Wednesday, June 27, 2007

a lousy writer and a second rate philosopher

Ayn Rand born Alisa Zinov'yevna Rosenbaum (Russian: Алиса Зиновьевна Розенбаум)
"I can say - not as a patriotic bromide, but with full knowledge of the necessary metaphysical, epistemological, ethical, political and aesthetic roots - that the United States of America is the greatest, the noblest and, in its original founding principles, the only moral country in the history of the world."

"My philosophy, in essence, is the concept of man as a heroic being, with his own happiness as the moral purpose of his life, with productive achievement as his noblest activity, and reason as his only absolute."

"Suppose you met a twisted, tormented young man and... discovered that he was brought up by a man-hating monster who worked systematically to paralyze his mind, destroy his self-confidence, obliterate his capacity for enjoyment and undercut his every attempt to escape... Western civilization is in that young man's position. The monster is Immanuel Kant."

The most famous review of Atlas Shrugged from a conservative author was written by Whittaker Chambers and appeared in National Review in 1957. It was unrelentingly scathing. Chambers called the book "sophomoric"; and "remarkably silly," and said it "can be called a novel only by devaluing the term." The tone of the book was described as "shrillness without reprieve". Chambers accused Rand, a refugee from totalitarianism, as supporting the same godless system as the Soviets, stating that "From almost any page of Atlas Shrugged, a voice can be heard, from painful necessity, commanding: ' To the gas chambers-- go!'"( more from wiki )

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