Can someone explain Ayn Rand to me?!

The day must have its night. We must have our Ayn Rand.

She is the tails to our heads on the Promethean coin.

Those two posts are an illustration of what makes a cult of personality : the people who choose to submit themselves to that personality. Ayn Rand is supposed to be about free will and choosing your destiny, any dumbfuck who turns that into an immobile cult icon isn't really processing the material mentally.

I am wondering what cult she was the leader of since she broke up any organization she was involved in.

I thought conservatism of the moderate / libertarian bent was about personal responsibility, something that would seem to be anti-cult. I don't see anything in Rand's thinking that disavows this.

her philosphy, on the face of it, would seem to be (as u say) "anti-cult". but her husbandry of the cult of her own majesty = something else entirely...

Ayn Rand is supposed to be about free will and choosing your destiny...

um, "supposed"

Nathaniel Branden to thread.

hahaha i didn't finish atlas shrugged but it was basically the most horrible and terrible book i have ever read. The only reason I got as far as I did was because about 50 pages in I hated her so much I wanted to beat her stupid book. I would indignantly read passages out to my bf at the time and he would laugh at them but I wouldnt think it was funny. I would be so angry! I used to throw it against the wall.

how many times can u throw 1 book before it is not book but some paper?

this was a pretty resilient paperback. i think it was held together by its awfulness. it actually still looks like its in good shape. btw one of my best friend claims this is his favourite book.

You must abandon this friend or eliminate him.

Using a copy of the book to accomplish the latter would be fitting, we think.

yeah, shit is annoying as hell. used to "enjoy" camille paglia in the same sense, but at least she's fun to fite with.

I feel like true members of the patron class -- you know, the ones that society would fall apart without -- would never write so badly. Being super into Ayn Rand is publicly admitting that you wouldn't know either a good book or a coherent philosophy if you accidentally tripped over one. Maybe it's not a cult, sure, fine, whatever. So it's some unreadable bullshit that's not a cult. If you want to motivate yourself into being all that you can be, you can read Aristotle and spare yourself slogging through these utterly artless train wrecks.

It is very much a cult, which we find admirable. All worthwhile points of view are fanatically followed. We find those on the opposite side worthy opponents. Those in the middle, mere dissenters or wafflers, not even fit to forcibly brainwash.

That said, all Objectivists must perish.

What about the Fountainhead? Her fans seem to rate that one more, they say Atlas Shrugged is kind of pretentious. I read that one but didn't finish, I must say I found it entertaining in a pulpish fashion. The style is very emotional, manipulative even if you're susceptible to that sort of thing.
As a psychology buff I have to pay attention, it tells me a lot about a certain 1950s mentality. I think that stuff was supposed to be mass market. Same with her "philosophy".

held together by its awfulness.

This is an excellent description of many things.

This is the problem I have with the whole Rand thing.

Other examples of popular culture make plot-references more generally, such as when in the TV series Gilmore Girls, Rory calls Lorelai "the Howard Roark of Stars Hollow" for being ruthless in a competition,[31] or Rory tells Jess about her love of the book and Jess expresses awe that she read it when she was only 10.[32]

The Fountainhead is read in many high school classrooms and has been a core work for the Advanced Placement curriculum.

In the epistolary novel The Perks of Being a Wallflower, the title character of Charlie is assigned The Fountainhead to read by his teacher, Bill, and later refers to the book as his "favourite".

In the Philip K. Dick novel and film adaptation A Scanner Darkly, a character attempting suicide picks The Fountainhead as an "artifact" to be found with his remains, his reasoning being it "would prove he had been a misunderstood superman rejected by the masses and so, in a sense, murdered by their scorn".

There is this theme when discussing or using (as Hollywood has done) Rand - that of the super bright "lonely" girl ...reading Ayn Rand and isn't that impressive. I suppose reading science texts or non-fiction or history is less sexy.

