What if Ayn Rand Wrote Buffy the Vampire Slayer?

My political opinion is that Buffy the Vampire Slayer would be terrible if written by Ayn Rand. Lousy philosopher. Not much better as a writer.

http://the-toast.net/2014/09/26/ayn-rands-buffy-vampire-slayer/

 

Well, it was terrible already. At least the Rand version would be more realistic.

 

I don't agree that Rand was a lousy philosopher; I think her ideas have been adopted by lousy listeners. Her best book was Anthem, in my opinion, in which the protagonist, Liberty, realizes that he owes humanity nothing, but still feels a personal desire to share his rediscovered knowledge with humanity. It essentially implies that we should not feel forced to use our individual skills to help humanity but that we ought to feel a personal obligation to do so.

I can't disagree with that assertion.

 

This stuff is great. Some good writers have contributed.

Accurate caricature of Ayn Rand's wacky whirlwind of personal issues. Do her admirers have a rebuttal?

- - - Updated - - -

In terms of how gravity works, maybe. Not so much in terms of economics.

 

This is asinine.

Moronic liberal nonsense.

 

What if Bill Clinton wrote a book on Family Values?

 

He'd be laughed out of America.

Liberals place NO value on family values because those are conservative values that go along with conservative Christian religion.

And liberals everywhere hate conservatives more than anything else, with freedom and liberty and rights a close second.

 

I get all caught up in the gender issues in that one. Also, that ending reads Satanic to me, as though civilization has crumbled because people cared about each other more than themselves, and can only be rebuilt through selfishness.

I like the way you interpreted it, but I don't see it. I think when Prometheus says he's going to fight, he's being literal. That being the case, who's he going to be fighting?

 

Well, in terms of the economics of getting paid for risking your life, I think I would be asking the same thing. "How much does this gig pay?"

 

Can you be a little more specific.

- - - Updated - - -

As your friends and community were being murdered?

 

Untrue on all counts. But I've got a guess as to where you're confused.

To a liberal, most values are based on an inclusive principle. We include gay people, for example. That means that, in valuing and supporting families, you also value and support gay families as well as conservative Christian families.

To some people, values are based on exclusionary principles. Valuing families, to them, means not supporting gay people.

It's not that we don't have morals. It's that our morality isn't exclusionary in principle.

 

Then they should be especially motivated to put some money in my hand for jumping to the front of the "let's get murdered" line.

 

I would think so, sure. But would you withhold services until they paid?

Honestly, I don't think you would.

 

Nah, I guess I'd give them a payment plan.

 

Honestly I find people like Hayek, Mill and others far superior. I finally gave in and tried to read it since many Libertarians constantly refer to her. I don't get why. I did not get nearly the same amount of deep thought in a concise manner that I did with Mill and other authors. This might be that it was more of a story instead of a political piece but that just means she failed to write an entertaining story. I gave up after the first couple of chapters. If I get really bored I might watch the movie that came out last year but I have lots of other movies to watch first.

 

Now there's a myth if I've ever heard one.

 

Fair enough. But wouldn't that essentially amount to taxation?

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GTQnarzmTOc

Just in case you've never seen that. It's fun. And awesome. Best rap battle ever.

 

I assume that you eat food, wear clothes, live in a man-made shelter, etc., and that you obtain all these goods and services by exchanging money for them. How do you get this money? Perhaps you're a lottery winner, on public assistance, an heir, a criminal, or strangers give you money because you seem like a nice guy. If it's nothing like this, you must get your money by working to provide others with what they need or want - what's called a job or a business. For example, Michelle Gellar was paid money for playing Buffy. Now if I understand you, you're saying it's immoral to demand money in exchange for your work. Does this mean you do your own work for free? Or is it just that you get paid, but you'd like to live in a world where everybody else gave you the product of their work for free? Please explain.

 

What if Karl Marx wrote The Simpsons?

 

How does Buffy reconcile with that? A -chosen-, -special- person by birth who has super powers not due to effort or growth over time, but just because. Seems both exclusive and elitist. I don't think Rand is a good writer, but in her world, ascendance to the status of "slayer" would include lots of hard work.

 

Excellent question! Though I think the implied premise of your question, that money is the current system and therefore a moral default system, is wrong. Slavery was once the foundation of the economy, and you couldn't really be engaged in the economy without implicitly condoning slavery, but that didn't make slavery moral. And the same is true of the modern system, even though the slavery is mostly kept off the books now.

One of my biggest problems with Ayn Rand's writing is that all of her protagonists (I can't call such morally-flawed characters 'heroes') operate from a position where they're able to dictate the terms of all exchanges. That's not the position most people -- or really, any people -- find themselves in. I can't dictate the terms of all of the exchanges I engage in during the course of a day. That's not the way it works in an Ayn Rand story, where one person invariably has the one thing that everyone else needs, and needs absolutely nothing from anyone else. Rand's protagonists all live like Superman, only without any moral values.

In the real world, where most of us live at least some of the time, not only do you not get to dictate the terms of all your exchanges, you know you're getting screwed most of the time. You take what you can get. For the people at the top of the economic pyramid, the ones that have the leverage to dictate terms, it works out great. For the rest of us, not so much.

 

Don't me started on 'Chosen One' narratives and 'Hidden Kings.' They're everywhere. It's my biggest problem with Star Wars, too.

Funny how, in the Rand stories, hard work is mentioned as a requirement for greatness, but it's always hard work that only one person can do.

 

It's 40 years since I last read Rand, and I don't much care what people think of her. Her stories may be unreal, just as you say. But of course you're just using Rand to propel a simple version of leftism. So let's dispense with Rand and talk about what you're actually saying.

You're right in observing that people's leverage in exchanges varies with how much what they offer is wanted, and the availability of alternatives. That's both fair and natural. Fair because otherwise some would get less than they did for others, and some would get more. Both cases are obviously unjust. I understand that many feel they have little to offer, putting them at a permanent disadvantage. But I also understand that most people do far less than they're capable of, and that they could improve their situations by intelligent persistent effort. Those who work hard and give much are not obliged to subsidize indolence. Organizing to demand they do so is to raise indolence to the level of crime. That crime is near to the hearts of leftists.

But you should know that the promise of a world in which a majority of slackers are carried by a minority of producers is only political deceit. The leftist bosses who make this promise use it to get people to back their quest for power. Once they have the power, they use it to shut down dissent. They have no intention of delivering, not least because it's impossible. Suspend your desire for an easier life for a moment and ask yourself if it's possible for a society to consume more than it produces and survive indefinitely. That's obviously impossible, yet cynical pols continue to reach for power by dangling this false dream. Still more ironic is the way this false dream is said to be more moral than people getting what they have earned. As I said, not only is this immoral, it actually rationalizes criminal theft on a massive scale.

Look at the history of every socialist/communist/progressive nation - poverty and brutality for "the masses" until it all collapses. Yet here you are, pursuing the same suicidal end and calling it higher morality. It's no accident that the richest and freest societies in history have all been capitalist.

Remember that Marx's slogan was "From each according to his abilities; to each according to his needs." Modern leftists hear the second part, but stop their ears when it comes to the first. When people are ready to bear the responsibility of producing to the limit of their abilities, they have a moral claim on their needs being met.

P.S. Slavery has not been the basis of any modern economy. That may have been true long ago, but technology has made slavery uneconomical by comparison.

 

What? I tought myself that it was quite a good serie, with witty dialogues, drama, comedy and interesting takes. I'll even go as far as saying that some episodes were excellent.

"More realistic" ??? It's about a vampire slayer!