The article misses that Rand's books are romantic, whereas Gladwell is a journalist. Rand writes fiction; Gladwell writes theories based on anecdotes and statistics. For an analogy, that'd be a lot like saying "Pablo Piccasso, or xyz modern photographer: Who is right?"
The guy's synopsis of Rand is pretty telling --> "Atlas Shrugged is a similar story. In it a group of scientists and tycoons decide in equally petulant fashion decide that they will "simply take their ball and go home" when society refuses to capitulate to their capricious demands."
Rand misses some points, the world isn't so black and white. But her general message is pro-individualism, hard work, anti-politicking, pro-competition, etc. It's anti-interventionism, anti-socialism, anti-labor, etc. It also mocks the hell out of people who come from opposite backgrounds, and interprets their motivations as scared and selfish. It makes for a good read, but makes her books hard to discuss with people from those viewpoints.
In reality, most people who are pro-collective, pro-socialism, etc. are decent folk with great intentions. Free marketists and socialists just happen to violently disagree on how to build the best world. Unfortunately, Rand's ruthless treatment of people who disagree with her all being nincompoops makes the books hard to discuss with someone who doesn't already have some of the underpinnings of her philosophy.
Rand's vilification of people who disagree with her is irritating, but what's more troublesome is the victim mentality that goes along with it. Inevitably the protagonist (who is handsome, smart, determined, and surprisingly domineering in the bedroom) is held back by the mediocrity of the masses. If only circumstances were different, the books tell us over and over again, our hero could achieve his true potential.
This, to me, is a cop-out. Most proponents of Objectivism never make something excellent, they just talk a lot about how they could, maybe, if only things were different. Or, in an amusing variation, they can just declare themselves to have achieved excellence (Ayn Rand once declared herself "the best writer today") in spite of the opposition.
Both of these approaches seem to sidestep the very real challenges of making something great and enduring. While I think the comparison to Gladwell is apples to oranges, I much prefer his attempts to quantify what make someone exceptional to Rand's ineffable "greatness".
That's why I find it deeply amusing that a whole ton of successful people are Randesque without ever once attributing Rand. A lot of Objectivists miss the fact that just saying you agree with Rand doesn't immediately make you Randesque. That's why people who really think Rand's got something worth saying don't go out and socialize only with other Rand readers.
The world has a history of cocky jackasses who succeed because they're entirely certain that they're right, because they are. Rand tapped a few of them to write her novels, actually.
Rand was rude towards people who disagreed with her for the sake of publicity just like this article. Disagreeing with good reason is what they should do instead.
Rand was also a little bit extreme in her beliefs. It's very much a "do as I say, not as I do" situation. She told people that they should disagree with her if they found logical merit in dismissing her theories, then disowned anybody who attempted to do so.
Rand's vilification of people who disagree with her is irritating, but what's more troublesome is the victim mentality that goes along with it. Inevitably the protagonist (who is handsome, smart, determined, and surprisingly domineering in the bedroom) is held back by the mediocrity of the masses. If only circumstances were different, the books tell us over and over again, our hero could achieve his true potential.
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Hence the blogger's comment:
"Atlas Shrugged is a similar story. In it a group of scientists and tycoons decide in equally petulant fashion that they will "simply take their ball and go home", when society refuses to capitulate to their capricious demands. So what happens? Well, according to Ayn Rand everything in the world grinds to a halt. In her bizarre world view, no replacements are available amongst the rest of humanity to rise up to the occasion and take over from the cry-babies who have gone home in a snit."
Yes, in real life others would have stepped up to the plate.
I think Atlas Shrugged assumes a fantastic future in which the amount of people who CAN step up to the plate have dwindled immensely, and in which many of the ones who COULD are already broken.
In real life as it stands today, Atlas Shrugged is not a plausible scenario. The trick to reading it without casting it aside in horror is realizing that Rand knows that, and that she's drawing things to their extremes to make a specific point about how she thinks human beings work. People who mock Atlas on that point are missing the point of the book.
