Seems like the author satirically argues against Objectivism by putting up lack of charity and generosity as a straw man characterization to attack. He completely ignores the fact that taxation is collected irrespective of goodwill attitude, and under the threat of force (violence/jail).
I frankly would have hoped the argument was not a straw man and that he argued against the actual essence of the philosophy of Objectivism. Instead of taking the cheap way out to argue against a mere peripheral unfortunate potential consequence of it (when taken to an extreme).
This makes no argument; it is satire -- a caricature -- as has been repeatedly pointed out; hence, it cannot be a straw man.
Now, this is not to say that it might not blamelessly strike you as unfunny; in this case, though, you may want to reword your comment as "not funny IMO".
This isn't an argument it's a comical story, but no one has ever mistaken an objectivist for having a sense of humor, so I don't know why I'm surprised by this response.
The tag line is "daily humour every day since 1998"
It is, as you point out, satire.
It is a quite common device in satire to set up a less than accurate scenario, in order to highlight a single failing. It isn't aiming to be a well balanced essay on the pros and cons of anything.
My dear comrade; you are publicly and repeatedly complaining about something not being funny. That is never a good sign of dettachment.
No one will ever believe you are not offended by the article because everyone knows that, if it were the case, you'd simply not have posted (much less replied several times)
Let us chill and drink some delicious juice made out of these misterious fruits of our labor
I’m not complaining that it wasn’t funny. I’m belaboring that it was vacuous and disappointing. I want good satire that hits something and has a punch!
I don’t think the specifics of why you’re complaining is the point of the commenter you responded to. It’s that you’re complaining so much. Note the parent comment brought up you not being offended or deattached.
I made a single legitimate criticism of the article. I’m no objectivist, as mentioned in another reply thread. The parent comment did actually assume I took offense from the article or is particularly attached to it, both of which is false. My only attachment here is to clearing up false speculation about my motive.
I don’t know whose or what philosophy it is but I try to live by “don’t be an asshole”. By extension, “don’t associate with assholes whenever possible” guides my daily life. Sometimes, I can’t, so “work allows me to do what I like” helps lessen the sting.
I’m also far too lazy and unskilled to write satire and admittedly not really patient enough to read it.
"There are two novels that can change a bookish fourteen-year old’s life: The Lord of the Rings and Atlas Shrugged. One is a childish fantasy that often engenders a lifelong obsession with its unbelievable heroes, leading to an emotionally stunted, socially crippled adulthood, unable to deal with the real world. The other, of course, involves orcs."
I've never understood why Atlas Shrugged gets so much more hate than any other book that ever gets mentioned. Its like a rule of the internet that anytime it is mentioned, people must show up and dunk on it.
Because later on in life, you meet people in corporate boardrooms who love doing layoffs and say things like "Atlas Shrugged was the best book I've ever read, it changed my life"
It's easier to snark at something than to actually address its content. Witness the vacuous "dunkage" of that quote above. Literally any book with heroes, people of principle, or people who achieve things can be in the second slot. It's just something for people who have nothing to say, to say.
I've often been surprised by how many women are fans of Atlas Shrugged but I guess having a female main character written by a woman has something to do with it as the philosophical themes usually aren't aligned with those reader's ideological preferences. Male Ayn Rand fans much more frequently prefer The Fountainhead, which also features strong female characters but is told from a male's perspective. No idea if this is just a reflection of people I know or true in the larger societal context.
Possibly the reader-hero/-author mirror effect. I wouldn't ascribe too much to gender equating to philosophical tendencies.
I'm often disappointed by the lack of philosophical depth and nuance objectivist
adherents display. Plus, the arrogance of assuming one's perception is exactly the way reality is when there are as many viewpoints as there are individuals. Beyond math and gravity, subjectivity and ambiguity are the norm. Furthermore, no one is an island and cannot scale their efforts beyond themselves without cooperation and friendships that require solidarity.
Modern libertarianism, the political extension of hyper-individualist objectivism, is largely an ideology sold and popularized by billionaire climate deniers to cynically benefit themselves.
I’m guessing that’s just a reflection of who you know. In my experience no one likes Fountainhead and most of the people who like Atlas Shrugged are men.
