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The Hurtful Passion of Ayn Rand

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AviGDorin

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Aug 29, 2000, 3:00:00 AM8/29/00
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The Hurtful Passion of Ayn Rand


This is all political commentary.

______________"Ayn Rand lost the war of ideas."______________

A pretty easy statement, and looking at the shape of the objectivist movement
today, pretty accurate. I make that statement assuming Ayn Rand's ideas really
were in contention to be grasped world-wide. I believe they were/are, but Ayn
killed it, from the start.

What a hurtful woman Ayn Rand was. She slammed into people, committed
adultery, hurt and abandoned close followers. Leonard Peikoff followed the
lead on the last point.

I don't claim not to be hypocritical either. But at least I'm not the leader
of a movement.

I used to think Ayn Rand rants and denunciations had an excuse because
philosophy is a matter of life and death. But she ostracized people for stupid
reasons.


______________"A lost campaign"________________

When I was involved with the objectivist movement, there was a push to
infiltrate the universities. That is why professors were bravely teaching
objectivism and objectivist campus clubs were active. Maybe it's still
happening today.
How far do we have to go? The objectivist movement has been consistently
destroying itself from the start.

Just rent _The Passion of Ayn Rand_ and you'll lose half your followers. Just
try to deal with the Orthodoxy of the Ayn Rand Institute and you'll lose half
your followers. Just try to deal with fanatical libertarians who are wrong
about several key issues (they OPPOSE forced gov't Social Security, forced
gov't vouchered medical care for those who need it, and powerful and liberal
State governments relying on a voluntary 22% income tax)

Principles are usually faulty engines that end up in hypocrisy.

_____________"A pragmatic media war is all that's left"______________________

If objectivism is a world-conquering movement, then why not campaign to the lay
man directly though the media? Why not setup situations designed to teach the
world lessons? Pragmatists at universities like Harvard use case studies, just
as the media has staged events.

When the truth is revealed, we will be driven by a desire that reality can be
partly designed (by leading actors, prop crew, directors, producers, and
writers of our time). It will continue to be "theatre in the streets
foreverโฆ" (see my previous post).

We are a pragmatic nation, not a principled one.


Avi

dedicated to Ayn Rand

sal_pa...@my-deja.com

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Aug 29, 2000, 3:00:00 AM8/29/00
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In article <20000829134250...@ng-fs1.aol.com>,

AviGDorin <avig...@aol.com> wrote:
> The Hurtful Passion of Ayn Rand
>
Just try to deal with fanatical libertarians who are
wrong
> about several key issues (they OPPOSE forced gov't Social Security,
forced
> gov't vouchered medical care for those who need it, and powerful and
liberal
> State governments relying on a voluntary 22% income tax)
>

Objectivists are for SS and socialized medicine? Since when?

Sent via Deja.com http://www.deja.com/
Before you buy.

AynRand12

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Aug 29, 2000, 3:00:00 AM8/29/00
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Well, I was going to begin by deleting the gibberish. But, alas, all that
remained was Avi's signature. So, instead, I'll simply say this.

1) The Passion of Ayn Rand is dangerous to the Objectivist movement...luckily,
it is so unwatchable that that doesn't matter much.

2) The Ayn Rand Institute does as much good as bad. Then again, it does as
much bad as good.

3) Libertarianism, as such, is not a danger to Objectivism...only certain
libertarians (namely, the concrete bound mentalities, and anarchists, among
them).

4) Who cares? My goal is not to further Objectivism...but to live and enjoy my
life.

Love,
Don

Selfish4

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Aug 30, 2000, 3:00:00 AM8/30/00
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>From: AviGDorin

>This is all political commentary.
>

Political means of, or having to do with, having practical wisdom; prudent;
shrewd; diplomatic; crafty; unscrupulous; prudently or artfully contrived; as a
plan, action, or remark.

So, why should we read this commentary? In a forum that is supposed to be
based on the most fundamental grounds; and deals with concepts that can, and
should be, traced back to concrete referents? Did you have some reason for
posting this commentary? Or are we supposed to guess?

