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Will Everyone Please Stop Freaking Out Over Ayn Rand?!?
Will everyone please stop freaking out over Ayn Rand??
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monolith|11.10.09 @ 7:08AM|#
I quite liked the cartoons but surely the audience here would understand the irony of the Che t-shirt and little red book withought the subtle "mass murderer fashion accessories"
|11.10.09 @ 9:28AM|#
You missed the point entirely. You need to read the comic again.
Slut Bunwalla|11.10.09 @ 2:03PM|#
+1
Tholan|11.10.09 @ 6:00PM|#
+2
|11.17.09 @ 2:49AM|#
I don't think that the Che shirt is meant ironically in more than a few percent of the wearers. Most either like the picture and think it's cool because people a year ahead of them in school did the same or else they are pro-mass murder if it passes an ideological test.
Those that would be ironic would wear the Reagan version or the "Don't Be A DouChe!" shirt. A very ironic version would have a zombie Che.
Mao's Red Book is as ironic a choice to carry around as Mein Kampf.
Billy Beck|11.18.09 @ 8:26AM|#
"Most either like the picture and think it's cool because people a year ahead of them in school did the same ..."
It's turtles all the way down!
Fist of Etiquette|11.10.09 @ 7:23AM|#
This is longer than a Rand novel.
Also, that dude did not age well.
Revolver|11.10.09 @ 7:45AM|#
But if you go carrying pictures of Chairman Mao,
You ain't gonna make it with anyone anyhow...
Anita Dunn|11.10.09 @ 8:37AM|#
You can make it with me.
|11.10.09 @ 9:55AM|#
I wouldn't touch that with Hillary's dick.
|11.10.09 @ 9:58AM|#
I do like a bit of running dog once in a while. C'mere, bitch!
|11.10.09 @ 10:17AM|#
We'll take the sloppy seconds.
Suki|11.10.09 @ 7:25AM|#
Awesome! Love that last panel. monolith, your observation is spot on for this audience. Notsomuch for others.
anarch|11.10.09 @ 7:38AM|#
I like. Is good.
MNG|11.10.09 @ 7:40AM|#
Funny stuff. I like the cartoons, Bagge is always witty, and some of our regulars who struggle with reading and writing, like Suki, appreciate the pictures. Nobody left behind says I...
Warty|11.10.09 @ 7:50AM|#
It's not named Suki, it's John's realdoll. Say it right or you get another swirlie.
Kyle Jordan|11.10.09 @ 7:42AM|#
Nice 'toon.
Untermensch|11.10.09 @ 7:47AM|#
Bok and Payne, take note: you don't have to suck.
Art-P.O.G.|11.10.09 @ 7:47AM|#
Peter Bagge for the win.
Art-P.O.G.|11.10.09 @ 7:48AM|#
To be fair to Bok and Payne, the format they work in is unforgiving and brutal.
Tholan|11.10.09 @ 6:01PM|#
-1
ed|11.10.09 @ 7:56AM|#
Who's "freaking out"?
Art-P.O.G.|11.10.09 @ 8:21AM|#
He drew you in with the title, didn't he.
ed|11.10.09 @ 8:27AM|#
Yes. I want my money back.
|11.10.09 @ 10:01AM|#
Who's "freaking out"?
The hippie in the third panel, and the Che fanboi in the last panel. Didn't you read it?
-jcr
Billy Beck|11.18.09 @ 8:28AM|#
But that's not "Everyone", ya know? Look around: big picture.
Copernicus|9.5.11 @ 7:30AM|#
Yes, I agree. He should have drawn a cartoon with Everyone in it. That would have been infinitely greater.
Copernicus|9.5.11 @ 7:33AM|#
Also, I like your comment about the big picture. Especially the "look around" part. Thanks, I was looking mostly forward and down, mostly.
