From: Max More (max@maxmore.com)
Date: Mon Jun 03 2002 - 10:42:00 MDT
At 01:32 AM 6/4/2002 +1000, Damien wrote:
>Olga:
>< her writing that gave me the creeps, even back then. The more I read
>Rand, the more her writing, her philosophy seemed bizarre.
>What world did
>she inhabit? - a world without children, without shades of grey, a world
>where the compromised were the bad guys, and the uncompromised were the
>heroes and heroines
Damien, you cite these words of Olga's as an answer. If these aspects of
her writing overwhelm all the positive aspects for you, fair enough.
However, it is not these shortcomings for which her work is recommended --
it's for the positive and healthy ideas I listed in an earlier post.
So, if you reaction to her monochrome, romantic, uncompromising side is
your reason for not being an extropian, that just doesn't compute. The
reading list *does* explicitly say that a book's listing there does *not*
mean that all of the work accords with extropian thinking.
>To the extent that Rand's ideas have validity outside the lurid monochrome
>sadomasochism of the novels, I'd prefer to see them deployed--on a list of
>recommended books--in the form of philosophy or sociology or whatever--not
>as agitprop comic strips.
Please elucidate. I don't get you. Do you mean replacing Rand's own writing
with philosophers and sociologists who have been influenced by her
work? If that's what you mean, I think that might be workable for the
reading list. If a writer expresses the best parts of her work without so
many of the shortcomings (about which I mostly agree with you), so much the
better.
Cheers,
Max
_______________________________________________________
Max More, Ph.D.
max@maxmore.com or more@extropy.org
http://www.maxmore.com
Strategic Philosopher
President, Extropy Institute. http://www.extropy.org <more@extropy.org>
_______________________________________________________
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