I don’t know why this should be an unpopular opinion. It seems to me more like a truth claim or a hypothesis that can probably be supported or refuted on the basis of research.

I read “Anthem” when I was about 19, I think, and at the time I liked it. I tried to read “Atlas Shrugged” when I was in my 30s, but didn’t get very far before I put it down in as a waste of time. There’s one data point for you.

I don’t need to read mein kampf to know Nazis are shit.

Biggest critic of Ayn Rand was Ayn Rand after she was dependent upon Social Security to survive. The books are nothing but the same “gimme, but fuck you!” that is the core of all Libertarian fantasy.

I see your point so I guess I have to downvote you. Or is it upvote? Most confusing sub ever.

Nah. I matured passed being 12 and i expect the same out of others. I’m fairly confident i wouldn’t think the same, either. Nature vs nature, we are how we’re raised, blah blah blah; i was able to reject what i was raised on and so is everyone else.

I won’t pretend to know her internal life, but what she projected was very hateable.

This is humanity. We regurgitate. We borrow opinions from the group we identify with.

The thing is, sometimes the groupthink is right. Her writing is weak (“beige” as someone else described), and her philosophy is cruel. Her own life shows why it just doesn’t work.

But what is missing in nearly all of the critique on her is her upbringing

For her as a historical figure, sure. As a philosopher who influenced a couple of generations of tech bros, it isn’t relevant. The edgelords that dig up her corpse to shit on the mildest form of social support don’t care about that.

Why all the downvotes? If the name of the community is Unpopular Opinion and I certainly posted an unpopular opinion then shouldn’t people be like “well, I hate Ayn Rand” but the guy did stick to the theme of the community.

Lemmy seems to have a hard time with unpopular opinions.

This is me. But also, I’m not a conservative, which means the many people I’ve heard criticize her work read it, understood it on her terms (no conservative does this), and rejected it. I have no qualms about regurgitating their understanding of her work.

I’ve read her work and it fucking sucked.

The downvotes may be because this opinion isn’t exactly new or uncommon. It’s had its own bursts of popularity as critque of Rand’s ideas became harsher.

That’s why I down voted, anyway. I don’t find it you be an unpopular opinion, just a fairly bad one. The two aren’t inherently the same thing.

And it is a bad argument, btw. If the background of the originator of a system of thinking is mandatory for the system to make sense, it’s a bad system. Since her work is based almost entirely on those beliefs, it’s impossible to separate things out enough to say that the work is useful beyond entertainment despite the flaws in thinking. And it is useful entertainment. But that’s all it is.

Rand as a writer isn’t bad. A bit old fashioned and over hyped, but she had/has skill for sure. The ideas she based the work on were horrible lol

I’ve read The Fountainhead. Her work is trash, as is she.

I’ve read 2 of her books. They suck. She sucks. The absolute nerve to invent your own philosophy and call it “objectivism” lol.

Ahh yes, this takes me back to highschool, where one of her books (can’t recall which, but it was just fuckin dumb) was required reading.

All the ‘discussions’ we had about it after were focused on how each individual really should work for themselves, and how that was the best thing you could do to contribute to society, because apparently we are all nothing but a bunch of selfish fuckheads.

This was the same school where the health teacher told us diet didn’t matter at all, it was purely the number of calories you consumed that determined your health, and don’t even get me started on DARE.

Public education is a great idea, it’s too bad it’s a fucking sham

I read Fountainhead. It had some interesting concepts and an engaging plot. I didn’t make it a core piece of my personality. Not my favorite book, but it wasn’t bad. I agree with OP.

Ayn Rand represented the idiology of modern capitalistic, individualistic culture. Humans did not evolve to work that way.

The reason humans outlived the neanderthals is because we formed societies and worked together as opposed to the much more individualistic neanderthal species. This is regardless of the fact that neanderthals potentially had higher intelligence than humans on average as a species. Anthropoligists found that early human societies had gift economies, where people would just help each other out and give people what they needed if they could provide it.

This type of society lasted a very long time until people saught power over everyone in their society. Monarchs. This is when you started to see things like currency, taxes, and ledgers created. This is around the time when one could contractually owe another something, instead of just giving without expecting anything in return. This is when the concept of a class structure started to form.

The earliest known constitution/supreme-law-of-the-land is the Code of Hammurabi between 1755 and 1750 BCE, written by a monarch. It is in the monarch’s best interest to conquer as much land as humanly possible with whatever army they can muster. This way, they have more people under their control, and therefore, more workers to produce product needed for the survival of the now-rigidly-defined conquered region of land, or empires.

Then you start to see these empires fight over each other’s land, sometimes blowing out into full-scale wars. This type of event wouldn’t have been common before people started wanting control over others.

I’m not suggesting we revert back to not having defined borders or countries or anything, because I think that’s unrealistic to accomplish in any reasonable amount of time in the present. I am, however, suggesting that we can take those ideas of a gift economy from the past and apply that to some modern form of government.

Ayn Rands’ arguments can be picked out without reading the entirety of Atlas Shrugged, key passages, interviews, and interpreters are enough. And there seems to be a resounding consensus that her arguments are too weak and flawed to be philosophy as opposed to mere opinion. She contradicts herself and notoriously refused to address any criticism of her points. She is speaking too generally and not subjectively, and your post suggests to look at her life as anecdotal evidence for her positions. A big no no in philosophy. If she’s doing philosophy, her upbringing shouldn’t technically matter to a more universal truth. I was raised Conservative Christian, for example, and I don’t believe one should think oh these factual claims have more weight because of my upbringing. Why shouldn’t I be able to disagree with her? Lastly, she gets hate because of how many Ethical Egoists tout her as their go to gal, when her arguments are incredibly flawed and not close to academic. There are better Egoists with somewhat sound arguments out there even if you so choose to believe that crap. I do feel you on the downvotes, Lemmings are so trigger happy when it’s a harmless opinion they dislike. I’ll upvote you lol