Jesus, what an unbelievable thread you guys had going. I've been avoiding this room and now I'm kicking myself for it. I've had time to read only about one tenth of the posts here and was frothing at the mouth thinking up responses for almost everyone of them. I'll never neglect this room again, EVER. My impulse for coming here was to learn more about Ayn Rand and what people on this site think of her. Growing up in a government run, capitalist controlled school system, I was not afforded the reading skills nor the attention span to study the likes of Rand. I've fought hard for years to reinterest myself in learning and reading and have long since been able to digest the works of various notable scholars, Rand being my latest endeavor.
I've started with The New Left: The Anti Industrialist Revolution.
I am shocked and dismayed at how shallow and narrow minded her thesis and supporting arguments are. I find this book to be riddle with contradiction, lame excuses, and denial in support of the unadulterated super-techno capitalism that she lusts after. I see a neurotic, anal retentive intellectual, badly in need of some good blotter acid, that has great difficulty in dealing with her own feelings and therefore faults the rest of the world for paying ANY attention to their own.
I see an obsolete, antiquated philosopher, bought and paid for, intimidated by anyone that would dare push the envolope of intellectual enlightenment beyond that of the acient greeks (as if they have monopoly on intelligence or reasoning).
She faults everyone left of center for being nothing more than victims of collectivist propaganda when she herself is deeply plugged into the propaganda machine of the most extreme right, and hence leaves us with the same two lame ass, spoon-fed, tail-chasing choices we're always pumped up with: democrat vs. republican. Great.
So where's the ground breaking, revolutionary philosopher I've been hearing about all these years? What a dissapointment. I guess I'll finish this book, tear her philosophy a new asshole, and then move on to someone else.
Did her philosophy evolve much beyond this work or will it just depress me even more?
I'd be more than happy to provide examples of the generalizations I've stated here but I would first like to solicit a general response to Ayn Rand. Any takers?
