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Malcolm Gladwell versus Ayn Rand: Who is right?

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Re: Malcolm Gladwell versus Ayn Rand: Who is right?

#81

Post by unalone »

[deleted] wrote: post #74
unalone wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think Atlas Shrugged assumes a fantastic future in which the amount of people who CAN step up to the plate have dwindled immensely, and in which many of the ones who COULD are already broken. In real life as it stands today, Atlas Shrugged is not a plausible scenario. The trick to reading it without casting it aside in horror is realizing that Rand knows that, and that she's drawing things to their extremes to make…

[deleted]

But her characters are absolutely recognizable as humans. I've met people who talk like Rand heroes and people who talk like Rand villains. I've always envisioned Herb Kelleher of Southwest as a Randian hero. He refuses to compromise, gets mocked for a lot of things that turn out in retrospect to have been brilliant, and has a very flippant attitude about it all.

It's like reading Asimov, who judges most of his characters by their approach to logic. There's an advantage to illustrating a single facet of a human being. It lets you focus and create characters that revolve around a theme. If Rand had made her books more involved, they'd have lost the focus on the attributes that she writes about.

Re: Malcolm Gladwell versus Ayn Rand: Who is right?

#82

Post by SkylerNovak »

thomasmallen wrote: post #75
unalone wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you're associating two things that Gladwell didn't. He brings up rice farming for the anecdote about fallow-fields versus 360-days-of-work.

In that case I was wrong to trust the article linked here.

The article is good. Just look a the discussion it's begun.

Re: Malcolm Gladwell versus Ayn Rand: Who is right?

#83

Post by SkylerNovak »

unalone wrote: post #81
[deleted] wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[deleted]

But her characters are absolutely recognizable as humans. I've met people who talk like Rand heroes and people who talk like Rand villains. I've always envisioned Herb Kelleher of Southwest as a Randian hero. He refuses to compromise, gets mocked for a lot of things that turn out in retrospect to have been brilliant, and has a very flippant attitude about it all. It's like reading Asimov, who judges most of his chara…

Oh grow up. You sound like you're 14.

Re: Malcolm Gladwell versus Ayn Rand: Who is right?

#84

Post by unalone »

walterk wrote: post #78
unalone wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They each have different aims with their writing. Gladwell wants to illustrate things as they are. Rand wants to illustrate things as they could be.

Gladwell's writings undermine Rand's beliefs justifying her vision of what could/should be.

To some extent, yes. As I said: Gladwell is like a Rand villain. But they aren't polar opposites. I doubt Rand ever saw the world as stylized as she wrote it. She's openly a Romantic Realist.

Gladwell opposes Rand. But they still hold fast in certain things. The opposite of Rand is not the person who says that people aren't responsible for their success. It's the person who says that civilization isn't a success, that human beings are beasts, that the solution to our problems is to go back to being savages. Similarly: I think Rand would disagree with Gladwell's claim that nobody is responsible for their life, but she wouldn't dispute his findings. She would just argue that they aren't as relevant as Gladwell thinks they are.

Re: Malcolm Gladwell versus Ayn Rand: Who is right?

#85

Post by unalone »

SkylerNovak wrote: post #82
thomasmallen wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In that case I was wrong to trust the article linked here.

The article is good. Just look a the discussion it's begun.

But the discussion exists because the topic is so vivid. The article itself is rambling, incoherent, and at many times wrong.

Re: Malcolm Gladwell versus Ayn Rand: Who is right?

#87

Post by unalone »

SkylerNovak wrote: post #83
unalone wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But her characters are absolutely recognizable as humans. I've met people who talk like Rand heroes and people who talk like Rand villains. I've always envisioned Herb Kelleher of Southwest as a Randian hero. He refuses to compromise, gets mocked for a lot of things that turn out in retrospect to have been brilliant, and has a very flippant attitude about it all. It's like reading Asimov, who judges most of his chara…

Oh grow up. You sound like you're 14.

I am aware that neither Rand nor her philosophy is perfect. That said: I think that Rand talks about her ideas in a way that make them very accessible and attractive to people, and I think that her philosophical beliefs are worthy of discussion at the very least. I agree with her statement that it is better to be selfish - in the sense that you act primarily for your own good - than it is to be altruistic.

I don't think she is the end-all be-all. I voted Obama, who will expand the government in many ways and demand some altruism from everybody. But I think that compromise is a necessity: that altruism is a necessary evil rather than an end unto itself.

The immature one is the one who dismisses somebody's argument because they choose to support a flawed person. Frankly, I'd much rather talk with an Objectivist than a Nihilist - that despite Nietzche's being a much more influential and agreed-with writer. I'm trying to argue my points expressively, and to respond to people who disagree. You're either being immature or a troll.

Re: Malcolm Gladwell versus Ayn Rand: Who is right?

#88

Post by hugh »

ScottHanson wrote: post #42
13ren wrote: post #38

Why do people on HN discuss the title, and not the content? The average discussion on reddit/programming (for example) is now of higher quality than HN these days, for the same story - and with less oneupmanship. To me, the interesting thing about this story isn't the presentation of the thesis (using Ayn Rand), but to question the thesis itself: Is success more circumstantial than personal? http://nymag.com/arts/boo…

The point of the blog is the question: do the successful at least part of their success to the society they grew up in. Ayn Rand says no; Gladwell says yes.

I'm not convinced that Ayn Rand says no. She really never addresses the question of how her heroes get to be the way they are -- they just appear in her books fully formed with their brilliance and their values already in place.

I expect that if Ayn Rand were actually pressed on the issue of "do the successful owe at least part of their success to their upbringing" she'd be forced to admit that yes, they do.

Re: Malcolm Gladwell versus Ayn Rand: Who is right?

#89

Post by hugh »

unalone wrote: post #68
ScottHanson wrote: post #49

Randinistas! A question. Did Roarke have the moral or legal rights to destroy the development after the owners changed the design?

Legally, no. Morally, yes. Samuel Beckett, possibly the best writer since Joyce, insists that if you perform his play, you do it precisely according to his directions: you use his setting, you follow his directions, you don't edit a line. It is his idea. In Beckett's case, thanks to copyrights it was both legally and morally his right to demand that. In Roark's case, he did not submit the plan under his own name. The…

I can see how Roark has every right to be pissed off, but I still can't see how that translates to the right to blow it up with dynamite.

Followup question: What if Roark were a lousy architect? (But still thought he was brilliant?) Of course we know he wasn't because the book never gets tired of telling us how brilliant he is, but what if his original plans actually did kinda suck and the alterations were actually improvements? (cf. the Sydney Opera House).

Re: Malcolm Gladwell versus Ayn Rand: Who is right?

#90

Post by RobertHenderson »

SkylerNovak wrote: post #83
unalone wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But her characters are absolutely recognizable as humans. I've met people who talk like Rand heroes and people who talk like Rand villains. I've always envisioned Herb Kelleher of Southwest as a Randian hero. He refuses to compromise, gets mocked for a lot of things that turn out in retrospect to have been brilliant, and has a very flippant attitude about it all. It's like reading Asimov, who judges most of his chara…

Oh grow up. You sound like you're 14.

Agreed. He's being a jerk.
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