William F. Buckley vs. Ayn Rand: Ayn Rand's Revenge

[Selene]

Steven:

I understand that you can be "reading challenged" in terms of Ayn.

If you noticed, I stated:

"...It supports the Library of Congress reference that Atlas Shrugged ranks second to the Bible..."

As you can see, I highlighted the operative word in RED, as it seems to be the color that most appeals to your mental vision.

"...the Library of Congress conducted a study..."

I know that you will be able to see the errors of your ways now!

Adam

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

Kimmler,

In reply to your offline statements, people with a axe to grind denigrate popularity with the general public all the time. But they usually fall into switch and bait. Their idea is to claim that those who mention popularity are using this as their sole standard of merit, thus they are very, very shallow people.

Honk!

(That was the Oversimplification-For-An-Agenda bleeper signal, or, as I like to call it, the Sound Bite Stopper.)

The question is not whether something is good if it is popular to the general public. The question is whether it is relevant to the people buying it.

I use the premise that people buy stuff on their own volition because it is relevant to them and their interests.

Rand continues to be popular to the buying general public after half-a-century, not just popular to Objectivists, therefore she continues to be relevant to the general public.

That is reality.

Notice that the popularity of Battlefield Earth reflects a limited--not long-lasting--relevance to the general public.

You might want to reflect on what causes staying-power relevance-wise. Especially when people have to plunk down their own hard cash to keep that relevance alive.

You asked offline about the input of ARI purchases into Ayn Rand product sales figures. There is some input, but it is from wholesale purchases, not something like Amazon. ARI--or anyone--would be stupid to bulk buy at retail prices.

You can check Amazon popularity at the Amazon site, and you can get wholesale figures (but jobber to bookstore figures, not publisher data per se) on a thread I made about another book (see the routine for checking Ingram warehouse sales).

I've just now given you some tools, that is if you are truly interested in facts. Are you a true "worker" or an armchair intellectual?

(Don't forget, "Workers of the world unite!" From your posts, I believe this resonates with you and you definitely do not want to be excluded from the "worker" category. "Armchair intellectuals of the word unite!" just doesn't have the same ring, does it? )

Now, if you are truly interested in Rand's popularity qua worker, not qua armchair intellectual, I think you have some homework to do...

Michael