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 Posted: Sun Dec 30, 2007 6:43 am
Well I'd joined this guild for 5 minutes or so..and was just strolling around the forum in here.
I think I know who the hell is Ayn Rand.
She's an author and she write stories about how people interact in this world? o_O yes?
But comparing to what Ayn Rand'd written...I think Tuesday with Morrie is the only book that has a great impact on me until now. After reading this book, it's a pain for me because I can't find any other book that is so well written than Tuesday with Morrie.
Maybe I don't have the right to say Mitch Albom ( the one who wrote Tuesday with Morrie) is a remarkable author compared to Ayn Rand..because I don't really know who is Ayn Rand is in the first place. LOL
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Posted: Tue Jan 15, 2008 5:19 pm
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Posted: Wed Jan 16, 2008 4:52 pm
*uses wikipedia on mitch albom and advises Charon to at least wikipedia Ayn Rand and probably read Atlas Shrugged.
This tuesday with morrie sounds like a death-premise novel eek
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Posted: Thu Jan 17, 2008 3:30 pm
I don't really Know who Mitch Albom is. So I guess We all Speak Objectively. wink
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Posted: Sat Feb 09, 2008 9:13 am
I suppose you could somewhat compare the two. My mother read Tuesdays with Morrie and loved it. I never really had an interest in the book myself, but honestly, I have heard nothing but good things.
The point of this guild, initially, was to get all those who had Ayn Rand on their profile (assuming that everyone who had her on their profile enjoyed her work). The point was to discuss Ayn Rand's novels and I would gather about government in general (considering that is what Ayn Rand's books are generally about).
My first Ayn Rand book was Anthem. It took me three times reading the beginning to actually grasp what the heck was going on (it was the names that were throwing me off!), but after I made it past the first section, I was hooked. Its a nice piece because it is actually an easy read and it is rather short as well. If you go up to the sticky 'Anthem', you can actually read it there!
Ayn Rand is an author who generally writes of her experiences and exaggerates them just enough to get the reader to grasp how horrible government and its policies can be. Rand tends to be rather dry in some of her other books, but I think Anthem and We the Living weren't too bad.
I hope this helps you answer your question or add to the discussion!
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Posted: Sat Feb 09, 2008 4:07 pm
NOOO!!! Of all things, talking about the government is the LEAST thing Ayn Rand wanted to portray in her novels. If she has that impact on you, what she said about government were all true, but was not the purpose of her writing. Her purpose? The only motive of her writing is the portrayal of the ideal man - a completely objective man. Whatever's written about the government were all part of the presentation of that society which continues to destroy the ideal man.
Below were the words she gave to Kay Gonda - her female character in the play, Ideal - which she personally shared. Kay Gonda is an actress who was admired by a lot of people. Yet, when she met some of these people who looked up to her, they seem not to put ideal and real together. Ayn Rand believed otherwise.
Gonda: "I want to see, real, living, and in the hours of my own days, that glory I create as an illusion. I want it real. I want to know that there is someone, somewhere, who wants it, too. Or else what is the use of seeing it, and working, and burning oneself for an impossible vision? A spirit, too, needs fuel. It can run dry."
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Posted: Sun Feb 10, 2008 8:57 am
That is what I basically said though. She uses the government because that is what people hate and understand the most. When people read/hear/see something they don't like, they generally try to go against that, thus creating the ideal man.
I guess I should have added that in. Sorry! confused whee
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Posted: Sun Feb 10, 2008 11:17 pm
*tilts head* I'm not sure if you still don't get it, what she meant, or if you do and your wording just doesn't convey it well. confused
If I can try to close the gap here and get everybody understanding what each other is saying: It sounds like you, Raeden, have said that she uses examples of things in government to help convey her message -- this much is partially true. However, as dagny was saying, this was not her (Ayn Rand's) main goal, it just was supportive to her real main goal, portraying not just what is wrong out there, but, more importantly, portraying what is right. She (Rand) uses examples of bad things to help set up for plot (plots need conflicts, if everything and everyone was fine and dandy, you've got no plot generally. Maybe you could make a mystery of sorts story with a "soylent green is people!" type surprise ending by holding the reader in suspense and revealing things a bit over time without conflicts in the story, maybe, but done this way you couldn't really get done the real point she had in her work, which I'm getting to that dagny mentioned) and to give a contrasting element to compare the good things to (like the heroes she wanted to portray) in order to help demonstrate why the good is the good. Without showing that contrasting (morally) bad stuff it looks like she is just making baseless assertions in her stories about why what she is portraying as the heroes in her stories are morally good, why they really are heroes. You need to see what is bad about the bad and why to see what is good about the good and why. Just going against any old thing you don't like without knowing why you don't like it, this is not any guarantee at all to create an ideal person. If you think about it, there were plenty of characters who tried to rebel against things they just didn't like in Rand's stories and in real life, but if you don't understand the source of your dislike for something you are likely to find ultimate bad consequences for your rebellion. You need to understand why you don't like things and make rational decisions when to fight against something or not. The feeling alone is typically not reason enough to go out and do something because you could end up doing stuff that makes you feel good in the short term, but costs you and makes you even more unhappy in the long run. For example, you don't like the government as was your example, but you don't like it "just because" -- you don't understand very well why, so you get rid of your government -- but then you get attacked by another country and enslaved because you were unable to protect yourselves sufficiently. This, by the way, is why though Rand agreed all existing governments and past ones that we've ever heard of thus far do have many bad things in them and thus justify your not liking many things about actual specific governments, she did not think government as a concept was a bad thing. Unless you could (and this is pretty much not going to happen, or at the very least you could never be sure enough of it to make it worth the risk) assure a world where everybody would always be good and be good without any threats or risks or anything like that hanging over them, you need government to work to protect you as much as possible from other people who would violate your rights, the rights necessary to keep human society (and thus, all the individual people contained in it) able to at a minimum, function, and at best, flourish. (Seriously, if everybody at all times had to worry about defending themselves from rampant, otherwise-would-be-unchecked thievery, how productive do you think they'll be able to be otherwise? Surely not as much as if they didn't have to worry about that so much.) So as a concept, government has a a good purpose -- there's just been a lot of people screwing it up, forgetting what that purpose is.
So in short, as dagny was saying, Ayn Rand wrote because she wanted to portray her ideal people. The other stuff all was there to make that portrayal possible and understandable.
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Posted: Mon Feb 11, 2008 7:57 am
In short, yes. Thank you! 3nodding
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Posted: Mon Feb 11, 2008 11:16 am
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