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Rand and Gladwell represent opposites of the scale.

by KeshRivya 18y ago

fallentimes 18y ago
Exactly. Chances are the answers lies somewhere in the middle...
- anamax 18y ago
  Or the answer could be on an entirely different scale, so they're equally wrong.
  - unalone 18y ago
    Any examples of how this would work? I'm a bit confused.
    - anthonyrubin 18y ago
      If it were found that people are more or less productive/successful based on the amount of iron in their diets during early childhood they would both be proven wrong (this example is strictly for illustration). I believe that there are many contributing factors and possible paths to productivity and success (as well as many ways to measure both).
      - unalone 18y ago
        Okay, gotcha.
SwellJoe 18y ago
As far as I'm concerned they're talking about two orthogonal subjects, and I think it takes a bit of cloudy thinking to conflate the two. Rand never posited that people are born productive. Productive people are productive by virtue of doing things, in Ayn's world...while a lot of other people are envious of the doing and stand in their way. People can become productive. Individualism requires that people can do whatever it is they want to do, as long as it doesn't harm another. Rand wasn't talking about what childhood occurrences make for a Galt or a Roarke. Perhaps she believed they were pre-destined, but I can't think of a single instance where that was indicated in her writing (and I went through a two year Rand phase in college...I've read just about everything she ever wrote). And certainly not in Atlas Shrugged or The Fountainhead. Gladwell, on the other hand, is saying that people we view as stars in their field are sometimes given a more obvious path to becoming stars than others, and thus things society does can help or hinder people who would be productive. I don't think Rand would argue that there aren't people in the world who can help you as well as people in the world who can hinder you. Note that I'm not making any judgment call on either idea. I'm just not seeing how anyone could come away thinking this article is a useful addition to the subject (or subjects, in this case, since there are two under discussion, and somehow the author believes they contradict one another). I agree with others that this is blogspam, making use of hot button names like Gladwell and Rand. It's almost as if they have a machine that churns out high hit ideas...
- walterk 18y ago
  Rand never made her sociological understanding of how people become productive explicit because she sort of didn't have any. That's what enables her to view the highly productive and the less productive (or unproductive or even counterproductive) as good and evil, respectively. If she actually understood the subtle forces at work, she wouldn't have been so quick to judge.
  - SwellJoe 18y ago
    I don't disagree with that. It doesn't alter the fact that the author of the article manages to misunderstand a lot of things, and then presents it as useful discourse. I just wanted to call out that cloudy thinking. It's a pet peeve.
  - miked 18y ago
    Rand doesn't view those of lesser productivity as "evil", assuming they aren't leaching off of others when they could be providing for themselves. She simply viewed them as uninteresting: they aren't the people changing the world. She was admittedly quite harsh in her judgement of what constituted "productive". She described the character of Eddie Willers in _Atlas Shrugged_ as "a typical man of mediocrity", and he was a top-level exec in a large railroad company! It's too bad, really. There is so much good in her philosophy that gets obscured by her personnal flaws and her limited (and self-admitted) lack of understanding of human psychology. _The Fountainhead_ is a great novel, raw and bitter and steeped in human struggle as few books are. It has a dozen flaws, but it's still one of the greatest books I've ever read. There is a scene in it where Roark and Dominique discuss the chemical properties of the different kinds of marble. Boring right? It has to be one of the greatest extended allegories ever written. (TASTE the dialog there. Slippery silibants suggesting sly secrets of the soul.)
- unalone 18y ago
  Yeah. That's another misconception of Rand's work, I think. People assume that Rand is saying that people are inherently good or inherently evil. That's absolutely not the case. She says that they're inherently imbalanced, that we aren't all perfectly equal, but that we still have the freedom to decide which side of her argument we stand on. Look at Guy Francon in The Fountainhead, who is a fool and a faker but who decides, in the end, to support his daughter. Or look at Fred Kinnan, in Atlas Shrugged, who is talented and bright enough to know that he's doing the wrong thing, who is morally straight, but who decides that compromise is inevitable and that it's worth him sacrificing himself if it means protecting the people underneath him. Rand has imperfections in her writing, but she doesn't have a lot of the ones that she's accused of. And it makes discussing her online rather difficult. Neither side wants to admit the virtues of the other side.

