Comments on: Politics as Religion, the Ayn Rand Way

By: RS Janes

RS Janes — Fri, 06 Jan 2012 13:45:03 +0000

Db, Rand died in NYC, on Social Security and Medicaid, but she was born in Russia as Alyssa Rosenbaum and was about 12 when Lenin came to power. The Bolsheviks confiscated her upper-middle-class father’s St. Petersburg pharmacy and he was no longer able to afford servants. The Rosenbaums fled to the Crimea, then under White Russian control, and lived there in near starvation. Rand didn’t emigrate to the US until 1926. Ironically, before coming here, she received a free college education courtesy of the Communist regime, where she was first exposed to the philosophy of Nietzsche that influenced her later writings. You could say Communism was both good and bad for Rand.

By: db

db — Fri, 06 Jan 2012 11:12:23 +0000

RS,

Rand didn’t have her servants taken away by Bolsheviks; she lived in NY (I think) on her Social Security checks. Though I will admit that my knowledge of her biography is sketchy at best.

But I am deeply indebted to my first Philosophy Teacher; & a Grad Student at that, who drilled into us two tenets of a “livable Philosophy”: 1. You can not bang your head into a brick wall because “It feels good” when you stop. 2 You have to be able to answer the question, “What if everyone does it?”.

You’d be surprised how many philosophies flunk one of those tests.

By: RS Janes

RS Janes — Thu, 05 Jan 2012 22:41:26 +0000

Yes, the ‘Superman Paradox’ — everyone thinks they’re ‘special,’ just as every American thinks they’re middle-class (except the homeless). I haven’t read Hobbes in a long time, but I did run across this quote, appropriate to the subject: “Such is the nature of men, that howsoever they may acknowledge many others to be more witty, or more eloquent, or more learned; yet they will hardly believe there be many so wise as themselves.”

I wonder what Ayn Rand would have written about had she not had her servants taken away by the Bolsheviks.

By: db

db — Wed, 04 Jan 2012 21:01:49 +0000

RS,

It’s much the same as Nietzschian Philosophy. It sounds good at first thought. Rand sounds great but one always thinks of oneself as the Master not the Servant. Galt not the “untermench”. The trick comes with Nietzschie when you realize there may be other “over-men” besides you. With Rand what happens whe we all “Go Galt”. Then you’re back to good old Thomas Hobbs, who still makes goos sense even 300 years later.