I presume this was heavily downvoted because of the Rand.
Yeah, that's the norm here, sadly. You can post a list of 20 books and if one of them is by Rand, your post will be down-voted into oblivion. It's almost like some people have this Pavlovian reaction when they see Rand's name.
I mean, I get that not everyone appreciates her works, and that's fine and totally understandable. "Different strokes" and all that. But the zeal with which her haters go on the attack is a bit strange.
2. Rand makes some points that some people need to learn, even if I don't buy her whole worldview.
Exactly. This is the same reason that I have copies of Mein Kampf, The Communist Manifesto and Mao's Little Red Book on my shelf waiting to be read. I don't have to agree with a work to find benefit in reading it. Quite the opposite... I believe that if I'm going to argue against something, I should probably have a reasonable understanding of it. And I prefer to go to primary sources than rely on secondhand commentary.
I tried to read Mein Kampf and could not. The language is just so incredibly bureaucratic and dull that I gave up after 50 pages. Maybe it reads better in German, but I can't read German.
I suspect a lot of dogmatic texts are the same way. Rand is at least not a total drag to read even though I find a lot of her ideas hilarious (chief of which is: the very ethical, honest, and hard working rich people).
Yeah, that's the norm here, sadly. You can post a list of 20 books and if one of them is by Rand, your post will be down-voted into oblivion. It's almost like some people have this Pavlovian reaction when they see Rand's name.
I mean, I get that not everyone appreciates her works, and that's fine and totally understandable. "Different strokes" and all that. But the zeal with which her haters go on the attack is a bit strange.
2. Rand makes some points that some people need to learn, even if I don't buy her whole worldview.
Exactly. This is the same reason that I have copies of Mein Kampf, The Communist Manifesto and Mao's Little Red Book on my shelf waiting to be read. I don't have to agree with a work to find benefit in reading it. Quite the opposite... I believe that if I'm going to argue against something, I should probably have a reasonable understanding of it. And I prefer to go to primary sources than rely on secondhand commentary.