Gore Vidal wrote my favorite summation of Ayn Rand:
This odd little woman is attempting to give a moral sanction to greed and self interest, and to pull it off she must at times indulge in purest Orwellian newspeak of the "freedom is slavery" sort. What interests me most about her is not the absurdity of her "philosophy," but the size of her audience (in my campaign for the House she was the one writer people knew and talked about). She has a great attraction for simple people who are puzzled by organized society, who object to paying taxes, who dislike the "welfare" state, who feel guilt at the thought of the suffering of others but who would like to harden their hearts. For them, she has an enticing prescription: altruism is the root of all evil, self-interest is the only good, and if you're dumb or incompetent that's your lookout.
…For to justify and extol human greed and egotism is to my mind not only immoral, but evil. For one thing, it is gratuitous to advise any human being to look out for himself. You can be sure that he will. It is far more difficult to persuade him to help his neighbor to build a dam or to defend a town or to give food he has accumulated to the victims of a famine. But since we must live together, dependent upon one another for many things and services, altruism is necessary to survival. To get people to do needed things is the perennial hard task of government, not to mention of religion and philosophy. That it is right to help someone less fortunate is an idea which ahs figured in most systems of conduct since the beginning of the race. We often fail. That predatory demon "I" is difficult to contain but until now we have all agreed that to help others is a right action.
… Both Marx and Christ agree that in this life a right action is consideration for the welfare of others. In the one case, through a state which was to wither away, in the other through the private exercise of the moral sense. Miss Rand now tells us that what we have thought was right is really wrong. The lesson should have read: One for one and none for all.
There's a good reason Julian Assange was dragged out of the Ecuadorian embassy holding "History of the National Security State".
If we don't live for others, he who dies with most toys still wins a lonely, meaningless death. I believe Ayn had a chip on her shoulder from growing up in the Soviet Union and took an extremist contrarian view rather than a moderate one. Extremism is often what catapults people into fame.
"There is only one party in the United States, the Property Party...and it has two right wings: Republican and Democrat. Republicans are a bit stupider, more rigid, more doctrinaire in their laissez-faire capitalism than the Democrats, who are cuter, prettier, a bit more corrupt - until recently... and more willing than the Republicans to make small adjustments when the poor, the black, the anti-imperialists get out of hand. But, essentially, there is no difference between the two parties." -G.V.
I'd only note that the Vidal quote is from 1975. Much has happened since then.
To oversimplify (as he does), I'd say that both parties leaned very hard into his descriptions of them. They've exchanged members and eliminated nearly all of the overlap. So much so that I'd deny that they are really "one party", if they ever were.
Meh, I don't believe this is good criticism, actually the author would find himself in the middle of the people who he derides so colorfully. He just doesn't understand their perspective.
And not that of Ayn Rand either, who grew up in Russia. She certainly has an extreme position. This is very relevant context. We currently live in such a system. Nobody is only egoistic or altruistic.
> To get people to do needed things is the perennial hard task of government, not to mention of religion and philosophy
Not really and this is not how the world works and the author criticizes her in the background of a different definition of altruism.
She is no prophet or anything, but I believe it is worth reading about her perspective.
I disagree that altruism needs to be self-sacrifice, it most often is not, but this is how Rand defines it. There are cultures that practice quite direct self-sacrifice if they failed others. Can such a person be kind to others if they fail to be kind to themselves? Why do you need to love yourself so you can love others?
> Miss Rand now tells us that what we have thought was right is really wrong.
It is probably always wrong for everyone, including Rand. Not a Rand fan at all for that matter, she wasn't a too popular author in my country, I think this is mainly a US phenomenon. I think this is relevant too.
Is it satire? It reads like a narcissism-rationalizing shitpost in the spirit of "throwing trash on the ground creates jobs". There is quite a difference in culture between US military families and Europeans on one-side and "It's all about me" on the other.
It would probably be helpful had you previously read Atlas Shrugged. I am by no means recommending the book (in fact, I'd advise avoiding such poor writing and childish naivety), but having been one of the unfortunate folks who wasted hours on that book, I knew what the author was going for from the first paragraph. And I found it quite humorous.
Spoiler alert: it's a humor piece. There's sex in Atlas Shrugged, maybe it just doesn't fall into your category of "hard core", but again I will point out that it could have been described as such for humorous effect.
Most people who have a dislike for Atlas Shrugged have a poor understanding due to having only engorged themselves on satire about the book, poor rendered assumptions about the nature of the messages written by enraged people who take offense at what I can only assume stems from seeing themselves as part of the groups which Rand disparages (collectivism) and frankly tend to have never read the book in its entirety let alone anything else written by her to have a sense of the ongoing themes and an improvement to her writing style.
the book inspires the idea of individual potential....which if you have no personal desire to achieve tends to enrage and put one on the defence, but for those who have a spark of fire they get inspired.
