Alan Greenspan in the middle. I only know that from listening to NPR on Friday. I HATE that book. I stopped half way in. I was up and down the whole time.
"The Arabs are one of the least developed cultures. They are typically nomads. Their culture is primitive, and they resent Israel because it's the sole beachhead of modern science and civilization on their continent. When you have civilized men fighting savages, you support the civilized men, no matter who they are."
I dont understand the ill feelings towards Ms. Rand. Her principles inspired the people that created the greatest economic expansion, on a global scale, the humanity has ever seen. Whats the problem with that?
looks to be a far more interesting - and relevant economist than Ayn Rand.
Jack Klompus, Rand had ideas that were sorta new, revolutionary, and romantic to people at one time. For me that time was when I was about 12. Eventually I, like most people, matured into a far more complex understanding of the world.
Mostly I just blame Ayn Rand for launching Howard Roark as the mythic figure of what an architect is. We all suffer under that image.
I always hated the Fountain Head. I'm familiar with Atlas Shrugged. It's an old book but it was more like a fable or morality play, not something to be taken quite so literally.
I still have a copy of Atlas Shrugged from when a young banker at Goldman Sachs whom I was staying with in Manhatten around 1974 gave me his dog eared, underlined and noted copy. It was sort of like the bible to his group. Remember the times they were living in and the decay all around the nation at the time. Im just saying before you slam her try understanding the pretext for which it was written. It may not be the book for you at this time but in the 40s it was very forward reaching.
Her "principles" did not extend to all of humanity. She limited them to the status quo...to peoples and ethnicities she supported and related to. She had no qualms about characterizing Arabs as savages. She called them animals. She viewed them as subhuman terrorists. Check out her interview with Donahue where she discusses politics in the middle east. This is typical colonialist rhetoric. These beliefs completely diminish her integrity as a thinker, activist, and intellectual. I find it hard to believe that someone who exhibits such blatant disregard and hate for an entire race of people can possibly be loved and admired by so many people. Then again, I think her admirers usually exhibit the same lack of cultural sensitivity as she did.
As far as I'm concerned, her contributions in literature were best characterized as 'shit lit' than anything of real substance. And her intellectual contributions were greatly diminished and negated by her cultural ignorance.
She was an Eastern European Jew and thus had a sort of natural bias against Arabs. That's wrong but it shouldn't detract from the body of work. Che Guevara had firing squads and kill groups but his face is everywhere, many architects we love to study sympathized with Nazis - Im just saying many creative types have heroic flaws (every great musical act) but try to separate the work from the person. I dont think she supported colonialism seeing as how she was part of a repressed group herself but I do think her message that there's a danger in institutionalizing compassion should'nt be automatically thrown away. Take it with a grain of salt.
"I dont think she supported colonialism seeing as how she was part of a repressed group herself"
Ummm...She was an outspoken supporter of Israel. Israel is a colonial state. Just because the Jewish people were victims of the Holocaust doesn't mean their war crimes against Palestinians can be absolved. She supported occupation...and to me that's not a virtue I wish to forgive. This hypocrisy clouds my interpretation of her works. Sorry, I don't take racism and complete ignorance with a grain of salt.
Jack...that was one clip. She has many other offensive comments.
I agree...she was a crazy old lady. But she was also crazy when she was young as well. That was her most consistent attribute.
The essence of her philosophy seems to have been "I've got mine, Jack. . ." (to slightly alter the well-known British (?) WWII-era bon mot). Self-interest is natural, and therefore good, is another way of putting it. Take what you can get out of life -- it's Survival of the Fittest.
I had a conservative work-mate once who said to me "Altruism is phony; there isn't anybody who isn't thinking of his own needs, every minute of the day." I didn't know it -- maybe he didn't either -- but he could have been quoting Rand.
Libertarian world-view ? Laissez-faire capitalism ? What's wrong with it ? Ask Greenspan today, if you can find him. His parting shot: "I found out the theory I based my life on was wrong. Thank you and good night."
FP, there is some moderate truth to that as there usually is an ounce of truth to all racist commentary and ideology.
