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Ayn Rand reviews children’s movies (2014)

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Re: Ayn Rand reviews children’s movies (2014)

#11
Funny, but Rand would review some of them differently

[Babe / Charlotte’s Web]

Ingenious farmers find new ways to market their farms and products with innovative marketing.

[Snow White]

Seven dwarves give room and board in exchange for house keeping. They save her from a dangerous, overreaching government. It later translates into future potential political favors.

[Beauty and the Beast]

A woman rightfully chooses a man with more resources.

[Up]

Politically persecuted man overcomes adversity and claims a flying fortress of intelligent dogs.

[The Muppets Take Manhattan]

A capitalist Cinderella story with puppets minus the fairy tale magic.

Re: Ayn Rand reviews children’s movies (2014)

#12
post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's not in contradiction of coldness or inhumanity. You can be an utter sociopath, and reason accordingly. The view of Rand comes from the certainly implied lack of empathy with the lesser fortunate. There's a quote where she expresses appreciation of a serial killer, because of this.

I think the point is that when trying not to help the less fortunate, if we resort only to emotion without reason, we just ending up hurting them. Which can certainly be seen in plenty of situations today, IMO.

First, as an absolute statement, that's untrue, and who is going to help others without a bit of thinking? So not helping is almost certainly worse.

Re: Ayn Rand reviews children’s movies (2014)

#13

Relevant comment from John Carmack a couple weeks ago: Atlas Shrugged popped up in a trend, reminding me of the remarkable level of vitriol against it. It is obviously grinding an anti-collectivist axe, and it can fairly be called cartoonish, but if you can't see its archetypes in the world around you, you aren't paying attention. I can easily understand people not liking the book, but the level of loathing that some…

IMO anyone who is sympathetic to AR is doing a disservice by introducing her to people with Atlas. Fountainhead is far more entertaining, main character is better written, and it just gets the point across better.

Atlas is a punchline for a reason.

Re: Ayn Rand reviews children’s movies (2014)

#14

Relevant comment from John Carmack a couple weeks ago: Atlas Shrugged popped up in a trend, reminding me of the remarkable level of vitriol against it. It is obviously grinding an anti-collectivist axe, and it can fairly be called cartoonish, but if you can't see its archetypes in the world around you, you aren't paying attention. I can easily understand people not liking the book, but the level of loathing that some…

>if you can't see its archetypes in the world around you, you aren't paying attention.

The archetype of a glorious manager who goes on strike which makes everybody very very sorry they ever doubted them isn't one that I'm super familiar with.

I wonder if Carmack has ever looked at a graph of US wealth inequality.

Or played Bioshock.

Re: Ayn Rand reviews children’s movies (2014)

#15

Relevant comment from John Carmack a couple weeks ago: Atlas Shrugged popped up in a trend, reminding me of the remarkable level of vitriol against it. It is obviously grinding an anti-collectivist axe, and it can fairly be called cartoonish, but if you can't see its archetypes in the world around you, you aren't paying attention. I can easily understand people not liking the book, but the level of loathing that some…

Here's the thing though: Obviously terrible people (imo) cite Ayn Rand as a pivotal influence so much that I don't know if I could ever give her work an unbiased read.

Conversely, my favorite people have called her "one of the most evil figures of modern intellectual history", and the like.

And she was clearly a massive, massive hypocrite.

Re: Ayn Rand reviews children’s movies (2014)

#16
post #14

Relevant comment from John Carmack a couple weeks ago: Atlas Shrugged popped up in a trend, reminding me of the remarkable level of vitriol against it. It is obviously grinding an anti-collectivist axe, and it can fairly be called cartoonish, but if you can't see its archetypes in the world around you, you aren't paying attention. I can easily understand people not liking the book, but the level of loathing that some…

>if you can't see its archetypes in the world around you, you aren't paying attention. The archetype of a glorious manager who goes on strike which makes everybody very very sorry they ever doubted them isn't one that I'm super familiar with. I wonder if Carmack has ever looked at a graph of US wealth inequality. Or played Bioshock.

No post body was provided.

Re: Ayn Rand reviews children’s movies (2014)

#17

Relevant comment from John Carmack a couple weeks ago: Atlas Shrugged popped up in a trend, reminding me of the remarkable level of vitriol against it. It is obviously grinding an anti-collectivist axe, and it can fairly be called cartoonish, but if you can't see its archetypes in the world around you, you aren't paying attention. I can easily understand people not liking the book, but the level of loathing that some…

The level of vitriol is proportional to the harms. Ayn Rand's childish philosophy has adherents who have caused significant harm to society. Similarly, if Mein Kampf or Das Kapital had not gained a following, we might not have such vitriol for those books, and we might spend more time discussing if we see their archetypes in the world around us, but they did, and that discussion is rightly not as prominent as the criticism.

