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> Zinn’s approach to history essentially inverted the traditional approach that placed the rich and powerful ... To tell history from the perspective of the opp
by hirundo 6y ago
> Zinn’s approach to history essentially inverted the traditional approach that placed the rich and powerful ... To tell history from the perspective of the oppressed and marginalized
The mirror image of Ayn Rand. I wonder if there is anyone at the intersection of their fandoms.
- m0zg 6y agoPeople don't understand what Ayn Rand's writings are. It's basically a deliberate anti-communist screed from someone who experienced it in real life, whereas e.g. Marx's work is a deliberate pro-communist screed. Both are meant to be extreme, and neither presents a viable blueprint for a society.
- WaxProlix 6y agoRand wrote fiction novels, and Marx was - irrespective of your views on his output - a well respected philosopher and well known, if controversial economist. Equating the two is... super off base. Crucially, you can make any point you want when writing a novel, since you set up the world and the characters and get to choose the reactions of everything. Marx at least wrote about the real world, and our ability to critique that work rests at least in part upon its claims about the real world.
- m0zg 6y agoBe that as it may, his work is still an extreme pro-communist screed. It is not viable as a consistent view of the world, just like Atlas Shrugged isn't. I'm not equating the two in other aspects. As to writing whatever you want, Marx did write the most insane and damaging things in his work. His work, in fact, led directly to tens of millions of deaths in 20th century, and the way I see it, the damage is not yet over, as some idiot somewhere will always be tempted to live off somebody else's money, just like Marx himself did.
- jolux 6y agoHe wasn't describing an ideal but problematic society like you claim Rand was though. Have you read Marx? He was developing philosophical technique for analyzing history, politics, and economics.
- voidhorse 6y agoUnfortunately, most people that feel the need to comment vehemently in opposition to the very mention of Marx's name haven't read Marx, nor do they understand that the "communism" of Marx is not the one they've been taught is the ultimate evil (tm) while the capitalist billionaires evade taxes, laugh their way to the bank, and ensure America remains a country in which 1% of the inhabitants live in the 0th world while 99% slip into the 3rd. Oh well. :(
- jolux 6y agoI mean, I don't call myself a communist anymore, mostly because I think the term has been irrevocably poisoned and now refers to the authoritarian states of the USSR and China, which are surely no leftist's view of the best of socialism. Marx's criticism of capitalism is immensely valuable though, I would argue regardless of your political affiliation.
- hirundo 6y agoThe term has been irrevocably poisoned not because it is associated with authoritarian states but because it reliably leads to them.
- calvinmorrison 6y agoHave you read "We the living"? I believe it was her first book published. It's a homage to her life as a middle class person living through the soviet world she was in.
- ajtulloch 6y ago> St. Petersburg in revolt gave us Vladimir Nabokov, Isaiah Berlin and Ayn Rand. The first was a novelist, the second a philosopher. The third was neither but thought she was both. Many other people have thought so too. In 1998 readers responding to a Modern Library poll identified Atlas Shrugged and The Fountainhead as the two greatest novels of the twentieth century—surpassing Ulysses, To the Lighthouse and Invisible Man. In 1991 a survey by the Library of Congress and the Book-of-the-Month Club found that with the exception of the Bible, no book has influenced more American readers than Atlas Shrugged. – Corey Robin in "The Reactionary Mind"
- oivey 6y agoRand wrote fiction, not even anything purporting to be history.
- hirundo 6y agoShe is best known for fiction but was also a prolific essayist. The essays expound on her theories of history, economics, and philosophy. See https://aynrand.org/novels/ https://aynrand.org/novels/, bottom of the page for the non-fiction.