I'm watching The Fountainhead right now

[MrScorpio]

I have to say the this movie is probably the biggest testament to unbridled egotism I've ever seen in my relative short life.

I was never attracted to Ayn Rand, nor have I ever read any of her books or studied her philosophy.

But, by this movie, I can say that she thinks that the only way that one should live their life successfully is by being the biggest, unapologetic asshole that one can be. And that genius is despised by the petty and jealous multitude. And that individual, alpha males particularly, are the only arbiters of true progress.

All and all, I can see why so many right wing, college Republican types are attracted to what she has to say... Basically, a confirmation of their own tremendous assholism.

[The Velveteen Ocelot]

1. Rand is the, er, fountainhead of dumbass libertarianism.

I've always suspected that most libertarians are people who read too much Rand in college and were too dense to figure out that it's all just a pantload of tendentious nonsense.

[alphafemale]

2. Somebody posted a parody of her writing style here a few months ago.

It was hilariously dead-on.

And pointedly noted that people in Ayn Rand books don't have dialogs. They have extended, tedious monologues.

[Hong Kong Cavalier]

4. Here it is:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=389&topic_id=1481845">FROM THE ARCHIVES: BEST AYN RAND POST EVER....

By DU poster Junkdrawer, quoting the original author of the parody (DU poster Telly Savalas)

This is sheer brilliance.

[The Velveteen Ocelot]

6. That's hilarious!

And dead on.

[Jade Fox]

10. That's great.........

:rofl:

[SPKrazy]

11. that is funny and yet sad in that it is dead on, the philosophy of the individual over all else

is like:

fuck everyone else, I want mine, I got mine, get yer own.

[SPKrazy]

12. and the fundie Xtian version of this is

fuck everyone else, if they were Godly they'd have theirs, I've got mine, get Godly and get yer own.

:shrug:

[Tyler Durden]

25. And if it interferes with MINE, FUCK YOU, you ain't gettin' it.

You can sum up her entire pseudo philosophy with one phrase: "Personal greed and selfishness are 100% justified if within the elite."

[MrScorpio]

5. Yeah, I noticed that tedious monologue thingy

This movie is populated the type of people who are normally shot to death in mid-sentence, if they lived in the real world.

[bettyellen]

19. and the film is exactly the same, wow... i feel so sorry for gay cooper

and patricia neal. such wooden performances- and it's because, ironically ayn's writing sucks- she is the sort of hack she despises.
it's my kind of trainwreck.

[Droopy]

3. You summed it up perfectly, MrScorpio

Ms. Rand completely explained in one MrScorpio post. She made her philosophy sound so complicated and incomprehensible to the average person, but it's really pretty simple, as you have demonstrated here. Nice work!

[WritingIsMyReligion]

7. I've read ANTHEM.

It's pretty pretentious, but what SLAYS me is how just plain shitty her writing style is. All tell, no show. The craft isn't even great. Short little burst of Randism with no skill attached. Gahhhh.

Demagogues.

[Penndems]

8. Trivia Time: Former Fed Chairman Allen Greenspan edited "The Fountainhead" at Ayn Rand's request

He was/is a devotee of hers and her philosophy of Objectivism.

Link:
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php

[SPKrazy]

15. interesting, although your link isn't right

but I didn't know that fact.

so we've been under the influence of Rand thinking in our economy for a while.

perhaps that is why the economy is falling apart?

[Penndems]

20. Oops! Sorry, my bad. Here's the correct linky:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ayn_Rand

Yes - that IS why the ecomony is going to hell in a handbasket. :(

[Jade Fox]

9. As Arianna Huffington said....

"I used to like Ayn Rand. Then I turned 12."

[SPKrazy]

16. ha ha!

that's funny!

:rofl: :rofl: :rofl:

[zingaro]

13. My sister and I go round and round over Ayn Rand.

The thing that kills me is that she's otherwise a very intelligent and spiritually evolved person. But she worships the ground that wrinkled up prune wrote on.

It just kills me.

