Fun with Objectivists!

Atrios points to a woman named Amber who writes a lot of stuff that relates Ayn Rand to, well, everything. It’s hilarious, really, because you can always tell a Randian by their logic: no matter what topic they are discussing, they follow the exact same train of thought. And I mean, the exact same. There is a Randian on one of the film music message boards I frequent, and that fellow applied that exact train of thought to film music that Amber applies to sexuality (and, really, this is one of the most mind-numbing essays I’ve ever encountered). The Randian train of thought goes like this:

1. A is A. (This is the Law of Identity.)

2. Logic is the Art of Non-contradictory identification.

3. Aristotle was a genius.

4. Nothing else of note happened in Philosophy after Aristotle until the clouds parted and Ayn Rand put pen to paper. (They may take a detour here to mouth-foamingly attack the work of Immanuel Kant.)

5. Because A is A, the X I am talking about right now is X.

6. Therefore, objectively, my opinions about X are true.

If you engage in any dialogue of any length with a Randian, sooner or later these exact points will come up. You could almost set your watch by it.

And for a truly breathtaking example of someone not having the faintest idea of what she is writing about, look at her screed on evolution. (P.Z. Myers might want to take a stiff drink before perusing that one. Ditto Dominion.)

If this woman gets a job writing somewhere, I just may shoot myself. Objectively.

(I’ve linked this article before, but it’s always good to bring it up again: Michael Shermer’s take on Rand’s followers, “The Unlikeliest Cult in History”.)