Like Glenn Beck, Ayn Rand Peddled Garbage As Truth -- Why Did America Buy It?

St. Petersburg in revolt gave us Vladimir Nabokov, Isaiah Berlin and Ayn Rand. The first was a novelist, the second a philosopher. The third was neither but thought she was both. Many other people have thought so too. In 1998 readers responding to a Modern Library poll identified Atlas Shrugged and The Fountainhead as the two greatest novels of the twentieth century—surpassing Ulysses, To the Lighthouse and Invisible Man. In 1991 a survey by the Library of Congress and the Book-of-the-Month Club found that with the exception of the Bible, no book has influenced more American readers than Atlas Shrugged.

One of those readers might well have been Farrah Fawcett. Not long before she died, the actress called Rand a "literary genius" whose refusal to make her art "like everyone else's" inspired Fawcett's experiments in painting and sculpture. The admiration, it seems, was mutual. Rand watched Charlie's Angels each week and, according to Fawcett, "saw something" in the show "that the critics didn't."


She described the show as a "triumph of concept and casting." Ayn said that while Angels was uniquely American, it was also the exception to American television in that it was the only show to capture true "romanticism"—it intentionally depicted the world not as it was, but as it should be. Aaron Spelling was probably the only other person to see Angels that way, although he referred to it as "comfort television."

So taken was Rand with Fawcett that she hoped the actress (or if not her, Raquel Welch) would play the part of Dagny Taggart in a TV version of Atlas Shrugged on NBC. Unfortunately, network head Fred Silverman killed the project in 1978. "I'll always think of 'Dagny Taggart' as the best role I was supposed to play but never did," Fawcett said.

http://www.alternet.org/story/147133/like_glenn_beck%2C_ayn_rand_peddled_garbage_as_truth_--_why_did_america_buy_it

exceptionalism and juvenilization.

There is really no mystery here.

train their young Republicans. Required Reading over the
years is naturally going to produce results.

There has been nothing comparative from the left.

I consider "On The Road" is the perfect rite of passage book.

If you subscribe to her philosophy, you be an Atheist. Not just any Atheist but a die hard radical Atheist.

against the teachings of the god.

There are real assholes and follower assholes. Ayn Rand empowered the followers.

Her books sell hundreds of thousands per year to this day. It's unfathomable. Nevermind the rotten ideology as "philosopy", they're monuments of bad writing.

You'd be a hero to every 8 year old.

and believes it long enough and sincerely enough that eventually it becomes the truth.

I mean how else can you explain everything wrong with religion. The Pope and Catholic Authorities have convinced themselves that these priests who molested young boys were not doing anything wrong - and they believe that because they convince themselves everyday that it is the truth.

Our public school system was designed during the Industrial Revolution, when the robber-barons wanted docile factory workers. You won't get that with people capable of rational discourse and thought.

Our country's schools produced the finest engineers, scientists and inventors in the world.

Guess those industrial revolution folks who wanted docile factory workers weren't very successful. :eyes:

Rand was Capitalism's lead cheerleader.

I read them, enjoyed them, etc. Believe them? Pft! They are NOVELS... FICTION. The same kind of people who believe Ayn Rand novels probably believe L. Ron Hubbard novels too.

Carl Sagan and Isaac Asimov wrote some killer novels too... still fiction... one might be enticed to believe, but no.

Rand didn't just "write novels" have you heard about the whole objectivism?

I don't give a flying fuck about objectivism... did you read my post? It's stupid to believe fiction. A philosophy is one person's fiction. That some people have made it to be more than it is doesn't detract from my enjoyment of the stories.

I am, for example, a huge fan of the works of Knut Hamsun. Some say he was a Nazi sympathizer. Do I know that for certain? No. Does it matter a tinker's damn to the stories he wrote? No. Would I love his work if someone proved to me he was indeed a Nazi sympathizer. Yes... because I understand that I have the choice of following his philosophy or not.

One of my all time favorite guitarists is a RW nutjob. I hate that. But I still consider his work brilliant.

But they do have a thin veneer of emotion. Occasionally, they believe what they want to believe.

