Ayn Rand - Opinion? (preferably informed?)

[SkepticOfMyOwnMind]

I've been an atheist for several years now, but I used to spend a lot of my time learning about different philosophies and religions. I'm pretty settled on atheism, but I still find several atheist philosophies interesting.

I would like to know, from those who read Ayn Rand's work, what you think of her philosophy. Here are some of my questions.

• Did she find something exceptional for her time?
• Does her work seem dated, or does it remain relevant?
• How much of her language suggests inherent problems with her ideas, and how much just fits with the times?
• What would you say are the key points of her philosophy?
• Is John Galt's speech worth reading?
• Should I read the entirety of Atlas Shrugged, We the Living, etc.?
• How similar are her opinions to those of more modern atheist authors like Christopher Hitchens and Sam Harris?
• Does sexism taint her philosophy much, is it salvageable, or is it not really sexist? Why?
• Do her expressed views and reasons seem exceptionally natural or fantastic? Why?
• If you've watched Atlas Shrugged Parts 1 or 2, how do those compare to the book?
• Which of Ayn Rand's concerns turned out to be well-founded, and which turned out to be irrelevant or wrong? How and why?

Edit: Please post enough information to prove that you read at least some of her work.

[AllPurposeAtheist]

Very boring stuff and she was way overrated.
That is all.

[SkepticOfMyOwnMind]

Very boring stuff and she was way overrated.
That is all.

What quality of her work indicates that she was overrated? Do you have particular examples, i.e. quotes?

[AllPurposeAtheist]

Nope. I spent as little time possible reading Rand. I've read enough in my life to determine I don't want to read more of her drivel.
Stienbeck is much better and a hell of a lot more entertaining.

[SkepticOfMyOwnMind]

Nope. I spent as little time possible reading Rand. I've read enough in my life to determine I don't want to read more of her drivel.
Stienbeck is much better and a hell of a lot more entertaining.

Thanks for your opinion, although I would have preferred that with evidence. Please note that I updated the OP to specifically request proof that you've read Ayn Rand's work.

[_Xenu_]

I haven't read her, but I've read about her. Jewish Ayn Rand grew up in the USSR and developed her rabid pro-capitalist views within that context. In a sense, it was a rebellion against the communism she grew up with. In her perfect world, the strong deserved to rule and the weak deserved servitude, kind of like the Sith. She's not widely taken seriously as a writer outside of radical libertarian circles, but she's known for the novel Atlas Shrugged. In Atlas Shrugged the noble capitalist must rise above the masses who would hold him down. Republican Paul Ryan, former VP candidate, was said to have been fascinated with this book from an early age.

[Hijiri Byakuren]

I had to read Anthem in highschool, and if that's the last of her work I ever read that'd be just fine with me.

I do not always agree with them, but I'd say Rational Wiki pinned her down pretty well. (Which is to say, she was really full of it.)

[billhilly]

You're probably not going to find much in depth analysis of Rand's work around here.  She's not very well thought of by folks around here even the ones who've actually read her.  FWIW, Gault's speech is redundant in the extreme, it's hard to think about trains from a modern perspective, movies are hardly ever as good as the books, and 'crony capitalism' was and is a valid concern.

[Shiranu]

My problem with her was she responded to extreme-socialism with extreme-capitalism... I don't believe extreme-any-ism is the best political course. To answer a few of the questions...

Did she find something exceptional for her time?: No I wouldn't say so. Let the strong be the strongest and the poor fend for themselves is actually the most prominent political ideology since the beginning of civilization.

How similar are her opinions to those of more modern atheist authors like Christopher Hitchens and Sam Harris?: Very little. I cannot speak to Christopher Hitchens as well as Harris, but those two both tend to lean more towards theistic and scientific philosophy rather than political philosophy. Harris I would assume would completely reject almost all of her ideological standpoints due to his liking of Buddhist philosophy. Hitchens was a conservative IIRC, but I don't believe he was that radical.

Do her expressed views and reasons seem exceptionally natural or fantastic? Why? I would say her ideas were actually rather natural; again it was ideology that is pretty much the majority of human civilization.

Note: I haven't read any of her books, but I have listened to interviews with her & her life story. I think she was an intelligent woman who came to the wrong conclusions as a result of the culture she grew up in (in her radical rejection of communism) and turned her into a rather hateful and selfish woman who was a complete hypocrite later on in receiving government "hand-outs". I am not a fan of hers in the least because every bit of her philosophy that I have seen runs contradictory to mine.

Edit: Oh, and anyone who can say this instantly gets on my, "Even if you were Albert Einstein, you could go fuck yourself" list.

