Why do so many people misunderstand her? I don't subscribe to her philosophy but anyone I've ever met who has hated her has never actually understood what she's said. This seems to be the case with Zizek too.
>>7443288
>4chan help explain why my perception of the world is the way it is
I recommend some lead mouthwash to clear your mind
>>7443300
I don't understand, are you an idiot?
>>7443288
what are my misconceptions about her?
>"help me out of Russia!"
>"nobody ever helped me, why should I help you...?" Etc.
>>7443324
You didn't get it.
She wasn't against help in general, just help in sacrifice of yourself for another without any personal gain and the gain being in the sacrifice.
She believed you could help people but as long as the value of helping them was greater than your loss.
>>7443331
If you have the capability to help others then why not do it?
If you require something in return you're a shitty person.
These are the same types of people who say education shouldn't be free.
>>7443288
Her 'philosophy' was okay until she went full fedora autism in Atlas Shrugged. It all went downhill from there.
>>7443418
You still don't get it.
It doesn't have to be physical you gain.
If you love someone and help them, that's alright, because the value is still there in the love you have for them.
As Rand says herself, love is the most selfish thing, you do not love without being selfish, you don't say to someone "You mean nothing to me." Because they do mean something to you, you value them.
You like many people assume she is an advocate of pure desire and selfishness which we was entirely against.
>>7443418
It really shouldn't though
It creates an underclass of disillusioned plebs in modern society
>>7443288
I also don't subscribe totally to her philosophy, and I love her deeply. I'd call myself a statist, but I think her thoughts in metaphyics and epistemology are brilliant. She's also a great lecturer and a fascinating personality. The problem, even with the parts of her philosophy that I like, though, is that she rejects the entire history of philosophy so totally that she ends up being fairly irrelevant in terms of the canon, though popular among non-academics.
If she had given half a shit about her predecessors, she might have said something valuable, but as it is, she just said things that seem valuable to people who dont know what they're looking at.
>>7443635
This is 'X did literally nothing wrong' , The Free Market Will Take Care of Everthing, apologist bullshit.
Rand was a wretch.
>>7443674
Your argument seems to be based on emotion.
>vagina
>>7443680
>tips
>>7443680
you got me there. I think a lot of things people believe come more from the heart than they allow.
>>7443870
Sure, but is basing your ethical beliefs on hatred for a philosopher actually grounded or just stupidly dogmatic?
I'm not the other guy btw.
>>7443946
i think people base their ethical beliefs on emotions all the time, but sublimate it and feel they are being logical. The Ayn Rand meme is: you are lonely and isolated, Rand tells you its becasue you are special and plebs dont appreciate you. This becomes a basis for a beleif system.
Let's say humans are social creatures and altrusim (in practical doses) developed in us with an evoloutionary component and those who can contribute to the common good or more valuable to the community than those who hoard. I feel that way and so my belief system is based around those feels.
Now: you argue how Rand doesn't refute the second part of my argument.pro-tip: you may be able to convince me because I can be reasonable and open minded..
>>7443964
>i think people base their ethical beliefs on emotions all the time, but sublimate it and feel they are being logical.
I agree with this. Not all ethical beliefs are based on emotion, but many are.
>The Ayn Rand meme is: you are lonely and isolated, Rand tells you its becasue you are special and plebs dont appreciate you. This becomes a basis for a beleif system.
See now I know you haven't actually read Rand. Lots of high schoolers apply Rand like this, but it has nothing to do with her actual philosophy. Her ethics is based on the observable fact that everything an organism does is directed towards a single goal: the maintenance of its life. Therefore to do an action for the good of a collective and for no other reason is to act outside of this principle which is not only unnatural, but ultimately to the detriment of the individual.
>>7443288
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2uHSv1asFvU
go to 27seconds
>>7444065
I feel like you are saying what I expect a Rand adherent to say.
I disagree with your definition of 'unnatural'. Everything is natural, although it may or may not further the species. The idea that humans can act unnaturally (has its roots in Biblical thinking regrading Eden as a state-of-nature before man and humans as separate from animals.)