Bruce Majors|11.10.09 @ 8:22AM|#
You can nominate your favorite comic strip for an award here:
http://2009.weblogawards.org/n.....p#loggedin
Jose|11.10.09 @ 8:26AM|#
Rand never gets credit for her single greatest accomplishment... giving assholes an intellectual framework for being assholes.
|11.10.09 @ 8:53AM|#
You mean Rand invented the H&R troll? wOw!
|11.10.09 @ 9:46AM|#
Oh please. What philosopher of significance hasn't done that. More intellectual assholes build shrines to Marx or Kierkegaard than to Rand.
|11.10.09 @ 9:49AM|#
Just in case I haven't mentioned it lately: I fucking hate Kierkegaard.
Literalist|11.10.09 @ 10:07AM|#
Great story.
JB|11.10.09 @ 11:03AM|#
I think you need to go read him again.
|11.10.09 @ 10:02AM|#
Well, I was going to say that Marx predates her by quite a lot of years, but upon reflection I can't describe Marxism as an intellectual framework.
-jcr
|11.10.09 @ 9:33AM|#
I think this is one of Bagge's best.
|11.10.09 @ 9:33AM|#
Bagge shoots and scores!
Quibble; Redundancy, and especially arguing against government interference, are more apt observations of Atlas than Fountainhead.
Pingback| 11.10.09 @ 9:42AM
Twitter Trackbacks for Will Everyone Please Stop Freaking Out Over Ayn Rand?!? - Rea links to this page. Here’s an excerpt:
|11.10.09 @ 9:58AM|#
+1
Best Friday Funny ever.
Chris C|11.10.09 @ 10:01AM|#
Only makes me sad that he didn't write it sooner so it could be in his book.
Colin|11.10.09 @ 10:07AM|#
Bagge nails it perfectly.
Atabrat|11.10.09 @ 10:19AM|#
I'm not freaking out.
Mad Max|11.10.09 @ 10:41AM|#
This is as good a a time as any to link to Whittaker Chambers’ famous takedown of Atlas Shrugged in the magazine National Review (back then, National Review was a conservative publication):
‘. . . the author deals wholly in the blackest blacks and the whitest whites. In this fiction everything, everybody, is either all good or all bad, without any of those intermediate shades which, in life, complicate reality and perplex the eye that seeks to probe it truly. . . .
‘So much radiant energy [from the good guys] might seem to serve a eugenic purpose. For, in this story as in Mark Twain's, "all the knights marry the princess" — though without benefit of clergy. Yet from the impromptu and surprisingly gymnastic matings of the heroine and three of the heroes, no children — it suddenly strikes you — ever result. The possibility is never entertained. And, indeed, the strenuously sterile world of Atlas Shrugged is scarcely a place for children. You speculate that, in life, children probably irk the author and may make her uneasy. . . .
‘Just as her operatic businessmen are, in fact, Nietzschean supermen, so her ulcerous leftists are Nietzsche's "last men" . . .
‘. . . The Message [of the novel] is the thing. It is, in sum, a forthright philosophic materialism. . . .
‘. . . Miss Rand, as the enemy of any socializing force, calls in a Big Brother of her own contriving to do battle with the other [socialism]. In the name of free enterprise, therefore, she plumps for a technocratic elite (I find no more inclusive word than technocratic to bracket the industrial-financial-engineering caste she seems to have in mind). . . . And in reality, too, by contrast with fiction, this can only head into a dictatorship, however benign, living and acting beyond good and evil, a law unto itself (as Miss Rand believes it should be), and feeling any restraint on itself as, in practice, criminal, and, in morals, vicious (as Miss Rand clearly feels it to be). . . .
'Out of a lifetime of reading, I can recall no other book in which a tone of overriding arrogance was so implacably sustained. Its shrillness is without reprieve. Its dogmatism is without appeal. . . . From almost any page of Atlas Shrugged, a voice can be heard, from painful necessity, commanding: "To a gas chamber — go!"’
|11.10.09 @ 10:59AM|#
You can tell Whittaker Chambers hadn't been fucked in 20 years when he wrote this review.
Mad Max|11.10.09 @ 1:32PM|#
Maybe if he got raped by an architect, it might have helped him?
|11.11.09 @ 3:30AM|#
Probably about the only way for him to get any, yes.
