Armed Polite Society
Main Forums => The Roundtable => Topic started by: Perd Hapley on October 23, 2010, 10:33:53 PM
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So Atlas Shrugged, Part One is finished, and will be released next year. Looks like it WON'T include Angie Jolie, Brad Pitt, or any of the other A-listers that we've been hearing about. (And, no, Alec Baldwin did not produce it.)
http://bighollywood.breitbart.com/jjmnolte/2010/07/20/exclusive-atlas-shrugged-producer-sets-record-straight-on-upcoming-film/
http://www.atlassociety.org/atlas-shrugged-movie-event
I purchased a used copy of the book today, at the Book 'N' Barber (http://www.booknbarber.com/) in Alton, Illinois. The man in the video told me the book was getting hard to find. I'll bet.
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Book report due November 15th. 1,500 words.
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Read it for yourself. :P
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Book report due November 15th. 1,500 words pages.
Fixed. :lol:
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I thought it initially said James Marsden was in the film. I just watched Death at a Funeral from the Library (along with The Book of Eli). I thought he was funnier the hell as Oscar, but it's the wrong Marsden.
I hope this isn't like Starship Troopers.
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Book report due November 15th. 1,500 words.
I just started reading it a day or two ago. I'm about 7.5% finished with it, and I like it so far.
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I've been reading it continuously for a day or two. I'm about 7.5% finished with it, and I like it so far.
Fixed it for you :)
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I just started reading it a day or two ago. I'm about 7.5% finished with it, and I like it so far.
I had to skip through "the speech."
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I had to skip through "the speech."
I've endured all the begats in the Bible, and the whole book of Leviticus, not to mention all that noxious verse in the LOTR; I think I can endure the speech.
I really don't get why anyone would skip the speech. You know the book is one giant polemic, right? So if you're going to skip the most nakedly polemical part, why read it all?
If the speech starts to bog me down, I'm also reading Life on the Mississippi, so I'll just switch to that for a bit. ;)
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10.6
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I had to skip through "the speech."
Ditto. Real Randroids find the speech indispensable.
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I hope this isn't like Starship Troopers.
Can't be. With Starship Troopers they took an extremely readable book with interesting ideas and turned it into a piece of crap onscreen. Atlas Shrugged has some interesting ideas, but it's a horribly written piece of tripe. Clumsy wording, stilted dialogue, impenetrable paragraph structure. I've tried unsuccesfully to read it 3 times over the years, and I'm a big reader who doesn't give up easily.
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I really don't get why anyone would skip the speech.
Because the same thing was already said many times before on previous pages, just with less verbiage.
And, it makes Leviticus and the begats seem entertaining by comparison.
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I'm getting prepped to read it myself. I've bought a copy and placed it in the library. I just haven't been constipated lately and therefore have not started actually reading.
DD
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I've found Rand's writing to be very holographic in nature. Each part can be broken down or expanded, so tight is the mental schema of the work.
I found it in audio book format through the NYPL read by a woman. It has a semi hypnotic quality that makes for some very soothing listening. Largely as you aren't worried about missing anything; every sentence fitting with the theme for a pleasant plodding.
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Because the same thing was already said many times before on previous pages, just with less verbiage.
And many times before that, and many times before that, ect ect... :lol:
It is a good book. It can just be tiring to get through at points.
With Starship Troopers they took an extremely readable book with interesting ideas and turned it into a piece of crap onscreen.
I thought the movie was pretty good, shouldn't of been called Starship Troopers though. Only similarities really was the bugs.
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I read both her big ones when I was a wee pup. I recently tried rereading the one I have here. Couldn't do it. :P
Meanwhile I am 34.954...% of the way through "War and Peace". Took a couple hundred pages to get into it but it seems to be moving a little better now. I find I'm not necessarily a big Tolstoy fan.
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15%
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Try to have it finished by the time I get back.....
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I thought the movie was pretty good, shouldn't of been called Starship Troopers though. Only similarities really was the bugs.
Huh?
The bugs of the book had spacecraft, nukes, weapons etc. The only similarity with the on-screen bugs was that they liked to hide in tunnels underground which made them difficult to fight. And they didn't push an asteroid onto Buenos Aries with those big farting beetles. :P
Only the names "Johnny Rico" (who was Philipino in the book, lots of people miss that...) and "Carmen", and "Seargent Zim" were about the same.
