tonight, not wanting to sleep, for various reasons, and because i am growingly, yet with staggered growth, more confidant i went back to your site on my bookmarks.
it seems, having read now the most of your posts surrounding this one, that you actually meant what you have written. i found it horrifying, to the point of not being able to read through the rest of your blog at all, when i first found the page. only because i thought you were being ironic. Very very ironic.

i don’t know how to proceed, since i have lived with the shadow of your intent for these months and not its truth…
I am a christian anarchist, and a nihilist; i love movies and music and thinking. I love life, but only because it affords me the ability to fight desperately and viciously. for me the world, which to a large degree is my self -since the type and character of my mind has given to me an almost literally solipsistic experience of reality a Great deal of the time- only gains value in that it is something to be overcome. One fights, many or all fight, because we have to, and we (i) wage war because it is right, because there is no choice, and because love commands a joyful giver. what could there be that would be better than a reality that demands our acquiescence and the betrayal of god? what could one take joy in more than the infinitesimal and infinitely repeating plowing of choice? what kills more than life? only a life that to be lived must die.

but you were serious; what you wrote.
i looked on the web – to find someone who claimed nihilism and christianity both; and there you were; and it was too much to believe. i thought you mocked my stance. i thought you made a game of my folly, my stubborn furrows, my struggle, my apostasy.

i am not wholly apostate, though that is a claim birthed of hope. i write a zine, titled Girding For War: A Journal Of Christian Anarchism. i am proudly and ridiculously a protestant. i hope upon hope that salvation is by grace, through faith. i further hope and take heart that my god and the Lord transcends us — that universalism still has something to say…

when not solipsistic i (one) can only laugh. the world is too horrible. the gospel is simply that: that light came into true darkness.
horrifying.

my two fav. movies are synecdoche new york and i’m still here. i wonder what you think of them.
my fav. bands are NMH and Catharsis – anarcho-punk metal.
i love humans, and the grace of kindness and the ridiculous. i love spit and fantasy and word and my god, who has saved me too many times to recall, it even seems and was and is, for that is grace, moment to moment. in all things i am saved from myself.

i wish you well, wherever this finds you.
i hope your health is well. i worry you are predisposed, the elapsed time since your last post, and not, rather, busy with new life. it always will come.

be well in grace sister.
L.L.

To answer the OP, Nietzsche’s definition, if that is indeed accurate, certainly isn’t how the term is understood by any semantical definition today. His post made it quite clear that he was discussing existential, or moral, nihilism.

Your claims would be dependent upon Christianity actually having undermined itself by its quest for truth. Setting aside the fact that we live in a world were absolute truth is almost precluded, Christianity’s valuing the truth has in no way undermined it over the course of the last 2000 years and I can see no conceivable reason why it should do so in the future.

Finally, Judeo-Christian morality is intrinsically linked to its divine isnpiration… the first, and most important commandment is to love God. Many theological perspectives emphasise how we are to implement Christian morality in our lives through more fully following this commandment. Were it not decreed by God it would, for a start, lose its rational basis – becoming nonsensical… given that it is inherently connected to God. As he stated it would simply be another subjective life philosophy… and a particularly stupid one given that Christianity largely disregards the idea of self-interest. In addition, as a rational actor, he has stated that he (like myself) would necessarily embrace nihilism. Finally, Christian moral thought itself recognises that “if only for this life we have hope in Christ, we are to be pitied more than all men” 1 Corinthians 15:19.

I also think that both still ultimately have the same overall thesis tying back to objectivism as a whole, and while Atlas Shrugged has a bit more of a grandiose scope, it’s still essentially the elite few individuals doing things in contrast to the rest of society, so the difference in scope felt more like a narrative choice rather than an actually different point to get across.

As far as the misogyny/domination issues, I may be giving her more benefit of the doubt than I should, but it seems reasonable to me that the scope of the “superior sex” business is limited to sexuality. I would actually think it would be in stark contrast (but not impossible, definitely) to objectivism if she thought there was some inherent difference in worth based solely on the gender you were born.

Additionally, in an Ayn Rand Q&A book, I recall her specifically answering the question that she believes males to be the superior sex (her words), at least sexually… that was the little caveat she added to make her comments sound less detestable. From reading multiple books by her now, and from watching multiple interviews of her, I have found that she had an extreme obsession with a sort of superior/inferior dichotomy… even going so far as to apply it to people. Some people are just, well, elite, by virtue of their superior minds, competency, and producing capabilities. Everyone else (the “masses/moochers/looters”) could just go to some sort of metaphorical hell.