I like the book, and would love to have an honest discourse on its flaws that is equally willing to acknowledge the depths of its actual arguments and the strengths of propositions when taken into account the underlying presumptions that are at the heart of the novel. It is a novel after all and not an academic treatise which many liken it to because of the marketing.
I’ve read about 2/3rds of it. It’s a terribly written book - too drawn out and on the nose and the “message” is obvious since chapter two or so. It’s like one of those idiotic self help books where if you read first couple chapters you’ve read the whole thing
The book is about 30-40% too long, and does repeat the ideas, but if you ignore that aspect which is fair given many books suffer from that which are popular and well loved. The biggest flaw is the repetition and the final monologue is 5x too long.
it is much better when you see the fountainhead. which is very similar themes, but has a lot less of those writing problems.
Yeas but a special kind of novel - more of a manifesto. Compare it with something like 1984 which is similar kind of manifesto-book but a much more captivating read.
My experience is that 99% of the people who hate Atlas Shrugged never read the book, they just heard that the people they hate like it, so they hate it.
I don't even really understand why people map it onto politics in the way they do. It seems to me fundamentally a story about people trying to accomplish something big, innovative and disruptive but being stymied by the various forces who resist or fear change, whether because they're profiting from the status quo or they're lazy or ignorant or entitled or whatever.
Like one of the central set of "bad guys" are the rival owners of other railroad companies, who are trying to maintain their monopoly/cartel. Another set of "bad guys" are the privileged family members who expect to have wealth and power by birthright. I don't see why a person who had left or far left political views wouldn't resonate with the protagonists struggles against these various entrenched, privileged rent seekers.
My experience is 90% of the people who like AS never read it. Same for libertarians, don’t even know what I’m talking about if I mention Road to Serfdom.
I read the book when I was still a right-libertarian, and I credit it with playing a significant part in pushing me left into Anarchism. Thus, I'd say I fall pretty firmly in the camp of "I have read the entirety of Atlas Shrugged and severely disagree with it".
And I have to disagree with the "not an academic treatise" take: the book is a statement of philosophy first, and a story in a distant second. Most character's actions serve to either portray the "right" behavior of the Objectivist Ubermenche, or act a strawman foil to the heroes of the story. Frankly, the most surprising thing is that Rand doesn't stick to easy slam-dunk wins against her strawman "collectivists": she portrays the kinds of monstrous actions that her philosophy encourages, and then celebrates them. Franscisco D'Antonia's bombing of his own mine when he inevitably lost the fight against labor, the reverse-Robin Hood character's outright theft for the benefit of those who really don't need it, heck, the bizarrely rapey sexual encounters between Dagny and Rearden are all portrayed in a unquestionably positive light, and that's probably why so few people who don't already agree with the underlying philosophy finish the book: it's seriously alienating to see evil unambiguously praised.
Atlas Shrugged does not simply "inspire" individualism: It demonizes anything less than overtly selfish behavior, to the point of praising characters for acting against their own interests simply out of spite towards those who fail to live up to the Ubermenche ideal. Contrast that with individualist anarchist writers like Max Stirner, who's philosophy follows something like "Liberation begins with the self, but we can work better together": The former is destructive, where even self-interest takes a back seat to the rejection of cooperation, whereas the latter truely puts self-interest first, acknowledging that cooperation often grants greater benefit to ourselves as well.
As a novel, it's low-effort, monotonous wish fulfillment accented by the occasional romance or absurd moment. As a philosophical statement, it's a lackluster re-framing of the least favorable parts of Nietzche with the overt "Woman only get into academia if they're sterile" sexism being replaced with a more subtle "Women should be more like men" form. The book has few redeeming qualities, and can only really be enjoyed by a reader who already agrees with the premise.
I feel like you are completely missing the point of the protagonists self sacrifice.....
you claim it is selfish to show the world that they are at an unhealthy level of entitlement and ignorance and that to continue with the status quo is to invite a future of degradation and despotism that would shield all innovation from seeing daylight.
You claim that they are selfish in their acts but fa to acknowledge their reasons their outcomes or their resolve to not become serfs of the collectivists....it says do not be a slave just because you are good at something....it says stand up, realise your worth, don't cheapen yourself, but if people will not respect you and will not value your efforts with some compensation (whether that be recognition, money, respect, debt, etc) but some form of value should be given....the smallest people are not expected to give anything more than relative efforts ...