Thread drift, I know... but I just read John Steakly's "Armor". I'm not sure why everyone thought that book was so great. It was okay... but (shrug)
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Only the names "Johnny Rico" (who was Philipino in the book, lots of people miss that...) and "Carmen", and "Seargent Zim" were about the same.
Thread drift, I know... but I just read John Steakly's "Armor". I'm not sure why everyone thought that book was so great. It was okay... but (shrug)
A lot of people do miss Rico's Phillipino origin, but that's because the only reference is a single sentence mentioning his native language is Tagalog.
I haven't read Armor since high school. I remember enjoying it, but it's a very different book. If you want a much more interesting book about armored-suit types that isn't as gung-ho as Starship Troopers you'd be better off with Haldeman's The Forever War.
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That I liked. And I thought I'd heard of some noise on a movie development.
Since "The Forever War" was explicitly written as a critique of Vietnam, and as a direct counterpoint in opposition to "Starship Troopers", I'd expect Hollyweird to be much more motivated to keep it true to form and not butcher it.
http://www.scificool.com/ridley-scotts-the-forever-war-movie-has-a-writer/
The screenplay writer is reported as being the same for Blade Runner and Twelve Monkeys. And it being a Ridley Scott project does not hurt either. =)
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Only the names "Johnny Rico" (who was Philipino in the book, lots of people miss that...)
I guess I did. I thought he was Argentine. (Also, I thought it was "Filipino.")
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Since "The Forever War" was explicitly written as a critique of Vietnam, and as a direct counterpoint in opposition to "Starship Troopers"
When asked about it, Heinlein and Haldeman have each said how much they enjoyed the other's book.
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When asked about it, Heinlein and Haldeman have each said how much they enjoyed the other's book.
I don't doubt it.
- I enjoyed both books. And I'm the smartest guy I know. =D
- Heinlein had gone through his "hippy phase" by then. "Starship Troopers" was written in 1959. "Stranger In A Strange Land", was published in 61, which might as well have been a hundred years later, culturally for the U.S., and "The Forever War" came out in 1974. And in '73 He'd published "Time Enough For Love", where Lazarus Long was screwing his own (semi)identical cloned twin sisters/daughters, and travelling back in time to 1917 to screw his own mom.
So I get the sense Heinlein was a pretty open-minded guy. :laugh:
And in his books, I never got the sense Heinlein was a blind patriot, or would approve of the implied industrial/military complex cabal that got humanity into "mistaken" war with the Taurans in "The Forever War".
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I thought it was "Filipino".
Filipino, Philipino and Pilipino are all "correct".
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I guess I did. I thought he was Argentine. (Also, I thought it was "Filipino.")
His mother died when Buenos Aires (sp) was attacked.
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20%
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His mother died when Buenos Aires (sp) was attacked.
Yes, she'd taken the "tube" there for a day-trip of shopping. (I think the implication was that it's a the sub-continental supersonic subway system. Like a gravity assist Vactrain (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vactrain) that actually cuts a chord-line straight inside the sphere of the Earth.)
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The bugs of the book had spacecraft, nukes, weapons etc.
I mean that they were fighting bugs.
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I mean that they were fighting bugs.
Ah, then yes. =)
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40% done now, and I must say Ms. Rand's sexual proclivities are not quite what I would have expected. I wasn't really expecting much sex in this book, but I would have figured Rand for more of a feminist, mutual-respect, "no means no" kind of gal. Her actual idea of sex is more like "'No' means a real man wouldn't bother to ask. You pathetic looter."
Shall we call her Ayn Randy?
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:lol: I like it...
yes, apparently Ayn was a horny little devil. Research finds she was a Russian girl. That explains it. Watch any Bond flick involving a Russian spy girl and you can see how horny they all are.
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The clock has struck 8. The Speech is about to begin. I'm gonna get some shut-eye before I open the book again.
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40% done now, and I must say Ms. Rand's sexual proclivities are not quite what I would have expected. I wasn't really expecting much sex in this book, but I would have figured Rand for more of a feminist, mutual-respect, "no means no" kind of gal. Her actual idea of sex is more like "'No' means a real man wouldn't bother to ask. You pathetic looter."
I thought the rape stuff was in Fountainhead? Or am I running on low speed?
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I thought the rape stuff was in Fountainhead? Or am I running on low speed?
Don't feel bad, I could never keep them straight either. =D
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I thought the rape stuff was in Fountainhead? Or am I running on low speed?
