Ayn Rand on Love and Happiness

Take some time out from politics to listen to the Satanist sex slave of the Rothschilds Ayn Rand.

She modeled Galt in "Atlas Shrugged" after serial killer William Edward Hickman. She voted for FDR because he was pro abortion. Still like her?

Can't hate her for being pro-abortion before birth control was affordable and widely available. I would've been, too.

But, these days, in the US, no excuse.

I still love Ayn Rand.

Do you hate the Founding Fathers because they owned slaves?

i agree to an extent.ayn rand was parentless and childless which i think influences her cynical detached views on "love" but i agree with her views on altruism.its no surprise people are self centered and act towards their own self interests in a context where selfishness is not necessarily associated with greed.greed implies you impinge on others,selfishness [imho] is consistent with the pursuit of happiness.

i think with ayn rand,its not so important what her opinion is,its her approach..

I messed up my last post above, sorry, here it is:


OP I thought that was excellent. Never mind the naysayers, they are probably full of fear with little life experience, and probably didn't even watch the clip lol. Also I thought Mike Wallace's questions, at least they way they were conveyed on this clip, were a bit extreme and baiting, i.e., all or nothing, yes or no? etc.


to add,

One has to really listen to this clip; there is a lot of truth to what she says.

Nope. I don't hate the founding fathers.
The reason I have a problem with Ayn is because a person can sense lip service to morality when reading her work.
Her admiration of Hickman is what makes it apparent. One of his murders was of a twelve year old girl named Marion Parker. He had gutted her and cut her arms and legs off before delivering the stump of the corpse back to her father for a ransom. After receiving the ransom he pushed the leftover corpse of Marion out of the car and drove off leaving the father screaming.
Still like Rand?

Thank you for your comment. I have to agree with you here. I don't agree with many aspects of her belief system. But I feel she gave us a good approach to what we have today. She forecast what we have today and many laughed. I like that she is raw and blunt. She said how she felt when most want to fit in.

Great comment, thank you. I don't have to agree with her 100% of the time. But when it comes to some things the lady hits it blunt on the head.

I'll have to look into this, to be honest I have no clue of what you are talking about. So maybe I need to pay more attention. I just like atlas shrugged and her other book. Mostly her thoughts on society, i never looked into other aspects of who she wrote about or her beliefs. I care about how society is going forward.

It's alright. I'm a Christian but I enjoy reading Nietsche from time to time. I just think it's important people know the flaws of philosophers before diving in to ones works. After all, it is said the gates of Hell are ruled by philosophers.

Absolutely, I do appreciate all the posts here tonight. It has given me a lot to look into.

You're welcome. She is an honest and intelligent adult, in my opinion. An important life lesson I have learned is the talent of reading between the lines of what is said.

She is from a different time and culture, yes. I have always meant to read more about her and her books ( I have started Atlas Shrugged but it is soooooooo long with tiny print lol) because the opinions about her are only negative and positive with no grey area (I would normally say black and white but ffs it could start a new thing lol)

I was never meant to have either.

I've never seen that cartoon version of the interview, but I agree pretty much entirely with everything she said.

Rand was very clear, if you read the journal entry in which she professed her admiration for Hickman, that she admired his individualism only. She deplored what he did.

Later, as she matured in her philosophy, she questioned whether it's possible to admire the individualism of an immoral person. She concluded that it's not, because an immoral person is by definition irrational, and reason is the prerequisite of individualism. Hence, she rejected her youthful admiration for what she at the time thought was individualism, just as she rejected her youthful admiration for Nietzsche (who similarly rejected reason).

That's an incorrect summary of the place of philosophers in Dante's Inferno. Dante says that philosophers and pagans live in a city within the gate of hell. Not being Christian or Jewish, they can't [edit] enter heaven. But they are protected from the fires of Hell through God's love. Their sole "punishment" - which isn't properly a punishment, since they were not liable for heaven in the first place according to Dante - is lacking hope. This entire conception of the afterlife of philosophers is derived from Aquinas' philosophy.

Sorry to derail OP's thread but thank you for this OM. I haven't read Inferno in years but will have to bring it up from my library.

Back to Rand. She is brilliant but not for beginners.

My pleasure. Dante's a very subtle writer. And understanding of Aristotle and Aquinas is required before you can really grasp his overall themes. But it's well worth the effort it takes.

Rand is definitely not for beginners. People should have read some Greek philosophy before reading her work, for one thing. As she said, she regarded her single intellectual debt to be to Aristotle. This should be taken seriously. Her philosophy is thoroughly Aristotelian, and the vast majority of attacks on her can be answered with a basic understand of Aristotle. For instance, her entire conception of self-interest is laid out clearly in Aristotle's Ethics. Attacks against her "subjectivism" or "hedonism" all totally misunderstand the basic Aristotelianism of her approach. Similarly, her conception of objectivity is thoroughly Aristotelian.

My point is that I don't believe her when she professes an appreciation of morality itself. As stated earlier, I regard it as lip service. Sorry for the cynicism, but it's called "street smarts." She probably would have hooked me too if I lacked it.
Other things she would do later in life only increase my cynicism of her.

I really loved the book. It was in my home for years before I picked it up and took the endeavor. The movie didn't do justice. I like this woman because I grew up in a family of people who had nothing and created. My father left home at 12, created a successful business. Then got into a fight and went to jail due to him punching a man and that man died. When he came out with nothing he worked hard again and created a business again.

My uncle at 17 had two children, they all slept on one bed and he worked his ass off. No money from family and created a business today where he makes personally over a 100 million per year. My aunty was a solo mother and crated a business, along with other uncles and aunties. My mother created her own business, my grandmother, my grandfather.. me! I understand not leeching off others. I understand taking a risk and doing what you need to do. So this lady gets me in some ways, when it comes to economy and business.

The gates of Hell comment is a popular saying, and not just something associated with literature.

Just for the record I have a Dante inferno which is elephant size a few hundred years of age. It cost me a pretty penny and i understand pretty well unless someone else can enlighten me on it.

I believe Dante's inferno was actually real, when we had gods upon the earth. I have suspects that men were taken down into the earth "Dante's Inferno" as prisoners and someone came back to show what they saw. Some will tell me just worry about your nails and look pretty. Although so much paves the way for this, including the bible. I read the bible from 12 - 15 page to page. I have taken it up again along with many religious bibles to key things together. We lost language at one stage. Much was scattered upon our earth. I feel Gabriel and Michael were fighting on what we should know and what we shouldn't.

Last Edited by R@@T on 03/25/2016 11:46 PM

But you're begging the question when you say you doubt she appreciates 'morality'. What is morality? She has a specific definition of morality, derived from Greek philosophy. It doesn't in any way match what many people understand as 'morality' today. Morality for her, and for the Greeks, is a system of principles describing how to live a good life. That's wholly different from morality today, which is pretty much a set of rules telling you how to treat other people. Whether she appreciated a murder in a specific way when she was young really has no bearing on the overall evaluation of her as a person. It's like criticizing someone at 40 for shooting heroin when he was 15.

You are of course welcome to disagree with her philosophy, and even to dislike her as a person. I'm not fond of her as a person, from what I've heard.

I've never heard it before.

Please correct me if wrong: gates of Hades is what you are speaking of?

Jesus only mentioned it in Mathew about a church he built ( para phrasing here. ) but basically the devil shall not enter?

Ayn Rand, aka Alisa Zinov'yevna Rosenbaum

Nope. Not being biblical.
It's just a saying people have come up with over the years to discourage falling into traps that are philosophical. It has nothing to do with Dante or the Bible.

Thanks root. That vid was a perfect end to my night.

Ah okay.