If the characters were "self-sacrificing" in their actions, they were, by definition, acting against their own self interest, in conflict with every long-winded ideological monologue in the book. Skipping directly to the "fuck off into the mountains to pass gold around in their utopian rich person land" would have been more in their own interest.
No, their actions were taken out of self-interested spite. It was not enough to leave society, they needed to harm it on the way out.
I already referenced Stirner, who is well placed in both the Egoist and Anarchist traditions. Ayn Rand, on the other hand, cannot be placed within the Anarchist tradition, as she is unabashedly pro-Capitalism. Like, not "a necessary evil" pro-Capitalism, "an unequivocal moral good" pro-Capitalism. And Capitalism, being defined as a hierarchy based on control of capital, is entirely mutually exclusive with Anarchism, the rejection of hierarchy.
Now THAT'S funny, I don't care who you are. (Although it will certainly gag pretty much any content filter that can't buffer more than a few dozen F-bombs...)
It also works for people who have enough weight to throw around so that they don't have to care about the consequences of their actions. You would think that the social repercussions of doing such would be enough to alert someone that they were self-sabotaging, but the mindset has a built in mechanism that prevents this insight from occurring, namely that it allows the user to reframe such feedback as other's attempts at looting them from their rewards. It's a bit of a strange mental attractor in that respect, once a stable orbit of the assemblage of ideas takes place, it is very difficult to perturb one out of it.
63 comments
[ 5.0 ms ] story [ 113 ms ] threadI frankly would have hoped the argument was not a straw man and that he argued against the actual essence of the philosophy of Objectivism. Instead of taking the cheap way out to argue against a mere peripheral unfortunate potential consequence of it (when taken to an extreme).
This makes no argument; it is satire -- a caricature -- as has been repeatedly pointed out; hence, it cannot be a straw man.
Now, this is not to say that it might not blamelessly strike you as unfunny; in this case, though, you may want to reword your comment as "not funny IMO".
Shrugs I liked it
I was hoping for a good satire of Objectivism, one that really hit the nail on the head.
It is, as you point out, satire.
It is a quite common device in satire to set up a less than accurate scenario, in order to highlight a single failing. It isn't aiming to be a well balanced essay on the pros and cons of anything.
No one will ever believe you are not offended by the article because everyone knows that, if it were the case, you'd simply not have posted (much less replied several times)
Let us chill and drink some delicious juice made out of these misterious fruits of our labor
I’m also far too lazy and unskilled to write satire and admittedly not really patient enough to read it.
– John Rogers
I'm often disappointed by the lack of philosophical depth and nuance objectivist adherents display. Plus, the arrogance of assuming one's perception is exactly the way reality is when there are as many viewpoints as there are individuals. Beyond math and gravity, subjectivity and ambiguity are the norm. Furthermore, no one is an island and cannot scale their efforts beyond themselves without cooperation and friendships that require solidarity.
Modern libertarianism, the political extension of hyper-individualist objectivism, is largely an ideology sold and popularized by billionaire climate deniers to cynically benefit themselves.
If we don't live for others, he who dies with most toys still wins a lonely, meaningless death. I believe Ayn had a chip on her shoulder from growing up in the Soviet Union and took an extremist contrarian view rather than a moderate one. Extremism is often what catapults people into fame.
"There is only one party in the United States, the Property Party...and it has two right wings: Republican and Democrat. Republicans are a bit stupider, more rigid, more doctrinaire in their laissez-faire capitalism than the Democrats, who are cuter, prettier, a bit more corrupt - until recently... and more willing than the Republicans to make small adjustments when the poor, the black, the anti-imperialists get out of hand. But, essentially, there is no difference between the two parties." -G.V.
To oversimplify (as he does), I'd say that both parties leaned very hard into his descriptions of them. They've exchanged members and eliminated nearly all of the overlap. So much so that I'd deny that they are really "one party", if they ever were.
And not that of Ayn Rand either, who grew up in Russia. She certainly has an extreme position. This is very relevant context. We currently live in such a system. Nobody is only egoistic or altruistic.
> To get people to do needed things is the perennial hard task of government, not to mention of religion and philosophy
Not really and this is not how the world works and the author criticizes her in the background of a different definition of altruism.
She is no prophet or anything, but I believe it is worth reading about her perspective.