There's a correlation between Semitic culture and desertification-- whether religiously it be muslim or jewish.
Kashrut (as well as similarly related Halal) in terms of religious context may make a lot of sense but from an ecological perspective is a disaster.
I don't know the habits of every single person in the Middle East but a majority of the protein sources in the middle east are for either sheep or goats.
While I seem to be nitpicking on one single item, this is a problem that effects everyone.
The reason? Sheep and goats are on of the primary accelerates of desertification. Meaning, the more people and the higher the wealth, the faster the Middle East rapidly becomes a parched desert.
We may not have historical data beyond the past two hundred years... however the data we do have suggests that the muslim (and or jewish) parts of the world are rapidly becoming deserts.
Why is this an issue? Because most of the turmoil in the Middle East in the last century has started over land use and water rights issues. From Iraq to Sudan, we're not looking at religious wars much to everyone's fascinations, we're essentially looking at water rights wars.
The more you accelerate desertification, the less the potable water.
If both jewish and muslim people could diversify their diets, we could perhaps see less violence!
You know... maybe you all could stoop so low as to eat some eff'ing rabbit or camel.
While I hate Ayn Rand, I will defend the right to limited racism... which in this case Semitic and Arab people are destroying their landscape because of an outdated religious food law.
This is a decision they are actively making. This is something mutual to their continent. This is nothing something genetically attached to their being.
This is the problem with anti-racist commentary is that some "races" do make active decisions that lead to strife in their own personal worlds.
If someone doesn't want to eat pig or rabbit or hyrax or camel because of a religious decision... then I do not feel sorry for them when they are wasting away in a desert with no food to eat. You made that decision and your society suffers for it.
I mean Americans have stopped eating a lot of rainforest-related foods because we give a damn (our intentions are not exactly matching up with the actual situation)... but these are still decisions of choice.
I will not sympathize with either party until they realize that they create their own problems from not eating sustainable foods "in the name of god," managing their own personal and very limited water rights (accelerated by food choices), stop blaming other people that the whole subcontinent is drying up and live with the fact that their environment is damage beyond repair.
Also, to point out, these people would probably have less sewage and water issues if they didn't wash everything 7 times with clean water, once with pure wet sand and accept the fact science says 99.9% of things are clean if you soak them in water that is at least 160 degrees Fahrenheit.
I dont understand the ill feelings towards Ms. Rand. Her principles inspired the people that created the greatest economic expansion, on a global scale, the humanity has ever seen. Whats the problem with that?
That would be Adam Smith. Smith was/is a real force to be reckoned with. Rand is a simpleton by comparison.
to snook... i only cheated (which wasnt cheated... it took like 15 seconds to find on google) because I couldnt identify greenspan's mom. I could get the other four and Ayn Rand's background husband is quite the stud!
Orochi: "Why is this an issue? Because most of the turmoil in the Middle East in the last century has started over land use and water rights issues. From Iraq to Sudan, we're not looking at religious wars much to everyone's fascinations, we're essentially looking at water rights wars."
this is complete rubbish.
water rights are becoming an issue, but they are an issue because colonial fragmentation of the Middle East - a result of Western intervention and use of the Middle East as a proxy for colonial expansions - has produced a residue of un-supportable and disjointed political entities under the name of states.
goats and sheep may not be the best animals for arid land (but this is highly debatable), but the region has operated with this as SOME (let's not forget the amount of chicken, beef and other sources eaten in these regions) of the prime sources of "meat" (as opposed to protein) for over 2500 years. somehow it didn't lead to "desertification" until the last 30 - 50 years.
basically, the consumption per capita for meat in 1989 (with varying increases since then, depending on georgraphy) suggests that it is not the amount of meat consumption that is the problem:
1989 and then 2002 - kilograms per capita
North America: 112.0 123.2
Europe: 70.0 74.3
South America: 48.2 69.7
Asia: 16.0 27.8
Middle East and North Africa: 21.5 25.7
i think it is safe to say that it is NOT the production of goats and sheep in the Middle East that is the cause of conflict.
here are the amounts per country for 1989 and then 2002:
I'm sure you have a point in there somewhere, but I can't for the life of me decipher what it is and why it's applicable to my comments on Rand's racist rants.
