I’m reading “Sisyphus Shrugged”, a response to Atlas Shrugged, it’s a fictional world where Ayn Rand’s ideas were implemented and everyone is struggling to get by except a few elites. It’s political intrigue, plenty of action, but I love it most for the occasional speech. It’s weird to be reading while this election is going on and seeing the parallels of Republican ideologies in the real world. I’m about 3/4 done, where John Galt, Ayn Rand’s hero, is running for President and being asked a question by the hero of this book, a female journalist. She asks him about family, and if he loves his family and will sacrifice for them, and why does that love end at the boundaries of his property? Isn’t everyone our family, according to any theory of where we all came from? She asks him about love:
“Our love benefits us and everyone it touches. That is what love means to us: not only a subjective feeling but an objective response of acting on behalf of those we love. You (John Galt) treat those outside the immediate circle of your family as if they were nothing more than vehicles for your own profit. Do you consider this admirable?”
Link to Amazon]
I'm reading "Sisyphus Shrugged", a response to Atlas Shrugged, it's a fictional world where Ayn Rand's ideas were implemented and everyone is struggling to get by except a few elites. It's political intrigue, plenty of action, but I love it most for the occasional speech. It's weird to be reading while this election is going on and seeing the parallels of Republican ideologies in the real world. I'm about 3/4 done, where John Galt, Ayn Rand's hero, is running for President and being asked a question by the hero of this book, a female journalist. She asks him about family, and if he loves his family and will sacrifice for them, and why does that love end at the boundaries of his property? Isn't everyone our family, according to any theory of where we all came from? She asks him about love: "Our love benefits us and everyone it touches. That is what love means to us: not only a subjective feeling but an objective response of acting on behalf of those we love. You (John Galt) treat those outside the immediate circle of your family as if they were nothing more than vehicles for your own profit. Do you consider this admirable?" Link to Amazon]Now if only Ayn Rand readers could be made to read this version and then if we had a rational citizenry, they might compare the two versions and examine their own convictions. Oh dear, than I look at the political polls and find that nearly half the US voters still favor Trump despite all of his superficial nonsense and dead-end logic and his many obvious hatreds, dishonesty, not to mention his completely egomaniacal mindset. And of course, the Republican can't think of a damned thing beyond sharpening their knives and spears for another four years of dogma driven insanity.
House Republicans are already preparing for ‘years’ of investigations of Clinton https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/house-republicans-are-already-preparing-for-years-of-investigations-of-clinton/2016/10/26/e153a714-9ac3-11e6-9980-50913d68eacb_story.html By David Weigel, October 26 SOUTH JORDAN, Utah — Jason Chaffetz, the Utah congressman wrapping up his first term atop the powerful House Oversight Committee, unendorsed Donald Trump weeks ago. That freed him up to prepare for something else: spending years, come January, probing the record of a President Hillary Clinton. “It’s a target-rich environment," the Republican said in an interview in Salt Lake City’s suburbs. “Even before we get to Day One, we’ve got two years’ worth of material already lined up. She has four years of history at the State Department, and it ain’t good." In a tweet Wednesday night, Chaffetz reaffirmed his distaste for Clinton and his refusal to endorse Trump — but reversed his plans not to vote for the Republican nominee. ... If she wins, Clinton would enter office with low favorability ratings and only one-third of voters considering her “honest and trustworthy." As a result, Republicans are not inclined to give her a political honeymoon. To many of them, a Clinton victory would mean that Trump threw away an election that anyone else could have won. ... That analysis stems from the investigations Republicans have led — or asked for — into Clinton’s tenure at the State Department. Clinton has been dogged by investigations into the terrorist attacks in Benghazi, and for the better part of two years, she’s reeled from questions about the private email server she used while secretary of state. Chaffetz, too, views Clinton as a lucky candidate whose past will catch up with her after the polls close. ... “Republicans are pretending like they haven’t been investigating Secretary Clinton for years ever since she announced that she was running for president, including everything from Benghazi to emails to the Clinton Foundation," Cummings said in a statement. “It’s no exaggeration to say that on the first day Secretary Clinton walks into the White House, Republicans will have already investigated her more than any other president in history." ...
Oy, another fundamental misunderstanding of Ayn Rand. My guess is she’d be horrified by a someone like Trump who leans heavily towards dictatorship, almost literally. The mistake usually made about AR is to say she propounded this idea that it’s ok to get what you want, whatever it is, by climbing over others indiscrimately. Completely false. She was a proponent of rational self interest, emphasis on rational. Most people focus on the self interest part and simply equate it with run of the mill selfish behavior. Someone trying to be rational in their self-interest realizes that others have rational self-interests as well, and as long as two parties approach each other on that basis, then progress can be made withOUT climbing over each other. It’s pretty complicated, I’m just summarizing, but that’s part of the problem too. It’s too easy an idea to conflate with simplistic irrational selfishness. Give Virtue of Selfishness a try.
She was a proponent of rational self interest, emphasis on rational. Most people focus on the self interest part and simply equate it with run of the mill selfish behavior. Someone trying to be rational in their self-interest realizes that others have rational self-interests as well, and as long as two parties approach each other on that basis, then progress can be made withOUT climbing over each other.This sounds like regular human interaction dressed up as something groundbreaking. I'm mostly unfamiliar with Ayn Rand but the little I know of her makes her look like a charlatan.
She was a proponent of rational self interest, emphasis on rational. Most people focus on the self interest part and simply equate it with run of the mill selfish behavior. Someone trying to be rational in their self-interest realizes that others have rational self-interests as well, and as long as two parties approach each other on that basis, then progress can be made withOUT climbing over each other.This sounds like regular human interaction dressed up as something groundbreaking. I'm mostly unfamiliar with Ayn Rand but the little I know of her makes her look like a charlatan.For the most part it is. She defined it though because in the world she came from (communist Russia) people did NOT have a right to their own self-interest. If you were athletic, the state had a right to you. As they would express it, it is irrational for you to be interested in your self, but only the state. And as she saw it, there were plenty of intellectuals outside of communist russia who believed the same as the russian dictators. And that was what she was against...elitist intellectuals who gave intellectual underpinning to ideas that in practice killed individuality. Anthem is another great read along these lines.
She was a proponent of rational self interest, emphasis on rational. Most people focus on the self interest part and simply equate it with run of the mill selfish behavior. Someone trying to be rational in their self-interest realizes that others have rational self-interests as well, and as long as two parties approach each other on that basis, then progress can be made withOUT climbing over each other.This sounds like regular human interaction dressed up as something groundbreaking. I'm mostly unfamiliar with Ayn Rand but the little I know of her makes her look like a charlatan.For the most part it is. She defined it though because in the world she came from (communist Russia) people did NOT have a right to their own self-interest. If you were athletic, the state had a right to you. As they would express it, it is irrational for you to be interested in your self, but only the state. And as she saw it, there were plenty of intellectuals outside of communist russia who believed the same as the russian dictators. And that was what she was against...elitist intellectuals who gave intellectual underpinning to ideas that in practice killed individuality. Anthem is another great read along these lines. Sorry, missed these for a few days. But all of her characters in Atlas Shrugged did not recognize the mutual self-interest of people who worked for them. The book barely recognized that working people existed at all, except in the occasional mob scene where they all whined like she said they would. If Atlas Shrugged had been set in Russia, or was more obviously about Russia, it would have been a decent book. But she just imported her fears from there to here and didn't recognize the value of checks and balances and regulations.