""They didn't have any rights to the land, and there was no reason for anyone to grant them rights which they had not conceived and were not using. What was it that they were fighting for, when they opposed white men on this continent? For their wish to continue a primitive existence, their 'right' to keep part of the earth untouched, unused and not even as property, but just keep everybody out so that you will live practically like an animal, or a few caves above it. Any white person who brings the element of civilization has the right to take over this continent."

[SkepticOfMyOwnMind]

I do not always agree with them, but I'd say Rational Wiki pinned her down pretty well. (Which is to say, she was really full of it.)

Thanks for the link. It's somewhat funny and mildly informative, although it has negative bias that the facts don't fully explain.

How similar are her opinions to those of more modern atheist authors like Christopher Hitchens and Sam Harris?: Very little. I cannot speak to Christopher Hitchens as well as Harris, but those two both tend to lean more towards theistic and scientific philosophy rather than political philosophy. Harris I would assume would completely reject almost all of her ideological standpoints due to his liking of Buddhist philosophy. Hitchens was a conservative IIRC, but I don't believe he was that radical.

I've read only a little of Ayn Rand's work, but I read Sam Harris's books The End of Faith, Letter to a Christian Nation, and Free Will. Sam Harris's particular ideas didn't seem the same as Ayn Rand's, and the "rational" approach of Ayn Rand seems contrary to the implications of neuroscientific research. That said, I noticed that some of Rand's assertions in The Virtue of Selfishness make a lot more sense when thought of as oddly-worded game-theory/evolutionary scenarios. Modern authors like Sam Harris and Richard Dawkins use game theory, or scenarios that fit well with game theory, to describe why some courses of action are more desirable than others.

Edit: Oh, and anyone who can say this instantly gets on my, "Even if you were Albert Einstein, you could go fuck yourself" list.

""They didn't have any rights to the land, and there was no reason for anyone to grant them rights which they had not conceived and were not using. What was it that they were fighting for, when they opposed white men on this continent? For their wish to continue a primitive existence, their 'right' to keep part of the earth untouched, unused and not even as property, but just keep everybody out so that you will live practically like an animal, or a few caves above it. Any white person who brings the element of civilization has the right to take over this continent."

I acknowledge that is a horrible thing to say, but I would also like to point out that many social reforms happened during her lifetime that discourage people of today from saying such things. I would also ask the same question here as with sexism: is racism/ethnocentrism a core part of her philosophy, can her ideas be salvaged from it, or is it not an issue with regard to her other ideas?

[stromboli]

Read Atlas Shrugged after being told it was Satan's plan for the future by a wacko conspiracy theorist. Led me to study her for a bit.

She was a conniving, self promoting, selfish user of people who blew through vast amounts of money and ended up on social security and medicare after lung cancer surgery, due to her heavy smoking. She was a bitch. That is all.

[AllPurposeAtheist]

Nope. I spent as little time possible reading Rand. I've read enough in my life to determine I don't want to read more of her drivel.
Stienbeck is much better and a hell of a lot more entertaining.

Thanks for your opinion, although I would have preferred that with evidence. Please note that I updated the OP to specifically request proof that you've read Ayn Rand's work.

Good luck making demands we read Rand before commenting. You're free to express any silliness you like here as am I and anyone else.
It's a tad like starting a thread about jumping from the 40th floor of the Empire State Building. Don't post unless you have in fact jumped from there..

[LikelyToBreak]

I just read Atlas Shrugged and The Fountainhead.  While I disagreed with some of what she wrote, I did get some ideas out of what she wrote.  I think the biggest idea of hers was that people should be able to be all that they could be, without government interference.  The other idea is that the government interferes too much.

She is way too much in favor of the upper class.  Even while showing examples of people from the poor and middle classes being held back by the ruling elite.  In her world view, all boats floated on the tide when the rich got richer.   Or social Darwinism took affect and rid us of those who wouldn't work.  Kind of contradictory in my opinion.

Still, the idea of letting those with good ideas get ahead without government interference appeals to me.  The example would be how Tucker, in the movie "Tucker," had to fight government interference egged on by the major automobile manufacturer's.  I don't know how much of that movie was true or not, but I have seen the government do things which seem to be heavily influenced by the rich.  

As far as her atheism, I don't remember it being a big factor in the books I read.  I do seem to recall a negative feeling towards those with religious power, using it for personal gain in the political arena.  

Her female characters were strong women, who wanted to be accepted for their abilities.  I don't see this as being sexist.  Seems to me that if men are allowed to achieve all that they can, then women ought to be able to do so too.  And I agree with Rand that women should be allowed to fuck who they want to fuck.  Ain't none of my business.    I guess that makes me and Rand sexist though.