If your point is that food and water are the source of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, I'd like to direct your attention to Exhibit A: Occupation & Apartheid
the real problem is in how the west/modern/civilised world continues to deal with those parts of the planet that remain uncivilised. referring to them as "wars" is the wrong description.
the nature of the problem has much more in common with the settlement of the american west & the elimination of resistance from indigenous people (for example) than it does with any idea of two equal nations waging battle against each other. to a calm head, its rather perplexing that strategies of genocide or nuclear obliteration aren't seriously being considered.
hmmm...on second thought, i suppose such strategies have been considered. i guess we just don't hear about them much in the public discussion.
I think people have been misreading Rand's stance on self reliance. My take from having read the book was that there are people of extraordinary talent and drive that create big things, think Apple and Steve Jobs, Henry Ford and Bill Gates, and to them we should be thankful because they essentially provide things for us to do. I also took from the book a sense of fragility to the whole system, that if people really knew how it all could come tumbling down we would probably freak out. I thought the book was about non-producers attacking the producer class. I didnt think it any racial overtones, and never thought about her personally.
FP - I think you summed up Ayn Rand pretty well when you said:
"Her "principles" did not extend to all of humanity. She limited them to the status quo...to peoples and ethnicities she supported and related to. ... These beliefs completely diminish her integrity as a thinker, activist, and intellectual."
I think her philosophy is anti-human. There is no room for the real moments of weakness, compromise, and emotion that is a part of actually living. The Grapes of Wrath is a novel that presents much better philosophical model for humanity.
When I bought Atlas Shrugged at a used bookstore in Harvard Square, the clerk said "Be careful with this, it could ruin your life." Seems like a fitting disclaimer.
i have a problem with her idea of idealized, heroic figure operating on some "other" plane outside human existence. this false notion of the cited individuals creating something wholly their own without any collective input is a quaint and flawed notion.
this country was created through collective efforts and shared ideas/ideals, and what ever happened to the idea that no man is an island??
corb 'worked' w/ the vichy just over a year from '41 to '42 - working on a 'new direction' for the architecture of defeated france.
like PJ, corb was a bit of a whore, i don't think that makes him a 'sympathizer' - he was positioning himself. during that time, he mostly wrote and painted. charlotte and pierre joined the resistance, and then after the war, corb secured a number of commissions for resistance fighters.
Ann Rand
Can you identify the people in this photo? One is Ann Rand
for those who want to know the juicy parts about Ann....read on:
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/01/books/review/Kirsch-t.html?em
Ayn*
Gerald Ford, and I assume his wife.
The man on the right looks familiar, but can't place him.
Alan Greenspan in the middle. I only know that from listening to NPR on Friday. I HATE that book. I stopped half way in. I was up and down the whole time.
"The Arabs are one of the least developed cultures. They are typically nomads. Their culture is primitive, and they resent Israel because it's the sole beachhead of modern science and civilization on their continent. When you have civilized men fighting savages, you support the civilized men, no matter who they are."
-Ayn Rand, in 1974
Good riddance, dumb racist.
Is that Nelson Rockerfeller on the right?
Ayn Rand was a real crush for Greenspan.
That's Vice President Rockefeller?
i think that's Dracula or Bela Lugosi's corpse.
Rose Goldsmith, mother of Alan Greenspan; President Ford; Greenspan; Rand; and her husband, Frank O’Connor.
wait i know who the one on the end is|
Orochi You cheated....now you must have sex with randy ayn!
I dont understand the ill feelings towards Ms. Rand. Her principles inspired the people that created the greatest economic expansion, on a global scale, the humanity has ever seen. Whats the problem with that?
That's an interesting quote, FP.
damn photo.
guy on right end|
her principles and the fallout you speak of is the problem.
hey - doesn't that guy have an italian restaurant in nyc?
looks to be a far more interesting - and relevant economist than Ayn Rand.
