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Sep. 8th, 2012
The Fundamentalism of Ayn Rand
Sep. 8th, 2012 06:00 am"there are no conflicts of interest among rational men."
-- Ayn Rand
David Sloan Wilson, in the linked article, draws a nice concise case for how Ayn Rand's philsophy is another brand of religious fundamentalism, and that what makes these fundamentalisms attractive to many followers is that they offer a world in which there are no trade-offs, at least not among rightly guided people, so that life is never a zero-sum game, that is, everyone wins, provided that everyone plays along and sticks to the ideological line. In Ayn Rand's case, that means everyone zealously pursuing his own naked self-interest, rather than, say, adhering to some narrow conception of Biblical teaching. Her philosophy may be atheistic, and thus seemingly the opposite of religious fundamentalism, but it really offers up the same psychological-philosophical attraction. He illustrates how this is so in his article, as I am just getting down the main point here.
This may be more obvious to some, as we often think of Randian thought as being cultic, but I thought that Mr. Wilson lays this out in a clear, apperceptive way, and I find the focus on trade-offs to be partiuclarly illuminating. As most of us know, one of the things that makes life so fascinating as well as aggravating is that life is full of trade-offs, and a lot of very nasty ones at that.
-- Ayn Rand
David Sloan Wilson, in the linked article, draws a nice concise case for how Ayn Rand's philsophy is another brand of religious fundamentalism, and that what makes these fundamentalisms attractive to many followers is that they offer a world in which there are no trade-offs, at least not among rightly guided people, so that life is never a zero-sum game, that is, everyone wins, provided that everyone plays along and sticks to the ideological line. In Ayn Rand's case, that means everyone zealously pursuing his own naked self-interest, rather than, say, adhering to some narrow conception of Biblical teaching. Her philosophy may be atheistic, and thus seemingly the opposite of religious fundamentalism, but it really offers up the same psychological-philosophical attraction. He illustrates how this is so in his article, as I am just getting down the main point here.
This may be more obvious to some, as we often think of Randian thought as being cultic, but I thought that Mr. Wilson lays this out in a clear, apperceptive way, and I find the focus on trade-offs to be partiuclarly illuminating. As most of us know, one of the things that makes life so fascinating as well as aggravating is that life is full of trade-offs, and a lot of very nasty ones at that.
The Fundamentalism of Ayn Rand
Sep. 8th, 2012 06:00 am"there are no conflicts of interest among rational men."
-- Ayn Rand
David Sloan Wilson, in the linked article, draws a nice concise case for how Ayn Rand's philsophy is another brand of religious fundamentalism, and that what makes these fundamentalisms attractive to many followers is that they offer a world in which there are no trade-offs, at least not among rightly guided people, so that life is never a zero-sum game, that is, everyone wins, provided that everyone plays along and sticks to the ideological line. In Ayn Rand's case, that means everyone zealously pursuing his own naked self-interest, rather than, say, adhering to some narrow conception of Biblical teaching. Her philosophy may be atheistic, and thus seemingly the opposite of religious fundamentalism, but it really offers up the same psychological-philosophical attraction. He illustrates how this is so in his article, as I am just getting down the main point here.
This may be more obvious to some, as we often think of Randian thought as being cultic, but I thought that Mr. Wilson lays this out in a clear, apperceptive way, and I find the focus on trade-offs to be partiuclarly illuminating. As most of us know, one of the things that makes life so fascinating as well as aggravating is that life is full of trade-offs, and a lot of very nasty ones at that.
-- Ayn Rand
David Sloan Wilson, in the linked article, draws a nice concise case for how Ayn Rand's philsophy is another brand of religious fundamentalism, and that what makes these fundamentalisms attractive to many followers is that they offer a world in which there are no trade-offs, at least not among rightly guided people, so that life is never a zero-sum game, that is, everyone wins, provided that everyone plays along and sticks to the ideological line. In Ayn Rand's case, that means everyone zealously pursuing his own naked self-interest, rather than, say, adhering to some narrow conception of Biblical teaching. Her philosophy may be atheistic, and thus seemingly the opposite of religious fundamentalism, but it really offers up the same psychological-philosophical attraction. He illustrates how this is so in his article, as I am just getting down the main point here.
This may be more obvious to some, as we often think of Randian thought as being cultic, but I thought that Mr. Wilson lays this out in a clear, apperceptive way, and I find the focus on trade-offs to be partiuclarly illuminating. As most of us know, one of the things that makes life so fascinating as well as aggravating is that life is full of trade-offs, and a lot of very nasty ones at that.
The Horse Race
Sep. 8th, 2012 09:00 amRomney wins if he can do to Obama what Reagan did to Carter: Paint him as helpless to turn the economy around. Obama wins if he can do to Romney what LBJ did to Goldwater: Paint him as the leader of an extremist faction. If the election is about the economy, Romney wins. If it is about ideology, Obama wins.
-- Jon Rauch
-- Jon Rauch
The Horse Race
Sep. 8th, 2012 09:00 amRomney wins if he can do to Obama what Reagan did to Carter: Paint him as helpless to turn the economy around. Obama wins if he can do to Romney what LBJ did to Goldwater: Paint him as the leader of an extremist faction. If the election is about the economy, Romney wins. If it is about ideology, Obama wins.
-- Jon Rauch
-- Jon Rauch
