5 Stupid things about Ayn Rand

[CliveStaples]

I did, I posted the fucking thing.

Again, point them out. Don't just sit there on your high horse. You're not going to get away with claiming there's ad-homs and misrepresentations in there without demonstrating it. Shouldn't be too much of a fucking ask considering you clearly think it so obvious.

Let's start with no.1.

1. She was a poor writer - and the evidence of this was.... a line about her dull prose and dummy characters and an "appeal to authority" line which doesn't even reflect on her writing skills. In fact, if her books are capable of invoking life-long obsession then she must be a darn good writer.

2. The comments about "voluntary participation in society" are pretty much meaningless. According to the poster, Rand said that the individual's participation should be voluntary which is not the case in real world. Well, duh. That's why Rand said "should be" and not "is". Adding "Rand's sacrosanct concept of property rights are meaningless without a society" is not really a criticism. Especially since Rand herself defined rights as "moral principle defining and sanctioning a man’s freedom of action in a social context".

3. According to the video, being an ideal randian individualist means never getting any help from anyone. That's a mis-characterization. The correct idea would be "never accepting any help that you did not repay in full".

4. She demonized poor and glorified the wealthy - not so much. Another mis-characterization. The characters in both good and bad camps were in equal part wealthy and poor. The characters she wrote as the ideal Randian individuals - Roark and Galt - would not be considered wealthy by any standard.

5. Apparently, she inspired "generations of selfish assholes". And as examples we have... zilch. This would be an ad-hominem. If you like Ayn Rand, you are a selfish asshole. Doesn't mean anything she said is wrong.

This is hilarious. 1, 4, and 5 aren't even criticisms that address whether her ideas are correct, just whether they're pleasant (to that particular audience member).