Jack Klompus, Rand had ideas that were sorta new, revolutionary, and romantic to people at one time. For me that time was when I was about 12. Eventually I, like most people, matured into a far more complex understanding of the world.
Mostly I just blame Ayn Rand for launching Howard Roark as the mythic figure of what an architect is. We all suffer under that image.
i was a street kid grew up in the ghetto @ asia, so i didn't fall for the howard roark's trick^^
but i still dun understand fountainhead, seem so different from other ann rand's writing....
Atlas Shrugged was like x100 times bettah.
I always hated the Fountain Head. I'm familiar with Atlas Shrugged. It's an old book but it was more like a fable or morality play, not something to be taken quite so literally.
I still have a copy of Atlas Shrugged from when a young banker at Goldman Sachs whom I was staying with in Manhatten around 1974 gave me his dog eared, underlined and noted copy. It was sort of like the bible to his group. Remember the times they were living in and the decay all around the nation at the time. Im just saying before you slam her try understanding the pretext for which it was written. It may not be the book for you at this time but in the 40s it was very forward reaching.
Jack,
Her "principles" did not extend to all of humanity. She limited them to the status quo...to peoples and ethnicities she supported and related to. She had no qualms about characterizing Arabs as savages. She called them animals. She viewed them as subhuman terrorists. Check out her interview with Donahue where she discusses politics in the middle east. This is typical colonialist rhetoric. These beliefs completely diminish her integrity as a thinker, activist, and intellectual. I find it hard to believe that someone who exhibits such blatant disregard and hate for an entire race of people can possibly be loved and admired by so many people. Then again, I think her admirers usually exhibit the same lack of cultural sensitivity as she did.
As far as I'm concerned, her contributions in literature were best characterized as 'shit lit' than anything of real substance. And her intellectual contributions were greatly diminished and negated by her cultural ignorance.
ann's era reminds me the lord of the rings- it repeatedly saying in the movie- the east is evil, they are lesser being but we are being outnumbered!
i think she was just being outspoken at that time, i'm sure many intellectuals shared the same view including the lord of the rings!
She was an Eastern European Jew and thus had a sort of natural bias against Arabs. That's wrong but it shouldn't detract from the body of work. Che Guevara had firing squads and kill groups but his face is everywhere, many architects we love to study sympathized with Nazis - Im just saying many creative types have heroic flaws (every great musical act) but try to separate the work from the person. I dont think she supported colonialism seeing as how she was part of a repressed group herself but I do think her message that there's a danger in institutionalizing compassion should'nt be automatically thrown away. Take it with a grain of salt.
I just watched that clip FP - she sounds like a crazy old lady, maybe thats all that quote was.
вот как начала́сь война́!
"I dont think she supported colonialism seeing as how she was part of a repressed group herself"
Ummm...She was an outspoken supporter of Israel. Israel is a colonial state. Just because the Jewish people were victims of the Holocaust doesn't mean their war crimes against Palestinians can be absolved. She supported occupation...and to me that's not a virtue I wish to forgive. This hypocrisy clouds my interpretation of her works. Sorry, I don't take racism and complete ignorance with a grain of salt.
Jack...that was one clip. She has many other offensive comments.
I agree...she was a crazy old lady. But she was also crazy when she was young as well. That was her most consistent attribute.
ugh. there is a whole generation of morons who would have been better off reading jane jacobs then this idiot.
and jack, what architects 'sympathized' with Nazis?
The essence of her philosophy seems to have been "I've got mine, Jack. . ." (to slightly alter the well-known British (?) WWII-era bon mot). Self-interest is natural, and therefore good, is another way of putting it. Take what you can get out of life -- it's Survival of the Fittest.
I had a conservative work-mate once who said to me "Altruism is phony; there isn't anybody who isn't thinking of his own needs, every minute of the day." I didn't know it -- maybe he didn't either -- but he could have been quoting Rand.
Libertarian world-view ? Laissez-faire capitalism ? What's wrong with it ? Ask Greenspan today, if you can find him. His parting shot: "I found out the theory I based my life on was wrong. Thank you and good night."
