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Ayn Rand's main premise (1 Viewer)

timschochet

Footballguy
From The Fountainhead:

“Thousands of years ago, the first man discovered how to make fire. He was probably burned at the stake he had taught his brothers to light. He was considered an evildoer who had dealt with a demon mankind dreaded. But thereafter men had fire to keep them warm, to cook their food, to light their caves. He had left them a gift they had not conceived and he had lifted dardness off the earth. Centuries later, the first man invented the wheel. He was probably torn on the rack he had taught his brothers to build. He was considered a transgressor who ventured into forbidden terrritory. But thereafter, men could travel past any horizon. He had left them a gift they had not conceived and he had opened the roads of the world.
“That man, the unsubmissive and first, stands in the opening chapter of every legend mankind has recorded about its beginning. Prometheus was chained to a rock and torn by vultures—because he had stolen the fire of the gods. Adam was condemned to suffer—because he had eaten the fruit of the tree of knowledge. Whatever the legend, somewhere in the shadows of its memory mankind knew that its glory began with one and that that one paid for his courage.
“Throughout the centuries there were men who took first steps down new roads armed with nothing but their own vision. Their goals differed, but they all had this in common: that the step was first, the road new, the vision unborrowed, and the response they received—hatred. The great creators—the thinkers, the artists, the scientists, the inventors—stood alone against the men of their time. Every great new thought was opposed. Every great new invention was denounced. The first motor was considered foolish. The airplane was considered impossible. The power loom was considered vicious. Anesthesia was considered sinful. But the men of unborrowed vision went ahead. They fought, they suffered and they paid. But they won.
“No creator was prompted by a desire to serve his brothers, for his brothers rejected the gift he offered and that gift destroyed the slothful routine of their lives. His truth was his only motive. His own truth, and his own work to achieve it in his own way. A symphony, a book, an engine, a philosophy, an airplane or a building—that was his goal and his life. Not those who heard, read, operated, believed, flew or inhabited the thing he had created. The creation, not its users. The creation, not the benefits others derived from it. The creation which gave form to his truth. He held his truth above all things and against all men.
“His vision, his strength, his courage came from his own spirit. A man's spirit, however, is his self. That entity which is his consciousness. To think, to feel, to judge, to act are functions of the ego.
“The creators were not selfless. It is the whole secret of their power—that it was self-sufficient, self-motivated, self-generated. A first cause, a fount of energy, a life force, a Prime Mover. The creator served nothing and no one. He lived for himself.
“And only by living for himself was he able to achieve the things which are the glory of mankind. Such is the nature of achievement.
“Man cannot survive except through his mind. He comes on earth unarmed. His brain is his only weapon. Animals obtain food by force. Man has no claws, no fangs, no horns, no great strength of muscle. He must plant his food or hunt it. To plant, he needs a process of thought. To hunt, he needs weapons, and to make weapons—a process of thought. From this simplest necessity to the highest religious abstraction, from the wheel to the skyscraper, everything we are and everything we have comes from a single attribute of man—the function of his reasoning mind.
“But the mind is an attribute of the individual. There is no such thing as a collective brain. There is no such thing as a collective thought. An agreement reached by a group of men is only a compromise or an average drawn upon many individual thoughts. It is a secondary consequence. The primary act—the process of reason—must be performed by each man alone. We can divide a meal among many men. We cannot digest it in a collective stomach. No man can use his lungs to breathe for another man. No man can use his brain to think for another. All the functions of body and spirit are private. They cannot be shared or transferred.
“We inherit the products of the thought of other men. We inherit the wheel. We make a cart. The cart becomes an automobile. The automobile becomes an airplane. But all through the process what we receive from others is only the end product of their thinking. The moving force is the creative faculty which takes this product as material, uses it and originates the next step. This creative faculty cannot be given or received, shared or borrowed. It belongs to single, individual men. That which it creates is the property of the creator. Men learn from one another. But all learning is only the exchange of material. No man can give another the capacity to think. Yet that capacity is our only means of survival.
“Nothing is given to man on earth. Everything he needs has to be produced."

