How Ayn Rand Ruined My Childhood

by Lurker Mon Nov 24, 2014 7:01 pm

My parents split up when I was 4. My father, a lawyer, wrote the divorce papers himself and included one specific rule: My mother was forbidden to raise my brother and me religiously. She agreed, dissolving Sunday church and Bible study with one swift signature. Mom didn’t mind; she was agnostic and knew we didn’t need religion to be good people. But a disdain for faith wasn’t the only reason he wrote God out of my childhood. There was simply no room in our household for both Jesus Christ and my father’s one true love: Ayn Rand.

You might be familiar with Rand from a high school reading assignment. Perhaps a Tea Partyer acquaintance name-dropped her in a debate on individual rights. Or maybe you’ve heard the film adaptation of her magnum opus “Atlas Shrugged” is due out April 15. In short, she is a Russian-born American novelist who championed her self-taught philosophy of objectivism through her many works of fiction. Conservatives are known to praise her for her support of laissez-faire economics and meritocracy. Liberals tend to criticize her for being too simplistic. I know her more intimately as the woman whose philosophy dictates my father’s every decision.

http://www.alternet.org/culture/how-ayn-rand-ruined-my-childhood

by Lurker Mon Nov 24, 2014 7:04 pm

Conservatives are known to praise her for her support of laissez-faire economics and meritocracy.

I can't get my head around why staunch conservatives would give her the time of day. She didn't stand for anything they believe in - except possibly economics. The objectivism probably suits them, but not all of it. Her disdain for altruism probably wins the rich ones over. But most conservatives are highly religious and I would think that her disdain for religion would trump all her beliefs to them and they would call her a heretic.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nT_RpzYohdI

by Ben Reilly Mon Nov 24, 2014 10:01 pm

It's part of the insanity that rules the thinking of every far-right conservative, based on trying to reconcile mutually incompatible ideas like atheist Rand's dog-eat-dog capitalism with an insistence on fundamentalist Christianity being the basis of society in the U.S.

They have to:

* Defend outsourcing corporations while bemoaning the loss of U.S. jobs to outsourcing ...

* Be Bible-believing Christians while vilifying the poor in spite of Jesus' teachings ...

* Want the government "out of Americans' lives" except regulating every marriage and every birth ...

Ultimately the only way you can espouse these contradictions is to not think about them. Fortunately, far-right conservatives are really, really talented at the art of not thinking Smile

by Lurker Tue Apr 14, 2015 1:37 am

by Ben Reilly Tue Apr 14, 2015 8:53 am

Lurker wrote:

Yep! If he is consistent with his formerly professed beliefs, he loses the GOP base.

If he's not, he loses his own base.

Which leads me to my latest mind-fuck -- THERE IS NO MORE GOP BASE.

There, I said it. Or I should actually say, THE GOP BASE IS HOPELESSLY FRACTURED.

Just look at how Scott Walker is now the preferred presidential nominee, with a whopping 16 percent support among Republicans. Walker triumphantly grabs the lead from Jeb "Fucking" Bush, who previously lead with a lofty 20 percent support from the Republican voting public.

If the Republican base can't give better than 20 percent support to a candidate, it is officially fractured.

by eddie Wed Apr 15, 2015 8:14 pm

Did a quick wiki Google on her and came across this:

"She was sharply critical of most philosophers and philosophical traditions known to her, except for some Aristotelians and classical liberals."

She sounds a bit of an egotistical old boot, but I know nothing about her, I have to admit.

by Ben Reilly Wed Apr 15, 2015 8:36 pm

eddie wrote:Did a quick wiki Google on her and came across this:

"She was sharply critical of most philosophers and philosophical traditions known to her, except for some Aristotelians and classical liberals."

She sounds a bit of an egotistical old boot, but I know nothing about her, I have to admit.

She was very egotistical (called her philosophy "Objectivism" because it was the first "objective" philosophy, according to her!) and hypocritical in a number of ways.

She was also a very outspoken atheist, so it's funny to see idiotic Christian conservatives citing her philosophy.

by eddie Wed Apr 15, 2015 8:53 pm

Ben_Reilly wrote:
eddie wrote:Did a quick wiki Google on her and came across this:

"She was sharply critical of most philosophers and philosophical traditions known to her, except for some Aristotelians and classical liberals."

She sounds a bit of an egotistical old boot, but I know nothing about her, I have to admit.

She was very egotistical (called her philosophy "Objectivism" because it was the first "objective" philosophy, according to her!) and hypocritical in a number of ways.

She was also a very outspoken atheist, so it's funny to see idiotic Christian conservatives citing her philosophy.

An interesting character all round!

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