Luke Ford writes: From page 134: “Rand believed that suffering was anything but noble and had no redeeming value. Paterson casually but firmly disagreed. She thought that suffering could be instructive, particularly for writers.”
Why did Paterson think suffering was noble and Rand think it was not? Because Rand was Jewish and Paterson was Christian. The Jewish perspective is that this world is the focus and therefore suffering stinks and should be minimized. Christianity holds that the next world is more important than this world and that suffering ennobles. Christ suffered on the cross and we must suffer too.
Christianity is at core a romantic religion while Judaism at its core is unromantic.
Rand believed, “Who but a religious mystic would argue that suffering had an upside?”
From page 172: “Rand held faith of any kind to be inconsistent with rationality; she particularly despised Christianity, with its insistence on suffering.”