 
I get that there's a lot people don't like about Ayn Rand. There's a lot I don't like about her, either. I've come to reject, for the most part, her libertarian politics.

But at her core, she was a champion of the individual. And I think that because of that, her writings and ideas still have great value. In the end, I remain a fan.

 
Pretty much falls to pieces right in the first paragraph, with all the probablies centered around absurd premises demoninzing inventors and ascribing wanton evil to every crowd. :shrug: The legend of Prometheus is one of human triumph over nature/"The Gods", celebrated, despite the dangers.

Also, I don't think the archaeological record supports torture practices among cavemen.

 
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Anyway, on balance, I don't think Rand was too bad as a self-help thinker.

The sort-of-generalized premise that selfishness can help one attain his goals, and that this can benefit both the individual and society despite the egocentric focus, seems sound enough.

The issue so many have is that instead of writing self-help, she wrote fictional polemics, where she alone was able to mete out the good and the evil in her world, and she handled this with all the subtlety and restraint of Genghis Khan, making everyone who supported her fantasies godlike, and everyone who opposed them subhuman wretches out to destroy her people out of envy and hatred. Made for successful rah-rah storytelling, but has obvious crippling issues as a philosophical groundwork. She was nauseatingly solipsistic.

 
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Probably being burned at the stake and torn on the rack? Weird. But Rand had her influence on Peart, who is also odd, but some good songs came from the effort (not necessarily lyrically), so I cut her some slack. Prime Mover, for example.

 
From The Fountainhead:

“That man, the unsubmissive and first, stands in the opening chapter of every legend mankind has recorded about its beginning. Prometheus was chained to a rock and torn by vultures—because he had stolen the fire of the gods. Adam was condemned to suffer—because he had eaten the fruit of the tree of knowledge. Whatever the legend, somewhere in the shadows of its memory mankind knew that its glory began with one and that that one paid for his courage.
It's probably worth noting that Prometheus wasn't a human being. He was a Titan.

 
She's a little overdramatic. Not every creator throughout history has been demonized or tortured. And her contention that none of them were selfless is absurd.

But her main premises- that the individual mind is responsible for most human achievement (she would say all), that reason and individualism are the fountainheads of progress, that collectivism is an inhibitor to freedom and human achievement- these are important ideas that continue to need to be stressed.

When President Obama said, "You didn't build that" I understood what he meant, and there is some truth to it. But there is also a lot of truth to what Ayn Rand is saying as well.

 
Anyway, on balance, I don't think Rand was too bad as a self-help thinker.

The sort-of-generalized premise that selfishness can help one attain his goals, and that this can benefit both the individual and society despite the egocentric focus, seems sound enough.

The issue so many have is that instead of writing self-help, she wrote fictional polemics, where she alone was able to mete out the good and the evil in her world, and she handled this with all the subtlety and restraint of Genghis Khan, making everyone who supported her fantasies godlike, and everyone who opposed them subhuman wretches out to destroy her people out of envy and hatred. Made for successful rah-rah storytelling, but has obvious crippling issues as a philosophical groundwork. She was nauseatingly solipsistic.
I basically agree with this criticism.

 
I get that there's a lot people don't like about Ayn Rand. There's a lot I don't like about her, either. I've come to reject, for the most part, her libertarian politics.

But at her core, she was a champion of the individual. And I think that because of that, her writings and ideas still have great value. In the end, I remain a fan.
There are two kinds of writing in novels IMO:

Those based on characters.

Those based on ideas where the characters represent ideas. That's Rand.

If you want to understand Rand you have to look at "We The Living" which basically retells her flight from Russia and the murderous early Soviets. It was a hell of a journey and pretty much as dramatic as the life of her characters.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/We_the_Living

She's not a Libertarian btw.

 
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Are you talking about me or Ayn? :lol:

I wanted to deal with her central premises in this thread, and make the argument that they're still worthy. But beyond that, the reason that new threads are started (not just by me) is that they garner more attention. So Slapdash is right in a sense. I AM looking for more attention- not to me, but to the subject matter at hand.

