I never bought into Ryan as anything other than an empty vessel. A politician who poses for glamour shots showing off his cut physique is not my idea of a serious person. Also, anyone who hasn’t moved on from Ayn Rand’s horseshit has the depth of the kiddie pool.
I never bought into Ryan as anything other than an empty vessel. A politician who poses for glamour shots showing off his cut physique is not my idea of a serious person. Also, anyone who hasn’t moved on from Ayn Rand’s horseshit has the depth of the kiddie pool.
The irony of all this Ayn Rand love by Paul Ryan et al. is that Donald Trump is the actual embodiment of a real-world Rand hero. If you really believe in the world Rand would create...you get Trump, because you-know--human nature! Rand's thinking is rooted in the same utopian naivety that is often attributed to Progressive thinking, rather than a deeply-rooted conservative understanding of human and social behavior.
I always thought he looked a little too much like Aaron Rodgers. And now he seems to be acting too much like him. The term "diva" comes to mind in both cases, not for better.
I recall reading Anthem in fifth grade and thinking how much it was like being shouted at by a lunatic who had no idea he was repeating himself over and over. A teacher or librarian recommended it to me as a really important and wise book. Even though it's only about 50 pages long the substance of it was pretty fully beaten to death in a few pages. I went through the whole thing trying to find the part where it was important and wise but apparently any matter of that sort had been edited out, perhaps due to a concern that it would baffle the target readership. This experience helped dispel my 10 year old default assumption that being a grownup necessarily meant being smarter than I was.
I think at the same age I first read Animal Farm. That partly restored my faith n the perspicacity of at least some adults.
I think it was “The Virtue of Selfishness” that I read, and I thought it was just tedious intellectual justification for self-absorption. It was dull. I think I heard about her from watching William F. Buckley & Gore Vidal, who were great to watch together, but she was boring.
I had the same experience. A family friend tried getting me to read Atlas Shrugged all the way through. I could not get more than a few chapters in.
I don't even remember getting into the philosophical weeds with it, the book is just so powerfully boring. It should be administered as a prophylactic before anesthesia.
But he did move on, Mary! Remember he said during 2012 that he had moved away from her ideological ramblings. Not because of elevation of narcissism and brutality towards the poor, but because he found out she didn’t believe in god. A deeply and profoundly empathy void encapsulation of a man.
He didn't realize Ayn Rand was an atheist until 2012? He didn't pick that up from the whole "me is the highest power" undercurrent? If you can even call it an undercurrent, it's more like a firehouse of morally-unmoored egotism!
A special challenge for atheists is making sure they don't start worshipping themselves. I think Bob Dylan was on to something when he said "you gotta serve SOMEbody". (yes, I know it's also true that too many theists think they are worshipping God, but that somehow, pure coincidence, I am sure, their God wants exactly what *they* want).
Ayn Rand was brilliant and far ahead of her time. She came here as an immigrant and discovered a land peopled with marks ripe for plundering, and in the best American tradition invented a religion in which she was both prophet and divinity. Its particular genius was that it recast the religion-like appeal of Communism in a guise that looked like opposition to communist totalitarianism but was actually just a copycat authoritarianism focused on worship of its leader.
Much of its appeal was to insecure adolescent males (young and old); it taught that the condition of being a morally immature, selfish, petulant seventh grade male, far from being a regrettable phase that one was supposed to pass through and grow out of, was in fact the highest stage of human development. This naturally found a ready audience with morally immature, selfish, petulant males of all ages who resented being expected to grow up.
Few cons are so successful or durable; it ran swimmingly for the whole of her excessively long life and survives its raison d'etre; even though it was invented solely as a gravy train for Ayn Rand personally, and her passing has folded up the carnival tent, like shingles, which evades our immune defenses by infecting the nervous system, the shill has become an endemic mind virus.
“There are two novels that can change a bookish fourteen-year old’s life: The Lord of the Rings and Atlas Shrugged. One is a childish fantasy that often engenders a lifelong obsession with its unbelievable heroes, leading to an emotionally stunted, socially crippled adulthood, unable to deal with the real world. The other, of course, involves orcs.” -John Rogers
That quote from John Rogers is perfect. Atlas Shrugged is hundreds of pages of pure drivel. It would make a good comic book, but as literature or philosophy it is rubbish.
I got my copy in my early 30's. My father gave it to me, and I read it while on a lengthy vacation in Italy.
It was tripe, simplistic, and just utter bullshit. I am 99.9% certain in my teens, I would have just laughed at it, the writing is so awful. Then there is the 30+ page monolog that really goes nowhere.
At the end of it, I was thinking of the "Maker" utopia, and then the video of Bush Senior trying to buy groceries, and I realized that these "Makers", these "Titans" of industry need their servants to cook, clean, and serve them. They are manifestly unfit to "go it alone" as they were trying to do.
