Freedom of speech

by Guest 08.12.12 20:12

Who is John Galt?

Blacksmith?

What's happening?

by Guest 08.12.12 20:27

by Guest 08.12.12 20:30

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I've no idea what's going on with Blacksmith but the above link could be relevant.

by Guest 08.12.12 20:36

Eh? What do you mean Portia?

by Guest 08.12.12 20:44

candyfloss wrote:Eh? What do you mean Portia?

There is no way apparently we can communicate with John Blacksmith directly.

I hope he's either on the Forum, or follows the Forum.

I'd like to know -reading his latest comments- if the quote 'Who is John Galt' rings a bell with him and if so, will he please elucidate?

I'm not into a confusing game with anyone, but on the other hand, anyone reading the works of the late Ayn Rand would know what I'm talking about.

Sorry if I didn't make myself clear right from the start. I apologise.

by **Tony Bennett** 08.12.12 23:24

Portia wrote:...on the other hand, anyone reading the works of the late Ayn Rand would know what I'm talking about...

Oh dear, this is the first mention of Ayn Rand on the forum. I hope she can soon be forgotten.

Her nihilist philosophy, strangely known as 'Objectivism', maybe because she claimed her philosophy was based on 'reason', notoriously inspired Anton Lavey to found the Church of Satan. He openly admitted that his Satanist cult was founded on the writings of Ayn Rand.

Hardly surprising, when you learn that Ayn Rand's early hero, whom she practically worshipped, William Edward Hickman, was a sadistic serial killer who ended up dismembering a 12-year-old's body even after the desperate parents had actually paid the ranson money - one of the single most despicable crimes of the twentieth century. Hickman's lawyers tried that well-worn trick of claiming that a man who cunningly and sadistically planned and executed these murders was mentally ill and 'unfit to plead'. The American courts didn't buy that and he was justly hanged for his atrocious crimes.

As Mark Ames wrote (26 February 2010) in:

ATLAS SHRIEKED: Ayn Rand’s First Love and Mentor Was A Sadistic Serial Killer Who Dismembered Little Girls

QUOTE

So what, and who, was Ayn Rand for and against? The best way to get to the bottom of it is to take a look at how she developed the superhero of her novel, Atlas Shrugged, John Galt. Back in the late 1920s, as Ayn Rand was working out her philosophy, she became enthralled by a real-life American serial killer, William Edward Hickman, whose gruesome, sadistic dismemberment of 12-year-old girl named Marion Parker in 1927 shocked the nation. Rand filled her early notebooks with worshipful praise of Hickman. According to biographer Jennifer Burns, author of Goddess of the Market, Rand was so smitten by Hickman that she modeled her first literary creation - Danny Renahan, the protagonist of her unfinished first novel, The Little Street - on him.

What did Rand admire so much about Hickman? His sociopathic qualities: “Other people do not exist for him, and he does not see why they should,” she wrote, gushing that Hickman had “no regard whatsoever for all that society holds sacred, and with a consciousness all his own. He has the true, innate psychology of a Superman. He can never realize and feel ‘other people.’”

This echoes almost word for word Rand’s later description of her character Howard Roark, the hero of her novel The Fountainhead: “He was born without the ability to consider others.”

(The Fountainhead is Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas’s favorite book - he even makes his clerks learn it.)

I’ll get to where Rand picked up her silly Superman blather from later - but first, let’s meet William Hickman, the “genuinely beautiful soul” and inspiration to Ayn Rand. What you will read below - the real story, details included, of what made Hickman a “Superman” in Ayn Rand’s eyes - is rather gory reading, even if you’re a longtime fan of true crime “Death Porn” - so prepare yourself. Because you should read this to give Rand’s ideas their proper context, and to repeat this over and over until all of America understands what made this fucked-up Russian nerd’s mind tick…

[REST SNIPPED AS TOO GRUESOME TO REPEAT ON THIS FORUM]

UNQUOTE

Here's a bit more on the subject from Wikipedia:

QUOTE

In 1928, the writer Ayn Rand began planning a novel called The Little Street, whose hero, Danny Renahan, was to be based on "what Hickman suggested to [her]." The novel was never finished, but Rand wrote notes for it which were published after her death in the book Journals of Ayn Rand. Rand wanted the hero of her novel to be "A Hickman with a purpose. And without the degeneracy. It is more exact to say that the model is not Hickman, but what Hickman suggested to me."^[4] Rand scholars Chris Matthew Sciabarra and Jennifer Burns both interpret Rand's interest in Hickman as a sign of her early admiration of the ideas of Friedrich Nietzsche, especially since she several times referred to Hickman as a "Superman" (in the Nietzschean sense).^[5]^[6]^[7]

UNQUOTE

Ayn Rand was one very angry woman, but reserved her deepest, bitterest hate for Jesus Christ and for Christians...

by Guest 09.12.12 9:36

We live and learn - I'd never heard of this writer before.

by Guest 09.12.12 12:15

Tony Bennett wrote:
Portia wrote:...on the other hand, anyone reading the works of the late Ayn Rand would know what I'm talking about...
Oh dear, this is the first mention of Ayn Rand on the forum. I hope she can soon be forgotten.