Billy Beck|11.18.09 @ 8:29AM|#
He also hadn't read the goddamned book.
|9.14.10 @ 7:09PM|#
There was a reason why that pumpkin had a hole in it.
|11.10.09 @ 11:56AM|#
Having read Atlas Shrugged (no, am not a O'ist), I have never understood where the hell his guy got this "To the gas chamber- go" idea.
I found it to be a pro life, pro liberty work. Unlike garbage from Marx, Mao, etc, which HAS led to dictatorships...
|11.11.09 @ 10:45AM|#
People who find Rand pro life and pro liberty are bringing their preconceptions to her work, not reading what she actually wrote. Chambers was exactly right. Rand was at heart a dogmatic Russian married to her own intellectual framework, reality be damned, just a mirror image of Lenin and too many other dogmatic Russian thinkers. To me she comes across as a character from a Dostoyevsky novel come to life. There is a much better Russian emigre who wrote about freedom and the individual in more subtle terms - Nabokov.
Copernicus|9.5.11 @ 7:40AM|#
Yes, she's dogmatic. But she's dogmatic about pro-life and pro-liberty. So Chambers is wrong and so are you.
Rimfax|11.10.09 @ 1:24PM|#
So, I guess Whittaker Chambers isn't so fond of modern architecture.
Mad Max|11.10.09 @ 1:32PM|#
You're thinking of the Fountainhead.
|11.11.09 @ 3:29AM|#
*whiff*
IceTrey|11.10.09 @ 1:58PM|#
"To a gas chamber — go!".
Why? To delouse clothing? Because that's what the gas chambers were used for.
Art-P.O.G.|11.10.09 @ 2:03PM|#
What gas chambers are you referring to?
matt|11.10.09 @ 10:43AM|#
But to her eternal credit, she never once advocated the use of physical force to impose her ideas on anyone.
Within the boundaries of a single country, this might be true. Otherwise? Not so much.
Just because modern Randians have the decency to be embarrassed of her foreign policy views doesn't mean that they didn't exist.
DJF|11.10.09 @ 10:52AM|#
Ayn Rand might never have advocated physical force but this has not stopped her supporters such as the Ayn Rand Institute from advocating physical force. They for example were in favor of invading Iraq.
matt|11.10.09 @ 11:03AM|#
That's a continuity, not an aberration in Randian thought.
Rand herself would have almost certainly advocated for the invasion of Iraq if she had been alive during the discussion.
DJF|11.10.09 @ 11:19AM|#
For what reason would she advocate an invasion of a country which was not a danger to herself?
|11.10.09 @ 12:53PM|#
It never stopped her while she was alive.
Number 6|11.16.09 @ 3:52PM|#
Rand was a vocal opponent of Vietnam and the draft. What on earth makes you think she'd favor the Iraq invasion?
Devin Greaney|11.10.09 @ 10:53AM|#
Loved the comment!! Yes, Ayn was not God-- far from it-- but she gave credit to the innovators and risk takers where politicians have referred to them as winning "life's lottery."
And the last panel was great. Anarchists and dictaros have one thing right -- the state IS force, the only question is how they use the force- to seize life, liberty property and ideas or to protect life, liberty, property and ideas? Does an armed agent of the state come after you because you killed someone (deprived an individual of his rights) or does the armed agent of the state come after you because you expose dangerous thoughts or pray to the wrong God?
Sorry if I went on a tangent!!
Devin Greaney
Memphis TN
JB|11.10.09 @ 11:04AM|#
Great comic and hits most of the salient points.
|11.10.09 @ 11:42AM|#
Doesn't anybody see a parallel between Rand's oligarchy of the preternaturally gifted and Latin America's oligarchies? We can say Marxists love their violence, but so do Rand's titans of banana republic industry.
|11.10.09 @ 11:43AM|#
I should add that I like Rand's work. But just like the Bible, the more literal you take it, the less credible you are.
Rimfax|11.10.09 @ 1:28PM|#
"You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means."
I missed the part where Rand's heroes grabbed the reigns of political power.
|11.10.09 @ 1:53PM|#
"You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means....I missed the part where Rand's heroes grabbed the reigns of political power."