Re: Ayn Rand reviews children’s movies (2014)

#18

I big miss at a humour in my view. Although, in general Im puzzled by the cliche portrayal of A.R.'s views as somewhat cold or inhumane. Though I did not read all her essays and works, Im familiar with the several ones which warrant no such trivialized characterization. On the contrary, she explicitly and implicitly said that "...reason and emotions are not contradictory or in opposition. It is only when we do not un…

Agreed. I will say Ayn Rand's philosophy doesn't really have any room for parents/children in it, people are just fully realized individuals suddenly and without any childhood/adolescence/schooling. None of her characters have any interest in raising children. Children are dependents, and parents (or the state if you want to go that route) need to raise them if you want a society to continue, it's a pretty huge blind…

"I will say Ayn Rand's philosophy doesn't really have any room for parents/children in it,"

That sentence misses the very definition of philosophy and its purpose. It is true that Ayn Rand never had children and didn't talk much about parenting (although she did in various Q&A and also spoke about education - was very fond of Montessori for example), but that doesn't mean that Objectivism, which is Ayn Rand's philosophy, has no value to a parent or child.

Ayn Rand offered Objectivism as a philosophy for an individual human being, to aid in living in the natural world as a human. It is a comprehensive world view that speaks to the nature of reality, the nature of human beings, our relationship to reality as well as ethics, politics and aesthetics.

An individual's choice to raise children is personal and individual and Objectivism would argue that it is a moral choice to become a parent if you value raising children of your own, can afford to do so and are willing to accept the enormous life-long commitment and responsibility that doing so entails. A child's relationship to their parents, what rights children have and what a parent's responsibility is to their children are all things that Ayn Rand actually did speak about during her life, but the one thing I will grant you is that the fictional characters in her books were mostly childless and that probably had a lot to do with the fact that she herself was childless and so it wasn't something she felt moved to really talk about through her writings.

As for "need to raise them if you want a society to continue,"...

Objectivism certainly has a lot to say about an individual's relationship to "society", the very definition of "society" (an abstract concept referring broadly to a group of individuals) and it rejected the philosophical notion of "duty", not to be confused with "responsibility." Individuals have responsibilities, which they accept willingly. A parent, for example, has a responsibility to their children. Pet owners have responsibilities to their pets. People enter into contracts and relationships, make promises to one another and agree to work together collaboratively. All speaking to responsibilities. A duty, on the other hand, refers to an obligation imposed at birth to which someone has no ability to opt out. The duty to have children, for example. "If you want society a continue..." Objectivists would say "If you want children and a family and are prepared to accept the responsibility then do it for yourself. But don't take such a major life decision lightly, and you don't have a 'duty' to do so."

Re: Ayn Rand reviews children’s movies (2014)

#19
post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's not in contradiction of coldness or inhumanity. You can be an utter sociopath, and reason accordingly. The view of Rand comes from the certainly implied lack of empathy with the lesser fortunate. There's a quote where she expresses appreciation of a serial killer, because of this.

I think the point is that when trying not to help the less fortunate, if we resort only to emotion without reason, we just ending up hurting them. Which can certainly be seen in plenty of situations today, IMO.

> if we resort only to emotion without reason

If you walk down a street and see a musician play with donation box, if you were using only emotions without reason you'd give away your wallet and all rings and keys to the car.

Its a nonsensical statement, nobody is driven only via emotions. But some are driven completely without emotions.

Re: Ayn Rand reviews children’s movies (2014)

#20

Relevant comment from John Carmack a couple weeks ago: Atlas Shrugged popped up in a trend, reminding me of the remarkable level of vitriol against it. It is obviously grinding an anti-collectivist axe, and it can fairly be called cartoonish, but if you can't see its archetypes in the world around you, you aren't paying attention. I can easily understand people not liking the book, but the level of loathing that some…

The level of vitriol is proportional to the harms. Ayn Rand's childish philosophy has adherents who have caused significant harm to society. Similarly, if Mein Kampf or Das Kapital had not gained a following, we might not have such vitriol for those books, and we might spend more time discussing if we see their archetypes in the world around us, but they did, and that discussion is rightly not as prominent as the cri…

I'm curious how you came to that conclusion. How are you measuring the level of harm as a result of her books?
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