Come to think of it...
That quote in full is almost worse:
"The earth is littered with mangled cripples, who don't know what has hit them or why, who crawl as best they can on their crushed limbs through their lightless days, with no answer save that pain is the core of existence -- and the traffic cops of morality chortle and tell them that man, by his nature, is unable to walk."
-ayn rand, atlas shrugged
"The earth is littered with mangled cripples, who don't know what has hit them or why, who crawl as best they can on their crushed limbs through their lightless days, with no answer save that pain is the core of existence -- and the traffic cops of morality chortle and tell them that man, by his nature, is unable to walk."
-ayn rand, atlas shrugged
Not worse from the perspective of what she's saying, but how she's saying it. Mind you, this passage is told from the perspective of someone good trying to understand the perspective of someone evil in the world, but the analogy is weird. It's too indirect for Ayn Rand.
posted by mrdarius at
Thursday, February 19, 2009
2 Comments:
atlas shrugged is by it's nature indirect: it's a novel. it's engaging, and if it wasn't for her novels, i wouldn't have gotten into ayn rand.
i agree that if you're making an argument for objectivism no novel is going to be the source you want to quote most; for passages that stand alone better, consult her nonfiction, including the collections of essays the virtue of selfishness and capitalism: the unknown ideal.
I think she makes some very good points but too many people I know in conservative politics here in Australia put her on a pedestal and almost regard her words as infallible.
The indirectness can cause problems as well of course, including people who say they have read her stuff but you can tell they had not read her stuff in its entirety or understood it properly. For example, Aras mentions "the virtue of selfishness" as an example of a good read, this is true, however what she means by selfishness is not what Collins dictionary would mean by selfishness.
Looks like I might need to dust off my Rand collection as well.
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