From: E. Shaun Russell (e_shaun@extropy.org)
Date: Mon Jun 03 2002 - 11:41:24 MDT
Olga wrote:
>***Don't know, I'm not an extropian. I did read Atlas Shrugged when I was
>17 - it appealed to my still unsophisticated black/white sense of the
>world, and even though my critical thinking abilities were at the tricycle
>stage then (and I've only gotten to the training-wheels stage since then -
>decades later!) - there was something stilted about the lady, her group,
>and 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, and, as they say - "that's (essentially) all she wrote."
But I challenge you to show me an influential novel that doesn't possess a
sense of idealism. To interpret anything in her books verbatim is as much
an irrational error as interpreting any other literature verbatim. I'm not
disagreeing with you that her novels were mostly black and white with very
little grey...but that was her *style*, and she wrote that way for a
reason. I still think that you're missing my point: can one not be
influenced by someone's works, even if you don't agree with some aspects of
the underlying philosophy, the delivery or even the person who wrote them
in the first place? I certainly think one can.
> Ayn had the luxury of sitting around smoking and philosophizing with
> her group, affectionately known as The Collective (elbow in rib, get it?
> ha ha), and writing about whether the Dominiques of the world should hold
> out until they could be taken by force by the Roarks of the world (isn't
> it romantic?), while black children in parts of the United States were
> being humiliated and sometimes bombed to death. If any of you have read
> Nathaniel Branden's book: "Judgment Day" (came out in the 1980s
> sometime), you may have gotten a sense of what a hypocritical, petty, and
> self-absorbed woman Ayn Rand was ... even if only if one-sixteenth of the
> book is true!***
Actually, I have read _Judgment Day_, and I must say that it was a damn
good book. It was very insightful to see how Ayn Rand lived and associated
with the world around her. Keep in mind Branden's bias, however, as he had
intimate relations with her for many years before they "broke up." That's
bound to color his perception of her somewhat. But also, going back to my
point, Nathaniel Branden will be the first to admit *now* that he still has
a strong Rand influence, and that he agrees with many --but not all--
aspects of her philosophy. Check out his _The Six Pillars Of Self Esteem_
and you'll see how influential her concept of absolute values were on
him...and also keep in mind that _TSPOSE_ is a best-selling book in its own
right, even divorced from the Rand influence.
I have a feeling I'm not going to get anywhere with this thread,
though. *My* personal idealism would have everybody keeping an open mind
to every philosophy in existence, relying on each person's intellect and
intuition to gather whatever bits of each philosophy feel the most
"true." As I said, though, it's just idealism...
________________________________________________________
E. Shaun Russell<---------------->Operations Officer, Extropy Institute
e_shaun@extropy.org<--------->http://www.extropy.org
Music Production Student<--->Trebas Institute
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Hear my music at: http://www.mp3.com/eshaunrussell
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~K i n e t i c i z e Y o u r P o t e n t i a l~
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