If you're referring to the word "oligarch", it isn't inconceivable that it DOES mean what I think it means.
Tony|11.10.09 @ 4:44PM|#
The very end of Atlas Shrugged kind of implied it.
Amaroq|2.3.11 @ 5:15AM|#
The end of Atlas Shrugged was the logical consequence of the Men of the Mind withdrawing from the state-controlled society. With nobody intelligent and productive left, society simply collapsed. Their decision to return to society after it collapsed didn't mean they were going to rule what was left over. They would be free to pursue their own interests again, which meant that they could rebuild.
When I read the book, the whole time, I expected the society as a whole to see reason and for the Men of the Mind to return to help them. But the ending, shocking as it was, made complete sense. The Atlases of the world refused to hold it on their shoulders any longer. If they had done anything other than withdraw, they would've continued to bleed themselves to support that society.
Marc|11.10.09 @ 2:03PM|#
Doesn't anybody see a parallel between Rand's oligarchy of the preternaturally gifted and Latin America's oligarchies?
I, for one, have no idea what you're talking about.
|11.10.09 @ 2:15PM|#
It appears you are not alone!
|11.10.09 @ 11:59AM|#
Loved this comic. In several ways it paralleled my own experiences with Rand (tho I thankfully never had to deal with people like those in panels 3 and 4).
Read her in college. Found a lot to like, and some not to. Had issues with her views on aesthetics (oh, I have to like X and dislike Y? pass). She seemed to get more strident in her later works, which eventually turned me off.
Rodney Schroeter|11.10.09 @ 3:18PM|#
Hey, Peter, I wish I could find all that correspondence between you & me from 20-some years ago. I truly learned a lot from our disagreements (and, I suppose, from whatever we DID agree on!). Now, I'm more convinced than ever that Ayn Rand has made a great contribution to the history of ideas. Will people realize it, in time?
|11.10.09 @ 3:18PM|#
I remember really riling up the Campus Objectivists at UF by showing The Fountainhead at our College Libertarians meeting one time. Their president had already declared war on us, so I figured, I won't even bother with trying to coordinate separate events with them. He was really pissed off when 3/4 of their club showed up at our showing of The Fountainhead instead of sitting around a classroom listening to tapes of Leonard Peikoff. We also showed We the Living on another occasion.
Obey the Fist|11.10.09 @ 3:53PM|#
So, even when you guys are trying to be reasonable on this subject, you can't argue your point without turning your opposition into a non-existent caricature of who you think is criticizing you?
|11.17.09 @ 2:21PM|#
+1
Amaroq|2.3.11 @ 5:26AM|#
It's not a non-existent caricature. I have seriously met people who instantly try to gang up on me when they find out I like Ayn Rand. I'm confused and unsure of how to respond to such people. Seriously, what part of "It's right to pursue your own happiness and it's wrong for people to violate other peoples' rights" do they have a problem with?
|11.10.09 @ 4:30PM|#
Bagge Rocks.
Peter Bagge|11.10.09 @ 4:45PM|#
The younger, productive Rand would have been 100% opposed to the Iraq war. She was opposed to WW2! But the latter misanthropic and non- productive Rand might have -- assuming she would have perceived Iraq to be as grave a threat to us as the Soviet Union was, which I doubt. She may have gone a bit crazy towards the end there, but she never went stupid.
Thanks for the kind words, everyone!
Pingback| 11.11.09 @ 8:58AM
Lipstick Cosmetics – Feed Archives – Dr. 5z5 – Open Feed Directory … | Cosmetics Beau links to this page. Here’s an excerpt:
Han Solo|11.11.09 @ 10:47AM|#
People who discourage others from reading Rand, just dont want them to KNOW the truth.
I am not saying Rand is the be all/end all, but I found Atlas an OK story. I mean I have read far worse science fiction after all.
The value is that after all the fluff, Rand puts some thoughts in the backs of people heads.
Not to mention that I know recognize SOO many things that just are creepy in the way they happen TODAY in real life, that are nearly identical to the way things played out in Atlas.