I don't know about the Fountainhead. I haven't come across any actual rape in AS yet, although I suppose some might read it that way. It's just that Dagny seems to enjoy a rough, dominant partner that treats her like a sexual device in the bedroom.
Not trying to preach against it. Just surprised me, is all.
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I don't know about the Fountainhead. I haven't come across any actual rape in AS yet, although I suppose some might read it that way. It's just that Dagny seems to enjoy a rough, dominant partner that treats her like a sexual device in the bedroom.
And by this time you've gotten far enough to know she drops her lover without a pang as soon as she encounters the Alpha Objectivist.
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And by this time you've gotten far enough to know she drops her lover without a pang as soon as she encounters the Alpha Objectivist.
=D True dat.
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I'd be willing to bet they're going to turn Atlas Shrugged into some avant garde piece of junk that 20-something year old hipsters will swoon for.
I just watched Death at a Funeral from the Library
You should watch the original version from 2007. Much, much funnier.
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0795368/
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Oh, wait, der. She is an objectivist, so she digs on objectification. Sometimes I am just so slow.
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I don't know about the Fountainhead. I haven't come across any actual rape in AS yet, although I suppose some might read it that way. It's just that Dagny seems to enjoy a rough, dominant partner that treats her like a sexual device in the bedroom.
Not trying to preach against it. Just surprised me, is all.
Heh. You should try reading We The Living.
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My sister lost my copy of the book a few years ago. Right after I bought it.
I am still angry.
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My sister lost my copy of the book a few years ago. Right after I bought it.
I am still angry.
So?
Stop yer bellyachin'. There's enough copies out there that you should be able to pick one up, just lying on the street.
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I have been to several bookstores since. Haven't seen it.
Guess I'll have to order it from the nets when I get some monies together.
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I have been to several bookstores since. Haven't seen it.
Guess I'll have to order it from the nets when I get some monies together.
Next time you're in the NoVa region, let me know and I'll loan you my copy (assuming I still have it...).
You just pay return shipping.
Chris
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Just checked to see if it's available on either the Kindle or Nook. It is, but at twice the price of the paperback.
I don't get it. Why would any publisher do this? It's the 3rd book in a row where they wanted just as much for the digital copy as they did either the paperback, or, in the case of "The Gun" the actual hard cover edition.
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Stop yer bellyachin'. There's enough copies out there that you should be able to pick one up, just lying on the street.
There was quite a rash of interest in the book, a year or so ago. May not be that many loose copies about these days. The used-book dealer from whom I purchased my copy told me it was getting hard to find.
I have about ten pages of that blanking blank-out Speech left, and so far I have a few responses for Mr. Galt. They are listed below in no particular order:
My dear sir, must you go on so?
Switch to decaf, maybe?
You keep using this word "mystic." I do not think it means what you think it means. If you're gonna rant at such length against religion, try not being so ignorant of the subject.
Dang. Mad respect for what you're trying to do, but the more you talk the less mad respect I can muster. =|
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Uh, did you not KNOW that AS was a massively anti-Christian book before you picked it up?
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I did not, and I'm not so sure it is. I prefer not to research works of fiction before reading them, so all I knew about was the anti-socialist angle. I knew she was an "Objectivist," but I didn't have much idea what she meant by that.
I'm not sure if AS qualifies as anti-Christian. Galt/Rand are definitely attacking some kind of religion(s), but it doesn't seem to be Christianity. ;)
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There was quite a rash of interest in the book, a year or so ago. May not be that many loose copies about these days. The used-book dealer from whom I purchased my copy told me it was getting hard to find.
There was quite a few copies when I bought mine about 4 months back at borders, or Barnes and Nobles
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Q: What do you get when you have a person who follows 80-90% of Objectivisim?
A: A pretty hard-core right/libertarian.
Q: What do you get when you have a person who follows 100% of Objectivisim?
A: An ahole.
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Just checked to see if it's available on either the Kindle or Nook. It is, but at twice the price of the paperback.
I don't get it. Why would any publisher do this? It's the 3rd book in a row where they wanted just as much for the digital copy as they did either the paperback, or, in the case of "The Gun" the actual hard cover edition.