 
From The Fountainhead:

“That man, the unsubmissive and first, stands in the opening chapter of every legend mankind has recorded about its beginning. Prometheus was chained to a rock and torn by vultures—because he had stolen the fire of the gods. Adam was condemned to suffer—because he had eaten the fruit of the tree of knowledge. Whatever the legend, somewhere in the shadows of its memory mankind knew that its glory began with one and that that one paid for his courage.
It's probably worth noting that Prometheus wasn't a human being. He was a Titan.
Remember the Titans

 
The quoted statement is ludicrous enough at it is. Just look at it on its face. By Rand's reckoning, Thomas Edison and Henry Ford were more persecuted than Eugene V. Debs. Every "great man" in history probably faced disagreement. That doesn't make him persecuted.

 
“We inherit the products of the thought of other men. We inherit the wheel. We make a cart. The cart becomes an automobile. The automobile becomes an airplane. But all through the process what we receive from others is only the end product of their thinking. The moving force is the creative faculty which takes this product as material, uses it and originates the next step. This creative faculty cannot be given or received, shared or borrowed. It belongs to single, individual men. That which it creates is the property of the creator. Men learn from one another. But all learning is only the exchange of material. No man can give another the capacity to think. Yet that capacity is our only means of survival.

“Nothing is given to man on earth. Everything he needs has to be produced."
Let me get this right - it's ok to be given all the ideas of the people before you but if you are given food, shelter, and an education then you'll never accomplish anything?

 
She's a little overdramatic. Not every creator throughout history has been demonized or tortured. And her contention that none of them were selfless is absurd.

But her main premises- that the individual mind is responsible for most human achievement (she would say all), that reason and individualism are the fountainheads of progress, that collectivism is an inhibitor to freedom and human achievement- these are important ideas that continue to need to be stressed.

When President Obama said, "You didn't build that" I understood what he meant, and there is some truth to it. But there is also a lot of truth to what Ayn Rand is saying as well.
Here's what Rand fails to mention - every person she describes was part of a collectivist society. That person who discovered fire would have been part of a tribe that shared resources.

Obama was absolutely correct and Rand fails to recognize that no one makes it in life completely as an individual.

 
She's a little overdramatic. Not every creator throughout history has been demonized or tortured. And her contention that none of them were selfless is absurd.

But her main premises- that the individual mind is responsible for most human achievement (she would say all), that reason and individualism are the fountainheads of progress, that collectivism is an inhibitor to freedom and human achievement- these are important ideas that continue to need to be stressed.

When President Obama said, "You didn't build that" I understood what he meant, and there is some truth to it. But there is also a lot of truth to what Ayn Rand is saying as well.
Here's what Rand fails to mention - every person she describes was part of a collectivist society. That person who discovered fire would have been part of a tribe that shared resources.

Obama was absolutely correct and Rand fails to recognize that no one makes it in life completely as an individual.
Slap saying WGAF, I agree.

That aside, it's Friday, let's consider the reality that Rand came from. The individual life was declared dead, private ownership was killed, individual rights were outlawed, the limitations of government were removed, and the duties of government were made constitutional and societal rights were made paramount.

Rand fled Russia, after her family had lost everything, after she had been purged from her university because of her bourgeois roots or nature, in the midst of famine, genocide, and the near destruction of all Russian culture, religion and culture, while their humanity had been decimated.

Don't get me wrong, not advocating her philosophy, but that was a reality. The rest of the stuff you guys are talking about (there is no individual, only the collective) were ideals that led to that reality. You can't blame her for concluding that reliance on the individual was the antidote to that horror.

 
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Her worship of the individual seems sort of egotistical. Society has its problems but the collective coming together of bands of people has lead to tremendous gains for all.

 
Her worship of the individual seems sort of egotistical. Society has its problems but the collective coming together of bands of people has lead to tremendous gains for all.
AR tried to distinguish between the "egoist" and the "egotist." I have no idea how to keep it separate, I think it can make a person somewhat sociopathic actually if taken as a real philosophy purely held and acted upon.

