[extropy-chat] Rand

[Samantha Atkins]

I am not impressed with *some* of the followers either.   Ayn Rand would 
roll in her grave over the shenanigans of so-called "objectivist" 
fundamentalists and Pope Peikoff.   They quote the words and argue to 
death trivial points while  nearly completely misunderstanding or 
ignoring much of what was good and important in her thought and work.    
It would be a mistake though to see only the errors she made or the 
pedantic fools amoung her followers.   There are many other objectivists 
who are some of the finest and most clear-headed people I know.   

I owe Ayn Rand a tremendous debt of gratitude.   She got me to truly 
respect the mind and to see the world far differently than the cultural 
norms of my youth.   The very act of grappling with her ideas sharpened 
my own ability to think about a great number of things.   And, despite 
dark areas,  her Sense of Life truly was superb and powerfully 
communicated.

- samantha

John K Clark wrote:

> I'll tell you one thing, I'm not impressed with the followers of Ayn 
> Rand,
> those armchair philosophers and self described intellectuals that call
> themselves Objectivists.  A few months ago I was invited to join an 
> online
> forum called Objectivism Online but I was soon banned for life. I was
> astonished at their ignorance of the revolution in physics and 
> mathematical
> logic made during the previous century; they were oblivious of the 
> profound
> implications for philosophy these discoverers had, they didn't know 
> and they
> didn't care, they just quoted Ayn Rand back at me as if what she said was
> more important than Bell's experiment or Godel. I said a lot of stuff 
> they
> didn't like very much but then I said something that made the howls of
> protest reach a crescendo and they looked for the tar and feathers. The
> dreadful blasphemy I dared to utter is this:
>
> "We've suspected for 80 years and known with certainty for nearly 40 that
> some events have no cause and are random.
> I mean, I liked Atlas Shrugged as much as anyone but if Ayn Rand tells me
> one thing and experiment tells me another it's no contest; I'm a rational
> man so I have to go with experiment."
>
> I don't believe I will go back there.
>
>   John K Clark     jonkc at att.net
>
>
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