Her nihilist philosophy, strangely known as 'Objectivism', maybe because she claimed her philosophy was based on 'reason', notoriously inspired Anton Lavey to found the Church of Satan. He openly admitted that his Satanist cult was founded on the writings of Ayn Rand.

Hardly surprising, when you learn that Ayn Rand's early hero, whom she practically worshipped, William Edward Hickman, was a sadistic serial killer who ended up dismembering a 12-year-old's body even after the desperate parents had actually paid the ranson money - one of the single most despicable crimes of the twentieth century. Hickman's lawyers tried that well-worn trick of claiming that a man who cunningly and sadistically planned and executed these murders was mentally ill and 'unfit to plead'. The American courts didn't buy that and he was justly hanged for his atrocious crimes.

As Mark Ames wrote (26 February 2010) in:

ATLAS SHRIEKED: Ayn Rand’s First Love and Mentor Was A Sadistic Serial Killer Who Dismembered Little Girls

QUOTE

So what, and who, was Ayn Rand for and against? The best way to get to the bottom of it is to take a look at how she developed the superhero of her novel, Atlas Shrugged, John Galt. Back in the late 1920s, as Ayn Rand was working out her philosophy, she became enthralled by a real-life American serial killer, William Edward Hickman, whose gruesome, sadistic dismemberment of 12-year-old girl named Marion Parker in 1927 shocked the nation. Rand filled her early notebooks with worshipful praise of Hickman. According to biographer Jennifer Burns, author of Goddess of the Market, Rand was so smitten by Hickman that she modeled her first literary creation - Danny Renahan, the protagonist of her unfinished first novel, The Little Street - on him.

What did Rand admire so much about Hickman? His sociopathic qualities: “Other people do not exist for him, and he does not see why they should,” she wrote, gushing that Hickman had “no regard whatsoever for all that society holds sacred, and with a consciousness all his own. He has the true, innate psychology of a Superman. He can never realize and feel ‘other people.’”

This echoes almost word for word Rand’s later description of her character Howard Roark, the hero of her novel The Fountainhead: “He was born without the ability to consider others.”

(The Fountainhead is Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas’s favorite book - he even makes his clerks learn it.)

I’ll get to where Rand picked up her silly Superman blather from later - but first, let’s meet William Hickman, the “genuinely beautiful soul” and inspiration to Ayn Rand. What you will read below - the real story, details included, of what made Hickman a “Superman” in Ayn Rand’s eyes - is rather gory reading, even if you’re a longtime fan of true crime “Death Porn” - so prepare yourself. Because you should read this to give Rand’s ideas their proper context, and to repeat this over and over until all of America understands what made this fucked-up Russian nerd’s mind tick…

[REST SNIPPED AS TOO GRUESOME TO REPEAT ON THIS FORUM]

UNQUOTE

Here's a bit more on the subject from Wikipedia:

QUOTE

In 1928, the writer Ayn Rand began planning a novel called The Little Street, whose hero, Danny Renahan, was to be based on "what Hickman suggested to [her]." The novel was never finished, but Rand wrote notes for it which were published after her death in the book Journals of Ayn Rand. Rand wanted the hero of her novel to be "A Hickman with a purpose. And without the degeneracy. It is more exact to say that the model is not Hickman, but what Hickman suggested to me."^[4] Rand scholars Chris Matthew Sciabarra and Jennifer Burns both interpret Rand's interest in Hickman as a sign of her early admiration of the ideas of Friedrich Nietzsche, especially since she several times referred to Hickman as a "Superman" (in the Nietzschean sense).^[5]^[6]^[7]

UNQUOTE

Ayn Rand was one very angry woman, but reserved her deepest, bitterest hate for Jesus Christ and for Christians...

Thanks Tony,

All her 'hero' characters (Roark, Galt) are very strange and without any humour. I didn't know about Hickman. Maybe there's some sort of redemption because Rand apparently intended tot create a Hickman with a purpose and without the degeneracy. But still.. Scary & weird!