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[INTJ] The Fountainhead/Atlas Shrugged/Ayn Rand's Objectivism and INTJ's

Harlow_Jem

New member
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Apr 18, 2008
Messages
219
MBTI Type
eNTJ
Enneagram
8w9
I have never in my life read anything that I've found as important and amazing as The Fountainhead (just started Atlas Shrugged). The fictional world she's created is the INTJ's ideal; Howard Roark is the INTJ's ideal of man. She defines the dissent that the INTJ feels at the very core about the universe. The relationship between Roark and Dominique is what I would call real love even though other types would just call it some fucked up, weird version of a relationship. Her ideas are not eye/mind-opening but an affirmation that everything that I've felt but could not define is real not only to me but that there are others who feel and think the same.

Obviously, I don't completely agree with all her points of Objectivism but It's what I have lived with and for my whole life whether I'd realized it or not.

What do you guys think of her philosophy of Objectivism?
 

Clentizene

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Jun 1, 2008
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11
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enfp
Well Howard Roark is the easy one to type. What is Peter Keating? I'm sure he should remind all you intjs of someone you all hold dear in your hearts. I hope Toohey isn't enfpish in your minds. The strange thing I found about her novels is that she goes on such long rants, which is uncharacteristic in the ones I know.
 
Joined
May 27, 2008
Messages
1,026
MBTI Type
ENTP
By the time I finished Atlas Shrugged, I wanted to shoot myself... even when Dagny Taggart lands up in John Galt's magical little paradise...

Essentially... Ayn Rand believes everything has objective value... if it exists, we can value it, $ and all... emotions, relationships, etc. Her epistemology has dozens of statements which she asserts are self-evident, but aren't... she cannot admit the circularity of her arguments, something which postmodernist thinkers are more than willing to do... in other words, if I met Ayn Rand I would probably find her insufferable, which a lot of people did.

I don't enjoy her vision of the world at all, a world where listening to a concerto has to inspire feelings of o'erleaping ambition and not simply joy for joy's sake...
 

heart

heart on fire
Joined
May 19, 2007
Messages
8,456
The relationship between Roark and Dominique is what I would call real love even though other types would just call it some f'd up, weird version of a relationship.

Yes, very strange love. The Passion of Ayn Rand was entertaining however.
 

Haphazard

Don't Judge Me!
Joined
Apr 14, 2008
Messages
6,704
MBTI Type
ENFJ
I haven't read the stuff before but I'm smart enough to know that things that look good on paper many times don't translate well into reality.
 

SquirrelTao

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May 28, 2008
Messages
198
MBTI Type
INXX
I love both The Fountainhead and Atlas Shrugged as novels of ideas (ideas which I don't wholly agree with), though I see flaws in both novels. For one thing, Rand gives her characters long speeches in which they are mouthpieces for Objectivism. Yet, the speeches are often interesting! For another, I have a hard time warming up to the protagonists. I admire but do not like Howard Roark. Same goes for Dagny Taggert.

It's okay to put forth strong ideas even if they are not perfect. Other people can debate them and we can make progress. On the other hand, if every discussion consists of, "Well, everything is relative, let's hold hands!", then it's boring and leads to no progress.

EDIT: When I speak with disdain about saying everything is relative, I'm only thinking of frustration and boredom with people I knew a couple years ago who would short circuit every potentially fun debate by saying that everything is relative. Then that would be the end of the discussion. This remark was not aimed at anybody here.
 
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sriv

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Apr 19, 2008
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418
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JIxT
Something is wrong with her and it's too late to fix it.
 

rhinosaur

Just a statistic
Joined
Apr 23, 2007
Messages
1,464
MBTI Type
INTP
I think she is unable to see the inherent silliness of everything.
 

DigitalMethod

Content. Content?
Joined
May 4, 2008
Messages
970
MBTI Type
INTJ
Religion and Type - An MBTI Perspective

I found this interesting, although the author seems to be rather bitter. The author seems to create numerous stereotypes.
Ahem.. :coffee:
Quote referring to rationals:
These types are basically Godless and evil. Their choice of "faith" should reflect that.

I find that mildly offensive.
-Interesting, none the less.
 