I was taken by Ayn Rand as a teenager - including in my college years. This was the late 60s early 70s. We should not mistake Ayn Rand's prose for the genuine influence she had. Among her followers was Alan Greenspan. There was an objectivist newsletter that gained currency in NYC especially - in an era where small societies of all sorts existed with newsletters passed around in colleges.
Again, charity. The Bible, which is an anthology of stories that gained admittance partly through chance, and partly by natural selection whereby what has both pleased and aggrandized those whose choice of what to preserve determined what was included, has more than a little of everything -- which is essential in a proof text with claims to universality. Anyone can find in it pretty much whatever one pleases. People like me prefer the bits like the sermon on the mount and the parables encouraging empathy, humility, and compassion. The "christians" you mention likely find such stuff weak tea, and are more drawn to the parts that celebrate wrath, anger, and war crime. They understand their bible perfectly well.
Some people might’ve known Max, but think of all the punditry folks that tried to sell him as a very smart, wonky, policy guy. There were many among the R party elite that are guilty of that. I don’t think anybody ever tried to sell Kevin McCarthy as a smart person.
They have always done nothing, unless doing something benefited them personally.
I never bought into Ryan as anything other than an empty vessel. A politician who poses for glamour shots showing off his cut physique is not my idea of a serious person. Also, anyone who hasn’t moved on from Ayn Rand’s horseshit has the depth of the kiddie pool.
yes why were the shirtless shots OK ?
an empty kiddie pool
The irony of all this Ayn Rand love by Paul Ryan et al. is that Donald Trump is the actual embodiment of a real-world Rand hero. If you really believe in the world Rand would create...you get Trump, because you-know--human nature! Rand's thinking is rooted in the same utopian naivety that is often attributed to Progressive thinking, rather than a deeply-rooted conservative understanding of human and social behavior.
I'm now seeing a blurry picture of the cover of his eventual biography: "I'll Just Leave It At That: The Paul Ryan Story".
brilliant!
I always thought he looked a little too much like Aaron Rodgers. And now he seems to be acting too much like him. The term "diva" comes to mind in both cases, not for better.
"anyone who hasn’t moved on from Ayn Rand’s horseshit has the depth of the kiddie pool"
And let's not forget that the kiddie pool is often yellow...
I was gonna add "kiddie pool full of shit".
I read Ayn Rand in high school and thought she was full of it.
The only work of hers that I read was Anthem.
I recall reading Anthem in fifth grade and thinking how much it was like being shouted at by a lunatic who had no idea he was repeating himself over and over. A teacher or librarian recommended it to me as a really important and wise book. Even though it's only about 50 pages long the substance of it was pretty fully beaten to death in a few pages. I went through the whole thing trying to find the part where it was important and wise but apparently any matter of that sort had been edited out, perhaps due to a concern that it would baffle the target readership. This experience helped dispel my 10 year old default assumption that being a grownup necessarily meant being smarter than I was.
I think at the same age I first read Animal Farm. That partly restored my faith n the perspicacity of at least some adults.
I think it was “The Virtue of Selfishness” that I read, and I thought it was just tedious intellectual justification for self-absorption. It was dull. I think I heard about her from watching William F. Buckley & Gore Vidal, who were great to watch together, but she was boring.
I tried reading Rand in high school and even at that early age found the prose so dreadful that I gave up after about 30 pages.
yes , crummy writing and a truly horrible morality , if you call it that
I had the same experience. A family friend tried getting me to read Atlas Shrugged all the way through. I could not get more than a few chapters in.
I don't even remember getting into the philosophical weeds with it, the book is just so powerfully boring. It should be administered as a prophylactic before anesthesia.
I remember throwing one of her books against the wall I was so disgusted with her BS “philosophy”.
I found Atlas Shrugged in my grandfather's books (he was a staunch Republican), I read it and forced myself to finish it. Yuck.
What a happy coincidence it is for Ryan that his important work of rescuing the conservative movement comes with a very large check.
Yes, a very large check for very little work. That seems to be his only priority.
But he did move on, Mary! Remember he said during 2012 that he had moved away from her ideological ramblings. Not because of elevation of narcissism and brutality towards the poor, but because he found out she didn’t believe in god. A deeply and profoundly empathy void encapsulation of a man.
He didn't realize Ayn Rand was an atheist until 2012? He didn't pick that up from the whole "me is the highest power" undercurrent? If you can even call it an undercurrent, it's more like a firehouse of morally-unmoored egotism!
Hey, nothing wrong with being an atheist!
A special challenge for atheists is making sure they don't start worshipping themselves. I think Bob Dylan was on to something when he said "you gotta serve SOMEbody". (yes, I know it's also true that too many theists think they are worshipping God, but that somehow, pure coincidence, I am sure, their God wants exactly what *they* want).