FP, there is some moderate truth to that as there usually is an ounce of truth to all racist commentary and ideology.
There's a correlation between Semitic culture and desertification-- whether religiously it be muslim or jewish.
Kashrut (as well as similarly related Halal) in terms of religious context may make a lot of sense but from an ecological perspective is a disaster.
I don't know the habits of every single person in the Middle East but a majority of the protein sources in the middle east are for either sheep or goats.
While I seem to be nitpicking on one single item, this is a problem that effects everyone.
The reason? Sheep and goats are on of the primary accelerates of desertification. Meaning, the more people and the higher the wealth, the faster the Middle East rapidly becomes a parched desert.
We may not have historical data beyond the past two hundred years... however the data we do have suggests that the muslim (and or jewish) parts of the world are rapidly becoming deserts.
Why is this an issue? Because most of the turmoil in the Middle East in the last century has started over land use and water rights issues. From Iraq to Sudan, we're not looking at religious wars much to everyone's fascinations, we're essentially looking at water rights wars.
The more you accelerate desertification, the less the potable water.
If both jewish and muslim people could diversify their diets, we could perhaps see less violence!
You know... maybe you all could stoop so low as to eat some eff'ing rabbit or camel.
While I hate Ayn Rand, I will defend the right to limited racism... which in this case Semitic and Arab people are destroying their landscape because of an outdated religious food law.
This is a decision they are actively making. This is something mutual to their continent. This is nothing something genetically attached to their being.
This is the problem with anti-racist commentary is that some "races" do make active decisions that lead to strife in their own personal worlds.
If someone doesn't want to eat pig or rabbit or hyrax or camel because of a religious decision... then I do not feel sorry for them when they are wasting away in a desert with no food to eat. You made that decision and your society suffers for it.
I mean Americans have stopped eating a lot of rainforest-related foods because we give a damn (our intentions are not exactly matching up with the actual situation)... but these are still decisions of choice.
I will not sympathize with either party until they realize that they create their own problems from not eating sustainable foods "in the name of god," managing their own personal and very limited water rights (accelerated by food choices), stop blaming other people that the whole subcontinent is drying up and live with the fact that their environment is damage beyond repair.
Also, to point out, these people would probably have less sewage and water issues if they didn't wash everything 7 times with clean water, once with pure wet sand and accept the fact science says 99.9% of things are clean if you soak them in water that is at least 160 degrees Fahrenheit.
Philip Johnson was a Nazi sympathizer, and so was Charles Lindbergh; the child murdering pilot...
That would be Adam Smith. Smith was/is a real force to be reckoned with. Rand is a simpleton by comparison.
That is Ayn Rand's husband. I didn't know she was married.
to snook... i only cheated (which wasnt cheated... it took like 15 seconds to find on google) because I couldnt identify greenspan's mom. I could get the other four and Ayn Rand's background husband is quite the stud!
Orochi: "Why is this an issue? Because most of the turmoil in the Middle East in the last century has started over land use and water rights issues. From Iraq to Sudan, we're not looking at religious wars much to everyone's fascinations, we're essentially looking at water rights wars."
this is complete rubbish.
water rights are becoming an issue, but they are an issue because colonial fragmentation of the Middle East - a result of Western intervention and use of the Middle East as a proxy for colonial expansions - has produced a residue of un-supportable and disjointed political entities under the name of states.
goats and sheep may not be the best animals for arid land (but this is highly debatable), but the region has operated with this as SOME (let's not forget the amount of chicken, beef and other sources eaten in these regions) of the prime sources of "meat" (as opposed to protein) for over 2500 years. somehow it didn't lead to "desertification" until the last 30 - 50 years.
with regards to the impact of these meat consumption within the Middle east and North Africa, perhaps a view to this site would be useful:
http://earthtrends.wri.org/text/agriculture-food/variable-193.html
basically, the consumption per capita for meat in 1989 (with varying increases since then, depending on georgraphy) suggests that it is not the amount of meat consumption that is the problem:
1989 and then 2002 - kilograms per capita
North America: 112.0 123.2
Europe: 70.0 74.3
South America: 48.2 69.7
Asia: 16.0 27.8
Middle East and North Africa: 21.5 25.7
i think it is safe to say that it is NOT the production of goats and sheep in the Middle East that is the cause of conflict.