Yes, we act in our own self interest. Sometimes it is in our interest to supply Israel with arms to fight Arabs (by Rand's thinking). I don't see how you get from that to Rourke blowng up is building because no one appreciates his genius.
I guess it's her ficiton-as-a-basis for an ideology that bothers me. It puts it outside of the literary world and makes it more like Dianetics, and I suspect that's why it is so controversial...
I guess I should read one of her books. But not where anyone can see the cover ( I said he same thing when I read Lolita).
she's a fucking kike
>>7444072
damn her
>>7444171
First, natural law is not just a biblical concept.
Second, when I say unnatural I mean actions that only human beings are capable of doing. Human beings are separate from other animals because we have the ability to think rationally, and therefore act freely outside of instinct. A lion has no choice but to hunt his prey because it is within his nature, therefore it is not evil. Human beings have choices in their action outside of their natural tendencies, which is why we have morality to govern what actions we ought to take. Now whether or not we should follow what we define as natural guidelines depends on your view of human nature, but this is besides the point.
I definitely do not agree with everything that Rand says; I think she is much too reactionary.
For example I would definitely disagree with her on the Israel Palestine thing because I think that to strip a group of people of their livelihood so that they can live under the rule of an ethnicity that considers them to be inferior is in no way good for them like Rand claims it would be. The suicide bombings are a reaction of the Palestinians against a regime that has them completely overpowered, not because they're just savages gone wild. I digress.
What I'm really trying to say is that the meme on /lit/ to hate Ayn Rand and recommend that nobody read her ever is just plain stupid. She's far from the best philosopher but she does have some good points, so to hate everything about her outright is foolishness.
>>7444171
Also I forgot to add that if you do decide to read her read her essays instead of her novels. "The Virtue of Selfishness" is plenty to give you an understanding of Objectivist ethics.
>>7444287
>First, natural law is not just a biblical concept.
of course, but 'going against nature' is part of nature.
>... depends on your view of human nature, but this is besides the point.
not besides the point it's the whole point.
if you agree with Rand you say this is right and natural...
If you disagree with Rand you are /lit/
I'll read The Fountainhead. I will probably throw it across the room, but I have mice.
>>7444308
thank you for the reasonable discourse a.non. I will read the essay. And Steve Ditko for my homework.
Here are my reasons why I don't like objectivism as a philosophy.
Because her books are full of strawmen arguments that don't hold up (not to mention awful).
Because she contradicts her philosophy several times (against racism, despises pre-industrial societies, against violence to obtain property but approves of the murder of Indians for their land)
Because the argument for selfishness falls apart once you say 'charity done voluntarily is okay', since
Because her system of values / ethics is a spook that would end up benefiting the upper class in a capitalist society. She is unashamedly puritan when it comes to work and relationships.
If Atlas Shrugged is a good example of how she views progress then she doesn't understand how shit gets done in reality. Characters say stuff like (quoting from memory here) "I'm an engineer, I see things as they are" and "The sign of stupidly is an indecisive mind". These statements go directly against the scientific method and what we know about our cognitive biases. The characters in the book echo these ideas (the playboy copper dude reinvents calculus at 15, the metal guy makes a new metal and then builds a railroad out of it without testing it, the scientist dagny hires to research the motor does it all by himself). This goes directly against how science works - groups of people working together to produce results that can be independently verified.
I have no real opinion about objectivism's metaphysics (except that they seem to be common sense for the most part), but it does concern me that Rand ignores all philosophy from Aristotle onwards (I think she commented on Kant, but my memory is hazy). The lack of adding to the discourse is pretty lazy, along with making it out to be that philosophy entered some solipsistic murk of amorality.
>>7444386
>Because the argument for selfishness falls apart once you say 'charity done voluntarily is okay', since
Whoops.
Because the argument for selfishness falls apart once you say 'charity done voluntarily is okay', since pretty much every action can then be justified as voluntary / out of self interest. You can argue for the state, socialism and communism simply by saying 'well if its done in my self-interest and I voluntarily submit to it'.