Just look at most of the elections in this country.

The "rational" brain sits on the "lizard" brain, which sits on the spinal column

So yes, thin veneer of ration indeed

I have a problem with the "wink" emoticon. Trying to be deadpan.

Reason and logic have to be pounded into people for years before they take to them. Without a decent education, people are chimps with guns.

It really is backwards.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Objectivism_(Ayn_Rand)

"Philosophy

Ayn Rand characterized Objectivism as "a philosophy for living on earth", grounded in reality, and aimed at defining man's nature and the nature of the world in which he lives.<2>
My philosophy, in essence, is the concept of man as a heroic being, with his own happiness as the moral purpose of his life, with productive achievement as his noblest activity, and reason as his only absolute.
—Ayn Rand, Atlas Shrugged<5> "

I read her years ago but remember only controversy that seemed to surround her social commentary. The link in Wikipedia regarding her Objectivism is impressive and I cannot seem to fault what is in that Wikipedia article. I just breezed through that OP link - 12 pages which concludes with:

"Far from needing explanation, Rand's success explains itself. Rand worked in that quintessential American proving ground—alongside the likes of Richard Nixon, Ronald Reagan and Glenn Beck—where garbage achieves gravitas and bullshit gets blessed. There she learned that dreams don't come true. They are true. Turn your metaphysics into chewing gum, and your chewing gum is metaphysics. A is A.

"Alongside Glen Beck?" I dunno. There must be more. There must be some reason why I disliked her and stopped reading her after The Fountainhead. Great movie, though.

even with Rand Paul sporting her name
we have a society that does not read and could never get through any of her books

800-900 million copies...Way more than Ayn Rand

Rand is a charicature, even of herself. So much of America bought it because they WANT it to be true. They have a romantic notion of a brave new capitalist world; a place of unlimited resources, no regulations or restrictions and no barriers to exploiting any and all elements to the sky in order to make incomprehensible profits.

Sadly for them, the world doesn't work that way.

That is all Rand was - a romance novel writer just like Nora Roberts and Barbara Cartwright....

Notice no one ever mentions "We The Living" I wonder why? Maybe because it showed her as she really was - just a fluff writer...

Because its the "Hulk! Smash!" version of philosophy. It takes some basic philosophical premises, inverts them and then mixes them in with toxic mythologies about human nature. It is no wonder the result has been to blow up buildings in fits of hysterical rage.

It's the same reason people watch 24 or Fast and Furious or whatever "Hulk! Smash!" happens to be on the TV or in a book for them to consume. There is nothing more riveting than 1000 pages of pseudo-intellectual "Hulk! Smash!". Ayn Rand is the Orly Taitz of the past. "So you are a lawyer and a dentist?" "No, I am an author and a philosopher, unlike the world has ever seen."

Uh huh.

On a serious note: That bit about Rand most likely never reading Aristotle is right on as is the fact that the whole Randroid mythology creates a closed system-of-thought that can not be tested with facts. The whole shit about "checking premises" is nothing but an appeal to logic, which makes it similar to a theological exercise. Also the similarity to the epistemological basis of fascism has always struck me as well. The funny thing is, if she truly checked her premises her political conclusions are impossible. This dude is spot on.

They are both powerful influences, but the majority of americans are neither Ayn Rand libertarians or Glenn Beck droids. But it is pretty easy to see why both appeal to a certain segment of the populace. They both give an excuse to those that have failed--it is the fault of socialists who simply must tear down good hard working folks like you. They NEVER confuse the issue with nuances such as socialism also builds infrastructure that enables hard working folks like you to succeed.

The concept is simple, give the scared and bitter people a single, simple, and defenseless subject to hate/blame. Actually point the finger at a person or institution as the problem and you're likely to have them/it dispute you and therefore raise questions. Although Beck does often "name names" he really doesn't attack them on substance, he smears them by connecting them to the "great evil".

It's a fail-proof tactic. He calls Obama a socialist-who-denys-being-a-socialist, then rants and rants on the evils of socialism. So, Obama denies being a socialist--makes Beck "right".