Objectiveism

Objectivism is dead and we all know the exact moment it died.
youtube.com/watch?v=PWen53eqmJo

here is a better link
youtube.com/watch?v=CQ6WgiHq3CE

here it is, forgive me for sounding a bit pretentious, I was not the original writer.

1/3
There are plenty of self-respected philosophers out there who have committed dialectic sins, like starting with false pretenses and intentionally building an argument to justify their petty beliefs, but at least they managed to maintain a consistent idea in a single paper. What really gets to me about Atlas Shrugged is how every character is so...so hypocritical. Not just the looters mind you who are supposed to be hypocrites, but everyone says something but means something else. I feel like I shouldn't use hypocrisy as a pejorative after I've pointed out that everyone does it, but then I wouldn't have a problem if one of the book's themes was that humans are inconsistent. However, 1. that's not one of the themes, and 2. the characters are not humans. They're cardboard cutouts, sock puppets, mouthpieces, and strawmen. As bad as some books are about writing the plot first, Atlas Shrugged is even worse.

Here's an example for you: the good characters are those who are willing to admit to themselves and to others that they want a lot of money, and that a proper measure of success is net worth. Except that's not true, that's not why they do what they do. Early on in the book back when society could still be salvaged, Taggart and Rearden collaborate on a new rail line that uses Rearden's new alloy. They have to go through a lot of trouble to get the line finished since the official word is the alloy is untrustworthy and likely to fail. And as they're finishing constructing a bridge that no one thinks will hold, there's a moment where Dagny Taggart thinks to herself that she would trade away all her money and all her influence, just to stay in that instant the bridge is competed.

2/3
Later on there's another moment where her brother, the official head of Taggart Trains, manages to get the company even more money by manipulating government regulations in order to put their competition out of business. This act doesn't win him any respect whatsoever. Clearly then, the good people don't actually hold wealth as the highest of ideals, but rather it's that sense of accomplishment of knowing that you're won, and you've won fair and square without any cheating or trickery. This emotion is more valuable than physical resources and the main protagonist says so herself, and yet even after the book admits this, she and the others like her continue to insist that the fact that they are openly greedy is a virture. While I'll certainly agree that open greed is more honest than secret greed, their opposition states that there are things more valuable than money and apparently Ayn rand herself agrees.

And here's another piece of hypocrisy. Soon after the railway line is built, Hank Rearden and Dagny Taggart start having an affair. Dagny isn't married, but Hank is, and while he's admittedly stuck in a loveless marriage with a woman that tries to regularly emotionally manipulate him, Hank has a very strange view of what constitues a breach of contract. Maybe it's because Rand wrote this in the 1950s but apparently, despite the fact tht Hank views his marriage as a contract, he doesn't seem to realize that because he's having an affair, he has broken the terms of that particular contract and it is time for it to end. Instead, he doggedly sticks with his marriage, and quite naturally makes himself and everyone around him more miserable than they have to be.

3/3
Now one of the biggest complaints I have about this book and about Rand's assumptions in general is that it seems to go by the Great Man Theory of History, the idea that history is studded with uniquely exceptional, irreplaceable people, and as such, if the names in our history and science textbooks were to vanish, so would the impact of their discoveries, their inventions, and their social and political movements. But that's not true, and I've been saying that's not true my entire life. Individuals do not create social and political change, socities and politics do. MLK didn't forge the Civil Rights movement, the mechanization and urbanization of the South did. If Columbus hadn't gone on his voyage, or if he hadn't run into a Caribbean isalnd, the Portuguese would've discovered Brazil regardless. If Edison's company hadn't invented the first practical lightbulb, one of the many people whose patents his company bought would have. Major inventions like writing, electricity, and firearms are always collaborative efforts between hundreds of people across dozens of nations, and for every innovator that gets the credit for either being the first, or being the first to commercialize, there's an endless number of competitiors who weren't quite as clever or as quick. For crying out out, Alexander Graham Bell had to literally race to the patent office in order to become the man who invented the telephone. This is in stark contrast to the world of Atlas Shrugged, in which such innovators are in short supply and if they were to vanish then nobody would be able to take their place. And I'm sorry but inventors have never been that far ahead in their field.

I could keep going, like about how the government has no characterization beyond being this distant, menacing thing. Or how Dagny personifies this odd idea Rand has about how a healthy, intimate relationship apparently involves haven't to submit herself to a powerful man.

>haven't to
having to*

about the emotions, is that really in conflict with the story? maybe the pride in accomplishment is just the emotional part and the philosophy of enlightened self-interest is the unemotional logic to go along with it
I think you're going too far the other way there. Surely not every historical development and invention is hardcoded in the economic and social milieu.

It's not that it's hardcoded in terms of inventions, it's that the guy who did it is really just the guy who did it first?

Literally only Americans take it seriously.

And even then most of those Americans are just edgy teenagers.

>about the emotions, is that really in conflict with the story? maybe the pride in accomplishment is just the emotional part and the philosophy of enlightened self-interest is the unemotional logic to go along with it

The problem is that if net worth is indeed the highest virtue, why was her brother disdained for doing what he did to achieve it?

Fpbp

>Historical materialism

Die in a fire, history is not a science. If someone other then Alexander had been the son of Phillip II the entire world would look different today. If Genghis Khan was never born we have no reason to assume another man would stand up and do what he did.

If Christ wasn't born in Bethlehem we'd all be fedoraing about Mithras right now, and all of western history's trajectory would be eschew. The idea that ALL history is determined by Great Men is false, but the idea that NONE of history is is much more false.

As to Rand's philosophy itself, it is simply libertarian philosophy blended with Aristotle's ideas. Most of the harsh criticisms people make against her could also be made against him, and yet people generally attack her not for being an unoriginal systemizer [in which case they would have to attack Aquinas as well] but for being a cruel immoral person. Its absurd.

>Note: I am not an objectivist and have my own long list of complaints about Rand's philosophy, but more of the critique's people shove out are just awful.

DankHistoryMemes is the best iFunny profile ;)

Ayn Rand was basically right, collectivism a shit.

She wasn't the first to point this out, though she did spread the idea around in a colorful manner.

Because he wasn't increasing net worth, he was manipulating the system to draw worth to himself rather than increase net worth over all via enlightened self interest.
A randian utopia wouldn't have people like that because everybody believes in the manifest and fully peronsifies its virtues. It's not hypocritical, it's unrealistic.

Objectivism is just libertarianism but more pretentious and also a cult of personality around a bitter old cunt. Literally only americans care about objectivism or Rand.