Ayn Rand

She's a shit writer.

Forget her politics, she is simply shit at writing.

Hey there comrade! I see you've marked yourself too. Glad to see our progressive values won't be undermined by these idiots praising the soulless idiot that is Ayn Rand

I recall Alan Greenspan being a massive fan of Atlas Shrugged, and if the financial crisis had to be blamed on one person, it'd be him.

Her influence on modern political thought has been mostly indirect, but it's clear she would've approved of post-Reagan deregulatory policies, and probably wanted more. It's understandable given her experiences (the confiscation of her father's business by the state).
But whichever way you want to look at it, 2008 was a market failure, not a governmental one, and her philosophy has been at the centre of the movements which allowed such a catastrophic failure to take place.

>inb4 leftist
It's not leftist to acknowledge that markets can fail.

she used the word bromide way too often. i was fucking ready to make her drink a quart of it by the end of the fountainhead. the rest of her prose was JK Rowling tier, but i never understood the Bloom "stretched their legs" copypasta so hard in my life. it needed more rape scenes and to stop pretending it was going to be as interesting as a wikipedia biography of Frank Lloyd Wright. i mean, fuck, FLW's life was actually exciting, complete with mysterious mass murder. fountainhead was boring monologue after boring monologue and she took the fucking bloodbath retreat scenes out of his life story. the woman wouldn't know good English or architecture if the Elgin Marbles fell on her.

I haven't read her works so I don't really have much of an opinion on her.

The only thing I have seen on which to judge her is this: youtube.com/watch?v=mQVrMzWtqgU

I disagree with her philosophy but I wouldn't dismiss her for it.

While I do not 'dismiss' her ideas, I do not agree with them.

That said, someone who lists Rand in his favorite works will ring all of my alarm bells.
Chances are very good that this person is a insufferable, self absorbed, cunt.

No, I do not think that observation is to be taken as universal, but it holds up from my personal anecdotal evidence.

Those are the ones that don't get her philosophy at all.

Other anons are right. She's just not a very good writer. Anthem is her best novel because it's short and precise. Her philosophy isn't as radical as people put it. I think that you can definitely pick some good out of it but like every ideology, it's just simply not perfect. You can read Atlas Shrugged and then read Thus Spoke Zarathustra and you realize that she just isn't a very good philosopher when it comes to literature.

Shit philosophy. Shit writing. Shit followers. Arguably inspired shit policy.

In all honesty: what's to like?

The fact that other people don't like her. So I am going to capitalize on that fact to feel special and interesting.

You're gonna need to drop the left right categorization of mind if you expect to become one with the Tao my friend.

"Plebeians"
This is why people dismiss Randbots: Faggoty Elitism.

Because intellectually honest people don't employ ad hoc reasoning, going around looking for material, however shitty, to justify their worldview and politics to persuade others.

But keep shilling. The mind can only take so much before it gives in.

But we are elite. We are superior. We are high above. We see your kind like ants beneath our feet. But we pity you and hope you can one day wake up and be welcomed into our glory. I love you.

Because she's jewish and has a reputation

Her work, that that of those like her, was pushed by a desperate US establishment 50+ years ago to present an alternative to Marxism that they couldn't argue against on any rational level. Today her work is champions by special snowflake edgelords in search of a sectarian badge that will upset the peers they can't relate to.

Also your assertion that she is dismissed before being read is projection: she is *believed* before being read, just like the Bible. I had read her work (and seen the movie) and read some Marx in my late teenss and rejected both at the time. A decade of working changed my mind about Marx entirely and reinforced my distain for Rand.

and while I'm at it, Rand had the the worst taste in literature. She thought Mickey Spillane was the shit ffs

There's absolutely nothing to "get". Objectivism is the kind of "philosophy" a 12 year-old would come up with.

She's an easy target for "holier than thou", but tbqh her ideas are sound she just carries them so far into absurdity in her overlong, clunky novels. Stick with reading the very concise Anthem and go about your day.

>But whichever way you want to look at it, 2008 was a market failure, not a governmental one

weeew lad, what is the housing bubble

>and her philosophy has been at the centre of the movements which allowed such a catastrophic failure to take place.

Clinton started giving out handouts due to Rand?

Nice grasp on your own recent history btw, burgerderp.

0/10, you're not funny

I've got a question: why don't you hit your kids?

I am thinking about reading Atlas Shrugged, to see what it is all about. I am not AnCap but some of the ideas appeal me.

it's a slog, you'd be better off reading philip k dick if you want revelatory madness. if you're going to read rand, read anthem; it's the shortest and about the same as everything else. you could also read her shit on aristotle if you want to be in it for the ideas, but nobody reads that especially not /pol/ so they'll think you made it up.

clinton handouts... in the form of deregulation and neutering the sec?

I read Atlas Shrugged a few years ago, and it was not my entry to more libertarianism like ideas.
At that time I had read a lot of austrian school (mostly Mises, and Hayek).

If you want to get anarcho-capitalist ideas, don't go to Atlas Shrugged. Honestly, is 1K pages that are not that good as novel but more than reasonable to read if you want a intro-level and is too dumb to read a proper work.

Honestly, search the discourses of some of the main characters online, they are probably available considering how pamphleteer the novel is.
I think I recall John Galt's speech, and also Francisco's and Hearden's or Readern (can't remember the name). These are synthetic enough to resume her ideas without you needing to waste your time with a subpar book.

Also, read Bohm-Bawerk, Mises and Hayek if you want to go deeper on the ideas.

Oh fuck off, she's an entitled hack with shit writing skills.

/thread

Most of the anons on this board put up a front to make themselves seem liberal and cool, but in reality they're all just anti semites.

>it's clear she would've approved of post-Reagan deregulatory policie
She actually didn't like Reagan. I remember a video somewhere that her opinion of Regean is that famous fuck you phrase in the Fountainhead ''I don't think of you at all'' but I can't seem to remember the context.

What don't you agree?
Just curious. I'm tired of the namecalling slander.

Just because her philosophy was written to be understood by 12 year olds does not mean it's something a 12 year old could create.

Hierarchy of values and protection of their rights. If you highly value your children, you wouldn't hit them. An Authoritarian upbringing where you are strict but allow for negotiation has been proven to be the most effective way to raise children and this was how Ayn Rand also saw it. Be strict with your children but demand negotiations when they express their individuality.

The first ~300 pages are rather decent. Read until the end of Part 1. The rest is a slog. Galt's revelation is a complete letdown and his speech is endlessly long, though it does make absolute sense when you characterize people Ayn Rand deemed as 'parasites' as what people consider SJW who use collectivist marxist rhetoric.
It also helps to not consider characters as people but avatars expressing ideas. There's a fight scene between two Objectivist and it reals like two giant fighting, with the entire world tilting, it's fucking ridiculous.

I will take a look at the character speeches than, and a friend recommended Hoppe

10/10 laff

>I recall Alan Greenspan being a massive fan of Atlas Shrugged

That's an understatement. He was part of Ayn Rands groupies and worship the ground she walked on.

Because she's a hack and her philosophy was literally shown to fail in the real world a la Alan Greenspan. If one of the original Ayn Rand groupies admits her philosophy failed in practice, it's time to let it go. Most of her writing is just her philosophy thinly veiled.

>calls her philosophy objectivism
>her disciples are shallow egotistical assholes

/thread

>taking the bait

If you think that there's a leftist bias in literature writ large, you have not read shit and are simply butthurt people don't read your favourite of the mere 100 books you've read.