My guess is that Avi hates Ayn Rand, and wants to obliterate the fact that she
lived and wrote; because Avi is a second hander who is incapable of allowing
new ideas to seep into a wooden consciousness.

jp
You belong to you; I belong to me.

ragnar_da...@my-deja.com

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Aug 30, 2000, 3:00:00 AM8/30/00
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In article <20000829134250...@ng-fs1.aol.com>,
AviGDorin <avig...@aol.com> wrote:
> <Snip>
>

destroying itself from the start.
>
> Just rent _The Passion of Ayn Rand_ and you'll lose half your
followers.

Hmmm, that sounds like a good guide. After all, Barbara Branden didn't
have an axe to grind, did she?


Just


> try to deal with the Orthodoxy of the Ayn Rand Institute and you'll
lose half

> your followers. Just try to deal with fanatical libertarians who are


wrong
> about several key issues (they OPPOSE forced gov't Social Security,
forced
> gov't vouchered medical care for those who need it, and powerful and
liberal
> State governments relying on a voluntary 22% income tax)

Translation: Laissez-faire capitalists (Be they students of Rand or Von
Mises or both) are undermining themselves by advocating laissez-faire
capitalism and not Bismarck's welfare state.

>
> Principles are usually faulty engines that end up in hypocrisy.
>

What a load of wash.


> We are a pragmatic nation, not a principled one.
>
> Avi
>

Individual rights are expedient then? That's okay.

> dedicated to Ayn Rand
>

Dedicated to smearing Ayn Rand more like.

Owl

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Aug 30, 2000, 3:00:00 AM8/30/00
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AviGDorin <avig...@aol.com> wrote in message
news:20000829134250...@ng-fs1.aol.com...

> The Hurtful Passion of Ayn Rand

Hey, you've taken to writing non-fiction now?

What you say is basically right. Ayn Rand squandered a great opportunity
to change the world by basically being a jerk, to both friends and foes
alike. This caused the movement to turn into ... ARI, and it caused many
non-Objectivists to view Objectivism as an irrational, dogmatic
philosophy.

dbco...@webinbox.com

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Aug 30, 2000, 9:09:21 PM8/30/00
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No, you got it all wrong. Rand was a fraud from the start. It's not just
that she was a jerk, or hooked on speed, or consumed by her absolute intell
ectual and sexual power over her brown-nosing "collective"; her core ideas
(which imply a grim struggle for collective ideological purity) are fundame
ntally at odds with Objectivism's window-dressing of reason and egoism.

It is a pure accident that her movement managed to piggyback on a growing l
ibertarian resistance and coopt it to some extent, but Objectivism is fated
to sink back into obscurity as Objectivist lunatics keep ranting and ravin
g about the need to nuke third-world cities and other acts of mass murder.
Real egoists have long since stopped taking them seriously, and even the
stray libertarian who pops in here won't take long to see what nut cases Ob
jectivists really are. You can't hide reality from honest minds.

Like the growing insanity of the general from <i>Dr. Strangelove</i>, it wo
n't be long now before we see Dr. Speicher and others from the Objectivist
cult of death mumbling about "purity of essence" and "precious bodily fluid
s." That's the sort of legacy Ayn Rand has left us.

-Coop


__________________________________________
Sent using WebInbox. "Your email gateway."
Check us out at http://www.webinbox.com

AviGDorin

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Aug 30, 2000, 10:11:26 PM8/30/00
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Coop wrote:

Real egoists have long since stopped taking them seriously, and even the
stray libertarian who pops in here won't take long to see what nut cases Ob
jectivists really are.

I reply:

What do you suggest real egoists do? What if one only partially agree with
libertarianism? What about humanism: what if one mainly agrees with
liberalism?
What if capitalism, romanticism, egoism, and reason are still tempting?


Avi

dbco...@webinbox.com

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Aug 31, 2000, 2:22:01 PM8/31/00
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After brushing the fallout off his keyboard, AviGDorin
<avig...@aol.com> wrote:

>Coop wrote:
>
>Real egoists have long since stopped taking them seriously, and even
>the stray libertarian who pops in here won't take long to see what

>nut cases Objectivists really are.


>
>I reply:
>
>What do you suggest real egoists do? What if one only partially
>agree with libertarianism? What about humanism: what if one mainly
>agrees with liberalism?
>What if capitalism, romanticism, egoism, and reason are still
>tempting?

