Practicing Philosophy and Revolution/Dunayevskaya

[Sato]

Ronbo,

I can't swallow Ayn Rand whole, though of course I appreciate her devotion to Aristotle.

Focusing on the topic of government, it seems necessary to me that government have a positive regulatory function. This might be in opposition to strict laissez faire capitalism, for instance in matters of public concern over damage to the environment.

Rand wanted to live in a positively classic heroic world, and this is understandable in light of her strong aversion to the many nasty political developments during the first half of the 20th Century which conformed to WB Yeats' characterization in 'The Second Coming:'

"Turning and turning in the widening gyre
The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity..."


But is "Randian" man the exemplar of "the best?" I think not, since there is so much in philosophy, and in nobility of heart that Rand could not gather into her sphere of concerns.

S