I Can't Get Through "Atlas Shrugged"

Americans want to be selfish, but they also want to be commended for what they're doing and feel that they're on the moral high ground. What could be more satisfying than being told that selfishness is really the best course of action?

yetanotherchick wrote:

Americans want to be selfish, but they also want to be commended for what they're doing and feel that they're on the moral high ground. What could be more satisfying than being told that selfishness is really the best course of action?

You're right, and the most selfish Americans are the ones who expect someone else to take care of them.

This is not what Rand advocated in Atlas Shrugged or anywhere else. The book is about being responsible for one's self and not being a burden to your fellow man.

One thing I could never get my head around: Rand proposed that we all be self-reliant and never be a "burden" on our fellow man. However, in the ideal community in Galt's Gulch, each man and woman had his or her own job. They still relied upon each other for things they could not produce on their own. Is her view that as long as we produce something of value, we are allowed to partake in what others have to offer?

That's because they were never a burden on anyone else; they got by through bartering their services which they seemed to deem equally useful.

I think maybe your confusing self reliance with self responsibility. She wasn't saying that each individual should rely solely on himself to produce his needs. She was saying that each individual should be responsible for taking care of himself without forcing someone else to provide for them.

If you steal someone's money so you can buy food or a color TV (or have the government do it for you) then you are using force. If you are paid money for your labor or for providing a good or service, these are all voluntary transactions - no force is involved. Were the people in Galt's Gulch self reliant, no. However, they didn’t expect anyone to provide them with something without having to compensate them in a mutually satisfying transaction.

Blowing Rock Master wrote:

I think maybe your confusing self reliance with self responsibility. She wasn't saying that each individual should rely solely on himself to produce his needs. She was saying that each individual should be responsible for taking care of himself without forcing someone else to provide for them.

If you steal someone's money so you can buy food or a color TV (or have the government do it for you) then you are using force. If you are paid money for your labor or for providing a good or service, these are all voluntary transactions - no force is involved. Were the people in Galt's Gulch self reliant, no. However, they didn’t expect anyone to provide them with something without having to compensate them in a mutually satisfying transaction.

Exactly. It is the trading of goods, services, ideas, etc. between individuals with rational self-interest. It is in one's own self-interest to foster strong relationships with other individuals who are also rationally productive.

I did a speech on Atlas Shrugged when I was a freshman in college. I recommended the book to a lot of people, but only my roommate every got around to finishing it in it's entirety. I really liked the book (but still prefer The Fountainhead) but thought she was a little too blatantly preachy.

In my research on Rand, I found out that Atlas Shrugged was the second most influential book (among Americans) in the 20th century. The first? The Bible.

So for all you kids out there that think she's just some hack that only pubescent boys read, think again. She has had big influence on some of the biggest movers and shakers out there. She was even romantically involved with some other hack you might know...Alan Greenspan. He was only partially responsible for one of the more glorious economic periods of the last century so I don't know if you can trust him. Moreover, AG wrote one of the chapters in Rands book on Capitalism (I know they all are, but there was one actually called "Capitalism: Insert Subtitle Here"

I think one of the reasons this book so appeals to 18 year old boys is because they aren't quite jaded enough to realized the impracticality of the philosophy. However, they can still appreciate the beauty dripping from the heroes. I was a hardcore Randian until I became jaded (and more educated) but I still love Howard Roark (and John Galt, Francisco, and Bjarne)

First off -- what the hell is wrong with you?! I couldn't put this book down. :-P

If you had actually read the book, you'd know what kind of evil she saw in that -- and where she thought it would lead. You'd also know that she didn't advocate anyone gaining at the expense of anyone else.

But when you say, "A foundation of individual success and happiness should never come as a result of denying or diminishing others," you're saying just what Rand said: that man, to live a moral life, should neither sacrifice himself to others, nor others to himself, but should deal with them on a mutually voluntary basis.

Why is it, then, that the greatest psychopaths of all -- the "great leaders" who killed millions -- and that's millions more than all the Charles Mansons in history -- preached and believed in something completely opposed to Objectivism?

bw wrote:

I did a speech on Atlas Shrugged when I was a freshman in college. I recommended the book to a lot of people, but only my roommate every got around to finishing it in it's entirety.

Even though this advice won't get used -- you should have recommended Anthem. It's 100 pages that go quickly and a good introduction to Rand's worldview, if not her explicit philosophy. And it's a great book, which is more important than anything else I can say about it.

Brave New World was written by Huxley, in France, in the late 19th century. Ayn Rand was an expatriate Russian author of the early twentieth century.

bw wrote:

In my research on Rand, I found out that Atlas Shrugged was the second most influential book (among Americans) in the 20th century. The first? The Bible.

How the hell do you quantify what the most influential books of the 20th century are? Who made this list?

Ayn Rand was the Ann Coulter of her day.

Swofford11 wrote:

Peep this wrote:

these books are intended to confuse the reader.

not for the faint of heart, you have to be a real person with ambition and dedication to read and understand those books. Even then you don't. They're good books because the authors who wrote them worked incredibly hard to do so.

The books are really not that hard to understand. I believe most Juniors and Seniors in an honors or AP class could understand what is being said.

However, they are just plain boring books that are horribly written and should not be used in a classroom setting because you will turn students off to reading. :-)

no, there is more to that book than meets the eye. You have to really think about what the book means. What is the author really trying to say? She's saying f*** you, she doesn't care who or what the f*** you is are or gonna be, you aint shit, never gonna be shit, and probably will never amount to a shit ball in your whole life. A few of the best do, and they deserve everything. Its a depressing book. But only for the losers.

I heard that Ayn Rand ran a 13:55 5K in trainers.

Uncle Samuel wrote:

Ayn Rand was the Ann Coulter of her day.

It is quite obvious that you know little to nothing about Rand, or Coulter for that matter.

Once again the idea behind the book was not bad. Her philosophy was not bad. She has very interesting ideas.

But the book itself is boring and poorly written. I've read almost all her books and they are all poorly written and require work to get through. But Atlas Shrugged is the worst of the bunch.

I never said she didn't have good ideas. She is just a bad writer period. :-)

easy one wrote:

bw wrote:

In my research on Rand, I found out that Atlas Shrugged was the second most influential book (among Americans) in the 20th century. The first? The Bible.

How the hell do you quantify what the most influential books of the 20th century are? Who made this list?

I believe they asked a bunch of people what their most influential book was.

Not sure of the demographic or the source, but I'm sure I read it somewhere. If I find it I'll post the cite.

easy one wrote:

bw wrote:

In my research on Rand, I found out that Atlas Shrugged was the second most influential book (among Americans) in the 20th century. The first? The Bible.

How the hell do you quantify what the most influential books of the 20th century are? Who made this list?

I believe they asked a bunch of people what their most influential book was.

I did a quick google search. This is what I came up with:

But Atlas Shrugged is more point-blank with Rand's philosophy, and it's the second-most-influential book of all time, a distant second to the Bible, according to a survey of 5,000 Book-of-the-Month Club members taken a decade ago for the Library of Congress. Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan, a friend of Ayn (pronounced EYE-n) Rand's before her death in 1982, is among its best-known proponents.

haha i skipped the radio monologue. although i probably missed some life lessons, i still understood the rest of the book just fine. the plot isn't bad