 
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The quoted statement is ludicrous enough at it is. Just look at it on its face. By Rand's reckoning, Thomas Edison and Henry Ford were more persecuted than Eugene V. Debs. Every "great man" in history probably faced disagreement. That doesn't make him persecuted.
I thought if we delve into history the things that those men are credited for (electricty and the automobile) were, in fact, not credited by them but popularized by them. Some of that through nefarious means. I don't have a dog in this race just thought the selection of inventors was interesting given the content. Had you said Einstein... I feel like he was selfless, celebrated and also helped created the most disasterous device the world has ever known.

 
Anyway, on balance, I don't think Rand was too bad as a self-help thinker.

The sort-of-generalized premise that selfishness can help one attain his goals, and that this can benefit both the individual and society despite the egocentric focus, seems sound enough.

The issue so many have is that instead of writing self-help, she wrote fictional polemics, where she alone was able to mete out the good and the evil in her world, and she handled this with all the subtlety and restraint of Genghis Khan, making everyone who supported her fantasies godlike, and everyone who opposed them subhuman wretches out to destroy her people out of envy and hatred. Made for successful rah-rah storytelling, but has obvious crippling issues as a philosophical groundwork. She was nauseatingly solipsistic.
I basically agree with this criticism.
Rand would agree with the observation as well, though she wouldn't accept it as criticism. She did it on purpose. She explained why in one of her non-fiction books, The Romantic Manifesto.

 
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From The Fountainhead:

“That man, the unsubmissive and first, stands in the opening chapter of every legend mankind has recorded about its beginning. Prometheus was chained to a rock and torn by vultures—because he had stolen the fire of the gods. Adam was condemned to suffer—because he had eaten the fruit of the tree of knowledge. Whatever the legend, somewhere in the shadows of its memory mankind knew that its glory began with one and that that one paid for his courage.
It's probably worth noting that Prometheus wasn't a human being. He was a Titan.
Remember the Titans
So I guess, technically, human beings were all huddled in the cold darkness until someone who had more power and resources than they did shared the wealth and allowed them the resources and opportunities it took to overcome their current situation.

Other than that, great metaphor.

 
To summarize for FBGs ... everyone made fun of you when you drafted Julio and Dez early because at the time everyone knew rookie WRs didn't amount to anything until their 3rd or 4th year, now everyone hates you because you won't trade them.

 
"Champion of the individual" = being selfish

"Logic clearly dictates the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few" - Mr. Spock

 
The quoted statement is ludicrous enough at it is. Just look at it on its face. By Rand's reckoning, Thomas Edison and Henry Ford were more persecuted than Eugene V. Debs. Every "great man" in history probably faced disagreement. That doesn't make him persecuted.
I thought if we delve into history the things that those men are credited for (electricty and the automobile) were, in fact, not credited by them but popularized by them. Some of that through nefarious means. I don't have a dog in this race just thought the selection of inventors was interesting given the content. Had you said Einstein... I feel like he was selfless, celebrated and also helped created the most disasterous device the world has ever known.
Ironic. Leo Szilard did the work. Einstein had the name to write his now famous letter to Eisenhower. But a glaring example of being credited with the work of another.

 
“We inherit the products of the thought of other men. We inherit the wheel. We make a cart. The cart becomes an automobile. The automobile becomes an airplane. But all through the process what we receive from others is only the end product of their thinking. The moving force is the creative faculty which takes this product as material, uses it and originates the next step. This creative faculty cannot be given or received, shared or borrowed. It belongs to single, individual men. That which it creates is the property of the creator. Men learn from one another. But all learning is only the exchange of material. No man can give another the capacity to think. Yet that capacity is our only means of survival.
The point is that property is personal, creation is personal, creation is progress from and over what has come before, the individual alone creates, and mankind cannot survive unless the individual has the incentive to create. Thus a society which takes from the individual his creation, his property, hurts itself.

 
lakerstan said:
"Logic clearly dictates the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few" - Mr. Spock
Followed up by Star Trek III:

Spock: My father says that you have been my friend. You came back for me.

Kirk: You would have done the same for me.

Spock: Why would you do this?

Kirk: Because the needs of the one... outweigh the needs of the many.

 
timschochet said:
She's a little overdramatic. Not every creator throughout history has been demonized or tortured. And her contention that none of them were selfless is absurd.