I did read The Fountainhead in full, about 3-4 years ago. I found it to have a much more narrow scope, where it was focused more on the triumph of the truly radically individualized hero… Whereas Atlas Shrugged focuses more on broad-scale economic and philosophical issues. Yes, both books were her attempts at putting her “philosophy” of objectivism into fictionalized form, but Atlas Shrugged is the more broader-scoped book considered to be her magnum opus. It is the book that has been strongly recommended to me by objectivists, libertarians, and anarcho-capitalists innumerable… time and time again. And unfortunately I know a lot of these people. (A.R.A.s would be the more derogatory term for them, but I’m not going to go there).

I really appreciate your insight.

One is that I think (especially after a marathon viewing of the first 3 seasons of Mad Men) that her view of women was largely a product of her time. To draw a parallel to that show, it starts out seeming grossly misogynistic, but it evolves into more of a “making the best of the world they’re in” situation or perhaps taking small steps rather than trying to flip society in one fell swoop. This argument definitely applies MUCH more to Mad Men than to Atlas Shrugged, but it’s really difficult to see how radical it would be back then to make assertions that seem very tame or even downright backward now. In those days, being “taken” by a man was still the way to describe having a passionate experience, regardless of the context. I’ll try not to spoil anything, but later in the book you can see the same language being used in a different context with a more positive connotation. I can definitely say as a relatively intellectual male these days, the idea of a “victory worth winning” is still very real in terms of dating. It’s the difference between being with someone you respect versus someone you can con into sleeping with you. I don’t think she’s really gotten to it at the point you’re at, but she’ll distinguish that more later. The ideas of Rand being into BDSM on at least some level are spot on, though.

Also, Reardon is actually saying all those things about his wife in a derogatory (but not really misogynistic) way, though. Rand’s point in explaining it as such, in my opinion, is that his wife is the trophy wife of that time. His pride in “dragging her down” is actually orthogonal to his objectivism; he is getting pride out of impressing her with his success despite his disrespect for society’s (and her) way of life. He feels she is one of the members of society that is standing in the way of his (and Rand’s) ideal, so his only joy in their relationship is related to his relative ease of securing her as somewhat of a cover to allow him to actually do his business without being bothered as much by trivial society.

With all that said, The Fountainhead is much better. It gives you the same sense of inspiration and makes all of her points in 3-400 fewer pages than Atlas Shrugged, and I feel that the underlying story is more compelling as well (architects vs. trains, but that’s mostly inconsequential). I read The Fountainhead first, and I found Atlas Shrugged to be mostly unbearable comparatively, but I would definitely recommend The Fountainhead to anyone who finds anything remotely interesting in Atlas Shrugged.

I wrote that particular statement intentionally for a specific audience who I assume already accepts a form of spirituality. I know this is likely due to the demographics of my particular location in the country, but 95% of Rand’s philosophical adherents I have personally encountered have been self-professing Christians. That is who the comment was written for. Yes, I know I’m making assumptions, but I have personally encountered a lot of professed Christians who love Ayn Rand.

I pretty much agree with everything you’ve said here regarding the cinematic nature of the book (I’ve enjoyed the first 30 pages), and that it is admirable how Rand is able to lay out her ideas in the form of a novel (excepting the speech at the end). She was clearly a brilliant human being who made some very astute observations about the world. There is a great deal to be admired about her work. In reading her nonfiction and watching interviews with her, I do find quite a bit that I agree with… However, it is her main thesis, the crux of her entire worldview and philosophy, that I find fault with.

I just have a problem with how some people behave in reaction to her and her writings. Then again, I’m kind of suspicious of any personality or book that is taken for gospel.

I agree with this. But unfortunately in this case, those “some people” include the likes of Glenn Beck (who has quoted from Atlas on his show), Rush Limbaugh, Alex Jones, Ron Paul, most of the modern-day “tea party” crowd, and paranoid conspiracy theorists innumerable (Timothy McVeigh was a fan, for one: http://www.esquire.com/ESQ0501-MAY_MCVEIGH – note the “Have you ever read Ayn Rand’s Atlas Shrugged?” letter. There is other evidence of McVeigh’s admiration for Rand elsewhere on the web).

Rand’s philosophy gives people a superiority complex, as she believed that those who disagreed with her philosophy were not just wrong, but stupid, inferior, and basically unfit to even live. She implies her disdain for the idiotic “mooching” masses in her novels, and she stated it explicitly in videotaped interviews. Her books and philosophy are taken as gospel by many people right now, and they will forcefully argue with you in the most condescending way imaginable. I don’t think all of it can be accounted for by these people’s individual personalities… the condescension and arrogance is inherent in Rand’s core philosophy itself. That’s the problem.

Just my $.02