- Joined
- Sep 13, 2015
I don't know if you expecting some great economic debate or anything Vitriol (which is good because the books don't have one either), the reason I got into Atlas Shrugged and it's whole ideology is kinda banal but if you wanted to have a discussion about it with other Kiwi's then we might as-well open it up.
My response to quote.
First of all I would don't read Atlas Shrugged or any of Rand's novels, even as literature they are not good. Had Rand been alive now this book would have ended up on Wattpad or something and her a capitalist sperg. All of the protagonists are Mary Sue's, the antagonists not so much obstacles for the "heroes" but just a bunch of whiners who ask them for help and almost everyone is 100% unlikable. If it's sales do spike then that baffles me too, even as "paragons" of Rand's virtue the ideals of the heroes are unobtainable unless you are gifted or just obscenely wealthy. Much like Rand's actual ideals if you look beyond the surface of the characters and their actions then the whole thing is a mess.
The whole book idolises "Great Men/Women", almost all of them CEO's and when they are removed their companies fall apart afterwards as if it was their titanic will alone that made everyone under their employ do their jobs. Nobody apparently has the same kind of idealism of their work expect the CEOs. It's all very Mary Sue-esque.
The reason I got into it after reading the book was that I was a teenager and a cynical ass, thought the world and people were crap and if some people could game the whole mess and become rich then who was anyone to take it from them? Why is anyone beholden to anyone else? What right does the government have to interfere in this? Etc. I became overtly hostile against religion I recall as-well. Basically, like anyone who thinks that they have the answers, a righteous twat praising private business and hating welfare whilst the once nationalised steel-mill in our town closed down and all my uncles got made redundant. Like that thread in the events about the guy raising the price of AIDS medication, I'd have just said that was his perogative and thought nothing more about it.
It's a book that attracts the same kind of college intellectuals that might become SJWs or people who really hate the government and associate anything with authority with absolute evil and therefore anything opposite to that is good.
Even as I spouted this kind of dogma though, always devoid of any actual research, I didn't actually believe it I don't think. I couldn't convince myself that I didn't care about my country and that I didn't hate the monarchy purely on principle. What finally made me realise that I didn't believe in everything I'd been saying was when Google, Starbucks and a bunch of other big internationals were brought before an inquiry regarding dodging tax and my honest reaction (before any double-think) was outrage that the CEO of a coffee company could effectively out-maneuver Britain.
My natural reaction was to say that Starbucks is insignificant compared to my actual country and that it won, it just opened the flood-gates and over a few weeks I rationalised my entire position. That the things which affect my well-being and my actual life (like the amount of money for funding my roads and hospitals) was actually a better form of the "rational egoism" than Rand's lofty, unworkable and amoral ideology which has never been about making things better, just "right" in their eyes and what-ever happens happens.
But it was an important part of my development ultimately, I try to craft my opinions around my genuine reaction to things as they happen rather than being a mouthpiece for others and I've lost any interest in any ideology that's purely "theoretical" and unworkable in reality (anything that begins "Anarcho-" would probably be included). I lean quite heavily to the left now, because that's where I naturally felt inclined to lean and not because I read someone's ideas in a book and adopted it.
The whole book idolises "Great Men/Women", almost all of them CEO's and when they are removed their companies fall apart afterwards as if it was their titanic will alone that made everyone under their employ do their jobs. Nobody apparently has the same kind of idealism of their work expect the CEOs. It's all very Mary Sue-esque.
The reason I got into it after reading the book was that I was a teenager and a cynical ass, thought the world and people were crap and if some people could game the whole mess and become rich then who was anyone to take it from them? Why is anyone beholden to anyone else? What right does the government have to interfere in this? Etc. I became overtly hostile against religion I recall as-well. Basically, like anyone who thinks that they have the answers, a righteous twat praising private business and hating welfare whilst the once nationalised steel-mill in our town closed down and all my uncles got made redundant. Like that thread in the events about the guy raising the price of AIDS medication, I'd have just said that was his perogative and thought nothing more about it.
It's a book that attracts the same kind of college intellectuals that might become SJWs or people who really hate the government and associate anything with authority with absolute evil and therefore anything opposite to that is good.
Even as I spouted this kind of dogma though, always devoid of any actual research, I didn't actually believe it I don't think. I couldn't convince myself that I didn't care about my country and that I didn't hate the monarchy purely on principle. What finally made me realise that I didn't believe in everything I'd been saying was when Google, Starbucks and a bunch of other big internationals were brought before an inquiry regarding dodging tax and my honest reaction (before any double-think) was outrage that the CEO of a coffee company could effectively out-maneuver Britain.
My natural reaction was to say that Starbucks is insignificant compared to my actual country and that it won, it just opened the flood-gates and over a few weeks I rationalised my entire position. That the things which affect my well-being and my actual life (like the amount of money for funding my roads and hospitals) was actually a better form of the "rational egoism" than Rand's lofty, unworkable and amoral ideology which has never been about making things better, just "right" in their eyes and what-ever happens happens.
But it was an important part of my development ultimately, I try to craft my opinions around my genuine reaction to things as they happen rather than being a mouthpiece for others and I've lost any interest in any ideology that's purely "theoretical" and unworkable in reality (anything that begins "Anarcho-" would probably be included). I lean quite heavily to the left now, because that's where I naturally felt inclined to lean and not because I read someone's ideas in a book and adopted it.
Have any other Kiwi's encountered Objectivism or Randian philosophy and it's followers? What's other people's take on their philosophy and it's merits?
