Mary TF
10-14-2007, 09:08 AM
I don't know what the total number is for assholes, and maybe she's already here, but she's always been an asshole in my book, and this artlcle states far better than I could why:
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article18551.htm
excert below (after edit), I chose the last part of the essay rather than the opening, anyway asshole extrordinaire!!
Rand's credo is summed up by the title of a collection of her essays, The Virtue of Selfishness, which have circulated in an almost samizdat fashion among enthusiasts of capitalism red in tooth and claw.
It attracted the devotion of America's top corporate executives, who would only speak of its impact behind closed doors. A staple read of undergraduate business schools, the book provided comfort to each generation of entrepreneurs by telling them that there is no conflict between private ambition and public benefit.
One of the characters in Atlas Shrugged, summarises her philosophy of Objectivism with the following oath: "I swear, by my life and my love of it, that I will never live for the sake of another human being, or ask another human being to live for mine."
Her novels continue to inspire visceral feelings of worship and disgust among readers. Reviewing the newly published memoir of her acolyte Greenspan, the conservative writer Andrew Ferguson complains in The Weekly Standard that "her creepy philosophy of Objectivism, placing the self at the centre of the moral universe, still is embraced by tens of thousands of pimply teenage boys in the dreamy moments between fits of social insecurity and furious bouts of masturbation."
One way or another Rand's ode to American individualism has made her one of the towering figures of US political thought in the late 20th century.
By rejecting altruism and embracing selfishness she rejected the Judaeo-Christian underpinning of the religious right. The only moral obligation a person had was to his or her own happiness. That meant capitalism should be given a free rein with an unregulated market economy.
She pushed America's cult of individualism into uncharted waters where ruthless self-interest and disdain for poorer members of society were the guiding principles.
Her admirers partly credit her revived appeal to an absence of ideas coming from the US left: "Today's left doesn't have anything positive to offer to young people," says Yaron Brook, director of the Ayn Rand Institute. "When they were socialists, there was at least something they were fighting for, and they believed in a right and a wrong. Today's leftist agenda is negative and nihilistic – focused on stopping industrialisation, capitalism and even Western civilisation. But young people want positive values. That's why religion is so strong today, because many view it as the only thing that promises a brighter future.
"Ayn Rand is the only voice that offers a secular absolutist morality with a positive vision and agenda, for individuals and for society as a whole."
The coming presidential election will reveal the extent to which ordinary poor Americans will proudly vote themselves out of jobs, off the land and ensure that their children can never afford to go to university or afford health care. It happened in the last two presidential elections, and the Ayn Rand Institute is banking that it will happen again.
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article18551.htm
excert below (after edit), I chose the last part of the essay rather than the opening, anyway asshole extrordinaire!!
Rand's credo is summed up by the title of a collection of her essays, The Virtue of Selfishness, which have circulated in an almost samizdat fashion among enthusiasts of capitalism red in tooth and claw.
It attracted the devotion of America's top corporate executives, who would only speak of its impact behind closed doors. A staple read of undergraduate business schools, the book provided comfort to each generation of entrepreneurs by telling them that there is no conflict between private ambition and public benefit.
One of the characters in Atlas Shrugged, summarises her philosophy of Objectivism with the following oath: "I swear, by my life and my love of it, that I will never live for the sake of another human being, or ask another human being to live for mine."
Her novels continue to inspire visceral feelings of worship and disgust among readers. Reviewing the newly published memoir of her acolyte Greenspan, the conservative writer Andrew Ferguson complains in The Weekly Standard that "her creepy philosophy of Objectivism, placing the self at the centre of the moral universe, still is embraced by tens of thousands of pimply teenage boys in the dreamy moments between fits of social insecurity and furious bouts of masturbation."
One way or another Rand's ode to American individualism has made her one of the towering figures of US political thought in the late 20th century.
By rejecting altruism and embracing selfishness she rejected the Judaeo-Christian underpinning of the religious right. The only moral obligation a person had was to his or her own happiness. That meant capitalism should be given a free rein with an unregulated market economy.
She pushed America's cult of individualism into uncharted waters where ruthless self-interest and disdain for poorer members of society were the guiding principles.
Her admirers partly credit her revived appeal to an absence of ideas coming from the US left: "Today's left doesn't have anything positive to offer to young people," says Yaron Brook, director of the Ayn Rand Institute. "When they were socialists, there was at least something they were fighting for, and they believed in a right and a wrong. Today's leftist agenda is negative and nihilistic – focused on stopping industrialisation, capitalism and even Western civilisation. But young people want positive values. That's why religion is so strong today, because many view it as the only thing that promises a brighter future.
"Ayn Rand is the only voice that offers a secular absolutist morality with a positive vision and agenda, for individuals and for society as a whole."
The coming presidential election will reveal the extent to which ordinary poor Americans will proudly vote themselves out of jobs, off the land and ensure that their children can never afford to go to university or afford health care. It happened in the last two presidential elections, and the Ayn Rand Institute is banking that it will happen again.