As Astonishing As Elvis!
We're off for a three week cruise around the Horn, but will continue to read L&P on the ship.
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I finally had a chance to mention the Turner essay at Notablog. Take a look here.
I just got done reading that: it's mostly crap, actually. Her argument for why Rand's books are bad: they got bad reviews (she omits the good one in the NYT). Her argument for why Rand's philosophy is bad: none. She takes it as self-evident that capitalism is bad, so since Rand is all about the capitalism, Objectivism is trash. Other strikes: Adoring quotation from the granddaddy of hatchet jobs, Whittaker Chambers' review, which she doesn't mention appeared in National Review. Factual errors like the names of characters. Thinks Zizek is the most imoportant philosopher to say anything about Rand. And worst, it's nominally a book review, but doesn't actually review the book. It's just an exercise in Rand-bashing, based on the not-unreasonable assumption that LRB readers will be leftoids who agree that it's self-evidently true that capitalism is evil. I don't self-identify as an "Objectivist," but I think Rand deserves to be taken a lot more seriously than this trash would lead one to believe.