How Ayn Rand Became an American Icon

[Stosh]

It isn't the volume and number of words that confounds you, it is the realization of the rightness of the ideas contrary to your programed liberal beliefs.

A narrow minded interpretation of life is no basis for a philosophy.
I believe in liberty, but not being a self righteous pompous gas bag about it.

[ccbatson]

How do you conclude that you believe in liberty? How do you define the word?

[Detroitej72]

How do you conclude that you believe in liberty? How do you define the word?

As long as what I do doesn't infringe upon other's right to life, liberty and their pursuit of happiness.


All can be obtained thru a combination of socialism and capitalism, much to the chagrin of the Cult of Rand Fairy Tales.

[Stosh]

How do you conclude that you believe in liberty? How do you define the word?

Someone that can't define the word liberty, yet continues to pontificate on it?

Define it yourself. I'm not your dictionary.

[ccbatson]

Detroitej72....taking your money without consent under threat of force is doing something that doesn't infringe on another's rights? Splain that.

Stosh....you made an assertion based on a definition of liberty that doesn't exist, that is why I asked you how YOU define it.

[Stosh]

Detroitej72....taking your money without consent under threat of force is doing something that doesn't infringe on another's rights? Splain that.

Stosh....you made an assertion based on a definition of liberty that doesn't exist, that is why I asked you how YOU define it.

Consider this quote:

Everything that I did, I think was right. I did not try to distinguish between right and wrong, because in the custom of various nations, things that were considered right once are now considered wrong. If doing a thing serves my purpose, then it is right, just as it is with a nation."

Now, that is a definition of liberty. isn't it? Sounds familiar, doesn't it? Who wrote it?

[ccbatson]

Out of context and hard to follow...the first 2 sentences seem to contradict each other.

[East Detroit]

Read Locke and Jefferson.

Property rights are not part of liberty.

Next.

[Stosh]

Out of context and hard to follow...the first 2 sentences seem to contradict each other.

Hardly out of context, a direct quote.

Rand was enamored with the case of one William Edward Hickman. She based her characters upon his character. The quote was his. I suggest you do a little research into the character of this fellow. It's quite enlightening.

And if you don't I'll tell you anyway.

Either way, Ayn's ideas are neither her own, or original. They are William Edward Hickman's ideas as Rand's ideas mimic his.

You really need to read this whole sordid little tale from beginning to end.

For now, here's a quote:

In her journal circa 1928 Rand quoted the statement, "What is good for me is right," a credo attributed to a prominent figure of the day, William Edward Hickman. Her response was enthusiastic. "The best and strongest expression of a real man's psychology I have heard," she exulted. [[Quoted in Ryan, citing Journals of Ayn Rand, pp. 21-22.)
At the time, she was planning a novel that was to be titled The Little Street, the projected hero of which was named Danny Renahan. According to Rand scholar Chris Matthew Sciabarra, she deliberately modeled Renahan - intended to be her first sketch of her ideal man - after this same William Edward Hickman. Renahan, she enthuses in another journal entry, "is born with a wonderful, free, light consciousness -- [resulting from] the absolute lack of social instinct or herd feeling. He does not understand, because he has no organ for understanding, the necessity, meaning, or importance of other people ... Other people do not exist for him and he does not understand why they should." [[Journals, pp. 27, 21-22; emphasis hers.)
"A wonderful, free, light consciousness" born of the utter absence of any understanding of "the necessity, meaning, or importance of other people." Obviously, Ayn Rand was most favorably impressed with Mr. Hickman. He was, at least at that stage of Rand's life, her kind of man.
So the question is, who exactly was he?
William Edward Hickman was one of the most famous men in America in 1928. But he came by his fame in a way that perhaps should have given pause to Ayn Rand before she decided that he was a "real man" worthy of enshrinement in her pantheon of fictional heroes.
You see, Hickman was a forger, an armed robber, a child kidnapper, and a multiple murderer.
Other than that, he was probably a swell guy.

http://michaelprescott.net/hickman.htm

[elganned]

Seems like Rand's philosophy consists primarily of sociopathy.

[elganned]

It isn't the volume and number of words that confounds you, it is the realization of the rightness of the ideas contrary to your programed liberal beliefs.

A pathetic defense, and wrong.

