<p>Plus, Ayn Rand is terrible.</p>
<p>Yea her writing is horrible and i doubt anyone completely agrees with her philosophy.</p>
<p>Oh man, though, a lot of people who do believe it, though, are like cultists. I know quite a few people who literally worship Ayn Rand. It's creepy. But yeah, just from a literary standpoint, her writing sucks.</p>
<ol>
<li> What is TASP?</li>
<li> This isn't a statistical analysis</li>
<li><em>shakes head</em></li>
</ol>
<p>Hmmm, I actually agree with a lot--not everything, but a lot--of what she says. But of course if Gavroche and jason4444 say it, it must be true (since you two seem to present your statements as pure fact).</p>
<p>
[quote]
Rand's views are considered controversial by some groups. Religious and socially conservative thinkers have criticized her atheism. Many adherents and practitioners of continental philosophy criticize her celebration of rationality and self-interest. Within the dominant philosophical movement in the English-speaking world, analytic philosophy, Rand's work has been mostly ignored. No leading research university in this tradition considers Rand or Objectivism to be an important philosophical specialty or research area, as is documented by Brian Leiter's report [13].
[/quote]
</p>
<p>
[quote]
A notable exception to the general lack of attention paid to Rand is the essay "On the Randian Argument" by Harvard University philosopher Robert Nozick, which appears in his collection Socratic Puzzles. Nozick's own libertarian political conclusions are similar to Rand's, but his essay criticizes her foundational argument in ethics, which claims that one's own life is, for each individual, the only ultimate value because it makes all other values possible. To make this argument sound, Nozick argues that Rand still needs to explain why someone could not rationally prefer the state of eventually dying and having no values. Thus, he argues, her attempt to deduce the morality of selfishness is essentially an instance of assuming the conclusion or begging the question and that her solution to David Hume's famous is-ought problem is unsatisfactory.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>Note that Robert Nozick was Pellegrino Professor at Harvard, and also held the Arthur Kingsley Porter Chair of Philosophy. </p>
<p><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ayn_rand%5B/url%5D">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ayn_rand</a></p>
<p>One of my good friends states it best: "Walk into any decent philosophy department and tell a professor that you intend to write your honors thesis on Ayn Rand. He will either throw his stapler at you or break down in tears."</p>
<p>Ayn Rand would hate all of you too...except maybe Adam because he's Jewish.:D</p>
<p>SWEET! I won a semifinalist-ship in the National Ayn Rand Anthem Essay Contest! Of course I know she's an idiot now. But hey, to quote Max Bialystock, when you got it, baby, flaunt it, flaunt it! This bodes well.</p>
<p>As for everyone griping about the essay contest, it is actually quite difficult to win. Not even I can ******** that well.</p>
<p>There's no analysis here. Only speculation.</p>
<p>
[quote]
As for everyone griping about the essay contest, it is actually quite difficult to win. Not even I can ******** that well.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>This is true.</p>
<p>"Hmmm, I actually agree with a lot--not everything, but a lot--of what she says. But of course if Gavroche and jason4444 say it, it must be true (since you two seem to present your statements as pure fact)."</p>
<p>"I think Ayn Rand is terrible" just has no bite to it!</p>
<p>i was going to enter that ann rynd thing but then i found out she's a raging conservative and there's no way i could write an essay that even faintly resembeled a conservative, small government, unfettered capitalism mentality. that national peace contest sounds like something i could do, though....</p>
<p>well the problem is that not 100% of all TASP, RSI, and other "auto-accept" people (according to the statistics).........
.....are actuallly going to apply to harvard
remember the other 7 ivy league schools......and upper tier non-ivies.</p>
<p>these stats only work if every single one of the 80 students at RSI choose to attend Harvard. and why would they do that over MIT? or Caltech? same with INTEL and Siemens....etc. for the other competitions</p>
<p>
[quote]
Yea her writing is horrible and i doubt anyone completely agrees with her philosophy.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>Of course no one completely agrees with her philosophy. No one could ever completely agree with the philosophy of another unless they're a mindless sponge. But I do, in many respects, agree with some of her points, and I disagree with the trend to write her off as "terrible" off the bat.</p>
<p>When I read The Fountainhead, I was practically kissing the pages because I identified with it so much. No one else really captured the isolation of the mind, the fight against yourself to fit into the world and to improve it at the same time (James Joyce made a valient effort, but he was condemning himself the whole time and didn't give real credit to an outcast because he was so intent on proving that outcast an idiot). She took the argument for the self a bit too far, but if you expand upon it it turns out "selfishness" is sometimes an extention of respect for another's affairs. The characterization of her villains especially rang true...the part with Keating entering the office as if on a conveyer belt--genius. And the relationship between him and his pseudo-girlfriend's father also captures parasitism at its finest.</p>
<p>Rand was no Tolstoy, but that's no reason to discard her completely. Most modern writers are far, far more 'idiotic.'</p>
<p>i think this analysis is so flawed and based on speculations.
A statement to consider</p>
<p>Most people at Harvard didn't have hooks.</p>
<p>Ayn Rand was not a philosopher. Identifying with her is one thing, but aligning her with the likes of Russell, Rawls, Wittgenstein, Quine, and so forth is ludicrous.</p>
<p>Ayn Rand at a Q&A in November, 1971:
[quote]
[Homosexuality] involves psychological flaws, corruptions, errors, or unfortunate premises, but there is a psychological immorality at the root of homosexuality. Therefore I regard it as immoral. [...] Morally it is immoral, and more than that, if you want my really sincere opinion, it is disgusting.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>Ouch.</p>
<p>Ouch indeed. I don't quite see where she's coming from on that.</p>
<p>She's coming from an incredibly flawed perspective. On that point I'd like to slap her upside the head.</p>
<p>It doesn't seem like it is any sort of philosophic stance. She spoke only rarely on the subject, so it's difficult to know on what she founded her opinions. It is also, of course, possible that she spoke impulsively during this particular forum or changed her opinion sometime in the years since 1971. Nevertheless, she is not my favorite figure. </p>
<p>I know practically nothing about her or her philosophy (and I haven't read any of her books), but she seems to have a libertarian thing going on--is that what you agree with her on, Guitar?</p>