Amazon, the Ayn Rand Boxed Set (http://www.amazon.com/Ayn-Rand-Box-Set/dp/0451947673/ref=sr_1_5?ie=UTF8&qid=1290464857&sr=8-5) (AS and FH together) looks like the best deal. "21 new from $10.88 7 used from $10.50 "
Otherwise, plain old top-of-the-search Atlas Shrugged (http://www.amazon.com/Atlas-Shrugged-Ayn-Rand/dp/0452011876/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1290464857&sr=8-1), "52 new from $8.19 67 used from $7.03". A little worse availability that "Late Grate Planet Earth", but not bad.
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I did not, and I'm not so sure it is. I prefer not to research works of fiction before reading them, so all I knew about was the anti-socialist angle. I knew she was an "Objectivist," but I didn't have much idea what she meant by that.
I know John Piper (http://www.desiringgod.org/about/john-piper) was enamored of it for a bit, decades back.
I'm not sure if AS qualifies as anti-Christian. Galt/Rand are definitely attacking some kind of religion(s), but it doesn't seem to be Christianity. ;)
Those on the outside have an odd view of it.
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Those on the outside have an odd view of it.
Sadly, a lot of Christians don't know any better, either.
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Well...
Christianity requires at least the belief Christ is God, and that human beings are inherently sinful, and that salvation is only through Christ, right?
Also, Christianity is an altruist doctrine.
Ayn Rand preached atheism and railed against the doctrine of original sin as well as against altruism. This seems to be inherently anti-Christian.
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Sure, I guess. I'm just saying that the "mysticism" she goes on about in the Galt speech bears little resemblance to Christian doctrines. She would do a better job of refuting religion if she understood it more clearly. Instead, she spends a lot of time beating a straw man.
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Whatever her good points, Ayn Rand was, unfortunatly, that type of athiest who thought people who believed in God were less than intellectually well equiped.
Ron Paul actually managed to point that out on a Fox News Show Britt Hume is doing on the Conservative Movement.
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I just now realized that I read The Speech on the date of The Speech.
"November 22nd! Don't forget to listen to Mr. Thompson on November 22nd!"
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Well...
Christianity requires at least the belief Christ is God, and that human beings are inherently sinful, and that salvation is only through Christ, right?
Also, Christianity is an altruist doctrine.
Ayn Rand preached atheism and railed against the doctrine of original sin as well as against altruism. This seems to be inherently anti-Christian.
Not all are convinced that the Old or New Testaments teach "original sin", as taught by Catholics and Calvin. My conclusion is that the Biblical evidence does not support this teaching. Instead, I see it clearly taught that (all) individuals choose sin.
Although the end situation is the same, the doctrinal path to sin does make a difference in strange and unexpected ways. For example, look up "immaculate conception"; a doctrine used in Catholic teaching to deal with "original sin" being passed to Jesus.
Bringing this diversion back to the main topic... Rand never seems to deal consistently with the idea of forgiveness. At one moment, Dagny is helping with full strength to perpetuate an immoral system. Yet, she deserves forgiveness and inclusion into the "Galt club" because she earned it? There are internal inconsistencies with this philosophy.
From a Christian perspective, I don't want justice given to me... according to The Law, justice means that I ought to be put to death. Which is where mercy plays an important role. Rand commits the philosophical failure she condemns most harshly, she wants to have her cake and eat it too. She wants mercy to play a role, while nobody is given anything they don't deserve.
Finally, "altruism" is a slippery concept. When I spank my child, is it not being altruistic? I take the loss of hurt feelings and drama, so that she might receive modified behavior.
Is it altruistic to give money to an addict? Clearly not.
So from my perspective, free markets easily fit into altruism. It is the best situation for everyone else. A controlled economy with "me" on top is the most selfish design. A design where I get to vote myself everyone else's money seems pretty selfish too.
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OK. All done.
Spoiler Alert! ------------ Spoiler Alert! ------------ Spoiler Alert! ------------
I really liked the novel for the first few hundred pages (1084-page paperback). The political/economic points were great, as well as the depiction of academic pseudo-intellectualism. Once it became rather obvious that John Galt would turn out to be the Third Student, the Motor-Maker, the Destroyer, Eddie Willers' Father-Confessor; Rand seemed to be stalling and dragging things on. I might have liked it better if I hadn't already known that Galt & Co. were "on strike." That's why I prefer to know as little as possible about a novel before I read it. The whole Tower of Babel Galt's Gulch episode is kind of boring, if you're expecting it. Once we do meet Galt, we predictably recapitulate the thing where all the true heroes of the industrial age are just desperate to get into Dagny's pants. =|
Downhill from there, Dagny's little radio address was hilurrious, and I liked the way Rearden ended up, and the way his boys dealt with the (attempted) hostile take-over of the steel mill. The Thompson character was one of the better parts of the novel, I think. He was a good contrast to the others in the looter government, and the way he tried to co-opt Galt was the sort of thing I would expect from a govt. like that. The daring rescue at the end was a little underwhelming.
