I've got to admit that as a college freshman, trying to fulfill elective requirements and spacing out the tougher STEM courses, I signed up for a class called "Introduction to Fiction". One of the book we were made to read was "Atlas Shrugged". In fact, that was the book the prof assigned to the class for a book report type paper, and it had an effect on my impressionable mind that lasted a while. I think mine was pretentiously titled "Metaphysics, Epistemology, Ethics, Logic, Politics and Aesthetics: Objectivism - A Complete Philosophy."
A few years later I remembered that the class was supposed to be about fiction. Ah, and the obligatory quote:
“There are two novels that can change a bookish fourteen-year old’s life: The Lord of the Rings and Atlas Shrugged. One is a childish fantasy that often engenders a lifelong obsession with its unbelievable heroes, leading to an emotionally stunted, socially crippled adulthood, unable to deal with the real world. The other, of course, involves orcs." ― John Rogers
"Her philosophy then is just her personal vendetta. And it’s the most ironic thing — she calls this philosophy “Objectivism.”
So this explains Rand, but I never understood her appeal to the American libertarian. I struggled to plod through Atlas Shrugged as a youth because I always kept thinking "why don't these private enterprise superheros stop whining and just capture the collectivist government and make it their bitch?", which is what real oligarchs did in the US and later, Russia.
What do the rabid Russian libertarian immigrants think of her? Why didn't they also ask themselves the same question and become uber oligarchs in Putin's Russia instead of raging against socialist institutions and ideology in the US?
Is it just simple and stupid hypocrisy? "Social Darwinism for thee, Social Security for me."
AH, well then you were way ahead of me as a kid, probably even ahead of me as a kid when I was a college frosh. My undeveloped brain and overstimulated hormone addled libido kind of superseded much critical thought or desire to learn anything about "important" things like economics and politics until I was probably 25 or 26.
But lately in my middle years, I'm starting to think I was thinking in the right ways to begin with.
I struggled to get through anything by Ayn Rand and in the 80s these books were often required or suggested readings for high school and college courses. That said, in the quote above about re-creating the miserable in art I find myself at least momentarily in agreement. Much of popular culture and Hollywood film seems tawdry as if it were an attempt to embellish, repackage, and sell us the worst of our society. Maybe these artistic endeavors are meant as critique or satire, movies like Pulp Fiction come to mind, but I doubt that most of the consumers of these products received them as such. There is some portion of the New Left and the liberal left that seems to glory in what appears, to me personally, as just so much rubbish or filth. I am admittedly not a trained connoisseur of fine art, so I could be missing the point entirely. Even so, I remain skeptical. A skepticism that certainly includes Ayn Rand as well. Social realism seems almost quaint in the current moment.
For what it's worth, Rand's ideal world would better be described as pre-panic of 1893 laissez-faire America. This lost world was contrasted to the New Deal pretty regularly. Insightful commentary here. The development of institutions of public provision in the US largely came after 1893—the New Deal was very much dominated by Wall St & the Pentagon. I think we're still living in a New Deal world.
I had forgotten Rosenbaum went to school with Nabokov's sister. When I was younger and more academic minded I had thought it would be interesting to compare Nabokov and Rosenbaum, they have more in common philosphically than is obvious at first glance. Nabokov is simply an infinitely more talented and interesting writer, but they both have seem to have absorbed similar values in their elite Petersburg educations. Both of them were snobs who had a deep seated contempt for the "mediocre" (poshlost' in Nabokov's case). "Invitation to a Beheading" is a more interesting treatment of the idea of an ideal man who literally transcends the reality of the NPCs who would bring him down to their level. Both of them shared a contempt for the Soviet Union that seems to be more than a hatred of Communism. I suspect neither could stand the idea that "those people" - Russians from peasant and working class backgrounds - were now in charge. Both would be classified as "russophobes" in the modern world. Nabokov was a smart enough artist to realize that the examination of "degraded souls" actually made for more engaging story telling than stilted attempts to create one-dimensional perfect heroes in every narration.
That wonderful Romantic, Alan Greenspan, met Ayn Rand in th '50's. He later married Andrea Mitchell who guided U.S. television Israel consciousness. It was Ayn Rand's ghost painting Romantic Realism onto the Federal Reserve and the evening news. Greenspan and Mitchell: Mr and Mrs Hammer and Sickle
"forced her as a teenager to sign a contract in which she has to read Atlas Shrugged or he wouldn’t pay for her college."
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Now THAT was a truly novel form of child abuse...
:D
Hateful person who lived a hateful life.