[SPKrazy]

14. how odd?

I don't get how Ayn Rand is compatible with spiritual evolved thinking?

:shrug:

I guess, that libertarian individual freedoms idea is spiritual from one point of view, but taken to its extreme it becomes a view that is in my opinion antithetical to spiritual ideals (or traditional ones such as altruism in in particular) it also is very anti government interference which in some people's minds is a spiritual thing (as long as you agree with their spiritual views) I am just babbling Zingy, but I don't get that either.

[zingaro]

17. She works really hard at justification

and as far as I'm concerned, she fails.

I know she thinks differently. We have had to totally agree to disagree on this.

I think the difference is that SHE is looking at ideals, or maybe at Ideals. As in: Ideally, each person would be capable of being fully actualized and responsible for him or herself. But, as I have said literally a million times, reality is not ideal or perfect.

The other night we had a very passionate disagreement, uhhhh discussion about capitalism. She maintained that she's really hopeful with the changes she's seen in all the "green" businesses and how the younger middle managers will do much to change the face of business as we know it.

I said sure, but hope isn't changing a thing and you tell me how soon those middle managers are going to make that change happen because a few more years of this shit is going to leave us all exactly nowhere. Leave it to business to police business? OK, sure, that's like leaving the robbers to guard the fucking bank, right?

She didn't get it and then somehow we got off into her anti-union stance...because businesses have rights too, she said, and shouldn't be at the mercy of those they employ.

I said oh, so we will all end up to be literally nothing more than robots working for what the BUSINESSES decide? True slavery to our corporate masters with no hope of a voice, no hope of security, no regulation at all??

Scramble scramble, she tried. I ended up having to go due to a kid thing and we never finished but you see the apocryphal logic involved, right? And don't get me started on her thoughts on gay marriage. Oh god it's a good thing that we're related and that I love her.

[Blue-Jay]

18. Atlas Shat.

[ThoughtCriminal]

21. And then, there's Atlas Shrugged...

http://www.angryflower.com/

[MrScorpio]

22. They're making Atlas Shrugged into a movie...

http://www.wickedsunshine.com/WagePeace/Election2004/Images/AwJeez,NotThisShitAgain!.jpg

[ThoughtCriminal]

23. I wonder if the writer's strike is holding up production

Pardon the pun and the irony.

[sarge43]

28. Let me guess, Tom "Bat Shit Crazy" Cruise is going to star? n/t

[Blue_Tires]

27. lol....brilliant

[meegbear]

24. Translation: Be a douchebag and people will think you're great

[Zorra]

26. Ayn Rand diminishes the best virtues of humanity - love and altruism,

at the top of the list - thereby negating the very things that have caused our species to evolve, in some ways, beyond the level of a good dog.

Rand's bottomfeeder pseudo-philosophy is sociopathic at worst and Neanderthalian at best, and I genuinely feel sad and sorry for anyone that has such an empty heart and spirit that they can see no purpose for common human decency beyond selfishness.

[barb162]

29. Gary Cooper was beyond bad in that role. n/t

[SCantiGOP]

30. has he raped her yet?

I have to admit I read all her books when I was about 14. In Atlas Shrugged and the Fountainhead the male takes the female in what sure seems to be a rape scene, with no discussion and no foreplay. And, I'm not making this up, the female loves it and accpepts that is how it should be. I never could quite figure that out. She would also throw people out of the group for listening to 'decadent' music, basically anything past Beethoven, such as Debussy, but she LOVED the military music of John Philip Sousa. And, when she had an affair with a man half her age, who was slated to take over her empire when she died, she forced her husband to acknowledge that it was OK, and when the young guy dumped her she denounced him. She had a lot of weird personal issues.

[MrScorpio]

31. I have to admit, that part freaked me out

The flirting scenes were positively surreal

They seemed more like two corporations sizing up a merger than two horny people right before a tryst.

[argyl]

32. Gary Cooper and Patricia Neal were a striking couple. And that's it for positive aspects

of that steaming ode to narcissism,ego,and greed.