>>7444386
> A "straw man" is an odd metaphor to apply to such an enormous, cumbersome, ponderous construction as Kant's system of epistemology. Nevertheless, a straw man is what it was -- and the doubts, the uncertainty, the skepticism that followed, skepticism about man's ability ever to know anything, were not, in fact, applicable to human consciousness, because it was not a human consciousness that Kant's robot represented. But philosophers accepted it as such. And while they cried that reason had been invalidated, they did not notice that reason had been pushed off the philosophical scene altogether and that the faculty they were arguing about was not reason.
http://freedomkeys.com/faithandforce.htm
She's an idiot.
>>7443964
man I love Christophe Szpajdel's artwork
Libertarians heavily tarnished her image by association, even though she opposed them. Reading her objections to libertarianism are instructive. She loathed them for being morally bankrupt.
She was Aristotelian and a virtue moralist. Her books are about moral exemplars and how virtuous people can reform society through capitalism, not fantasies about "what would happen if the gubmint got out of the way."
People mistake her for top-down when she's bottom-up. Objectivism starts with people taking responsibility for themselves, valuing productivity and honesty, not selling themselves short, trading fairly, and seeking excellence. Without people with those qualities, you have a chaotic cesspit, which is what she considered libertarianism with its silence on ethics and emphasis on freedom.
>>7444324
If you insist on forcing every philosopher and everything they stand for into a /lit/ or anti-/lit/ dichotomy rather than considering their views for your self, I guess I can't stop you.
>>7444386
Pretty much this.
She is a- fascinating individual, but the philosophy she hammers down the throat of her reader combined with uninspired stories and average prose make her completely irrelevant. Her popularity is just propped up on the strength of patron camp (as many different political writers are).
Her writing sacrifices a meaningful exploration of humanity and the natural world in order to sell an ideology.
>>7444475
>he thinks rand is a philosopher
No one takes her seriously except conservative dick heads who aspire to be the next Donald Trump
>>7444525
Not an argument
>>7443288
She was mostly forgotten but the Tobacco lobby funded the republishing and promoting of her work. As such most people who recommend her work tend to be some form of insufferable small government conservative, typically uneducated in philosophy or literature (not to say i also don't agree with a smaller government or am also not conservative but that those who like Rand tend to be insufferable).
>>7444065
>the maintenance of life
that's only one facet of life, friend. the other is irrational expenditure, uselessness and pleasure. no one ever got no pleasure from keeping their ass cheeks clenched indefinitely. true joy is giving without return. circulation/ exchange only leads to tumours and aneurysms. the maintenance of life, like scarcity, is a manufactured myth.
>>7444525
>aspire to be the next Donald Trump
I think you mean, aspire to be the next Ron Paul
wait a second
dONALd tRumP
RON PAUL
>>7445387
FBI CIA US military NATO alerted
>>7443288
her prose style and narrative/character construction is one of the most horrendous things I've encountered in literature. Add her underlying philosophy and her fiction becomes a poor means for mere ideological propaganda. Also kek'd when in the middle of "Atlas Shrugged" found an embedded leaflet "if the reader would consider joining the objectivist movement". Pathetic.
>>7443635
So it's basically hedonism just as a philosophy to live by rather than a psychological concept?
Ayn Rand is not a philosopher. She's a novelist, and a poor one at that. Have your read her "rebuttals" of Kant and Hume? She gives no depth in her response to critiques on the limits of human reason and knowledge, she just calls them stupid and immoral. Character assassination was her only method of retort, and she refused to expose any of her theses to wider criticism despite being widely invited to do so, which is why she creates a fantasy world full of unrealistic archetypes where everything bends to her way of thinking. At least novelists like Dostoevsky attempted to give his ideological opponents like Ivan the atheist some semblance of humanity.
There is literally no reason to read Rand when you could read Stirner, Nietzsche or even David Friedman.