Pingback| 11.11.09 @ 10:52AM
Blog@Newsarama » Blog Archive » Linkarama@Newsarama links to this page. Here’s an excerpt:
Pingback| 11.11.09 @ 3:02PM
Comics Cavalcade: Ayn Rand and Wonder Woman | Robot 6 @ Comic Book Resources – Coveri links to this page. Here’s an excerpt:
Pingback| 11.11.09 @ 7:49PM
Dan Nawara (danboy) 's status on Thursday, 12-Nov-09 00:49:40 UTC - Identi.ca links to this page. Here’s an excerpt:
Matthew E|11.11.09 @ 9:43PM|#
Rand was opposed to the Vietnam war, after all; I don't see why she would have supported the Iraq war.
I mind me of a Rand quote from some book about her I read; I'll try to reproduce it from memory. In the late 1970s someone asked her what she thought about the possibility of Ronald Reagan becoming president, and she said, "One of the good things about getting old is that I probably won't live long enough to see anything so monstrous."
Pingback| 11.12.09 @ 2:37AM
CLEANING OUT THE LINK CAGE, November 11, 2009: STARS WARS Lawn Trinkets; Ayn Rand Cha links to this page. Here’s an excerpt:
Pingback| 11.12.09 @ 11:50AM
Journalista – the news weblog of The Comics Journal » Blog Archive » Nov. 12, 2009: A links to this page. Here’s an excerpt:
Pingback| 11.12.09 @ 1:02PM
Friday lazy-ass link blogging. « The Dim-Post links to this page. Here’s an excerpt:
Pingback| 11.12.09 @ 5:02PM
links for 2009-11-12 links to this page. Here’s an excerpt:
|11.14.09 @ 10:19AM|#
It's amazing how much truth can be in one little comic strip. Well done.
Pingback| 11.16.09 @ 1:01PM
Peter Bagge on Ayn Rand | The Agitator links to this page. Here’s an excerpt:
Pingback| 11.16.09 @ 4:41PM
Peter Bagge comic about Ayn Rand | dv8-designs links to this page. Here’s an excerpt:
olekinderhook|11.16.09 @ 5:17PM|#
The only lesson I draw from this is: If you want to be taken seriously, don't be a libertarian.
Sanford|11.16.09 @ 6:19PM|#
Hmmmm, she may not have advocated for the use of physical force to impose her ideas, but her rabid neo-liberalism implies the creation of inequalities which can only be maintained through the use of force.
|11.17.09 @ 2:26PM|#
this.
I shudder to think of the level of disenfranchisement, tyranny, and death that would emerge from an Randian based world.
Amaroq|2.3.11 @ 5:37AM|#
I thought this was reason.com, not unreason.com. Did you think before you typed this? Did you read -anything- Rand wrote before you typed this? Same goes for that abc guy going around posting his agreement with everything anyone anti-rand posts here.
Are you trying to say that, without the use of force, some egalitarian law of human nature will make society naturally form into some sort of communism? If that's true, then why is there the welfare state and other socialist elements of society to force people to be more equal? It sounds to me like "inequalities" are naturally occurring and that socialists like you think there's something wrong with that. (Never mind the conceptual package-dealing that a word like "inequality" makes use of in this context.) There will always be some people who are willing to put forth more effort than others. And if working harder raises one person to a higher standard of living than another, then that's a natural "inequality". No force required.
Think before you type people.
Lol|11.16.09 @ 8:31PM|#
hurf durf
Pingback| 11.16.09 @ 9:31PM
Peter Bagge comic about Ayn Rand | The World Matters links to this page. Here’s an excerpt:
Pingback| 11.16.09 @ 9:35PM
VectorSphere » A Comic About Ayn Rand links to this page. Here’s an excerpt:
|11.17.09 @ 8:13AM|#
Here is an interesting discussion about Ayn Rand who seems really creepy:
http://www.slate.com/id/2233966/
|11.17.09 @ 2:28PM|#
Nice article. Thanks.
|11.17.09 @ 8:25AM|#
In the 30 years or so I've been hanging around college campuses, I can't say I've ever encountered anyone who "freaks out" over the mention of Rand's name. Maybe they exist, but I smell a straw man here.
