MetaFilter posts tagged with AynRand

"She screamed: 'You have rejected me? You have dared to reject me? Me, your highest value?'"

Lacking Subtlety — Mon, 02 Nov 2009 14:06:04 -0800

Two new biographies examine the life and legacy of Ayn Rand. Johann Hari of Slate reads them both responds with a crystaline and scathing evisceration of Rand's philosophy based on the context of the events of her life. Editorial note: I typically despise Slate for their overtly contrarian bent, but found this to be rather good.

Grover, Grover, gimme your ice cream.

OmieWise — Tue, 15 Sep 2009 14:55:12 -0800

"What is so striking, and serves as the clearest mark of Rand’s lasting influence, is the language of moral absolutism applied by the right to these questions. Conservatives define the see-sawing of the federal tax-and-transfer system between slightly redistributive and very slightly redistributive as a culture war over capitalism, or a final battle to save the free enterprise system from the hoard of free-riders." John Chait on the debt modern conservatism owes to Ayn Rand. "(The anti-government activist Grover Norquist has told a similar story from childhood, in which his father would steal bites of his ice cream cone, labelling each bite "sales tax" or "income tax." The psychological link between a certain form of childhood deprivation and extreme libertarianism awaits serious study.)"

Charlie's Angels: It's Not About the Half-Wit Retarded Children

Knappster — Wed, 01 Jul 2009 12:00:16 -0800

Ayn Rand discusses in a 1979 Donahue appearance her love of "Charlie's Angels." Amy Wallace reveals the "unlikely friendship" between Rand and actress Farrah Fawcett. Chris Matthew Sciabarra explains the "The Dialectical Meaning of 'Charlie's Angels.'"

Ayn Rand Made Her Do It

Xurando — Fri, 06 Mar 2009 19:40:50 -0800

Whoopi Doesn't Want To Be Overtaxed. Is she Going Galt?

Interviews with Ayn Rand

absalom — Wed, 21 Jan 2009 17:05:30 -0800

Ayn Rand and Phil Donahue. With Mike Wallace.

Dagny hearts Collateralized Debt Obligations

LMGM — Fri, 28 Nov 2008 13:45:34 -0800

"She let out a rich, powerful moan, like the sound of a passing diesel train in the night." Jeremiah Tucker updates Ayn Rand's objectivist novel for the current financial crisis. Also: Evan Johnston does an impression of Zizek reading Olivia Newton-John's "Let's Get Physical."

I have found very few women that have not already been beaten down to a flimsy, irrational, empty pulp.

orthogonality — Tue, 18 Nov 2008 15:15:30 -0800

You should contact me if you are a skinny woman. If your words are a meaningful progression of concepts rather than a series of vocalizations induced by your spinal cord for the purpose of complementing my tone of voice.... Are you Libertarian? And Lonely? Is the Atlas in your pants "Shrugging"?

Aslan Shrugged

Kattullus — Mon, 16 Jul 2007 21:32:14 -0800

"And, why," Lucy says, "a lamp post!" The lamp post shines like a monument to industry.

Aslan Shrugged 1 2 3 4 [via a review of Atlas Shrugged in The Valve]

Rand Grant Colleges

beelzbubba — Sat, 14 Jul 2007 19:39:23 -0800

The Ayn Rand Institute held their yearly confab in Telluride, CO, near the purported location of the fiction Gault's Gulch of Atlas Shrugged, celebrating the 50th anniversary of one of the most turgid novels of all time. Part of the program included a panel of academics discussing their experiences "as objectivists." The Chronicle of Higher Education reports on the state of objectivism in academe. Rand Grants are up, tenure is tendentious, and a for-profit Founders Institute appears to be foundering. (more inside)

Atlas Shrugged the movie

Brian B. — Sat, 20 Jan 2007 13:46:41 -0800

Atlas Shrugged is again in the pipeline to be made into a movie. BACK in the 1970s Albert S. Ruddy, the producer of “The Godfather,” first approached Ayn Rand to make a movie of her novel “Atlas Shrugged.” But Rand, who had fled the Soviet Union and gone on to inspire capitalists and egoists everywhere, worried aloud, apparently in all seriousness, that the Soviets might try to take over Paramount to block the project.