I'm not here to debate the merits of libertarianism, capitalism, etc.
I'm here to warn libertarians, capitalists, etc. against Objectivism.

When you see so-called supporters of liberty and capitalism, people
who allegedly value themselves above all collectives, openly promoting
nuclear war and the destruction of millions of innocent people (on
nationalistic grounds no less), you must conclude that you are dealing
with massive hypocrisy and a profound evasion of reality.

If you call yourself a humanist liberal, and have reservations about
libertarianism, and think that the "temptations" of capitalism, etc.
are a problem, then your questions are legitimate ones. All I ask,
though, is that you don't confuse libertarianism, capitalism, or
egoism with the mad ravings of those malicious, deadly creatures who
worship Ayn Rand.

R Lawrence

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Sep 1, 2000, 9:14:48 AM9/1/00
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dbco...@webinbox.com wrote:

>If you call yourself a humanist liberal, and have reservations about
>libertarianism, and think that the "temptations" of capitalism, etc.
>are a problem, then your questions are legitimate ones. All I ask,
>though, is that you don't confuse libertarianism, capitalism, or
>egoism with the mad ravings of those malicious, deadly creatures who
>worship Ayn Rand.

Nor should "mad ravings" by "malicious, deadly creatures who worship Ayn
Rand" be confused with Rand's philosophy of Objectivism.

--
Richard Lawrence <RL0...@yahoo.com>
Visit the Objectivism Reference Center: http://www.objectivism.addr.com/

Carmichael

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Sep 5, 2000, 9:41:16 PM9/5/00
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Owl wrote in message <8p20n6$ve$1...@slb7.atl.mindspring.net>...
>Carmichael <acar...@mail.com> wrote in message
>news:D0%s5.41233$f65.1...@news-west.usenetserver.com...
>> is distinctively Objectivist. It was Ayn Rand who invented egoism. That
>> creates the dilemma of asking who the real egoists are. Those who are
>> attracted by Rand's concept of egoism but reject what she did with it,
>are
>> still following her lead, and are indebted to her for the idea.
>
>Epicurus defended egoism a little before Rand.


Correct, but Rand's was a novel invention, alledgedly based on objectivity
and serving as the exclusive litmus test of morality. All of Rand's system
is based not on objectivity as claimed, but on egoism, which itself is
*allegedly* based on objectivity. In other words the validity of the system
hinges not on the value of objectivity, which is indisputable, but on the
validity of her deduction from the premise of objectivity. "Life qua man" as
a standard of value is a _deduction_ from observations, not an observation.
If observation had been used to determine the standard of value, the
conclusion would have been different. The further conclusions that rational
survival is the highest and only good, with service and sharing being
anti-life are also deductive and counter-inductive.

The admonition "check your premises" comes back to haunt Rand who
dogmatically and pig-headedly assumes that her deductions follow necessarily
from her inductive premises. Then she makes the obvious mistake (typical of
closed minds) of claiming that the whole thing is inductive, therefore
objective, and therefore inevitably true.


ginok

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Sep 8, 2000, 1:09:43 PM9/8/00
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In article <8p20n9$ve$2...@slb7.atl.mindspring.net>,
Owl <a@a.a> wrote to
> Carmichael <acar...@mail.com>

<...>

> I'm the first to say that Rand's ideas contain flaws. But there were
also
> important insights.

I'd be interested in seeing from any professional (or advanced amateur)
philospher's view, what the list of insights would be.

<...>

> Rand had a unique opportunity to put forward her philosophy in a
rational
> manner, after she wrote _The Fountainhead_. She could have followed
that
> book with non-fiction works of philosophy that showed objectivity,
> scholarship, and reasonableness in the manner of writing and
thinking, and
> then the Objectivist movement would have taken on a very different
> character. Surely you can see why Rand had to be the one to write
those
> works.

Maybe Carmichael can, but I can't. It surprised me when, after many
years, I started paying attention to objectivism again and found so
little (none?) of this had been done by others.

But, OK, I'll take a stab. She poisoned her own well, so to
speak, and it's too late now.
--
GinoK

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