Rand and Gladwell represent opposites of the scale.

fallentimes 18y ago

Exactly. Chances are the answers lies somewhere in the middle...

anamax 18y ago
Or the answer could be on an entirely different scale, so they're equally wrong.
- unalone 18y ago
  Any examples of how this would work? I'm a bit confused.
  - anthonyrubin 18y ago
    If it were found that people are more or less productive/successful based on the amount of iron in their diets during early childhood they would both be proven wrong (this example is strictly for illustration). I believe that there are many contributing factors and possible paths to productivity and success (as well as many ways to measure both).
    - unalone 18y ago
      Okay, gotcha.

SwellJoe 18y ago

As far as I'm concerned they're talking about two orthogonal subjects, and I think it takes a bit of cloudy thinking to conflate the two. Rand never posited that people are born productive. Productive people are productive by virtue of doing things, in Ayn's world...while a lot of other people are envious of the doing and stand in their way. People can become productive. Individualism requires that people can do whatever it is they want to do, as long as it doesn't harm another. Rand wasn't talking about what childhood occurrences make for a Galt or a Roarke. Perhaps she believed they were pre-destined, but I can't think of a single instance where that was indicated in her writing (and I went through a two year Rand phase in college...I've read just about everything she ever wrote). And certainly not in Atlas Shrugged or The Fountainhead. Gladwell, on the other hand, is saying that people we view as stars in their field are sometimes given a more obvious path to becoming stars than others, and thus things society does can help or hinder people who would be productive. I don't think Rand would argue that there aren't people in the world who can help you as well as people in the world who can hinder you. Note that I'm not making any judgment call on either idea. I'm just not seeing how anyone could come away thinking this article is a useful addition to the subject (or subjects, in this case, since there are two under discussion, and somehow the author believes they contradict one another). I agree with others that this is blogspam, making use of hot button names like Gladwell and Rand. It's almost as if they have a machine that churns out high hit ideas...

walterk 18y ago
Rand never made her sociological understanding of how people become productive explicit because she sort of didn't have any. That's what enables her to view the highly productive and the less productive (or unproductive or even counterproductive) as good and evil, respectively. If she actually understood the subtle forces at work, she wouldn't have been so quick to judge.
- SwellJoe 18y ago
  I don't disagree with that. It doesn't alter the fact that the author of the article manages to misunderstand a lot of things, and then presents it as useful discourse. I just wanted to call out that cloudy thinking. It's a pet peeve.
- miked 18y ago
  Rand doesn't view those of lesser productivity as "evil", assuming they aren't leaching off of others when they could be providing for themselves. She simply viewed them as uninteresting: they aren't the people changing the world. She was admittedly quite harsh in her judgement of what constituted "productive". She described the character of Eddie Willers in _Atlas Shrugged_ as "a typical man of mediocrity", and he was a top-level exec in a large railroad company! It's too bad, really. There is so much good in her philosophy that gets obscured by her personnal flaws and her limited (and self-admitted) lack of understanding of human psychology. _The Fountainhead_ is a great novel, raw and bitter and steeped in human struggle as few books are. It has a dozen flaws, but it's still one of the greatest books I've ever read. There is a scene in it where Roark and Dominique discuss the chemical properties of the different kinds of marble. Boring right? It has to be one of the greatest extended allegories ever written. (TASTE the dialog there. Slippery silibants suggesting sly secrets of the soul.)
unalone 18y ago
Yeah. That's another misconception of Rand's work, I think. People assume that Rand is saying that people are inherently good or inherently evil. That's absolutely not the case. She says that they're inherently imbalanced, that we aren't all perfectly equal, but that we still have the freedom to decide which side of her argument we stand on. Look at Guy Francon in The Fountainhead, who is a fool and a faker but who decides, in the end, to support his daughter. Or look at Fred Kinnan, in Atlas Shrugged, who is talented and bright enough to know that he's doing the wrong thing, who is morally straight, but who decides that compromise is inevitable and that it's worth him sacrificing himself if it means protecting the people underneath him. Rand has imperfections in her writing, but she doesn't have a lot of the ones that she's accused of. And it makes discussing her online rather difficult. Neither side wants to admit the virtues of the other side.