Harlow_Jem

New member
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Apr 18, 2008
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219
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eNTJ
Enneagram
8w9
Religion and Type - An MBTI Perspective

I found this interesting, although the author seems to be rather bitter. The author seems to create numerous stereotypes.
Ahem.. :coffee:
Quote referring to rationals:
These types are basically Godless and evil. Their choice of "faith" should reflect that.

I find that mildly offensive.
-Interesting, none the less.

Hahaa, that's hilarious. Rationals are the anti-christ.
 
Joined
Jun 6, 2007
Messages
7,312
MBTI Type
INTJ
I'm an INTJ and I find Ayn Rand to be full of shit :)

She seems a particularly humorless person and I wouldn't care to live in a world governed by her ideas. I think that her concepts sound better than they'd work in real life because most of them run contrary to human nature. She's a lot like Lenin and Marx in that way.
 

Mondo

Welcome to Sunnyside
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Mar 1, 2008
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1,992
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EsTP
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6w7
The problem with Objectivism is that it doesn't work...no person is like John Galt.. even Ms. Ayn Rand.

Correct me if I am wrong but I have heard that Ayn Rand ("the objectivist") was against homosexuality and has said that men are intellectually superior to women (which is a case for Ayn Rand being a man in disguise, haha, jk of course).

I do agree with some of the things she writes about though such as the idea that it is immoral to take another person's idea and call it your own.
 

Kiddo

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Sep 25, 2007
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OMNi
I love that the OP isn't even phased by everyone dogging on Ayn Rand.

Objectivism has merit, but she totally screwed it up. One of these days a new philosopher is going to have to come around and completely recreate objectivism into a provisional philosophy so that it can coincide and evolve with science and mathematics. In other words, her axioms which she induced are irrelevant since they can neither be concisely proven nor disproven and are therefore as useful as a unicorn, unless they are accepted on faith. (like God) So by enacting her new philosophy, she only managed to create a new religion which encompasses the values of the rational. But values in themselves are irrational. So her philosophy, if taken seriously, is a contradiction to itself.
 

pure_mercury

Order Now!
Joined
Feb 28, 2008
Messages
6,946
MBTI Type
ESFJ
Enjoyed The Fountainhead and Anthem (and even We the Living, to an extent). I enjoyed the celebration of reason and the idea of Man as Hero, but I am not an Objectivist. Rand herself was a humorless, scary person who demanded cultish adoration and adherence to her worldview. Not exactly "living liberty" there.
 

cascadeco

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Oct 7, 2007
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INFJ
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9w1
Instinctual Variant
sp/sx
I remember really enjoying The Fountainhead. I also enjoyed the theme of Atlas Shrugged, up to a point, but was quite sick of Rands' 100+ pages of ranting/lecturing by the end of the book. I was like, 'Ok, I get it already. I got it in the first 50 pages...' That said, Atlas Shrugged did throw me into a big funk for a month or two, until I was able to purge her philosophy from my mind. ;)

Yeah..definitely a narrow view of things.
 

heart

heart on fire
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May 19, 2007
Messages
8,456
The problem with Objectivism is that it doesn't work...no person is like John Galt.. even Ms. Ayn Rand.

Correct me if I am wrong but I have heard that Ayn Rand ("the objectivist") was against homosexuality and has said that men are intellectually superior to women (which is a case for Ayn Rand being a man in disguise, haha, jk of course).

She also had ideas about things like Native Americans that were pretty hair curling to my view.

I do agree with some of the things she writes about though such as the idea that it is immoral to take another person's idea and call it your own.

Yes. There is truth mixed in with all of her nonsense. That's what makes it so misleading and seductive.
 

DigitalMethod

Content. Content?
Joined
May 4, 2008
Messages
970
MBTI Type
INTJ
Hair curling indeed.
Hypocritcal indeed.

She also had ideas about things like Native Americans that were pretty hair curling to my view.



Yes. There is truth mixed in with all of her nonsense. That's what makes it so misleading and seductive.

Ayn Rand:
"They didn't have any rights to the land, and there was no reason for anyone to grant them rights which they had not conceived and were not using . . . . What was it that they were fighting for, when they opposed white men on this continent? For their wish to continue a primitive existence, their 'right' to keep part of the earth untouched, unused and not even as property, but just keep everybody out so that you will live practically like an animal, or a few caves above it. Any white person who brings the element of civilization has the right to take over this continent."
 
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