Overall, I'm left wishing that Rand's political and economic perceptions were not tainted with the dross that makes her (to me) less credible. The chilling disregard for familial obligations, the weird existentialist obsession her characters seem to have with other people's bodies, the ill-informed rants against religion, etc. And it's one thing to say that people deserve the fruits of their labor; quite another to denounce altruism and exalt selfishness.
And just for kicks; this (http://www.google.com/images?q=Taylor+Schilling&oe=utf-8&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&client=firefox-a&um=1&ie=UTF-8&source=og&sa=N&hl=en&tab=wi&biw=1024&bih=587) is going to be our Dagny Taggart.
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Overall, I'm left wishing that Rand's political and economic perceptions were not tainted with the dross that makes her (to me) less credible. The chilling disregard for familial obligations, the weird existentialist obsession her characters seem to have with other people's bodies, the ill-informed rants against religion, etc. And it's one thing to say that people deserve the fruits of their labor; quite another to denounce altruism and exalt selfishness.
Yep, yep, and yep. For someone who has rejected ambivalence, in Atlas Shrugged she embraces the imposition of the Hegelian dialetic onto American history in a way eerily parallel to communist ideas of revolution as they played them out in Russia.
Also, see sig. I can't figure out how the mark of an evil society is that they it save someone's life just because she really, really wants it to, and yet the mark of another evil society is that it demands that others save the lives of other people from time to time. This is rational if one accepts that life is complicated, that there aren't many hard-and-fast lines, especially when it comes to imposing concepts of good and evil on very complex and multi-faceted issues. If one does not accept the shades of gray in the world, then it just confuses me.
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The mark of an evil society - per Rand - is not that it didn't save the character's life in that one. It's that instead of paying for the things that would have saved his life, the protagonist had to resort to begging for it - not because she failed somehow at life, but because ALL wealth was allocated by favor.
Which was exactly how War Communism really worked.
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The mark of an evil society - per Rand - is not that it didn't save the character's life in that one. It's that instead of paying for the things that would have saved his life, the protagonist had to resort to begging for it - not because she failed somehow at life, but because ALL wealth was allocated by favor.
Which was exactly how War Communism really worked.
Of course. But my point isn't so much about what she had to do but about what he didn't do at all. It's also about the degree to which it is possible or necessary to live within the political or social structure in which one finds oneself.
Moreover, she attempt to earn it. She couldn't earn enough. In light the arguments frequently put forth by self-proclaimed Libertarians or Objectivists that some people just need to die if they can't afford health care, it's hard not to recall her attempt to sell the only commodity she owned. She learned the market was such that she could not earn enough to save his his life. Sorry. Tough luck. He needs to die.
Oh sure, the state had manipulated her into the position of having only one commodity to sell, but what about he diabetic orphan in Galt's Gulch?
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Oh sure, the state had manipulated her into the position of having only one commodity to sell, but what about he diabetic orphan in Galt's Gulch?
That's sort of the point of the whole novel. Which is far better than AShrugged.
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That's sort of the point of the whole novel. Which is far better than AShrugged.
Of course. But what about the diabetic orphan in Galt's Gulch?
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Of course. But what about the diabetic orphan in Galt's Gulch?
The problem is, that's not how Rand rolls.
In Rand's universe - and again, I don't approve of her views, I'm just describing them - there's a massive chasm between dying just because nobody likes you and wants to GIVE you things and dying because the government (or private person) intervened and TOOK a thing from you or stopped someone who was willing to give it to you.
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The problem is, that's not how Rand rolls.
Of course not, because she existed in a fantasy land that is impossible, and were it possible it would be utterly, irredeemably evil. But she sold it not only as a reality but as the only reality. And a lot of people have been caught up in the rhetoric of the brave and true and forgotten that they might only be a week or a month away from being the diabetic orphan in Galt's Gulch.
In Rand's universe - and again, I don't approve of her views, I'm just describing them - there's a massive chasm between dying just because nobody likes you and wants to GIVE you things and dying because the government (or private person) intervened and TOOK a thing from you or stopped someone who was willing to give it to you.
