than placating them.

[EdwardsComment]

@LordCalvinHastings

It was clarifying to point out the sacrificial nature of altruism at its extreme.

However, there was something else I was getting at by mentioning terrorists. If someone on the other side of the planet feels wronged by your people, how is it possible to ignore his happiness and still address your own? Your career, loved ones, your life; everything that brings you happiness can be taken instantly by this man and an explosive. How is his happiness unrelated to your own?

[Vocalallusive]

@GalneGunnarTV, more importantly: why is he incorrect and Rand correct.

The reason is very simple but left oriented dumb fcuks deny to understand it:

The cake is not of static size. It increases on a daily basis. The evidence is all around us.

[Rushlight]

@GalneGunnarTV

Have you tried to actualize that?

[0prahW]

@GalneGunnarTV Any arguments as to why it's true what you are saying? Can you be happy when your spouse is mortally ill? Will you not 'sacrifice' your time being with him/her at the hospital, but instead go eating ice cream and being 'happy' alone instead??

[Retsaot34]

@0prahW Rand wouldn't call it immoral to spend your time with a dying spouse. She would say that if visiting your spouse made you happy, or satisfied in some way, then you should do it.

[jimmyurine60]

@EdwardsComment and you are making the other happy for your own self interest

[unfad1ng]

@EdwardsComment

If you need another persons happiness in order to feel happy than making him happy is in your self intrest..

Im sorry but you dont seem to understand her philosophy at all....

She wants us to live after our won will and our own reason, we are free to help other if we wish, if thaths our value and our highest goal then why not?

[iamthetank44]

@EdwardsComment So you're incapable of being happy unless everyone else is happy? You will never ever ever be happy then *shrug* Have fun.

[EdwardsComment]

@iamthetank44 I'm happy as I am :P

But you Can't totally ensure happiness, that's wish-thinking. Happiness is a mental state, so its not exclusively contingent on behavior.

Maybe believers in this philosophy wish happiness could be absolutely guaranteed by their actions alone, that it could be safe from outside interference. I am uncertain. There are scientific reasons to believe that our dopamine production is not bound by our will and actions. Perhaps you think these reasons are nonsense.

[iamthetank44]

@EdwardsComment That doesn't have anything to do with it being the right course of action to pursue your own happiness rather than the happiness of others. One way does not ENSURE anything, but it has a higher percentage of being the outcome you want.

[EdwardsComment]

@iamthetank44 If the only thing suggested by her philosophy was to avoid a life of slavery and self-sacrifice, I absolutely agree. I remain absolutely unconvinced, and for previously elaborated reasons, that "An individuals personal happiness is >NEVER< contingent on the happiness of another human being." I think it is False. You don't have to try and convince me if it is a waste of your time, it is only my observation that no one has yet justified this statement to me. I want to understand.

[0prahW]

@EdwardsComment Very true. We Ineed the happiness of all to truly ensure our own. And yes: An ideology that doesn't identify the individual as involved in a network of interaction is lazy.

[Schneboll]

Tommen opp