But her main premises- that the individual mind is responsible for most human achievement (she would say all), that reason and individualism are the fountainheads of progress, that collectivism is an inhibitor to freedom and human achievement- these are important ideas that continue to need to be stressed.

When President Obama said, "You didn't build that" I understood what he meant, and there is some truth to it. But there is also a lot of truth to what Ayn Rand is saying as well.
Yep, the sharing of research over the internet, disastrous. Think about it, we were supposed to have flying cars decades ago. And don't even get me started on open source code.

Seriously, progress is incremental and collaborative, until it isn't.

 
lakerstan said:
"Logic clearly dictates the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few" - Mr. Spock
Followed up by Star Trek III:

Spock: My father says that you have been my friend. You came back for me.

Kirk: You would have done the same for me.

Spock: Why would you do this?

Kirk: Because the needs of the one... outweigh the needs of the many.
And discussed here:

http://forums.footballguys.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=639787

 
Pretty much falls to pieces right in the first paragraph, with all the probablies centered around absurd premises demoninzing inventors and ascribing wanton evil to every crowd. :shrug: The legend of Prometheus is one of human triumph over nature/"The Gods", celebrated, despite the dangers.

Also, I don't think the archaeological record supports torture practices among cavemen.
Cavegate. The first cover-up.

 
Anyway, on balance, I don't think Rand was too bad as a self-help thinker.

The sort-of-generalized premise that selfishness can help one attain his goals, and that this can benefit both the individual and society despite the egocentric focus, seems sound enough.

The issue so many have is that instead of writing self-help, she wrote fictional polemics, where she alone was able to mete out the good and the evil in her world, and she handled this with all the subtlety and restraint of Genghis Khan, making everyone who supported her fantasies godlike, and everyone who opposed them subhuman wretches out to destroy her people out of envy and hatred. Made for successful rah-rah storytelling, but has obvious crippling issues as a philosophical groundwork. She was nauseatingly solipsistic.
Anyone who busts out the solipsistic hammer is alright with me.

 
Anyway, on balance, I don't think Rand was too bad as a self-help thinker.

The sort-of-generalized premise that selfishness can help one attain his goals, and that this can benefit both the individual and society despite the egocentric focus, seems sound enough.

The issue so many have is that instead of writing self-help, she wrote fictional polemics, where she alone was able to mete out the good and the evil in her world, and she handled this with all the subtlety and restraint of Genghis Khan, making everyone who supported her fantasies godlike, and everyone who opposed them subhuman wretches out to destroy her people out of envy and hatred. Made for successful rah-rah storytelling, but has obvious crippling issues as a philosophical groundwork. She was nauseatingly solipsistic.
Anyone who busts out the solipsistic hammer is alright with me.
"We are 'Solipsistic Hammer!'" :headbang:

 
From The Fountainhead:

“That man, the unsubmissive and first, stands in the opening chapter of every legend mankind has recorded about its beginning. Prometheus was chained to a rock and torn by vultures—because he had stolen the fire of the gods. Adam was condemned to suffer—because he had eaten the fruit of the tree of knowledge. Whatever the legend, somewhere in the shadows of its memory mankind knew that its glory began with one and that that one paid for his courage.
It's probably worth noting that Prometheus wasn't a human being. He was a Titan.
They traded him to the Suns.

 
“(t)here are two novels that can change a bookish fourteen-year old’s life: The Lord of the Rings and Atlas Shrugged. One is a childish fantasy that often engenders a lifelong obsession with its unbelievable heroes, leading to an emotionally stunted, socially crippled adulthood, unable to deal with the real world. The other, of course, involves orcs.”
:lol:

 
“(t)here are two novels that can change a bookish fourteen-year old’s life: The Lord of the Rings and Atlas Shrugged. One is a childish fantasy that often engenders a lifelong obsession with its unbelievable heroes, leading to an emotionally stunted, socially crippled adulthood, unable to deal with the real world. The other, of course, involves orcs.”
:lol:
Glad I went with Tolkien personally.

 

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