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rottenapple99's review against another edition
challenging
inspiring
reflective
tense
4.0
I enjoyed this one quite a bit more than I expected. I am a fan of her novels but in my personal life I have to parse out more where my agreements and disagreement lie exactly.
I liked what she had to say about reclaiming the word selfishness, the things that according to her separate us from animals also seem largely true from a conceptual view. Many ideas sprinkled in there, like stagnation being akin to death from the perspective of a living being, that I agree with.
While I have a better understanding of her political views now, I am hesitant to come to a verdict on how viable her ideas in practice are. I need to learn much more to make an informed opinion but if I was forced to give my 2c I would err on the side or her political ideas not being sustainable and creating unstable societies. While thinkers like Marx seem to ignore human nature (admittedly I have yet to delve into his work) - I appreciate that Rand attempts to incorporate everything she believes to be true about human nature into her politics. I just think she might be underestimating the subconscious experience. The idea that man can freely choose his values based on rationale comes to mind. I'm not so sure that's the case.
This ended up being way longer than I wanted. My pizza is getting cold.
I enjoyed it! Her thinking is unique. Quite interesting read from todays perspective too.
I liked what she had to say about reclaiming the word selfishness, the things that according to her separate us from animals also seem largely true from a conceptual view. Many ideas sprinkled in there, like stagnation being akin to death from the perspective of a living being, that I agree with.
While I have a better understanding of her political views now, I am hesitant to come to a verdict on how viable her ideas in practice are. I need to learn much more to make an informed opinion but if I was forced to give my 2c I would err on the side or her political ideas not being sustainable and creating unstable societies. While thinkers like Marx seem to ignore human nature (admittedly I have yet to delve into his work) - I appreciate that Rand attempts to incorporate everything she believes to be true about human nature into her politics. I just think she might be underestimating the subconscious experience. The idea that man can freely choose his values based on rationale comes to mind. I'm not so sure that's the case.
This ended up being way longer than I wanted. My pizza is getting cold.
I enjoyed it! Her thinking is unique. Quite interesting read from todays perspective too.
ahmed92kira's review against another edition
2.0
كتاب سياسي يتحدث عن مشاكل الاشتراكية وفوائد الرأسمالية ويتخلله بعض التطبيل للحكومة الامريكية
صراحة نجمتين لان ما استمتعت بالكتاب
صراحة نجمتين لان ما استمتعت بالكتاب
stephenmeansme's review against another edition
2.0
Content-wise, it's 2 stars or less, but I'm giving it an extra star for a combination of historical interest---it's more interesting to read this if you recall the social and intellectual conditions of the 1950s and 1960s in America, as well as Rand's childhood in the USSR---and the convenience of having only 170 pages (or 6 hours) of Rand's "philosophy." Read this and be done with it.
scordatura's review
1.0
I am reading this for my studies, that's the only reason. My blood started boiling in the first paragraph... this isn't going to be fun.
Finished it finally: I was expecting it to make me angry and in some ways it did. What I didn't expect was to see such poor reasoning, such poor internal consistency, so many random "choices" (decisions to place certain things centrally in her ethics), so many black/white views on matters... that I cannot fathom that intelligent people take it seriously. In one way, this is a silly book, easily dismissed but at the same time it has very dark connotations. It allows people to dismiss matters like white privilege and how random life can be, giving them an excuse to say that hard work fixes everything, and that everyone should focus purely on their own success and pleasure.
In the end, whenever my blood started boiling while reading it, I donated money to charities Rand would have found objectionable. This helped me actually finish the book without my brain liquefying.
Edit: typos.
Finished it finally: I was expecting it to make me angry and in some ways it did. What I didn't expect was to see such poor reasoning, such poor internal consistency, so many random "choices" (decisions to place certain things centrally in her ethics), so many black/white views on matters... that I cannot fathom that intelligent people take it seriously. In one way, this is a silly book, easily dismissed but at the same time it has very dark connotations. It allows people to dismiss matters like white privilege and how random life can be, giving them an excuse to say that hard work fixes everything, and that everyone should focus purely on their own success and pleasure.
In the end, whenever my blood started boiling while reading it, I donated money to charities Rand would have found objectionable. This helped me actually finish the book without my brain liquefying.
Edit: typos.