I've read Rand, Marx, L Ron Hubble, the Hari Krisna tracts, Chomsky, Skinner et al. to see what the fuss is about. I'd recommend others do the same (hint: you don't have to slog through the whole thing to get the gist)
Rand's writing is wooden and didactic; her ideas are childish and not to be taken seriously by *adults*, but you can say the same for lots of other popular writing. Making this simple observation is not "freaking out".
|11.17.09 @ 2:28PM|#
+1
Heywood Jablowme|11.17.09 @ 8:59PM|#
L Ron Hubble?
Pingback| 11.17.09 @ 10:25AM
Freaking Out About Ayn Rand « Threads from Henry's Web links to this page. Here’s an excerpt:
Pingback| 11.17.09 @ 11:01AM
Libertarian Cartoon On Ayn Rand « The Edit: WFPL's Gabe Bullard blogs the news links to this page. Here’s an excerpt:
Pingback| 11.17.09 @ 6:00PM
Peter Bagge comic about Ayn Rand | Newsblog links to this page. Here’s an excerpt:
John|11.17.09 @ 6:35PM|#
Um, Che Guevara not only a "mass murderer", but on the order of Mao? Somebody needs to read something again.
Heywood Jablowme|11.17.09 @ 9:02PM|#
It seems to me that the author of the comic is the only one 'freaking out.' Read Ayn Rand for what it is and move on. Maybe you're hanging around too many community colleges.
|11.18.09 @ 11:39AM|#
One of these days I'll lock myself in the bathroom for a week & read the book on Objectivist philosophy. One should not be surprised at freaking out at her stuff. If anyone remembers Nietzsche (from whom she borrowed much), he tends to provoke freaked out responses too.
Contrary to popular hysteria, he was not a moral relativist; he was a perspectivist. He probably would have liked objectivism as a perspective, but skewered it, when it seems too much like Rationalism and would have attacked its a prioris, such as there must be no compulsion. (There should be no compulsion; there must be no compulsion for Objectivism to work, but compulsion exists.) As far as I know, objectivism leaves "existence exists", "man is an end in himself" and even "A is A" unsupported. These seem almost like tautologies, but Nietzsche would have shredded them for sloppy thinking and called her a priest (about the worst thing he would call anyone) for pushing dogma.
I'm not sure of the distinction between Objectivism and Rationalism; and I think she borrows one hell of a lot from Existentialism (isn't "volitional consciousness" another way of talking about bad faith?). All these things tend to provoke freaking out by the "can't we just all get along" crowd. Nietzsche would approve of conscious freaking out, but disgusted by unconscious freaking out, as, I suppose, would Rand. They were both polemicists (Nietzsche made it his overall style; Rand less so), but polemics is designed to freak out. So Nietzsche would probably suggest another line: "Go ahead & freak out! I want you to! Then attack your reasons for freaking out! And get back to me when you can attack my reasons!
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John Scott Tynes|11.18.09 @ 3:49PM|#
"She never once advocated the use of physical force" -- wait, what? Am I the only one who remembers the scene in Atlas Shrugged where our heroine confronts a security guard and, when he fails to self-actualize and wake up from his slavedom to the second-handers, she shoots him dead? Because it's pretty hard to read that scene as anything other than an endorsement of death sentences for those unable to comprehend the threats Rand depicts.
Amaroq|2.3.11 @ 5:46AM|#
Well, the security guard was helping hold the heroine's hero hostage. (Trying not to give spoilers here, in case someone hasn't read it. Or needs to read it again. :P)
I'd say the guard's non-cooperation was a threat to the life of the man she was trying to rescue.
Christy|11.21.09 @ 3:09PM|#
I love this and agree completely. Just the mention of her name seems to elicit an extreme reaction.
