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3.09 AVERAGE
3.09 AVERAGE
Muy buen libro. Que plantea la virtud de ser individualista y lo tergiversado que está el termino, siendo hoy día sinonimo de malvado en contra del colectivo social.
Fundamental la busqueda de la libertad para poder desarrollar al individuo que, en su progreso ayudará en definitiva a la sociedad.
Para terminar dejo una cita del libro que me pareció interesante.
"Ni la vida ni la felicidad pueden lograrse persiguiendo caprichos irracionales. Así como el hombre es libre para tratar de sobrevivir de alguna manera aleatoria, como un parásito, un mendigo o un saqueador, pero no lo es para alcanzar el éxito en su intento más allá del momento inmediato, también es libre para buscar la felicidad a través de cualquier fraude irracional, cualquier capricho, cualquier ilusión, cualquier torpe evasión de la realidad, pero no para tener éxito más allá del momento inmediato, ni para escapar a las consecuencias."
Fundamental la busqueda de la libertad para poder desarrollar al individuo que, en su progreso ayudará en definitiva a la sociedad.
Para terminar dejo una cita del libro que me pareció interesante.
"Ni la vida ni la felicidad pueden lograrse persiguiendo caprichos irracionales. Así como el hombre es libre para tratar de sobrevivir de alguna manera aleatoria, como un parásito, un mendigo o un saqueador, pero no lo es para alcanzar el éxito en su intento más allá del momento inmediato, también es libre para buscar la felicidad a través de cualquier fraude irracional, cualquier capricho, cualquier ilusión, cualquier torpe evasión de la realidad, pero no para tener éxito más allá del momento inmediato, ni para escapar a las consecuencias."
challenging
dark
funny
informative
reflective
tense
fast-paced
What a sad existence to think so microscopically. Rand so often posits the first hard objection she can come up with to a Utopian goal, and then smugly declares anyone working towards it is a fool destined for a dead-end existence. I’m sorry that I believe in a cause greater than myself. I just really firmly believe that even if there’s no easy answer within me, I should still strive to make the answer easier for the next person to discover. And I know that just typing that would have her freakishly scoffing at me, “OF COURSE you can do that, good sir! Just don’t expect me, or anyone else, to help you. In fact, let me make it harder for you.” How can you claim that mediocre people are constantly getting in the way of extraordinary and hardworking people when you literally break up a marriage and then break up with him too? Sounds like your mediocrity got in the way of them.
Rand’s ideas within an interpersonal or communal context feel more thought-out and weirdly human. I’m more sympathetic to them because it feels more balanced to argue a point between me and you or whatever. That chapter on ethics of an emergency was somewhat interesting. I think personality and background play more of a part on how people react to emergencies than the dreaded altruists controlling society (which she doesn’t really believe exists in the first place. hooboy). But it was thoughtfully discussed! When she starts to pan out into applying her framework for societies though, and especially when she declares the United States in all sorts of complimentary ways, she’s completely off-her-rocker. The essay on Racism is especially hilarious. I guess Sociology didn’t exist yet? She didn’t think to factor in the why behind Black people in 1960s New York had a reason to call for a higher employment rate. There’s just a clear lapse in logic. Rand reads the news, gets angry people prevent the “high achieving” from changing the world, and then tells all of us we need to be more selfish. Rudely, this book just felt like she wanted to do whatever she felt like, and got so bent out of shape when anyone would get in her way. I’m dying to read a biography of her from a neutral critic.
challenging
reflective
slow-paced
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.
reflective
slow-paced
collection of short essays that are DENSE
good resource for those that are deconstructing
small book, long read
good resource for those that are deconstructing
small book, long read
Short articles advocating the various merits of selfishness as a virtue. Interesting piece on racism. Most people hardly need any further encouragement to be selfish.
informative
medium-paced
Ayn Rand has become suddenly more relevant in our times. Of course, her thinking and philosophy of objectivism has been out there and swirling around right wing circles, but with the emergence of the Tea Party and a more conservative republican party, her views are being debated by the nation yet again.
"The Virtue of Selfishness" is a series of essays in which she defends objectivism with the help of Nathaniel Branden. She rails against collectivism (which in her view would be like a modern liberalism) and exalts the individual.
To Rand, the key to freedom is any government allowing an individual to make as many of their own choices in life as possible. She believes in a very loose and limited government power. She claims that any government telling any individual how to live their lives or what to believe is the height of treating human beings like cattle.
Rand's discussion of racism (writing in the early 1960s) is particularly interesting. Of course, she believes that the government cannot discriminate against an individual of any race but she does object to parts fo the civil rights act because a businessowner should be able to hire whomever he wants too without the government interfering.
Overall, I do not believe in some of Rand's theories but I do admire her personal story and her striving to articulate her philosophy and strive to make it consistent. These essays are interesting to wrestle with.
"The Virtue of Selfishness" is a series of essays in which she defends objectivism with the help of Nathaniel Branden. She rails against collectivism (which in her view would be like a modern liberalism) and exalts the individual.
To Rand, the key to freedom is any government allowing an individual to make as many of their own choices in life as possible. She believes in a very loose and limited government power. She claims that any government telling any individual how to live their lives or what to believe is the height of treating human beings like cattle.
Rand's discussion of racism (writing in the early 1960s) is particularly interesting. Of course, she believes that the government cannot discriminate against an individual of any race but she does object to parts fo the civil rights act because a businessowner should be able to hire whomever he wants too without the government interfering.
Overall, I do not believe in some of Rand's theories but I do admire her personal story and her striving to articulate her philosophy and strive to make it consistent. These essays are interesting to wrestle with.
when one is asked: “Surely you don’t think in terms of black-and-white, do you?”—the proper answer (in essence, if not in form) should be: “You’re damn right I do!”
Page 79.
Genuinely infuriating to read, so much so that I wrote a review explaining what I think is wrong with Rand's thought but it would barely fit the Goodreads character limit. Won't publish until I've given it some more thought (and I'm honestly not sure who would want to read it), but can be summed up by the following:
"To be an Objectivist, it seems, means to be a historian oblivious to history, a philosopher brutalising analytic concepts, a psychologist ignorant of psychological research, yet to be infatuated with your own rationality and wisdom, to pride yourself on being an intellectual elite to such an extent that all you will do is engage in your own hagiography."
A prententious way of saying: I think Rand and Branden are frauds. They make awful, absurd, contrived and cruel claims. In this respect, they're innovators of the right-wing, faux-intellectual "facts-and-logic" shtick we're now plagued with.
Read [b:Against the Web: A Cosmopolitan Answer to the New Right|52462411|Against the Web A Cosmopolitan Answer to the New Right|Michael Brooks|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1585155943l/52462411._SY75_.jpg|77907181] or [b:Give Them an Argument: Logic for the Left|44903309|Give Them an Argument Logic for the Left|Ben Burgis|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1556299238l/44903309._SY75_.jpg|69560649] for concise explorations of why we shouldn't take these people seriously; better yet, steer clear of them entirely.