I've got to admit that as a college freshman, trying to fulfill elective requirements and spacing out the tougher STEM courses, I signed up for a class called "Introduction to Fiction". One of the book we were made to read was "Atlas Shrugged". In fact, that was the book the prof assigned to the class for a book report type paper, and it had an effect on my impressionable mind that lasted a while. I think mine was pretentiously titled "Metaphysics, Epistemology, Ethics, Logic, Politics and Aesthetics: Objectivism - A Complete Philosophy."
A few years later I remembered that the class was supposed to be about fiction. Ah, and the obligatory quote:
“There are two novels that can change a bookish fourteen-year old’s life: The Lord of the Rings and Atlas Shrugged. One is a childish fantasy that often engenders a lifelong obsession with its unbelievable heroes, leading to an emotionally stunted, socially crippled adulthood, unable to deal with the real world. The other, of course, involves orcs." ― John Rogers
"Her philosophy then is just her personal vendetta. And it’s the most ironic thing — she calls this philosophy “Objectivism.”
So this explains Rand, but I never understood her appeal to the American libertarian. I struggled to plod through Atlas Shrugged as a youth because I always kept thinking "why don't these private enterprise superheros stop whining and just capture the collectivist government and make it their bitch?", which is what real oligarchs did in the US and later, Russia.
What do the rabid Russian libertarian immigrants think of her? Why didn't they also ask themselves the same question and become uber oligarchs in Putin's Russia instead of raging against socialist institutions and ideology in the US?
Is it just simple and stupid hypocrisy? "Social Darwinism for thee, Social Security for me."
AH, well then you were way ahead of me as a kid, probably even ahead of me as a kid when I was a college frosh. My undeveloped brain and overstimulated hormone addled libido kind of superseded much critical thought or desire to learn anything about "important" things like economics and politics until I was probably 25 or 26.
But lately in my middle years, I'm starting to think I was thinking in the right ways to begin with.
"But lately in my middle years, I'm starting to think I was thinking in the right ways to begin with"
Yeah, there's a time limit on that burning libido :)
Haha! Exactly. Youth is wasted on the young.
I struggled to get through anything by Ayn Rand and in the 80s these books were often required or suggested readings for high school and college courses. That said, in the quote above about re-creating the miserable in art I find myself at least momentarily in agreement. Much of popular culture and Hollywood film seems tawdry as if it were an attempt to embellish, repackage, and sell us the worst of our society. Maybe these artistic endeavors are meant as critique or satire, movies like Pulp Fiction come to mind, but I doubt that most of the consumers of these products received them as such. There is some portion of the New Left and the liberal left that seems to glory in what appears, to me personally, as just so much rubbish or filth. I am admittedly not a trained connoisseur of fine art, so I could be missing the point entirely. Even so, I remain skeptical. A skepticism that certainly includes Ayn Rand as well. Social realism seems almost quaint in the current moment.
For what it's worth, Rand's ideal world would better be described as pre-panic of 1893 laissez-faire America. This lost world was contrasted to the New Deal pretty regularly. Insightful commentary here. The development of institutions of public provision in the US largely came after 1893—the New Deal was very much dominated by Wall St & the Pentagon. I think we're still living in a New Deal world.
Laissez-faire America would have ended in revolution without the new deal 🤔
I had forgotten Rosenbaum went to school with Nabokov's sister. When I was younger and more academic minded I had thought it would be interesting to compare Nabokov and Rosenbaum, they have more in common philosphically than is obvious at first glance. Nabokov is simply an infinitely more talented and interesting writer, but they both have seem to have absorbed similar values in their elite Petersburg educations. Both of them were snobs who had a deep seated contempt for the "mediocre" (poshlost' in Nabokov's case). "Invitation to a Beheading" is a more interesting treatment of the idea of an ideal man who literally transcends the reality of the NPCs who would bring him down to their level. Both of them shared a contempt for the Soviet Union that seems to be more than a hatred of Communism. I suspect neither could stand the idea that "those people" - Russians from peasant and working class backgrounds - were now in charge. Both would be classified as "russophobes" in the modern world. Nabokov was a smart enough artist to realize that the examination of "degraded souls" actually made for more engaging story telling than stilted attempts to create one-dimensional perfect heroes in every narration.
That wonderful Romantic, Alan Greenspan, met Ayn Rand in th '50's. He later married Andrea Mitchell who guided U.S. television Israel consciousness. It was Ayn Rand's ghost painting Romantic Realism onto the Federal Reserve and the evening news. Greenspan and Mitchell: Mr and Mrs Hammer and Sickle