Pingback| 12.3.09 @ 11:53AM
Will everyone please stop freaking out over Ayn Rand | News Junkie links to this page. Here’s an excerpt:
Pingback| 12.4.09 @ 6:26PM
having you your papers? | stillgoingnative links to this page. Here’s an excerpt:
|12.5.09 @ 12:14PM|#
Gee, Bagge, is it OK for those of us who disagree with Rand to titter about her? Can we also point out that it was easy for Rand to advocate non-coercion?
Just curious.
Trackback| 12.14.09 @ 9:08PM
credit repair new hampshire, on credit repair new hampshire, links to this page. Here’s an excerpt:
|12.24.09 @ 9:03PM|#
Rand herself commented, in re. her cultists, that she could sympathize with Karl Marx's plea that _he_ was _not_ a "Marxist." (It's in the Playboy Interview.) That said...she did take a lot of pleasure in "epater les intellectuels," to coin a phrase, so she shouldn't have been too surprised at the responses she got.
Pingback| 12.31.09 @ 9:43AM
Logos kai Apokalupsis » Reason Magazine Honors Ayn Rand links to this page. Here’s an excerpt:
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Will Everyone Please Stop Freaking Out Over Ayn Rand?!? « VINCENTON POST links to this page. Here’s an excerpt:
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Happy 105th Birthday, Ayn Rand! - www.hostzi.com - deepWeb links to this page. Here’s an excerpt:
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Andrew Graham » Blog Archive » People Still Not Shutting Up About Ayn Rand. links to this page. Here’s an excerpt:
|2.12.10 @ 9:44AM|#
I'm having difficulty reconciling the fact that the writer of the masterpiece "Hate" could be a libertarian.
Pete, I implore you to read "The Shock Doctrine" my Naomi Klein and tell me if you still believe that free markets are the solution to all our problems.
But at the risk of contradicting myself, I love your collection of Reason cartoons -- even if I found myself disagreeing with you a lot.
K|3.1.10 @ 12:26PM|#
I implore you not to mention Naomi Klein as someone to read.
Adonisus|4.20.10 @ 8:06PM|#
I implore you to not mention Naomi Klein AT ALL.
|2.12.10 @ 9:53AM|#
And Ayn Rand sucks. Not just because of her ridiculous view of the world (evil liberal committees/bad; selfish capitalists/good), but because she's an atrocious writer.
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AA Lit: Include Agnostic/Atheist Success Stories? - Page 5 - SoberRecovery : Alcohol links to this page. Here’s an excerpt:
abercrombie milano|5.27.10 @ 5:28AM|#
I'm having difficulty reconciling the fact that the writer of the masterpiece "Hate" could be a libertarian.
|6.4.10 @ 9:49PM|#
Ayn Rand was a singular genius.
And look ma! I don't now feel any need to assert smug superiority over her, her ability to craft a novel, her philosophy, or those who believe it!
The Poodlehead|6.6.10 @ 2:23PM|#
I'm not surprised Mr. Bagge is a libertarian. In Hate, Valerie's dad advises Buddy, "You're either the fucker or the fuckee, and there ain't no in between!" They also have a good laugh over poor old Jimmy Carter.
Live and let rot.
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|12.3.10 @ 12:25PM|#
She certainly did advocate the use of force. For example, the people who are killed one minute before birth, because they are inconvenient.
Another example are the people on the train, who are killed for thought crimes.
Amaroq|2.3.11 @ 5:57AM|#
To address the former point, if a woman doesn't want to give birth, are you advocating using force to take control of what she's allowed to do with her body? You're advocating sacrificing the actual to the potential.
To address the latter point, those people were killed because the ideas they advocated lead inexorably to the situation that killed them. Rand didn't just say "I disagree with these peoples' ideas, therefore I'll kill them in my story." The irrationality of people like them contributed to the actions that caused the disaster.
|12.3.10 @ 12:35PM|#
Vanya is correct.
"I have never understood where the hell this guy got this "To the gas chamber- go" idea.
See my previous comment.