What is John Guilt?

grobstein — Thu, 13 Jul 2006 12:04:15 -0800

Keep on Shrugging: apparently the planned film of Ayn Rand's much-beloved Atlas Shrugged -- a chief vehicle for her philosophy "Objectivism" -- is moving ahead. It's now planned as a trilogy and has a studio, a (draft) script, funding, and (tentatively) Angelina Jolie as Dagny Taggart (the star) -- she's apparently a big fan. For background, here's the Objectivism Mockery links page, including the brilliant, now-vanished "Objectifism."

An

hughbot — Mon, 14 Mar 2005 13:07:16 -0800

An interview with Brad Bird.

Bird: Some people said it was Ayn Rand or something like that, which is ridiculous. Other people threw Nietzsche around, which I also find ridiculous. But I think the vast majority of people took it the way I intended. Some people said it was sort of a right-wing feeling, but I think that's as silly of an analysis as saying The Iron Giant was left-wing. I'm definitely a centrist and feel like both parties can be absurd.

Objectivism: The philosophy of the future?

jdroth — Fri, 31 Dec 2004 18:28:33 -0800

The U.S should not help tsunami victims according to those ever-thoughtful fellows at the Ayn Rand Institute. Why not? Because, Objectively speaking, altruism is evil, especially collective altruism.

When every one is somebodee, then no one's anybody!

soyjoy — Sun, 28 Nov 2004 21:48:14 -0800

WHO IS BOB PARR? Critics, bloggers and other commentators have, usually off-handedly, linked The Incredibles to Ayn Rand. Well, it turns out the Objectivists are taking the comparison quite seriously. Yet the more exact, direct forebear of "if everybody's special, then nobody is" is clearly... Gilbert & Sullivan, no?

On Becoming a Randroid

brownpau — Wed, 18 Feb 2004 12:26:52 -0800

10 Easy Steps to Objectivism. When you have achieved true Objectivistivity, join Friend Bear on a visit to the Objectivist Theme Park, so that you too can be one with Ayn Rand's Floating Head.

tgrundke — Fri, 11 Oct 2002 15:46:57 -0800

I'll take "Western Superiority Complexes" for $500, Alex... Let the wars begin: The ever controversial Ayn Rand Institute suggests that on the eve of Columbus Day we reject revisionist Politically Correct history that Columbus was a butcher. By what justification could we state that Western Civilization is superior to others? Is multiculturalism a bad idea? Does this suggest we have a 'right' to wipe out peoples inferior to us? Darwinism at its potential worst--or a scary reality to admit?

Oxydude — Fri, 12 Oct 2001 18:10:24 -0800

Why Do They Hate Us? A fine essay by Robert Tracinski about the mindset of university intellectuals. The closing line sums it up concisely; "It is the job of university intellectuals to understand, to transmit and to defend the intellectual achievements of 2,500 years of Western civilization. We can now see clearly that today's academics have betrayed that sacred trust. We must seek out better guardians of reason and progress."

mw — Mon, 17 Sep 2001 18:34:37 -0800

Crime or War? Dianne Durante: "If it was a crime by an individual, like the Oklahoma City bombing, then we would gather the evidence and bring the perpetrator to trial. If it was a crime by individuals sponsored and abetted by a foreign government, then it was an act of war, and is a matter for military action: immediate and decisive. If the attack was in fact government-sponsored, then capturing and punishing individual killers is less crucial than preventing further attacks by the foreign government."

tweebiscuit — Sun, 22 Jul 2001 14:37:52 -0800

These aren't your father's Objectivists -- they're WACKY! They like wacky rock music! They care for wacky birds! Being Objectivists, they believe themselves to be pundits -- but WACKY ones! I mean, look at these costumes -- these are Objectivists who knows how to have fun!