First Ayn Rand interview.

[BlueStreak]

Originally Posted by finnbow

Here's an interesting fictional video depicting L. Ron Hubbard and Ayn Rand concocting their ideas after a roll in the hay:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K5YWTFW5WMw

LMAO! Thanks for the comic relief!

Dave

[Oerets]

Guess she makes being selfish cool. Maybe that's why so many are willing to believe the philosophy. Makes looking in the mirror a lot easier.



Barney

[bhunter]

Originally Posted by Oerets

Guess she makes being selfish cool. Maybe that's why so many are willing to believe the philosophy. Makes looking in the mirror a lot easier.



Barney

Not really. I think it was unfortunate that she chose "selfishness" as opposed to some other word with less negative connotation. What's interesting is that she is completely against religion; thus, sometimes I do wonder how righties accept that together with the objectivist philosophy. My position is that none of what she purports is particularly new or innovative; however, intertwining it within the context of a novel is somewhat refreshing. Obviously, she made a lot of enemies by denigrating any notion of altruism. Furthermore, just because an action appears altruistic doesn't mean that altruism was the motivating factor.

[merrylander]

Gordon Gekko sumarized Atlas Shrugged in three words.

[icenine]

Originally Posted by merrylander

Gordon Gekko sumarized Atlas Shrugged in three words.

tell us Merrylander!

[bhunter]

Originally Posted by merrylander

Gordon Gekko sumarized Atlas Shrugged in three words.

Ayn Rand would not support Gordon Gekko nor anyone that makes money by financial manipulation or speculating. How one obtained wealth was just as important as the wealth itself and IIRC that was the seminal thread running through all of her works.

[beej]

After watching the Mike Wallace interview I have but two words: HOLY SHIT!

[beej]

And a point of clarification: in my preceding post that was not a joyous holy shit.

[bobabode]

That interview was an interesting eye opener as to Ayn's philosophies. She displays a serious lack of empathy for people other than herself. The way she presents herself smacks of sociopathic zealotry, to my unschooled eye. That habit of glancing downwards and to the left compulsively brings to mind the term shifty eyed and probably has an explanation based in psychiatric studies. What that would be I'll leave to someone more proficient in that field, after all I'm a simple person who's a product in part to my upbringing and what I choose to believe as some innate intangible quality that we all bring to the world we live in. Call it a soul or some such label, I really don't know as yet.
This person, if you will, seems to me to typify sociopathism and there is no enlightenment to be gained for her disjointed ramblings in regards to her philosophy. I think she went down a rabbit hole in a quest to break down the human condition to it's most basic components and came up with this "greed is good" Rasputin-like grotesquery.
Maybe I'm biased by the hours misspent in front of the one eyed monster in my childhood but I keep expecting Boris to pop up and start calling her Natasha while they're enjoying some Moose and Squirrel stew. Kudos to Mike Wallace for skewering this sick and repulsive individual. Just my take on it and thanks for digging that clip up Dave. I can't believe that there are people who take this evil shit seriously.

[ebacon]

The people that apologize for Ayn Rand don't understand her philosophy and how dangerously whacked it is. I guarantee it.

Remember -- this isn't a game. ARI plays hardball. Those f*ckers are persuading congressmen to write this stuff into The United States Code at every opportunity.

If anyone that isn't a plutocrat but stills go for this stuff either doesn't know what he is doing or is a traitor. This stuff is designed to persuade us to erase the U.S. Constitution.

Not kidding.

Be careful with it.