Of course, and I'm attacking you at all, I'm attacking her. But dead is dead, and maggots don't care if they've feasting because the government intervened or because individuals didn't intervene.
I almost said "failed to intervene" but in Galt's Gulch, not intervening wouldn't be a failure, now would it?
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I'm neither here nor there.
I don't think altruism is evil.
But I don't think a person fails morally if they're not an altruist.
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I'm neither here nor there.
I don't think altruism is evil.
But I don't think a person fails morally if they're not an altruist.
Ok.
But Ayn Rand did think that altruism is evil, and that a person fails morally if they are an altruist.
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This is the problem with Ayn Rand.
Ayn Rand was not, you understand, a qualified philosopher - by which I mean, she lacked the rigor of those individuals who study philosophy professionally. She came up with an understaning of how statism worked, and created what SHE thought was an antithesis to that. She believe religion - and especially Christianity - had an enslaving aspect to it, because she opposed the idea of original sin and altruism.
But what she did create was a cultish religion all of her own.
This little play here (http://www.lewrockwell.com/rothbard/mozart.html) is a worthy revelation of how crazy it really got.
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What about he diabetic orphan in Galt's Gulch?
Did I miss something in the book, or is that a hypothetical?
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This is the problem with Ayn Rand.
But what she did create was a cultish religion all of her own.
This little play here (http://www.lewrockwell.com/rothbard/mozart.html) is a worthy revelation of how crazy it really got.
Right on the money. Randians are creepy. One thing to appreciate the book, another to buy into the notion Ayn Rand can tell you what your favorite color should be... all in the name of rugged individualism. :facepalm:
http://xkcd.com/610/
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Can't be. With Starship Troopers they took an extremely readable book with interesting ideas and turned it into a piece of crap onscreen. Atlas Shrugged has some interesting ideas, but it's a horribly written piece of tripe. Clumsy wording, stilted dialogue, impenetrable paragraph structure. I've tried unsuccesfully to read it 3 times over the years, and I'm a big reader who doesn't give up easily.
This^ I tried and tried, just couldn't. I sure hope the movie is good. However, I loved "Anthem" read it during the "Yes We Can" campaign freaking eerie!
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But what she did create was a cultish religion all of her own.
This little play here (http://www.lewrockwell.com/rothbard/mozart.html) is a worthy revelation of how crazy it really got.
I can't believe I read the whole thing. I don't know enough about Rand et al to judge the accuracy of the depiction, but it would not be surprising. It occurred to me that Galt's morality really was just as exacting and judgmental as that of any religion.
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The big question is, after you had read the final word and closed the book, did you shrug? :lol:
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I did not shrug. I returned to my vitally important job, in which the nation's well-being depends upon the muscular shoulders of my immense mind.
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Ok, THEN I guess the question becomes, with a head sized to hold the immensity of your mind how do you get through doorways? ???
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I did not shrug. I returned to my vitally important job, in which the nation's well-being depends upon the muscular shoulders of my immense mind.
"Supersize that for ya?"
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Not all are convinced that the Old or New Testaments teach "original sin", as taught by Catholics and Calvin. My conclusion is that the Biblical evidence does not support this teaching. Instead, I see it clearly taught that (all) individuals choose sin.
From a practical point of view, one who believes in a good(just and loving) God probably has a hard time with the surprisingly popular idea that an month-old baby who dies is damned because he was born sinful. I think Dennis Prager articulates it well in his video on human nature (http://prageru.com/4.htm).
So from my perspective, free markets easily fit into altruism. It is the best situation for everyone else. A controlled economy with "me" on top is the most selfish design. A design where I get to vote myself everyone else's money seems pretty selfish too.
Exactly. "Spread[ing] the wealth around" is just surrogate theft, with the actual thief taking a cut for his services. Economic freedom is freedom to practice charity or not, however I tend to believe that freer people are more charitable people.
I'd be willing to bet they're going to turn Atlas Shrugged into some avant garde piece of junk that 20-something year old hipsters will swoon for.
I do hope not to see the Che replaced by a John Galt theme.
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"Spread[ing] the wealth around" is just surrogate theft,
Which is why you can tell a lot about someone by how willing they are to be the recipient and beneficiary of that theft. Even in this thread, some who seem to be against Rand's message are those who stand to lose much without the theft of wealth from others and subsequent delivery into their own bank accounts.
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And with that little personal attack, we close the thread.
Chris