Another Rand Rant

[robinturner]

To all those followers of Ayn Rand, George Bush and those parts of Nietzsche you were able to understand ...

Please admit that you are snivelling cowards.

Being a coward is not bad. On a lot of topics, I'm pretty cowardly. I find people in general rather scary. The prospect of a visit to my psychopathic mother-in-law raises my heartbeat. When I drive in Turkish traffic, I have to keep tight control of my anal sphincter. I'm ashamed of it, but I admit it.

What I don't do is construct a philosophy or political ideology based on my fears. I don't think "The world is a vicious, cruel place, and I have to look out for myself because no one else will, and if other people fall by the wayside, then that's just too bad." I don't get so paranoid about my own security that I fill my home with firearms and lobby for the right of citizens to own anti-tank weapons, or worry so much about my economic security that I resent my taxes going to help the unemployed or developing countries.

Yes, the world is a vicious, cruel place, partly because Nature does not care overly much for our health, but mainly because we have made it so. In our fear, we transform self-preservation into callousness, and sanction the deaths of millions through war and starvation in order to nurture the egos we have constructed for ourselves. And the funny thing is that many of us can't face the fact that we are doing it, and spin pretty philosophies to make it seem perfectly right and natural.

Comments

[jvb419.livejournal.com]

Well said.

On a different topic, would you do me and epanastatis a favor by having a look at the Turkish sign he reproduced at his LiveJournal site and supplying a translation? Thanks.

[arya.livejournal.com]

I'm (loosely) an objectivist, and a strong proponent of the 2nd Amendment.

Basically, it is because I believe the 2nd Amendment to be the citizen's guarantee against the US government becoming as tyrannical as the British government at the time of our country's birth.

And before you accuse me of paranoia, let me remind you that I live in the only country ever to drop a nuclear weapon on not one, but TWO major cities, populated by countless innocent civilians... that I live in a country whose current industry owes much of its success to the slave labor of the Chinese and Africans... that I live in a country who interned its *own citizens* in concentration camps in desert substandard living conditions.

Annoying Rhetoric.

[kristian.livejournal.com]

and spin pretty philosophies to make it seem perfectly right and natural.

As opposed to spinning pretty philosophies to make it seem perfectly wrong and unnatural? :)

[thedward.livejournal.com]

How does the 2nd ammendment guarantee against tyranny? Do you believe a revolution armed with the sorts of weapons likely to be owned by private citizens could be successful against the might of the military industrial complex? Note that I am not arguing against the 2nd ammendment, I just don't see it as terribly relevant towards preventing tyranny in this day and age.

not annoying! how dare you!

[hyperina.livejournal.com]

your last paragraph pretty much cinches it

[solri.livejournal.com]

Alexgal's translation is correct. I don't think it's from the ÖDP, though.

[solri.livejournal.com]

How loose is your objectivism? Or perhaps I should say, what is it that you agree and disagree with in Objectivism.

Re: Annoying Rhetoric.

[solri.livejournal.com]

Actually for three a.m. and three glasses of raki, I thought that wasn't bad. It's not as opposed to spinning pretty philosophies to make it seem perfectly wrong and unnatural, but as opposed to being as objective as we can. Rude, I admit, but then if I can't be rude to Randroids, who can I be rude to?

[blorky.livejournal.com]

Thanks.

[epanastatis.livejournal.com]

I figured that out once I saw her translation. (I had assumed wrongly that "özgürlük" was on there as an identifier, the way groups in the West will sometimes put their names and the names of their newspapers on their placards.) Now I wish I knew who it was, because the signs were very well made, much better than what I usually expect from anarchists.

[epanastatis.livejournal.com]

I can't speak for arya because I am in no way an objectivist--quite the opposite--but I do think privately owned weapons are necessary to any revolutionary perspective. As a rule, in any militarily powerful country the state is going to be better armed than any insurrectionary body. That's why a split in the armed forces is, as a rule, necessary for a successful revolution. But that split is not going to happen unless soldiers are inspired to breach military discipline, and that is only likely to happen if the revolutionary organization or social class is bold enough to risk its life defending itself with whatever weapons it can get its hands on. Soldiers know that their superiors mean business, so if they're ideologically disposed to change sides they need to be sure that the other side also means business.

[thedward.livejournal.com]

Hmm. That makes sense. Thanks! :)

good old Fritz is not all bad.

[(Anonymous)]

I like what Nietzsche has to say about the role of the Dionysian in music. It's pretty inspirational to me, actually, because all the music music I create seems staid and restrained by the standards he has set up.
~anna

Re: good old Fritz is not all bad.

[solri.livejournal.com]

Note that I referred to "parts of Nietzsche". I don't like most of Nietzsche's philosophy, but he can be very observant and entertaining at times. I remember enjoying some of his writing on music when I was at university (we had a course caled something like "History of Music Theory"). His spat with Wagner was particularly good.

Rand-wonder

[cibetky.livejournal.com]

I still wonder why do so many young and otherwise fairly intelligent Americans admire Rand's philosophy (for the same reason they admire Nietzsche?). I think she's not read in non-English speaking Europe at all. I hadn't even heard her name before I became an avid Internet user. :-)

Re: Rand-wonder

[solri.livejournal.com]

She's not that well-known in Britain either. A friend of mine coming to the end of a PhD. in philosophy had never heard of her, and "Objectivism" means something totaly different this side of the pond.

I first heard of Ayn Rand as a result of reading Robert Anton Wilson's Illuminatus books, where he satirises Atlas Shrugged (there's a novel inside the novel called "Telemachus Sneezed"). To be fair, I haven't read any of Rand's "major" (i.e. intolerably long) works, just a piece of science fiction whose name I forget - run-of-the-mill dystopian stuff.

Re: good old Fritz is not all bad.

[(Anonymous)]

It was an excellent spat, as far as spats go.