In addition to the fact that Ayn Rand thought that she was the greatest genius in the history of history since forever she also considered herself to be an irresistible temptress whom no man could resist. If she had not made a brilliant career out of writing bad novels advocating narcissism and sociopathy as worldview and ideology she believed she would have had a brilliant career as a femme fatale film starlet.
And yet, so many of her admirers are creepy assholes....
Anyhow, when I said that you should beat up a graduate student to get the money to buy B. Traven novels, I didn't really mean it.
I have a friend who is a former graduate student who really did read W.S. Maugham and she is a perfectly decent person. Don't beat her up.
Also when I said that I would gladly see Ayn Rand forgotten by history in exchange for a world where B. Traven is shown the respect he deserves I was sort of overstating my aim. I really just meant that I would gladly see Ayn Rand forgotten by history. Traven could take care of himself.
2 comments:
Who is this bint ?
Never heard of her. Clearly, I read all the wrong books.
as fort B. Traven; I've seen John Huston's adaptation of "The Treasure of Sierra Madre" a couple of times. Does that count ?
Huston's movie is a decent start, although it leaves out a lot of the book.
Ayn Rand considered herself a "libertarian" philosopher. She wrote ridiculous novels wherein fabulously wealthy men used the superpower of greed to triumph over the little people who sought to drag them down to the level of the common.
The thing about her is that she was the philosophical darling of some of the worst scumbags on earth. Milton Friedman and the boys from the Chicago School of Economics literally adored her. I mean, Friedman had a mad crush on her. It was personal.
The thing about Friedman and Co. is that they weren't isolated academics. They were able to put their theories into practice. Friedman was a close advisor to Gen. Pinochet in Chile. He pushed through policies that resulted in frozen wages and rising prices that resulted in large scale hunger and malnutrition. That wasn't an accident of his policies. He knew what he was doing.
Friedman went on to be Reagan's chief economic advisor and we all know what that got us.
Friedman's policies now dominate world politics. The transfer of wealth from the poor and middle classes to the richest few percent is the world standard for economic policy.
Every little shit who abets the looting of the commonwealth claims to do so in the name of freedom. They learned to tell that lie from Ayn Rand's romantic ramblings on the virtues of being a vicious little shit.
On the Rock and Roll front, Rush has often claimed that their ponderous and boring music is inspired by a close reading of Ayn Rand. They believe that she has mystically lifted them above the level of mere men and raised them to the level of uber men, destined to lead their followers to... buy their stupid records I guess.
In American high schools the creepy lonesome nerd types usually claim to be followers of Ayn Rand. While eating bits of dried food picked from their patchy beards and the front of their shirts they will claim to be isolated and despised by their peers because of their natural superiority.
Most of them get over it to some degree or other. The ones that don't go on to work for the International Monetary Fund or the World Trade Organization. They make enough money to hire people who help them keep the spilled Cap'n Crunch off of their suits but, when they've had a few drinks, they will still admit to an undying allegiance to Rush and Ayn.
Interestingly, WV is "known"
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