On Tue, 17 Mar 2009 12:47:06 -0700 (PDT), Frogwatch
wrote:

On Mar 17, 3:19 pm, HK wrote:
Frogwatch wrote:
On Mar 17, 12:50 pm, Dymphna
wrote:
I would like to read that book. My daughter just finished it and told me
there were scenes in it I would not approve of (I am very prudish). But
it finally got her interested in politics, which is what the book is
about. It is about how Socialism takes over and she could see it. She
read it because of a scholarship that is being offered with an essay on
the book. But in the end I think it did her some good. (Do you know how
frustrating it is to be heavy into politics and have children who don't
care? ggggrrrrr!)

She did tell me the same thing you did about the first few hundred
pages - it was hard for her to get through that part and she reads like
the wind.

--
Dymphna
Message Origin: TRAVEL.com

Am about 250 pages into it, yes, there is sex but nothing explicit,
yet. Some people might consider the main character and her lover to
be "amoral" yet they are true to their own moral code. At first, the
idea that doing "good works" with no thought of personal gain is not
necessarily good seems odd but Rand seems intent on hammering the
theme that self interested works that happen to benefit others are
best.
The book will make you question "works of charity", for example, Rand
would probably not approve of giving aid to Africa with nothing in
return. Experience shows she may be right.

Rand is the perfect metaphorical writer for today's GOP "I've got mine,
I'm going to get yours, too, so **** you."

Read Ms. Rand in the seventh grade or so, both the fountainhead and
atlas shrugged. More turgid prose from a professional novelist i have
never encountered. :)

--
Appearing via Thunderbird on an iMac 3.06
or a Macbook Pro 2.4, running Mac OS 10.56,
*or* Microsoft VISTA through BootCamp.

HK must not have understood the book. It is really about "If I am
able to get mine, you will be able to get yours too", however, "It is
not my concern if you do not get yours if you are incompetent".
Another theme of the book is "If we maximize fairness (as defined by
equal access to resources), everybody becomes poor".
My biggest problem with the book is with Rands basic philosophy that
morality is defined by doing what is best for you as long as it doesnt
hurt anyone else and that "charitable acts" that do not benefit
yourself are nonsense. These are somewhat at odds with Judea-
Christian morality. The first part of the previous sentence is a
subset of J-C morality but the second is at odds with J-C morality. J-
C morality says that one should do "charitable acts" even if they do
not benefit yourself in any way. I mostly subscribe to J-C morality
although the part about charitable acts is NOT logically defensible.
Rand's morality is logically defensible.
Consequently, one could say that non-self interested charitable acts
are based on religious ideas so the govt should not engage in them
although the govt should engage in self interest that happens to be in
others interest. For example, my sister argues that the US
intervening in Bosnia was a high form of morality because we had no
interest in doing so but that intervening in Iraq was wrong because
although we did remove Saddam, we had self interest in doing so. I
argue that if we had to choose one or the other, that intervening in
Iraq was more logically defensible because we did have an interest in
doing so.

I've never, to my knowledge, performed a charitable act of any kind
that did not benefit me.

The question becomes, "How do you define 'benefit'?"

If I donate a day's labor to the church, I get nothing in return
*except* a feeling of satisfaction for having given something.
Donating cash to a breast cancer foundation does me no good, except
for a feeling of satisfaction.

Without that feeling of satisfaction, I doubt if there would be any
charitable acts. Giving away a dollar to get thirty cents back on
income tax sure isn't a way to get wealthy.
--
John H

"The democracy will cease to exist when you take away from those
who are willing to work and give to those who would not."
Thomas Jefferson