Amaroq|2.3.11 @ 9:04AM|#
This comic hits home for me. I'm an Objectivist (I agree with everything I understand of her philosophy so far), and the mere mention of Ayn Rand, or the mere observation that I happen to be reading one of her books at the time, has elicited reactions similar to the ones you describe. For the most part, people either don't know of her or associate her with Bioshock. But I have been verbally ganged up on by people before I could even explain myself, just because I agree with Ayn Rand's ideas.
I just have a few constructively critical comments to make about the comic.
The reason she "overly dramatizes", is because a work of fiction is a work of art. Ayn Rand advocated stylizing, ie, romanticizing reality in art. The purpose of art isn't to teach, but to show. She "dramatizes her case" because that's what she wanted to show you. She wanted to show the ideal man. She wanted to show the kinds of things that can hurt or hinder rational people, etc. (Such as accepting a life-damaging moral code.) She wanted to show that you can refuse to serve your destroyers, and that when you do so, they lose their power to do so. She wanted to show what man is capable of. The things she dramatized were what she thought was important, what she wanted to show, what she wanted people to contemplate. However, her stories progressed in a logical manner. She never made an event happen or a character take an action without some logical justification, so this has the consequence that you -can learn- from her stories. But that is a consequence of the work, not the purpose.
Also, atheism simply means that you don't believe in God or other mystical things. Morality isn't only in the realm of religion, it's within the realm of philosophy. (Ethics is one of the branches of philosophy.) Ayn Rand had a moral code that can be logically justified. If you think that you have the correct moral code, a moral code that promotes the life of whoever lives by it, is there anything wrong with being self-righteous and moralistic? If you believe you have the truth, you should proudly proclaim it, should you not? Sticking firmly to a belief that is justified by reality is a lot different than sticking firmly to a belief that is only justified by faith.
Also, if there's any "Rand Devotees" who think you have to share Rand's aesthetic tastes, I think -they- should read her books again. While she did advocate for a certain genre of art (romantic realism, as against boring, photocopy realism) as the best form of art for humans, the aesthetic branch of her philosophy explicitly talks about a "sense of life" that can be different from person to person. Your sense of life may be different from mine, so the kind of art that brings you pleasure and emotional refueling may be different from the art that does that for me. So she advocated one genre of art, but left it open for people to enjoy different aesthetic tastes. Some people have darker senses of life and may like darker art, others may have more positive senses of life and enjoy more positive forms of art, for example. Rand was able to look at a piece of art and say "This is a good work of art, but I hate it." Because she judged it both by its sense of life and how well it conveyed that sense of life.
ed hardy|4.8.11 @ 4:53AM|#
good article
|4.12.11 @ 5:47PM|#
Oh goodness, THANK YOU. I love Rand. But I'm not a Randroid. And the people who freak out over her one way or the other are really freaking ME out. Love the cartoon!!!!!
anti-ron paul|4.25.11 @ 8:40AM|#
The fact that anyone takes Ayn Rand's half-assed Nietzsche seriously makes me roll my eyes,but I hardly consider that freaking out.What's really funny about Bagge's last panel is it sidesteps Rand's girlish crush on William Hickman,kidnapper and murderer.She thought he was the bee's knees,the ubermench made flesh.Also,Rand,opponent of charity,spent the last days of her life on Medicare.Do the Randroids freak out over that?
Copernicus|9.5.11 @ 8:15AM|#
Medicare isn't charity. It is a benefit paid for, usually via a monthly tax on salary. Also, she wasn't an opponent of voluntary charity. No doubt she abhorred being forced to participate in the Social Security/Medicare scam. However, she was justified to get collect the benefits she paid for.
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Copernicus|9.5.11 @ 8:19AM|#
The hypocritical plot element everyone is missing is Dagnar's (fuck his last name) one man war on the "looters". Who asked this guy to go collect and return the supermen's assets? And via force no less.
Cheap Anime DVD|4.11.12 @ 8:51AM|#
It looks like that the author of the comic is the only one 'freaking out.' Reading Ayn Rand for what it is, that’s all!. Maybe they’re hanging around to different society. When I lived there in early 90’s, I think it was close to with the US. It is disappointing to me that they have done so poorly. We in fareastvision.com never freak out when I was able to read this one.