Civility
is the ability to disagree with others while respecting their sincerity and decency. Civility begins with understanding. We can best understand our political differences by first understanding the moral foundations upon which political views are built. This site features research, resources, and commentary related to the pursuit of Civility through understanding.
Checked the The New Republic site, this aritcle is a book review for the two books mentioned about Rand. I’m more ok with it from that stand point. A book review that wants to make her seem relevant…ok. An objective argument that she’s the ‘it girl’ for conservative thought is ridiculous on it’s face, just as the writer probably wouldn’t want Walter Lippman as the poster child for liberal thought (more on Lippman later, he was quite negative, ironically one of two founders of the The New Republic). By putting the ideas in novel form Rand may have exposed an audience to out of favor ideas, but I’m not sure she had a truly original contribution to anything.
I do fin it comforting that he thinks the dialog has moved to teh fundamental question of whether redistribution is right or wrong, even if he finds it discouraging.
Note that he cites no statistics to support his claims. There’s a reason. Take a look at the income distribution, note that the categories aren’t even so the results look skewed:
I get the luck piece but more in a Gladwell sense: luck makes some people super-succesful not that success is all luck which seems to be his premise.
Thoughtful article, or at least seemingly so. I wonder how he would explain the founding fathers attitudes, with Ayn Rand some 200 years distant?