The best argument against Rand is just listening to her for 5min.
Very rarely do you see such a mixture of arrogance, self-righteousness and utter lack of logic in a single person.
I once asked a Randite about ‘Objectivism.’
“If theft is theft, doesn’t that mean we should hand all the land back to the Natives?”
The answer was NO, because the Native Amercans weren’t using the land in the right way…
An argument that goes back to Hobbes (which doesn’t make it right)
Didn’t Rand say that all the old philosophers were crackpots?
Guess what: She’s old now…
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ayn_Rand
Died 1982.
Almost the same year as Hobbes (1679)
Final Report Card
History of Philosophy C+
Math D-
Very rarely do you see such a mixture of arrogance, self-righteousness and utter lack of logic in a single person.
I know another orange example…
I learned some years ago that Rand wrote erotica before she wrote ““philosophy””
Then I read some of her porn. And everything clicked.
She let her self-indulgent porn fantasies leak into her philosophy, that’s all.
In other words - everything she accused the “others” of being.
What was it that she called them, again? I can’t be bothered to look it up, let’s see if I can remember…Empathists? Philanthropists? Something like that.
EDIT: altruists!
Quick, get a time machine. For, uh, educational purposes.
I remember Wil Wheaton saying this in The Guild, but was he also quoting Rand at the time?
Blocked
Aww, did someone insult an idiot you idolize? Poor baby! 🥺