A whole lot of not a lot happening in Objectivism right now. Neil Parille rounds it up:
1. Objectivist
philosopher Tara Smith recently published Judicial
Review in an Objective Legal System.
Here is an interview
with Smith
2. The
Ayn Rand Institute has an extensive You Tube channel. For those of you who have trouble sleeping, here are some videos from previous Objectivism
Conferences.
3. Dustin
Byrd recently published A
Critique of Ayn Rand’s Philosophy of Religion: The Gospel According to John
Galt. The book is expensive ($85)
but there is a generous
preview available on Amazon.
- Neil Parille
- Neil Parille
I'm not about to spend $85 on Dustin Byrd's book, but the lengthy excerpts at Amazon certainly suggest that it is well worth reading. As one example, he deals with the great influence that Friedrich Nietzsche had upon Rand's thinking and (above all) on her emotional responses.
ReplyDeleteObjectivists tend to play down the Nietzschean elements in Rand's books; and it's certainly true that her formal philosophy abandons his appeals to domination and non-rational exercise of will. At the emotional level, however, her novels are suffused with his contempt for "the herd": the notion that most people are beneath notice, and, in fact, only minimally qualified to be regarded as human at all. Rand's novels convey a disgust for the sordid and the ordinary that reminds one of Jonathan Swift at his worst.
It's also useful to have a book which tracks Rand's comments on religion in general and her references to the Bible in particular. There are a surprising number of such references in Atlas Shrugged, all of them contemptuous and many of them utterly distorted. Note Galt's snide reference to people who dream of rivers filled with milk and coffee, and wine that springs from rocks at their command.
I guess that people like Paul Ryan didn't notice that one.
I've never quite understood the pricing of books.
ReplyDeleteWho would pay $85 for the book? And the price is the same for the kindle version. I'd buy the kindle version if it were $10 and I assume others would as well.
-Neil Parille
"I've never quite understood the pricing of books."
ReplyDeleteThis looks like library pricing to me. Learned journals charge libraries far higher than the individual rate for a subscription. So maybe libraries are where Lexington Books expects to sell most copies of this book.
Let's not be too hard on AR.
ReplyDeleteShe asked the right questions even if she didn't always come up the right answers.
Could we have Ayn Rand Contra without Ayn Rand?
Hang in there Mr. Nyquist!
"She asked the right questions even if she didn't always come up the right answers."
ReplyDeleteIn the immortal words of Rowdy Roddy Piper, "Just when you think you know the answers, I come along and change the questions."
-Neil Parille
Ayn Rand was a jerk. There, just saved you all 85 bucks.
ReplyDelete