But her characters are absolutely recognizable as humans. I've met people who talk like Rand heroes and people who talk like Rand villains. I've always envisioned Herb Kelleher of Southwest as a Randian hero. He refuses to compromise, gets mocked for a lot of things that turn out in retrospect to have been brilliant, and has a very flippant attitude about it all.
It's like reading Asimov, who judges most of his characters by their approach to logic. There's an advantage to illustrating a single facet of a human being. It lets you focus and create characters that revolve around a theme. If Rand had made her books more involved, they'd have lost the focus on the attributes that she writes about.
You know, you just proved their point about people who talk like Rand's villains. Is there anyone here who has read Rand's novels and can't imagine those words coming from James Taggart, Floyd Ferris, or Ellsworth Toohey? (Maybe not Ellsworth Toohey. He was more subtle.)
I am aware that neither Rand nor her philosophy is perfect. That said: I think that Rand talks about her ideas in a way that make them very accessible and attractive to people, and I think that her philosophical beliefs are worthy of discussion at the very least. I agree with her statement that it is better to be selfish - in the sense that you act primarily for your own good - than it is to be altruistic.
I don't think she is the end-all be-all. I voted Obama, who will expand the government in many ways and demand some altruism from everybody. But I think that compromise is a necessity: that altruism is a necessary evil rather than an end unto itself.
The immature one is the one who dismisses somebody's argument because they choose to support a flawed person. Frankly, I'd much rather talk with an Objectivist than a Nihilist - that despite Nietzche's being a much more influential and agreed-with writer. I'm trying to argue my points expressively, and to respond to people who disagree. You're either being immature or a troll.
But seriously. What am I doing that's rude? I said that I thought that Rand was misread, and that I thought it wasn't necessarily bad that she writes in black-and-white terms. I also said that I think it's a mistake of the people who follow her more seriously to assume that the world really is black-and-white. I don't think I was being rude or an asshole. Am I wrong?
The SkylerNovak and Robert something accounts have been created only a couple hours ago. They're just trolling. I think you're being perfectly courteous and upmodded you accordingly.
I didn't mention your name, so entering right now is only slightly suspicious. :-)
The fact that you use similar phrasing in all your posts, comment in unsimilar threads with quick, brief responses, and have similar disregards for things like two-way, interesting debates, tend to make me a little suspicious. I could be wrong, but with all due respect, at this point I rather doubt I am.
My question is: why? Are you the blog's author/submitter? I've noticed junk accounts pop up more when I mention my distaste for the article this was written about. You make similar comments to KrisZolar, who submitted this article. Every single response defending this post appears to be made from a spam account: KeshRivya also seems to be in this category. And every single one has the same anti-Rand stance as the original post, and writes in the same style.
The one thing that fascinates me is that a lot of these seems to have been made months-if-not-years ago. That takes a lot of effort. And I wonder why go to all the effort.
I'm sorry if it does turn out I'm raving and wrong, but I flagged this post. I don't know if there's a way of matching IPs, but the evidence all seems to point to a massive amount of throwaway accounts.
The article misses that Rand's books are romantic, whereas Gladwell is a journalist. Rand writes fiction; Gladwell writes theories based on anecdotes and statistics. For an analogy, that'd be a lot like saying "Pablo Piccasso, or xyz modern photographer: Who is right?"
Not sure what profession has to do with a comparison of beliefs.
To some extent, yes. As I said: Gladwell is like a Rand villain. But they aren't polar opposites. I doubt Rand ever saw the world as stylized as she wrote it. She's openly a Romantic Realist.
Gladwell opposes Rand. But they still hold fast in certain things. The opposite of Rand is not the person who says that people aren't responsible for their success. It's the person who says that civilization isn't a success, that human beings are beasts, that the solution to our problems is to go back to being savages. Similarly: I think Rand would disagree with Gladwell's claim that nobody is responsible for their life, but she wouldn't dispute his findings. She would just argue that they aren't as relevant as Gladwell thinks they are.
