[nukkad] Ayn Rand

[Satya <>]

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Nature never did betray the heart that loved her. 
-William Wordsworth (1770-1850)
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I am sending some stuff on Ayn Rand.

Her favorite poem is my favorite poem too and of many
others whom I know.

The debate on Randd's philosophy has been on since
decades.Its an endless debate.

So many arguemnts in for and against could be given.

Even I dont subscribe fully to her philosophy but I do
agree with her basic thinking.Our thinking is  shaped
by many philosophies..impact could be varying..

What really matters is do we get the gist of what she
had reflected in her works?

Its not that she has never talked about love and
support at all.

She was deeply in love with her husband-whose death
she never get over with.

"The fountainhead" is a beautiful love story too.

I dont think that her ideas could be denounced out
rightly.

You really can't compare any two authors in the way
Pankaj is intending to do.

She believed that people like her central characters
do exist.Even I believe.

Life is not a team sport always - Its rather much more
complicated than what Harshal sir has coined life
as.One could understand it very well if he/she has
ever come across such a sitation where every thing is
down the hill...then theres only one person to whom
you could turn to seek help..thats you only....then
even if you dont have  that strength left in your
spirit-you have to forcibly produce that required
strength in your spirit-which could save you...and its
really tough....no team/person would come to your
aid...but you have to rely on your own-you are your
best help...and then comes out your best....

it has happened so many times...look at the history...

We are not billions of carbon atoms - we are the 
masters of those carbon atoms-in every sense of it.


Too much imagination in novels is hardly an issue -
read "aninmal farm" for that matter.


She never talked about denying the significance of
sacrifices of the people without whose sacrifices we
wont have seen this progress.What she denounced were
the ugly sacrifices being asked to be made in the name
of humanity and equality which in reality serve the
ulterior motive of some one. 

..Satya

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Ayn Rand's Favorite Poem
David Kelley read Ayn Rand's favorite poem
at her funeral.



" If "  by [Joseph] Rudyard Kipling      

If you can keep your head when all about you 
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you; 
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you, 
But make allowance for their doubting too; 
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting, 
Or, being lied about, don't deal in lies, 
Or, being hated, don't give way to hating, 
And yet don't look too good, nor talk too wise; 

If you can dream - and not make dreams your master; 
If you can think - and not make thoughts your aim; 
If you can meet with triumph and disaster 
And treat those two imposters just the same; 
If you can bear to hear the truth you've spoken 
Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools, 
Or watch the things you gave your life to broken, 
And stoop and build 'em up with wornout tools; 

If you can make one heap of all your winnings 
And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss, 
And lose, and start again at your beginnings 
And never breath a word about your loss; 
If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew 
To serve your turn long after they are gone, 
And so hold on when there is nothing in you 
Except the Will which says to them: "Hold on"; 

If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue, 
Or walk with kings - nor lose the common touch; 
If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you; 
If all men count with you, but none too much; 
If you can fill the unforgiving minute 
With sixty seconds' worth of distance run - 
Yours is the Earth and everything that's in it, 
And - which is more - you'll be a Man my son! 


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some quotes by her :


The moral cannibalism of all hedonist and altruist
doctrines lies in the premise that the happiness of
one man necessitates the injury of another. 


Men have been taught that the highest virtue is not to
achieve, but to give. Yet one cannot give that which
has not been created. Creation comes before
distribution- or there will be nothing to distribute.
The need of the creator comes before the need of any
possible beneficiary. Yet we are taught to admire the
second-hander who dispenses gifts he has not produced
above the man who made the gifts possible. We praise
an act of charity. We shrug at an act of achievement. 


There is a level of cowardice lower than that of the
conformist: the fashionable non-conformist. 


The mind leads, the emotions follow.

There is nothing to take a man's freedom away from
him, save other men. To be free, a man must be free of
his brothers. 

Pity for the guilty is treason to the innocent. 


The basic need of the creator is independence. The
reasoning mind cannot work under any form of
compulsion. It cannot be curbed, sacrificed or
subordinated to any consideration whatsoever. It
demands total independence in function and in motive.
To a creator, all relations with men are secondary. 


Men have been taught that it is a virtue to agree with
others. But the creator is the man who disagrees. Men
have been taught that it is a virtue to swim with the
current. But the creator is the man who goes against
the current. Men have been taught that it is a virtue
to stand together. But the creator is the man who
stands alone. 

To know one's own desires, their meaning and their
costs requires the highest human virtue: rationality. 

That something happened to you is of no importance to
anyone, not even to you. The important thing about you
is what you choose to make happen - your values and
choices. That which happened by accident - what family
you were born into, in what country, and where you
went to school - is totally unimportant. 


It stands to reason that where there's sacrifice,
there's someone collecting sacrificial offerings.
Where there's service, there's someone being served.
The man who speaks to you of sacrifice, speaks of
slaves and masters. And intends to be the master. 

Individual rights are the means of subordinating
society to moral law. 


There can be no such thing, in law or in morality, as
actions forbidden to an individual, but permitted to a
mob. 


To rest one's case on faith means to concede that
reason is on the side of one's enemies- that one has
no rational arguments to offer. 


When personal judgement is inoperative (or forbidden),
men's first concern is not how to choose, but how to
justify their choice. 


To discuss evil in a manner implying neutrality, is to
sanction it.

Politics is based on three other philosophical
disciplines: metaphysics, epistemology and ethics- on
a theory of man's nature and of man's relationship to
existence. It is only on such a base that one can
formulate a consistent political theory and achieve it
in practice. When, however, men attempt to rush into
politics without such a base, the result is that
embarrassing conglomeration of impotence, futility,
inconsistency and superficiality which is loosely
designated today as "conservatism." 

Individual rights are not subject to a public vote; a
majority has no right to vote away the rights of a
minority; the political function of rights is
precisely to protect minorities from oppression by
majorities (and the smallest minority on earth is the
individual). 

The action required to sustain human life is primarily
intellectual: everything man needs has to be
discovered by his mind and produced by his effort. 






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