Atlas Shrugged - finally got around to reading it after dozens of recommendations from good friends. Shocking how relevant and prophetic it is, especially with respect to the events of 2009.
It's the reaction everybody has with Rand. To be completely fair to her, she introduces a lot of people to ideas they haven't grappled with before. I'm still glad I read her, even if, three years after, I disagree with all but a strand of her ideas.
I doubt it's worth having another HN debate about Rand, though. We've thoroughly exhausted that discussion.
I have major disagreements with a lot of Rand's ideas, but I agree more with her social descriptions/depictions/??(I can't think of a really good word) now, 23 years after first reading Atlas Shrugged, than I did three years after reading it.
I would be interested in reading up on those. Could you perhaps give a link? I tried googling, but I didn't get very interesting results. Maybe you can think of a few memorable discussions that?
The link died, but it was a comparison between Rand and Gladwell, and provoked a lot of interesting conversation/drama. That's pretty old; I was actually still arguing in favor of Rand.
This one has some of the most elegant denunciations: This was one of the few arguments that wasn't overridden by one side or another.
But if you want a really terrific online discussion, I'm going to abandon ship and give you a link to MetaFilter instead, which starts with a series of critical articles and leads on to one of the most lucid, multifaceted discussions of Rand's many flaws I've ever seen. This was the discussion that severed the last of my connections to Rand and her philosophy.
But if you want a really terrific online discussion, I'm going to abandon ship and give you a link to MetaFilter instead, which starts with a series of critical articles and leads on to one of the most lucid, multifaceted discussions of Rand's many flaws I've ever seen.
I'm not defending Rand, but is it really intellectually honest to judge her stated principles by her behavior, as most of her critics do? Many of the most influential philosophers in all schools of thought have proven to be either hypocritical or downright nuts.
It's easy to attack someone as flawed as Rand, and it's even easier to attack strawmen fashioned from bits and pieces of her work. Neither of these facts tell you anything about the quality or relevance of her overall message.
Actually, the linked discussion mentions that also. When discussing such an inherently flawed philosophy, it's important to really think about the origins of Rand's thoughts. Why did she think the way she did? Who inspired her? Objectivism is not a stand-alone philosophy.
In particular, the talk about her and the mass murderer horrified me. When her ideal of humanity cut a young girl to pieces, you have to wonder if the sadomasochism in her philosophy was more a personal kink than it was some step of logic.