Last edited Thu Oct 18, 2012, 05:43 AM - Edit history (1)
and from the things I have read about her, her personal interactions with people reveal some issues that are too complicated to delve into at any length. Over an hour ago there were a few replies to your post and I started out trying to address what you first posted. Since then I finished what I wrote below and opened up another window to see if there had been other replies. I see that there were and maybe what I wrote doesn't fit any more, but I'm posting it any way. The reason for my reply is that I remembered welcoming you to DU in that thread with the picture of Obama and Hillary Clinton. Since that thread was so different from the way this one got started, I felt I should write something about what I think is part of what people at DU are commonly trying to do here, as opposed to what was generally espoused by Ayn Rand. I hope you won't be offended or feel that I'm talking down to you, but since I don't know you, or didn't know what you knew, I sort of started from square 1. I also never took the time to introduce myself or my own beliefs after joining DU, so maybe I'm sort of doing that too. Anyway, following is part of what I know about the Rand philosophy and what I have come to understand about what it means that we are Progressives/Democrats.
There are a great many people in this country who aren't clear on the differences between democracy and capitalism. They are not one in the same. You can do research on the internet and find the most rudimentary explanations at places like Wikipedia. I can't speak at length about capitalism, partly because DU is not dedicated to promoting the ideas of capitalism, but in how our society lives together in a way that is fair and just. In that sense, at least from my point of view, we seek to find ways that our system of capitalism serves the needs of people, not necessarily vice versa.
I personally didn't clearly understand the difference between the two major political parties until I read an article in, believe it or not, Reader's Digest, sometime in the late sixties. Wish I had saved it but I read it while visiting some relatives. The major thesis was that Republicans were the supporters of Big Business, and Democrats supported the "Common Man," as we were still called in those days. It highlighted the FDR administration and how he worked to make life better and more bearable for those hit hardest by the Great Depression, etc. There was probably more to the article, but the part I remembered was enough for me. It's a good thing, because a few years later I found myself old enough to cast my first vote in an election. Anyway, the article was pretty simple, but it's amazing how many people still today don't see it that clearly....occasionally including Democrats.
I suppose that Rand spent most of her life worshiping Capitalism because of her experience growing up with Communism, but her reactionary beliefs drove her to be a hyper-Capitalist who apparently saw life only through that lens. All the time. And her focus glorified the selfish aspects of Capitalism, which means she gave a green light to greed. Videos of her being interviewed reveal a strange and twisted person who condemned altruism. This makes her philosophy especially cruel, since it also condemns those who don't make it to the top - characterizing them as lazy or not working hard enough. She elevated the individual and more or less characterized people cooperating together to make life better to others as "Socialism" and "Communism." She was not only hyper-capitalistic, but hyper-individualistic. Observing our society today as opposed to the years of my youth (and hearing/reading about what life was like during the times of my parents and grandparents), our culture today has become too individualistic and more people don't even seem to have an understanding of what "community" means. Very sad, and we have lost both that and a sense of responsibility for others. Those people of the religious right who formed a coalition with the GOP in the 1980 election don't even seem to get this part of the Bible that they claim to hold dear. The questions, "Who is my neighbor?" and "Am I my brother's keeper?" are some of its most important questions, but those people haven't figured that out yet, nor do they like the answers that Jesus offered through stories and parables. Instead, they support the status quo and often break the first of the 10 Commandments: the one against idolatry. Their actions betray a worship of money, power, comfort, and militarism. In many ways, they also worship and defend the "greed is good" philosophy of Gordon Gekko and Ayn Rand more vigorously than the Jesus they profess to follow.
Do you know anything about Ayn Rand's personal life? She humiliated her husband by openly having an affair right under his nose, and had great admiration for the traits that she saw in a man who was also known for killing others. Yet she looked down her nose at altruistic people and elevated selfishness to "virtue" status. Her outlook on life, put into practice by real people in a real society, is a recipe for turning principles of respect and cooperation upside-down. I believe we're witnessing that already in this country, especially by ruthless industrialists who feel no remorse in planning to strip away humane social safety nets in order to enrich themselves further. They characterize time-honored practices of providing for those who can't help themselves or who are down on their luck (whom they call "leeches" and other epithets) as "socialistic" and "communist," and those who don't know any better believe them and back off. Objectivism isn't just Ayn Rand's philosophy anymore. It has become the rationale for just about everything that the Republican Party leaders advocate and put into practice nowadays. It's their license to exploit people for their own personal gain, regardless of the destruction that it will cause. Their goal is to remove all obstacles to building economic empires for themselves - other human beings in their way be damned. And whatever love they profess for this country is merely a cover for getting elected or obtaining power and then taking it in whatever way they can make legal. The only "individuals" who triumph in this kind of story are the ones who have destroyed others and taken from them to get where they want to be in life. The only individuals who matter in their scheme of things are at the top: themselves. They apparently see those less fortunate as sub-human and undeserving of mercy or understanding. Again, this vision/philosophy is democracy completely turned on its head. And it's only going to get worse for our culture unless we are able to put this process in reverse.
At least that's my understanding of it. I've actually been reading DU off and on and have found it to be one of the most helpful places I could go. It keeps me well informed and it's worth my time when I can learn from it. I guess you have found that Ayn Rand isn't popular here! Not being a fan or reader of ANY of her books, I tend to lump them all in the same category and wonder what people find redeemable about any of them. The first thing I ever heard about her, around 40 years ago, is that she promoted selfishness. So I've never understood how she could have ever been admired for her work or philosophy. Ok, enough about her because I'm sure this thread has already made you feel defensive. I don't think anyone intended for it to feel like a pile-on, although it probably does. I've edited to take out anything that may have sounded like I was adding to that.
(It's late now and I hope what I've said is coherent, so it stands as is!)
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