I disagree that altruism needs to be self-sacrifice, it most often is not, but this is how Rand defines it. There are cultures that practice quite direct self-sacrifice if they failed others. Can such a person be kind to others if they fail to be kind to themselves? Why do you need to love yourself so you can love others?
> Miss Rand now tells us that what we have thought was right is really wrong.
It is probably always wrong for everyone, including Rand. Not a Rand fan at all for that matter, she wasn't a too popular author in my country, I think this is mainly a US phenomenon. I think this is relevant too.
the book inspires the idea of individual potential....which if you have no personal desire to achieve tends to enrage and put one on the defence, but for those who have a spark of fire they get inspired.
I like the book, and would love to have an honest discourse on its flaws that is equally willing to acknowledge the depths of its actual arguments and the strengths of propositions when taken into account the underlying presumptions that are at the heart of the novel. It is a novel after all and not an academic treatise which many liken it to because of the marketing.
Same thing with Fountainhead which i read whole
The book is about 30-40% too long, and does repeat the ideas, but if you ignore that aspect which is fair given many books suffer from that which are popular and well loved. The biggest flaw is the repetition and the final monologue is 5x too long.
it is much better when you see the fountainhead. which is very similar themes, but has a lot less of those writing problems.
There is a plot...
I don't even really understand why people map it onto politics in the way they do. It seems to me fundamentally a story about people trying to accomplish something big, innovative and disruptive but being stymied by the various forces who resist or fear change, whether because they're profiting from the status quo or they're lazy or ignorant or entitled or whatever.
Like one of the central set of "bad guys" are the rival owners of other railroad companies, who are trying to maintain their monopoly/cartel. Another set of "bad guys" are the privileged family members who expect to have wealth and power by birthright. I don't see why a person who had left or far left political views wouldn't resonate with the protagonists struggles against these various entrenched, privileged rent seekers.
And I have to disagree with the "not an academic treatise" take: the book is a statement of philosophy first, and a story in a distant second. Most character's actions serve to either portray the "right" behavior of the Objectivist Ubermenche, or act a strawman foil to the heroes of the story. Frankly, the most surprising thing is that Rand doesn't stick to easy slam-dunk wins against her strawman "collectivists": she portrays the kinds of monstrous actions that her philosophy encourages, and then celebrates them. Franscisco D'Antonia's bombing of his own mine when he inevitably lost the fight against labor, the reverse-Robin Hood character's outright theft for the benefit of those who really don't need it, heck, the bizarrely rapey sexual encounters between Dagny and Rearden are all portrayed in a unquestionably positive light, and that's probably why so few people who don't already agree with the underlying philosophy finish the book: it's seriously alienating to see evil unambiguously praised.
Atlas Shrugged does not simply "inspire" individualism: It demonizes anything less than overtly selfish behavior, to the point of praising characters for acting against their own interests simply out of spite towards those who fail to live up to the Ubermenche ideal. Contrast that with individualist anarchist writers like Max Stirner, who's philosophy follows something like "Liberation begins with the self, but we can work better together": The former is destructive, where even self-interest takes a back seat to the rejection of cooperation, whereas the latter truely puts self-interest first, acknowledging that cooperation often grants greater benefit to ourselves as well.
As a novel, it's low-effort, monotonous wish fulfillment accented by the occasional romance or absurd moment. As a philosophical statement, it's a lackluster re-framing of the least favorable parts of Nietzche with the overt "Woman only get into academia if they're sterile" sexism being replaced with a more subtle "Women should be more like men" form. The book has few redeeming qualities, and can only really be enjoyed by a reader who already agrees with the premise.
you claim it is selfish to show the world that they are at an unhealthy level of entitlement and ignorance and that to continue with the status quo is to invite a future of degradation and despotism that would shield all innovation from seeing daylight.
You claim that they are selfish in their acts but fa to acknowledge their reasons their outcomes or their resolve to not become serfs of the collectivists....it says do not be a slave just because you are good at something....it says stand up, realise your worth, don't cheapen yourself, but if people will not respect you and will not value your efforts with some compensation (whether that be recognition, money, respect, debt, etc) but some form of value should be given....the smallest people are not expected to give anything more than relative efforts ...
No, their actions were taken out of self-interested spite. It was not enough to leave society, they needed to harm it on the way out.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rational_egoism
-- https://www.mcsweeneys.net/articles/its-decorative-gourd-sea...
might work if you're a hermit or lone monk.