Labels: Arabs, Ayn Rand, Israel, Palestine

 Unknown said on April 22, 2011 at 3:21 AM  

She CANNOT be serious.

 Brendan James said on April 22, 2011 at 3:00 PM  

It seems like all of that is consistent with her philosophy, which would have us credit and support the more “industrious” and productive belligerent in any case.

"Because [Israel] is the advanced, technological, civilized country amidst a group of almost totally primitive savages..."

The dichotomy of “moochers” and “producers” you brought up earlier can easily be recast into this dichotomy of “civilized people” and “primitive savages."

Of course, as soon as she’s pressed on that position, Rand reels back and says, "no, no I hate them because they're all terrorists." Which allows me to continue thinking of her as an intellectual lightweight as well as a nasty bitch.

 Unknown said on April 22, 2011 at 11:52 PM  

It's a Social Darwinist (I'm not too informed with Objectivism so I won't make any claims about it) idea that it's every man, or civilization, for himself, and that morality or justice somehow doesn't factor in. So in Social Darwinist terms, let the weak suffer and let the strong manipulate and take advantage of them. The Social Darwinists somehow did not account for human enlightenment and reason as part of the progress of man, and that using it to create systems of justice is part of our evolutionary cred. Surprisingly, they want to approach everything from a selfish standpoint, as if we are all in the jungle fighting for survival. The point now is to go beyond mere survival: it's to endorse human happiness, which means not letting most of the world's population suffer because it might mean they are "mooching" off the excessive profits of the few.

 Brendan James said on April 23, 2011 at 12:16 AM  

I wouldn’t scoot off to the topic of Social Darwinism yet, which is a slightly different kettle of fish.

Rand would actually say that she *has* taken morality and human happiness into account in her philosophy, but has recast them. She claims to create a new morality supposedly demonstrable by logic.

In her own words, she says that her morality is based on quality of life as a standard of value. Rand believes this to mean that "the highest moral purpose is to achieve personal happiness."

To move the discussion to Ryan: many non-Randians believe that his budget plan is worth considering simply because it asks us to confront the problem of entitlement programs instead of just claiming we need to “cut spending.” At the same time, I know that Ryan has gone public with his admiration of Ayn Rand; shall we poke around to see if there are actually pieces of his proposal that would put her philosophy in action?

 Anonymous said on April 23, 2011 at 12:27 AM  

Yes, there is a definite difference between Objectivism and Social Darwinism. Though it sounds strange, Social Darwinism actually stressed altruism a lot more, which Objectivism denounces.

An Objectivist Leonard Peikoff: "The man who spread the notion that capitalism means death for the weak was the system’s leading nineteenth-century champion, Herbert Spencer; capitalism, he held, permits only the ‘survival of the fittest.’

This ‘defense’ of laissez-faire has been incomparably more harmful than anything uttered by Marx. The wrong arguments for a position are always more costly than plain silence, which at least allows a better voice to be heard if such should ever speak out."