Bill Maher on Ayn Rand: ‘It’s all stuff that seems very deep when you’re 19 years old

Althea said:
Well, he's kind of right. Of course, he's like the majority of Rand bashers...they've never read any of her work.

But, he's right about the 19 year old. When you view her stories without the partisan political glasses that most adults wear, you see the value in her basic tenets, and her protagonists.
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evince said:
Hes dead on

Libertarianism is a teenagers fantasy.

I Read Ayn Rand upon no ones request when I was in my middle teens.

She was an idiot.

I was 16 and had NO preconceptions about what her stuff was like or about.

It was lame and shittily written.

Her charactors were cardboard cut out from her limited mind.


The "grand ideas" in it made no sense.


Moved right on into much better writtings
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These are the same pinheads that applauded Orwell for his book 1984 which is relatively the very same kind of books as Rand authored.....
 
Thing1 said:
You're talking about the concept. Desh is talking about the writer.

Most overrated writer in history. Desh is right - her characters are black & white, and her style is blatant & cumbersome. She's just not a good writer.
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You're a pinhead....Rand first published in the US in '57 and her books are still selling today.....wtf could you possibly know about who is a good writer a who
is not.....Altas Shurgged sold almost 1/2 million copies in 2011.....maybe her works are just a mite over your head.....I would guess Orwell was too....
 
Sir Digby Chicken Caesar said:
Meanwhile, Bill Maher has never seemed particularly deep.
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Maher is a slug.....his bashing of religion and the right is the only thing that keeps him alive....pinheads mistake his humor for intelligence.

If his target was the left and athiesm the Democrats would be attacking the First Amendment as savagely as they are attaking the 2nd.....
 
NOVA said:
You're a pinhead....Rand first published in the US in '57 and her books are still selling today.....wtf could you possibly know about who is a good writer a who
is not.....Altas Shurgged sold almost 1/2 million copies in 2011.....maybe her works are just a mite over your head.....I would guess Orwell was too....
Click to expand...
Classic....call someone a pinhead, and then offer inaccurate data.
 
NOVA said:
You're a pinhead....Rand first published in the US in '57 and her books are still selling today.....wtf could you possibly know about who is a good writer a who
is not.....Altas Shurgged sold almost 1/2 million copies in 2011.....maybe her works are just a mite over your head.....I would guess Orwell was too....
Click to expand...

Her prose is turgid and pompous. And even if she compressed the book into half the number of words, the philosophy of rational selfishness still sucks.
 
NOVA said:
You're a pinhead....Rand first published in the US in '57 and her books are still selling today.....wtf could you possibly know about who is a good writer a who
is not.....Altas Shurgged sold almost 1/2 million copies in 2011.....maybe her works are just a mite over your head.....I would guess Orwell was too....
Click to expand...

The same thing could be said about Bakunin, or Marx. But they were published far earlier, and their works are far more successful - or at least Marx's are.
 
NOVA said:
You're a pinhead....Rand first published in the US in '57 and her books are still selling today.....wtf could you possibly know about who is a good writer a who
is not.....Altas Shurgged sold almost 1/2 million copies in 2011.....maybe her works are just a mite over your head.....I would guess Orwell was too....
Click to expand...

Honey boo-boo is a top-rated show, as well.

Rand was a terrible writer. Orwell could at least write, and make a story interesting.
 
Althea said:
Well, he's kind of right. Of course, he's like the majority of Rand bashers...they've never read any of her work.

But, he's right about the 19 year old. When you view her stories without the partisan political glasses that most adults wear, you see the value in her basic tenets, and her protagonists.
Click to expand...

I have, it took awhile because I kept falling asleep.
 
If anyone her wants to read an important book with ideas that changed society, I recommend The Jungle.

It lead to the Pure Foods Act and progressive regulation of the meat packing industry.

Be warned though, the book sucks and is so horribly written, the "prose" will cure your insomnia. Also, Upton Sinclair was a socialist, and not just a progressive.
 
Heart of Darkness bores me to tears and is incredibly deep. Maher should stick to insulting anything the right does, it's all he's good for these days.
 
who cares about ayn rand. the libertarian platform isn't based off of atlas shrugged. Bill maher completely mischaracterized libertarians. Libertarians are not fucking anarchists. And paul ryan has never even claimed to be a libertarian, nor does he really sync up with the majority of the libertarian party platform.
 
Aoxomoxoa said:


http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2013/04/...that-seems-very-deep-when-youre-19-years-old/
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I know that after recievng an undergraduate and graduate education in science my attitude on Rand went from hero worship to "What the hell would a philosopher know about objectivity?"

Though I think there's many flaws with Rand's "Objectivism", mainly that it isn't objective, but she did write the most accurate critique on the failures of command economies.

I still think highly of Rand works....just not as highly as Rand and her legions of fanatical supporters do. When one reads Rand a little perspective is in order and that's really the issue, most 19 year olds don't have much perspective.
 
Althea said:
Well, he's kind of right. Of course, he's like the majority of Rand bashers...they've never read any of her work.

But, he's right about the 19 year old. When you view her stories without the partisan political glasses that most adults wear, you see the value in her basic tenets, and her protagonists.
Click to expand...
Uh no....not really. Not unless you believe the world is stuffed full of one dimensional characters who live fanatically by their principles.
 
evince said:
Hes dead on

Libertarianism is a teenagers fantasy.

I Read Ayn Rand upon no ones request when I was in my middle teens.

She was an idiot.

I was 16 and had NO preconceptions about what her stuff was like or about.

It was lame and shittily written.

Her charactors were cardboard cut out from her limited mind.


The "grand ideas" in it made no sense.


Moved right on into much better writtings
Click to expand...
I think that as novels that's a fair assesment. I remember reading about 1/4 of the way into Atlas Shrugged and thinking "Is this a Russian cultural thing to say in 10 pages what could be said in a paragraph?". I completed the novel as I'm a disciplined reader. What the hell....I read The Mayor of Casterbridge from cover to cover too (at great personal cost). Though to give Rand credit, her novels were no where near as painfully and horribly boring as Thomas Hardy but my lord could she belabor a point to death. That the almost infintile lack of character development and the simple mindedness of her plots.

But as the outlining of a philosophy she can't just be discounted out of hand. She does make some valid points and some sailent critiques. She also makes some absolutely false ones. And that takes us back to the prespective thing, using a novel to outline a major philosophical movement is well.....kinda lame.
 
Threedee said:
If anyone her wants to read an important book with ideas that changed society, I recommend The Jungle.

It lead to the Pure Foods Act and progressive regulation of the meat packing industry.

Be warned though, the book sucks and is so horribly written, the "prose" will cure your insomnia. Also, Upton Sinclair was a socialist, and not just a progressive.
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Yea I read that in college. Your description is accurate. It was influential and it was a difficult read.
 
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