All of Rand's women smoked to excess because Rand did herself. Dominique Francon had issues, but Patricia Neal was a babe in the movie. Read Martha Nussbaum for an interesting take on Rand.
Originally Posted by jokacz
I'll give it a read. My master's thesis explored a few aspects of Rand's philosophy. She credits Aristotle and Aquinas, for example; yet the vital core of her philosophy, albeit with changes, is Nietzschean. Though stands against communism (a/k/a dialectical materialism) she not only accepts communism's materialistic premise (which leads to contradictions such as an inability to tax a free people in order to provide for defense of their freedom) but also copies ideas wholesale from members of the Frankfurt School, most especially Erich Fromm. On top of this, she accepts the Lysenkoist view of human plasticity crucial to Marxism as expressed through the Boasian school of anthropology. This radical nurturance premise that ignores all influence of nature leads to errors in her attributions of motivation in her psychoepistemology that have been magnified by exponents such as Hurd.
In short, I have some familiarity with the fact that, like all products of human intelligence; her philosophy and fiction fall short of the ideal.
Nevertheless, I appreciate her sense of life, her championing of what Fromm would describe as "man for himself" and her reasoned connection of the conservative premise that "ideas have consequences." So I don't throw out the baby with the bathwater.
Dagny can just get some nicorette and we'll be fine. lol
xxx
