• Leon@pawb.social
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    3
    ·
    19 hours ago

    That’s because in her worldview, she was morally good and so deserving of it. She was born rich, and then bad people took her family’s money so she was, per her definition, what we now jokingly say “temporarily embarrassed millionaire.”

    She makes it super clear in her book that (morally) good people have money, the fact that they possess money means that they’re (morally) good, equally so, good people are beautiful. You can’t be a beautiful evil rich person, because if you’re rich and beautiful you’re automatically good.

    It’s a nonsensical idea, for obvious reasons, but that’s ultimately what her objectivism idea was about.

    Later in life she had a meltdown when her protege/almost-son-lover Nathaniel Branden rejected her sexual advances because he wasn’t into her anymore. It became a whole big thing. She was the Ayn Rand, he had to be attracted to her because she was the face of objectivism, and good people are automatically attracted to other good people. Thus she cast him down because if he wasn’t attracted to her he’s not a good objectivist.

    It’s such a dumb cult.

    • Rat_in_a_hat@lemmy.ca
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      2
      ·
      18 hours ago

      Lol! This additional context is really adding spicy tea to my morning coffee.

      It truly makes you question the intelligence (and sanity) of every person who says they like that book.

      • Leon@pawb.social
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        1
        ·
        16 hours ago

        Honestly, I think most people who are big fans haven’t read the book. Like I said, I haven’t read the book fully. It’s s t o d g y and I’d never begrudge anyone for not reading it.

        Rand was very anti-homosexuality, which is kind of a stark contrast to how homoerotic the book is. There are also a lot of places where characters will enter a long speech, and this can last for dozens of pages. I think Galt’s radio speech is like 70 pages long, it meanders and it repeats not just itself, but previous speeches as well. Then everybody claps.

        Like it’s not a good book. Hahaha.

        Rather central to her plot is the great man theory. They’re the proverbial Atlas that is shrugging. The core idea is “what if all the great men (capitalists) decided to just stop pushing the world forward.” Her belief is that society is only functioning because rich beautiful good people are there to ensure it moves forward, and all those regular people, the pesky workers and whatnot need these rich people to lead them, because we’re all dumb sheeple who can’t possibly make good decisions.

        So eventually all the great men decide that they’re done answering to society, they build a secret town in the mountains in Colorado or something, and there they live in their objectivist utopia, where no one is given anything, all checks are paid and balanced (except in the cases where they’re not), and the outside world just collapses into the stone age.

        I think there are people out there who genuinely believe this, that rich men like Musk, Zuck, Amazonman, Gates, and whatnot are literally pushing the world forward. Traditionally our history does often teach that there were great men, visionaries, individuals with grand ideas or inventions, who swooped in and affected great change. Modern historians tend to reject this narrative because these people obviously didn’t live in a vacuum, and oftentimes the contributions of those around them are overlooked.