It is through the volume and number of words that Rand attempts to convince the reader--through sheer mass of repetition--of the rightness of ideas which, if boiled down to simple statements, would be revealed as juvenile and devoid of merit on their face.

[ccbatson]

Here is a suggestion...read Leonard Piekhoff's book on Objectivism...I think yu may understand things as originally intended if you do that.

[Stosh]

Here is a suggestion...read Leonard Piekhoff's book on Objectivism...I think yu may understand things as originally intended if you do that.

Here's a suggestion... Read the above article that you refuse to admit is correct. Then tell me how this philosophy isn't a sociopath's dream. A clear cut case of modeling a whole philosophy on the clearly deranged ramblings of a child murderer.

[ccbatson]

The way you mean sociopath is what she means by holding individual rights as a sacred primary value. In that sense, if your definition is as I describe it...then yes, sociopath is a good thing.

Your turn...get busy, the book is excellent.

[Stosh]

The way you mean sociopath is what she means by holding individual rights as a sacred primary value. In that sense, if your definition is as I describe it...then yes, sociopath is a good thing.

Your turn...get busy, the book is excellent.

Not at all, Zippy.

The way I mean sociopath as in that she held up a child killer as a model to be admired. Is it the right of a free man to murder, if it "feels right"? As in a 12 year old girl?

[elganned]

Sociopath as in unwilling or unable to care about the consequences of one's actions as they affect others. That will do nicely.

By "holding individual rights as a sacred primary value" she means doing what she wants and to hell with everyone else. That's sociopathic, and she is a sociopath. QED.

[rb336]

The way you mean sociopath is what she means by holding individual rights as a sacred primary value. In that sense, if your definition is as I describe it...then yes, sociopath is a good thing.

Your turn...get busy, the book is excellent.

a book about the kool aid by the guy who drank the most of it and is now making it? sounds very, ahem, objective

[ccbatson]

READ IT first. Clearly the critics do not understand the concepts. Either by choice [[denial), or lack of capability. I can sympathize given that my first read of the material was not enough for the concepts to really click in either. Current events [[a Statist/Collectivist leadership in the US) has made the concepts easier to understand however.

[Detroitej72]

The funny thing about most who claim to be objective, is that they are rarely objective themselves.

[ccbatson]

Detailed compelling arguments to support that false allegation please DJ72.

[Stosh]

READ IT first. Clearly the critics do not understand the concepts. Either by choice [[denial), or lack of capability. I can sympathize given that my first read of the material was not enough for the concepts to really click in either. Current events [[a Statist/Collectivist leadership in the US) has made the concepts easier to understand however.

Why in God's name should I read it. You clearly do not understand the implications of what I have been posting here, do you?

Let's go over this a bit. The actual originator of Rand's ideas was a sociopathic child killer. Rand distilled the cold blooded ideals of that psychopath into her flawed reasoning called [[[[[[[[[gery.. er... what ever it's called.. Irrelevancy? No, that's not it. Oh yeah, it's objectivism. Which Piekoff made into his own little cash cow, selling books to the psychopath wannabees.

Ever wonder why that sort of behavior is on the rise? Think about it.

[Detroitej72]

Detailed compelling arguments to support that false allegation please DJ72.

Labeling anyone who fails to meet your narrow minded criteria a "lib" is just one of many examples.

I win this one, give me another argument to destroy...

[elganned]

READ IT first. Clearly the critics do not understand the concepts. Either by choice [[denial), or lack of capability. I can sympathize given that my first read of the material was not enough for the concepts to really click in either. Current events [[a Statist/Collectivist leadership in the US) has made the concepts easier to understand however.

Cc, you've fallen into the classic trap of the True Believer. You are so blinded by your faith in your irrational belief system that you've convinced yourself that if someone doesn't accept your Articles of Faith, it must be because they don't understand them.

My teenagers used to make the same argument, i.e., "You just don't understand!". My response to them, as it is to you, is that on the contrary I understand perfectly. I just don't agree.

It isn't that we don't understand Cc, it's that we don't accept or believe.

[rb336]

It isn't that we don't understand Cc, it's that we don't accept or believe.

actually, I would go one step further. We do understand, and since we are not blinded by faith, we can see it as it is -- simple-minded, mean-spirited bullshit

[ccbatson]

I pause at a moment of unintended clarity and intelligence from Elganned "We don't accept"..PRECISELY...AKA denial btw.