I would say what I read of her works struck me as science fiction.  Her books were more entertaining than Karl Marx and supply a radical counterpoint to his views.  As far as recommending them, I would only recommend them to someone studying politics or to get an historical view of how people were thinking in her time.

[stromboli]

The biggest thing that bothered me is that her work is ponderous, inflating a story to about a thousand pages that could be told in half that. John Galt's speech is like 60 pages. I've seen it condensed to a single page. She apparently never learned the meaning of the word "brevity".

[mykcob4]

I've been an atheist for several years now, but I used to spend a lot of my time learning about different philosophies and religions. I'm pretty settled on atheism, but I still find several atheist philosophies interesting.

I would like to know, from those who read Ayn Rand's work, what you think of her philosophy. Here are some of my questions.

• Did she find something exceptional for her time?
• Does her work seem dated, or does it remain relevant?
• How much of her language suggests inherent problems with her ideas, and how much just fits with the times?
• What would you say are the key points of her philosophy?
• Is John Galt's speech worth reading?
• Should I read the entirety of Atlas Shrugged, We the Living, etc.?
• How similar are her opinions to those of more modern atheist authors like Christopher Hitchens and Sam Harris?
• Does sexism taint her philosophy much, is it salvageable, or is it not really sexist? Why?
• Do her expressed views and reasons seem exceptionally natural or fantastic? Why?
• If you've watched Atlas Shrugged Parts 1 or 2, how do those compare to the book?
• Which of Ayn Rand's concerns turned out to be well-founded, and which turned out to be irrelevant or wrong? How and why?

Edit: Please post enough information to prove that you read at least some of her work.

Ayn Rand was nothing more than a wonk for conservatives that wanted to enslave the worker and funnel all the profits to the top 1% of the very rich. There was nothing innovative or even new about her work. Basically she copied all of her ideas from various peoples of the time. Her ANGLE was to appeal to a certain type of Anarchist, we now call them "libertarians". The idea that a person can bennifit from a governmnet but not pay for it is her basic tennet. This idea only works for the top 1%. It depends on the creativity, labor and efforts of people who work for slave wages and are foolish enough to vote against their own interst ala people who vote republican or conservative.
Sociolgy teachs that there are a limited ammount of resources. The conservatives want to concentrate those resources as much as they can to the top 1%. Since they have been successful in doing so to a great extent they resist change using propaganda, fear, and lies, to sway ignorant uninformed single issue voters to vote their way and against the interest of those voters. Denegrating education, public education, limiting access to vote, slandering minorities and portraying them as villians, usurping the constitution and the federal government, using bumper sticker mentality slogans like: "family values" and "welfare queens", slandering workers and unions, making false claims that the government is stealing your individual rights when at the same time they deny minorities gays and women their civil rights, waging a war against nature, are just some of the hallmarks of the Ayn Rand movement. It falls in lock step line with the conservatives.
Ayn Rand is a contradiction in logic. You cannot say that you are for freedom of everyone when infact you are for limiting competition, denying equal opportunity, and not paying for your share of the benefits of a government that you utilize.
It is not a philosophy of true freedom. It is a philosophy of elitism and protectionism.
Throughout my 55 years I have witnessed the Ayn Rands revising history, promoting pseudo-science and totally misleading people.
Lets just take one result of the Ayn Rands:
The Brookings institute was formed to be a think tank to address major issues of the USA and the world. It was independent of political party and it's members are experts in their field. It doesn't and never did have a political agenda. It weighs everything in accordance with TRUE science, REAL history, and the strictest interpretation of the Constitution and rule of law. It addresses everything form economics to global warming. It uses facts that are independently varified. It only offers an opinion when a conclussion can be reached. It doesn't allow for compromise. All of its results are pure and unaltered.
The Heritage Foundation (Ayn Rand was a founding member) uses spin and propaganda to usurp the Brookings Institute. It's sole purpose is damage control, to weaken and confuse the FACTS produced by the Brookings institute.
One such example is the tax base. The Brookings Institute found that the wider the tax base the better the economy. The bigger the middle class the better off the nation. The best way to acheive such a tax base was to help and promote education to lift up the poor and disadvantaged and to tax the wealthy at a fair rate more inline with fairness.
The Heritage Foundation tried to limit and obscure that finding by producing the "trickle down effect", claiming that deregulating everything would lead to greater wealth. What they didn't say is that the greater wealth only falls into the hands of the top 1%.
Scott Ryan has exposed Ayn Rand and her lack of objectivism, the fact that she is nothing more than a propagandist. The fact that she leaves out important details in her papers that would and do totally counter her philosophy and economic ideals.
He is one of many that have tested her theories and found them to be nothing more than conservative propaganda.