Not a literature snob but any high school teacher who makes The Fountainhead a requirement ought to be fired.

this is tossed-off but insightful i thought:

But the basic inverted Marxism at the heart of her ideology has become the central focus of both modern conservative thought and Republican policy-making. (That ideology holds that the world is fundamentally divided between virtuous creators of wealth and lazy parasites, the identity of whom is the reverse of what Marx believed.

http://www.tnr.com/blog/jonathan-chait/76735/ayn-rand-and-conservatism

ie i don't think she really understood capitalism. capital is not 'heroic'

How come in her books the protagonist keeps plugging away against mediocrity but never gets very far?

too many little people holding them back

"I only like big people"

Ayn Rand=fascinating to 11th graders whose have just been weaned off of Sweet Valley High and Hardy Boys novels (or whatever those children are reading these days)

big in india & i guess anywhere where ppl could feel threatened by egalitarian ideas

really? I hadn't noticed her popularity in India. where are you drawing that conclusion from (book sales or something?)

"I only like big people"

"It's capitalism that got small"

Ann Rind is so much easier to pronounce that Ayn Rand.

xp to shakey:

yeah lots of ppl I spoke to in india had read it, noticed the fountainhead in lots of roadside stalls, and it did seem to be well-known. poss just sheltered from rand in europe and maybe india is just more in sync w/ the US, or maybe a fad, but it was a bit of a thing.

any high school teacher who makes The Fountainhead a requirement ought to be fired.

no way. anything that inspires thought/discussion/argument is a-ok to read circa high school.

ie i don't think she really understood capitalism. capital is not 'heroic'

and i dunno, her heroicization of fat cats doesn't make less sense of marx's heroicization of the worker

any high school teacher who makes The Fountainhead a requirement ought to be fired.

no way. anything that inspires thought/discussion/argument is a-ok to read circa high school.

― a CRASBO is a "criminally related" ASBO (contenderizer), Friday, August 13, 2010 12:32 PM (2 minutes ago)

high school is far too short and there are waaaayyyy too many books that are actually good to spend time making teenagers read The Fountainhead.

working isn't heroic either!

ayn rand is turning into l. ron hubbard

high school is far too short and there are waaaayyyy too many books that are actually good to spend time making teenagers read The Fountainhead.

i guess, but it's one of the those books that teens, or certain teens, really seem to take so, which counts in its favor

i would LOVE to have read it in high school, just for the ensuing debates

ayn rand is turning into l. ron hubbard

I had to read Anthem in high school. it came across as a self-aware Choose Your Own Adventure book however with all the choices predetermined for you :(

We had enough debates with the following:

Siddhartha
Death In Venice
The Stranger
Johnny Got His Gun
The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn
Sula
Going After Cacciato
Their Eyes Were Watching God
The Jungle
Heart of Darkness

I can't imagine throwing The Fountainhead in there, too

yeah, i'm no Ayn Rand fan on any level -- but i wouldn't object to having the fountainhead being read in a high school class. it isn't any more controversial than a lot of the books Dan just listed (though there is the rough sex/quasi-rape scenes which may not go over very well).

\it isn't any more controversial than a lot of the books Dan just listed

the difference is that the Fountainhead is REALLY SHITTILY WRITTEN whereas most of the books Dan listed are actually really well written

What?? You read those in high school? Holy shit. I can never tell if I missed all the notable literature b/c I took mostly science classes, or if my school was just crappy.

I mean with those other books you can delve into the style and composition and metaphors and whatnot, there's a range of analytical approaches you can take. with Ayn Rand it's strictly "how stupid/awesome do you think this poorly presented philosophy is"

well, "shittily written" is in the eye of the beholder. i don't think much of Upton Sinclair or Hermann Hesse as writers, either.

I don't really have any objection to teaching Rand in high school other than do you really want to give teenagers justification to act even more like narcissistic dicks?

I read about half that list in high school (either for AP history or for AP English) - although my list subbed the Invisible Man, All the King's Men, some others I'm forgetting at the moment...

x-post

i don't think much of Upton Sinclair or Hermann Hesse as writers, either.

I'll concede on Sinclair - Hesse tho? he was a much better stylist than Ayn Rand

I think we read the Plague instead of the Stranger

it's like, you already think you're the most important person in the world and should be able to do whatever you want, now here's a "grown-up" "philosophy" that says it's OK, go out and have fun!

wait, the invisible man by h.g. wells or am i to understand that you were taught ellison's invisible man in high school, in which case i am super-impressed and kind of awed?

upton sinclair has the advantage of being vv important and influential w/r/t actual issues of his day

again, matter of taste re Hesse. not to mention that there may be translation issues (German --> English, and all that).