My two newly ordered books just arrived 2 days before. I am really excited about it. They are the two masterpieces of Ayn Rand, The Fountainhead and Atlas Shrugged. One cool fact about the author, Ayn Rand, is that she created a whole new philosophy on her own, named Objectivism.
Oddly enough, I knew her through a Xbox360 game, Bioshock. I firstly watched the game review of Jeremy Jahns on youtube (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sSdzPSAobdI). The storyline is really interesting, and so I watched the whole serie of walkthrough of the game by TmarTn2 (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tcMMgJytiL4). The game is very good in my opinion, eventhough I had never played the game and I don't think I will. The game has many references from the two books I mentioned and the setting is an underwater city founded on the philosophy of Objectivism, named Rapture. But the game kinda shows the danger of Objectivism. In short, all I mentioned above really got me interested and I felt I have to get to know Objectivism better, and so I hit the book.
The books, at the first impression, are huge in volume. One with 700 pages and another one with over a thousand pages, with compact paragraphs on each page. It is going to take me some time to be able to finish them both, especially both are books of ideas which require a lot of deep reflection. Honestly, this is probably the first time I read such a long fiction.
Actually before I started the book, I watched an interview with Ayn Rand herself about her new philosophy (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1ooKsv_SX4Y). About the video, eventhough I can understand why the host of the show is constantly arguing with her, but I still think the host is kinda rude. Objectivism, dealing with selfishness, against altruism and all, it is fundamentally against all my believes and my own set of philosophy, simply because I grew up in a society where altruism is told to be noble, and sacrifices are needed for the happiness of the collective, and because I believe love is the most powerful force in our world (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u8DOy6gI9A0)
I don't believe in laisser-faire capitalism, which she strongly suggested. I strongly believe in love and faith and the power of emotions. I believe humans should be driven by both emotions and reasons, and not solely by reasons. From the interview, Ayn Rand seems to me like an emotionless, cruel human being, so as the protagonist in The Fountainhead, Howard Roark. The person I respect the most is her husband, for being able to fall in love with her, because I don't think I can accept the fact that she believes she fell for me for her own interest.
The books, at the first impression, are huge in volume. One with 700 pages and another one with over a thousand pages, with compact paragraphs on each page. It is going to take me some time to be able to finish them both, especially both are books of ideas which require a lot of deep reflection. Honestly, this is probably the first time I read such a long fiction.
Actually before I started the book, I watched an interview with Ayn Rand herself about her new philosophy (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1ooKsv_SX4Y). About the video, eventhough I can understand why the host of the show is constantly arguing with her, but I still think the host is kinda rude. Objectivism, dealing with selfishness, against altruism and all, it is fundamentally against all my believes and my own set of philosophy, simply because I grew up in a society where altruism is told to be noble, and sacrifices are needed for the happiness of the collective, and because I believe love is the most powerful force in our world (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u8DOy6gI9A0)
I don't believe in laisser-faire capitalism, which she strongly suggested. I strongly believe in love and faith and the power of emotions. I believe humans should be driven by both emotions and reasons, and not solely by reasons. From the interview, Ayn Rand seems to me like an emotionless, cruel human being, so as the protagonist in The Fountainhead, Howard Roark. The person I respect the most is her husband, for being able to fall in love with her, because I don't think I can accept the fact that she believes she fell for me for her own interest.
But I am still very interested in her philosophy, because I always think, one wants to see the whole picture, in this case the ultimate truth which I am still not sure what it means, one needs to see through all different points of view, the popular and socially well accepted ones, and also the unorthodox ones. That's why my next choice of book is probably also an unorthodox one, Mein Kumpf by Adolf Hitler.
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