No, it's garbage because it makes a claim, then fails to back it up well.
I read the NYmag article. Gladwell in that article does appear to be Rand's favorite villain. However, the blog post doesn't use those points. It doesn't contrast Gladwell's "cutting down the great man" to Rand's points. It brings up Rand, attacks her, brings up Gladwell, draws no conclusions whatsoever, and then says that the author can see a connection. The fact that a good argument as come up is because of the various Hacker News factions, not because of any merit that article had whatsoever.
The necessary claim to make that assertion, as has been stated in several places here, is that Rand and Gladwell are opposites. There've been a few threads here discussing that in particular.
That claim is not backed up.
If I asked the question "Who is our savior: George Bush or Boy George?", then I would be making a specious claim: that either is a savior. Or, if I ask "Who is right: George Carlin or Lewis Black?", the specious claim is the two oppose themselves. In that case, my follow-up post to the question needs to explain exactly how the two oppose one another. In this case, there is somewhat of an argument to be made, but it's not one that the blog post makes.
Well, according to Ayn Rand everything in the world grinds to a halt. In her bizarre world view, no replacements are available amongst the rest of humanity to rise up to the occasion and take over from the cry-babies who have gone home in a snit.
Then, citing Gladwell out of context:
Then there's the question of why so many Asian students excel at mathematics:
And then there are the math geniuses who, as anyone can’t help noticing, are disproportionately Asian. Citing the work of an educational researcher at the University of Pennsylvania, Gladwell attributes this phenomenon not to some innate mathematical ability that Asians possess but to the fact that children in Asian countries are willing to work longer and harder than their Western counterparts. That willingness, Gladwell continues, is due to a cultural legacy of hard work that stems from the cultivation of rice. Turning to a historian who studies ancient Chinese peasant proverbs, Gladwell marvels at what Chinese rice farmers used to tell one another: “No one who can rise before dawn 360 days a year fails to make his family rich.”
Elsewhere in this thread was an argument from somebody who saw this and assumed that Gladwell was being racist and saying that working in rice paddies make Chinese people hard-working.
Then it sums up:
So the question is then: Are the successful truly independent of the society within which they grew up or do they owe their success, at least in part, to the benefits, attitudes, and advantages it bestowed upon them?
Read the entire article, Why Success Is More Circumstantial Than Personal.
Who is right? Malcolm Gladwell or Ayn Rand?
It doesn't add anything of interest. It doesn't make an initial comparison. It doesn't argue about how they're opposed in any way. We the commenters did that.
The article misses that Rand's books are romantic, whereas Gladwell is a journalist. Rand writes fiction; Gladwell writes theories based on anecdotes and statistics. For an analogy, that'd be a lot like saying "Pablo Piccasso, or xyz modern photographer: Who is right?"
The guy's synopsis of Rand is pretty telling --> "Atlas Shrugged is a similar story. In it a group of scientists and tycoons decide in equally petulant fashion decide that they will "simply take their ball and go home" when society refuses to capitulate to their capricious demands."
Rand misses some points, the world isn't so black and white. But her general message is pro-individualism, hard work, anti-politicking, pro-competition, etc. It's anti-interventionism, anti-socialism, anti-labor, etc. It also mocks the hell out of people who come from opposite backgrounds, and interprets their motivations as scared and selfish. It makes for a good read, but makes her books hard to discuss with people from those viewpoints.
In reality, most people who are pro-collective, pro-socialism, etc. are decent folk with great intentions. Free marketists and socialists just happen to violently disagree on how to build the best world. Unfortunately, Rand's ruthless treatment of people who disagree with her all being nincompoops makes the books hard to discuss with someone who doesn't already have some of the underpinnings of her philosophy.