here are the amounts per country for 1989 and then 2002:
Egypt: 15.8 22.5
Israel: 57.3 97.1
Jordan: 31.7 29.8
Lebanon: 39.7 63.1
Syria: 17.1 21.2
the racism you support (after all - they are too stupid to eat properly) is reprehensible and without any basis in fact.
saw this photo on a recent frontline:
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/warning/?utm_campaign=homepage&utm_medium=proglist&utm_source=proglist
inside the meltdown on financial crisis.. greenspan was a huge fan of ayn rand..
Orochi,
I'm sure you have a point in there somewhere, but I can't for the life of me decipher what it is and why it's applicable to my comments on Rand's racist rants.
If your point is that food and water are the source of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, I'd like to direct your attention to Exhibit A: Occupation & Apartheid
the real problem is in how the west/modern/civilised world continues to deal with those parts of the planet that remain uncivilised. referring to them as "wars" is the wrong description.
the nature of the problem has much more in common with the settlement of the american west & the elimination of resistance from indigenous people (for example) than it does with any idea of two equal nations waging battle against each other. to a calm head, its rather perplexing that strategies of genocide or nuclear obliteration aren't seriously being considered.
hmmm...on second thought, i suppose such strategies have been considered. i guess we just don't hear about them much in the public discussion.
I think people have been misreading Rand's stance on self reliance. My take from having read the book was that there are people of extraordinary talent and drive that create big things, think Apple and Steve Jobs, Henry Ford and Bill Gates, and to them we should be thankful because they essentially provide things for us to do. I also took from the book a sense of fragility to the whole system, that if people really knew how it all could come tumbling down we would probably freak out. I thought the book was about non-producers attacking the producer class. I didnt think it any racial overtones, and never thought about her personally.
FP - I think you summed up Ayn Rand pretty well when you said:
"Her "principles" did not extend to all of humanity. She limited them to the status quo...to peoples and ethnicities she supported and related to. ... These beliefs completely diminish her integrity as a thinker, activist, and intellectual."
I think her philosophy is anti-human. There is no room for the real moments of weakness, compromise, and emotion that is a part of actually living. The Grapes of Wrath is a novel that presents much better philosophical model for humanity.
When I bought Atlas Shrugged at a used bookstore in Harvard Square, the clerk said "Be careful with this, it could ruin your life." Seems like a fitting disclaimer.
jack said many architects we love to study sympathized with Nazis.
which is balogna.
i know about PJ. i'm waiting on the 'many other architects' who were supposedly nazi sympathizers.
Charles Lindbergh wasn't an architect.
i have a problem with her idea of idealized, heroic figure operating on some "other" plane outside human existence. this false notion of the cited individuals creating something wholly their own without any collective input is a quaint and flawed notion.
this country was created through collective efforts and shared ideas/ideals, and what ever happened to the idea that no man is an island??
Le Corbusier was a nazi sympathizer, hence his split with Pierre Jeanneret who joined the French Resistence.
corb 'worked' w/ the vichy just over a year from '41 to '42 - working on a 'new direction' for the architecture of defeated france.
like PJ, corb was a bit of a whore, i don't think that makes him a 'sympathizer' - he was positioning himself. during that time, he mostly wrote and painted. charlotte and pierre joined the resistance, and then after the war, corb secured a number of commissions for resistance fighters.
so back to the 'many'
Take your Ritalin Holz
watch out, klompus, you're messing with the encyclopedia of architecture there.
what, can't back up your ridiculous allegations (again) jack?
if you're referring to my meds, i take bupropion for moderate depression.
for all of her faults, at least rand understood that some people are better than others...obviously a lesson that many architects to learn.
Puddles,
Regarding your first post...exactly which people do you consider "uncivilized."
Regarding your second, exactly which people are you saying are "better" and which are not?
Please be specific with your answers.
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