This guy would continuously drone on about objectivism and rational self-interest. Eventually I asked him whether he was telling me about objectivism for his benefit or mine.posted by East Manitoba Regional Junior Kabaddi Champion '94 at 11:35 AM on April 7, 2011 [65 favorites]
"It's for your benefit!", he said.
"So, it's for altruistic reasons?"
That shut him up.
The bicycle is a parody of a wheeled vehicle—a donkey cart without the cart, where you do the work of the donkey. Although the technology necessary to build a bicycle has been around since ancient Egypt, bikes didn't appear until the 19th century. The reason it took mankind 5,000 years to get the idea for the bicycle is that it was a bad idea. The bicycle is the only method of conveyance worse than feet. You can walk up three flights of stairs carrying one end of a sofa. Try that on a bicycle.And cars have existed for less than 300 years because the Gods on High were holding onto the really kick-ass technology for their own selfish purposes.
She felt a moment's rebellion and a hint of fear. He held her... his hand moving over her breasts as if he were learning a proprietor's intimacy with her body, a shocking intimacy that needed no consent from her, no permission. ... She knew that fear was useless, that he would do what he wished, that the decision was his, that he left nothing possible to her except the thing she wanted most - to submit.Never been quite sure what the rationale was for that one, though I have to say the "trail of bruises" that's perpetually getting left on Dagny's skin tended to creep me out a bit even as a sex-mad teenage virgin.
[courtesy JoeBeese, since I don't want to look this shit up]
... pushed to it's really logical conclusion,--
objectivism, Ayn Rand's philosophy, lacks all compassion, and even more
fundamental, it lacks recognition of the fact that we are a social species
and that our society does not exist of a group of people only striving for
their own ends, which is what she shows, but groups of people co-operating
for mutual ends, and this means that you don't always get what you want and
your work does not always benefit you directly. We had a panel earlier today
on the importance of children in literature and how portraying
children makes literature more real. One of my profound disagreements
with Ayn Rand is that not only are there no children in Atlas Shrugged,
there is no provision for them, because if she put them in, she would have
to contradict her own views, which is that everybody's life essentially
belongs to you and your only obligation is to strive for yourself. Those of
us who are parents very often sacrifice our own well-being, short term or
long term, for those of somebody else, in order that the race can continue,
and if you really take objectivism and push it to it's ultimate
question, you have to conclude, from her philosophy, that society as a whole
does not have a responsibility for all of its children.
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posted by DU at 9:27 AM on April 7, 2011 [55 favorites]