She didn't influence it enough considering the fact that the government has become the very authoritarian regime she warned us about and no one did a thing to stop it.
unfortunately her work, which is in my view vastly and deliberately mischaracterized, has served as some focal point to attack free market economic activity. People have been conditioned to think of it as some rejection of faith. I think the philosophical system is much more nuanced. She argues her own convictions about issues of faith but again her ultimate argument is that people be left free and absent coercion from outside forces to use come to their own rational conclusions.
I don't think she has. If you asked the average American who she was or what she believed you'd draw a blank expression. America is what it has always been from the beginning, a nation of ambitious free people not prone to being told how to live or what to think.
We don't live in a vaccum nor do we continually reinvent the "wheel". There are people, thoughts, and ideas that have shapes you even without your knowledge.
M_Pross - I wish I could agree with you, but all evidence points in the opposite direction. Americans are no longer ambitious, free people. Over 90% of US voters are about to vote for two of the worst candidates this nation has ever seen. The vast majority have NO CLUE how the Electoral College works and WHY it is necessary to ensure freedom. Almost EVERYONE agrees that it is acceptable for government to use FORCE to take property from rightful owners in order to benefit others. No - Americans are now, for the most part, sheep - bleating for the protection of a shepherd who will lead them to slaughter.
Yes, that is what America was from the beginning, and even before that. But it is Ayn Rand who first explicitly identified the rational egoistic morality upon which that "American Spirit" was based. And not just the morality but the philosophic foundations of that morality. Ayn Rand pointed out in "Introduction to Objectivist Epistemology" that not explicitly identifying your knowledge exposes you to the risk of loosing that knowledge. With her identification of the philosophic basis of the "American Spirit" there is a much better chance that it will flourish in the future. Allan T. Jenks N. Royalton, OH
@@AllanJenks-kt8vn Very well said. As for the OP, I don't know what "America" this person is referring. Must be living in Texas or Idaho. Something other than most of middle America. If You go talk with people from Ohio, Colorado, California... You will find a seething hatred of success, a distain for individualism, a rejection of science and reason, and a large fraction of the populace entrenched in religious ideology.
*"If you asked the average American who [Rand] was or what she believed you'd draw a blank expression" You'd get the same result if you asked about Kant or Hume as well. But the average American can regurgitate principles of theirs (and many other philosophers) quite readily, despite not knowing the specific philosophy from which those principles came nor the specific philosophers who created them. The same is true of Rand. (And Yaron points out how this manifested in regard to Rand and America today - both at the individual and the "cultural" level.)
Ayn Rand has had an impact on a substantial number of thinking people. But she's unknown in the larger culture, where capitalism remains a dirty word.
She didn't influence it enough considering the fact that the government has become the very authoritarian regime she warned us about and no one did a thing to stop it.
unfortunately her work, which is in my view vastly and deliberately mischaracterized, has served as some focal point to attack free market economic activity. People have been conditioned to think of it as some rejection of faith. I think the philosophical system is much more nuanced. She argues her own convictions about issues of faith but again her ultimate argument is that people be left free and absent coercion from outside forces to use come to their own rational conclusions.
I don't think she has. If you asked the average American who she was or what she believed you'd draw a blank expression. America is what it has always been from the beginning, a nation of ambitious free people not prone to being told how to live or what to think.
We don't live in a vaccum nor do we continually reinvent the "wheel". There are people, thoughts, and ideas that have shapes you even without your knowledge.
M_Pross - I wish I could agree with you, but all evidence points in the opposite direction. Americans are no longer ambitious, free people. Over 90% of US voters are about to vote for two of the worst candidates this nation has ever seen. The vast majority have NO CLUE how the Electoral College works and WHY it is necessary to ensure freedom. Almost EVERYONE agrees that it is acceptable for government to use FORCE to take property from rightful owners in order to benefit others.
No - Americans are now, for the most part, sheep - bleating for the protection of a shepherd who will lead them to slaughter.
Yes, that is what America was from the beginning, and even before that. But it is Ayn Rand who first explicitly identified the rational egoistic morality upon which that "American Spirit" was based. And not just the morality but the philosophic foundations of that morality. Ayn Rand pointed out in "Introduction to Objectivist Epistemology" that not explicitly identifying your knowledge exposes you to the risk of loosing that knowledge. With her identification of the philosophic basis of the "American Spirit" there is a much better chance that it will flourish in the future.
Allan T. Jenks
N. Royalton, OH
@@AllanJenks-kt8vn
Very well said.
As for the OP, I don't know what "America" this person is referring. Must be living in Texas or Idaho. Something other than most of middle America. If You go talk with people from Ohio, Colorado, California... You will find a seething hatred of success, a distain for individualism, a rejection of science and reason, and a large fraction of the populace entrenched in religious ideology.
*"If you asked the average American who [Rand] was or what she believed you'd draw a blank expression"
You'd get the same result if you asked about Kant or Hume as well. But the average American can regurgitate principles of theirs (and many other philosophers) quite readily, despite not knowing the specific philosophy from which those principles came nor the specific philosophers who created them.
The same is true of Rand. (And Yaron points out how this manifested in regard to Rand and America today - both at the individual and the "cultural" level.)