What a broad generalization.
No not broad. I said it can be a challenge, not that most, many etc atheists do this. But Rand did.
Somehow this comment duplicated duplicated itself
When you're a fan of Ayn Rand, it's always good to ignore stuff like her atheism or collecting social security.
Ayn Rand was brilliant and far ahead of her time. She came here as an immigrant and discovered a land peopled with marks ripe for plundering, and in the best American tradition invented a religion in which she was both prophet and divinity. Its particular genius was that it recast the religion-like appeal of Communism in a guise that looked like opposition to communist totalitarianism but was actually just a copycat authoritarianism focused on worship of its leader.
Much of its appeal was to insecure adolescent males (young and old); it taught that the condition of being a morally immature, selfish, petulant seventh grade male, far from being a regrettable phase that one was supposed to pass through and grow out of, was in fact the highest stage of human development. This naturally found a ready audience with morally immature, selfish, petulant males of all ages who resented being expected to grow up.
Few cons are so successful or durable; it ran swimmingly for the whole of her excessively long life and survives its raison d'etre; even though it was invented solely as a gravy train for Ayn Rand personally, and her passing has folded up the carnival tent, like shingles, which evades our immune defenses by infecting the nervous system, the shill has become an endemic mind virus.
So let us not omit to give her her due.
Mary,
I may have a future need to borrow, “...anyone who hasn’t moved on from Ayn Rand’s horseshit has the depth of the kiddie pool.” Thank you.
Borrow at will my friend! 😉
When I read that he buys copies of Atlas Shrugged for all his staffers, I knew he was an un-serious person.
But he fools/fooled a lot of people - including Charlie - for a long time.
I guess to have a $400K sinecure as a board member is a good gig if you can get it.
Just a payoff for that lovely tax cut. Blood money for what it did to the country.
My favorite thoughts about Atlas Shrugged:
“There are two novels that can change a bookish fourteen-year old’s life: The Lord of the Rings and Atlas Shrugged. One is a childish fantasy that often engenders a lifelong obsession with its unbelievable heroes, leading to an emotionally stunted, socially crippled adulthood, unable to deal with the real world. The other, of course, involves orcs.” -John Rogers
This is actually a funny line.
Don’t throw the baby out with the bath water. Rand’s description of The Twentieth Century Motor Company of Starnesville, Wisconsin is pretty funny.
That quote from John Rogers is perfect. Atlas Shrugged is hundreds of pages of pure drivel. It would make a good comic book, but as literature or philosophy it is rubbish.
I got my copy in my early 30's. My father gave it to me, and I read it while on a lengthy vacation in Italy.
It was tripe, simplistic, and just utter bullshit. I am 99.9% certain in my teens, I would have just laughed at it, the writing is so awful. Then there is the 30+ page monolog that really goes nowhere.
At the end of it, I was thinking of the "Maker" utopia, and then the video of Bush Senior trying to buy groceries, and I realized that these "Makers", these "Titans" of industry need their servants to cook, clean, and serve them. They are manifestly unfit to "go it alone" as they were trying to do.
Total, 100% bullshit
I was taken by Ayn Rand as a teenager - including in my college years. This was the late 60s early 70s. We should not mistake Ayn Rand's prose for the genuine influence she had. Among her followers was Alan Greenspan. There was an objectivist newsletter that gained currency in NYC especially - in an era where small societies of all sorts existed with newsletters passed around in colleges.
Bullshit to be sure. But so in the laffer curve.
Yes Rand was not exactly the most prolific author.
My favorite from a philosophy class was: one day someone bet Ayn Rand that she couldn't come up with a philosophical defense to being a total asshole.
Neither can Paul Ryan.
Brilliant Jerry Buday!
I think we need to be more charitable. It's not that they don't believe what they preach, it's more they don't understand it.
To be honest, most of the "christians" I see clearly haven't read and internalized the Bible, given by their rhetoric.
Again, charity. The Bible, which is an anthology of stories that gained admittance partly through chance, and partly by natural selection whereby what has both pleased and aggrandized those whose choice of what to preserve determined what was included, has more than a little of everything -- which is essential in a proof text with claims to universality. Anyone can find in it pretty much whatever one pleases. People like me prefer the bits like the sermon on the mount and the parables encouraging empathy, humility, and compassion. The "christians" you mention likely find such stuff weak tea, and are more drawn to the parts that celebrate wrath, anger, and war crime. They understand their bible perfectly well.
Some people might’ve known Max, but think of all the punditry folks that tried to sell him as a very smart, wonky, policy guy. There were many among the R party elite that are guilty of that. I don’t think anybody ever tried to sell Kevin McCarthy as a smart person.
They have always done nothing, unless doing something benefited them personally.