khaight

Yes, Rand was influenced by Nietzsche in her earlier years. This is very obvious if one reads her journals, particularly the notes for her project "The Little Street". She acknowledges the influence - and it's limits - in the introduction to the 25th anniversary edition of "The Fountainhead". But you have to keep those limits in mind. Rand was attracted to Nietzsche in her youth because he was one of the very few seeming defenders of the individual she had found in the western intellectual tradition. But as she matured intellectually she found his philosophy fundamentally flawed and she rejected it. What she 'took' from Nietzsche was his poetic reverence for the potential of man. What she rejected were the mystical and irrationalist ideas on which he based that reverence. Rand found a better basis in Aristotle, and built on that.

Yes, Rand was influenced by Nietzsche in her earlier years. This is very obvious if one reads her journals, particularly the notes for her project "The Little Street". She acknowledges the influence - and it's limits - in the introduction to the 25th anniversary edition of "The Fountainhead". But you have to keep those limits in mind. Rand was attracted to Nietzsche in her youth because he was one of the very few seeming defenders of the individual she had found in the western intellectual tradition. But as she matured intellectually she found his philosophy fundamentally flawed and she rejected it. What she 'took' from Nietzsche was his poetic reverence for the potential of man. What she rejected were the mystical and irrationalist ideas on which he based that reverence. Rand found a better basis in Aristotle, and built on that.

I should probably have put a smiley on my reply. I'm not affronted by the question, although I am going to decline to go into further details. Apologies for the miscommunication; that one's on me.

I agree.

None of your damn business.

I agree.

With all due respect I have to disagree with this response. Particularly when strong emotions are involved it is possible even for rational people to drop context or be confused about where their moral obligations lie. My wife and I fell in love over a period of about six months, while she still considered herself to be engaged to her then-current boyfriend. Our situation was quite similar to the one Ben described -- she was more attracted to me, but felt an obligation to her fiance; sex was involved, etc. Ultimately she decided to break up with him and we got married a couple of years later -- and still are, 14 years later, quite happily.

You don't have enough information about this girl and the situation to pass such a sweeping judgment on her character.

My suggestion to Ben is to help her see that she should pursue her own happiness. Staying in a relationship with a man she doesn't love out of a sense of obligation is just going to make both of them miserable. But she has to decide herself. You can make your interest clear, but she has to decide how best to pursue her own happiness. If she decides, in the fullness of time, that she doesn't want to be with you, accept it and move on. You should not enable her to believe that she can have both you and her current relationship by postponing the decision indefinitely. You want an exclusive relationship with her; you aren't willing to settle for less, and you shouldn't have to. That's your choice.