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Author Topic:   Atlas Shrugged
MoonWitch
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Posts: 1178
From: The Beach
Registered: Apr 2009

posted October 14, 2012 08:19 PM     Click Here to See the Profile for MoonWitch     Edit/Delete Message   Reply w/Quote
Has anyone else here read the book (or any of Ayn Rand's books really)?

Or... have you seen the movie and plan to see part II?

We just got back from seeing Atlas Shrugged II. SO GOOD.

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juniperb
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Posts: 6359
From: Blue Star Kachina
Registered: Apr 2009

posted October 14, 2012 09:12 PM     Click Here to See the Profile for juniperb     Edit/Delete Message   Reply w/Quote
Ayn Rand

Moving to Pilgrims Progress.

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We dance around the ring and suppose, but the secret sits in the middle and Knows
Robert Frost

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MoonWitch
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Posts: 1178
From: The Beach
Registered: Apr 2009

posted October 15, 2012 01:10 AM     Click Here to See the Profile for MoonWitch     Edit/Delete Message   Reply w/Quote
I figured this topic was more political and relevant to the upcoming election and political issues - not new age or occult. I'd never have thought to put this here.

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AcousticGod
Knowflake

Posts: 7222
From: Pleasanton, CA
Registered: Apr 2009

posted October 15, 2012 10:59 AM     Click Here to See the Profile for AcousticGod     Edit/Delete Message   Reply w/Quote
I've read it. For awhile I was a huge fan of Ayn Rand. Ultimately, she got it wrong, though. Humans are innately at least as charitable as they are selfish. To deny one's altruistic side is to deny a real portion of one's inborn values.

Though Atlas Shrugged was supposed to be her masterpiece, I enjoyed The Fountainhead more.

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PixieJane
Knowflake

Posts: 1999
From: CA
Registered: Oct 2010

posted October 15, 2012 06:15 PM     Click Here to See the Profile for PixieJane     Edit/Delete Message   Reply w/Quote
I just can't stand her style. I wanted to, there were people I used to be close to whom I admired (and they in turn admired her), and I've seen quotes taken from Atlas Shrugged that I thought were worthy of an award, but when I tried reading it I couldn't stand it. So then I found Atlas Shrugged as a book on tape and tried listening to it as I did housework but I STILL couldn't stand it. (And no, I don't think I'm finicky.)

Reflecting on why I think it's not just her very dry style (and I got the impression she felt being a woman was something to be overcome which annoyed me) but her fictional characters are REALLY over the top in being epically heroic or dastardly villains, with minds and bodies as beautiful or ugly as their ideals (again, in AR's way of seeing things). It sounds like she appeals to wannabe elitists overcoming their unwashed dirty hippie enemies (who if they were really that stupid and worse then they shouldn't have been so powerful), and I've always had a problem with stories like that as they're just so hard for me to believe. Heck, even when I was a child I took a more complex view of my fictional characters (I think I was 10 when I had the good witch as ugly and the really wicked witch as beautiful, which is very much against Ayn Rand's style).

And I say that in part because I was able to read her nonfiction...it was still very dry but that's ok when talking of ideas rather than sharing a story, and it's free of that ridiculous black/ugly vs. white/beautiful thing (even if her views held little to no room for shades of gray).

And everything I ever read by or about her always made me think of her as a joyless, even bitter, person who was always disappointed with the world (if anything made her happy then it was architecture), and I think she was even disappointed in her followers (either they didn't fully buy into her views which was unforgivable, or they were total sycophants which also displeased her, at least that's the impression I get). This has nothing to do with how right or wrong her views may be, but it does make me feel justified in how I sometimes sardonically quipped to libertarians (whenever something was good and awesome), "even Ayn Rand might smile."

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Xiiro
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Posts: 1525
From: San Diego CA, USA
Registered: Jun 2011

posted October 18, 2012 05:31 PM     Click Here to See the Profile for Xiiro     Edit/Delete Message   Reply w/Quote
I can't say I am a fan.

The whole idea that the world is filled with useful people, whom the rest of the useless world wants to leach off is just too narcissistic for me. I see everyone as having a part to play and just like education, people don't all shine under a general curriculum. We require unique avenues for excelling in our individual talents. The Rand style Libertarian view does not consider how severely "Producers" rely on consumers to generate their wealth.

It's fine to stand around whining about how one has worked so hard to bring innovation to the world and earn their own wealth, but leaving the poor and pathetic to fend for their self, puts producers in a position which Rand ignores. A state where producers no longer have access to grants and tax loopholes which increase their income, people to manufacture their products, clean up their homes, care for and educate their kids, maintain their roads, offer them care while they are ill. The reality is, producers are just as parasitic as consumers.

The idea of "Big Government, Get Out Of My Business" is a valid one. Rand unfortunately, is practically a sociopath when it comes to identifying with a majority of the world. No person is an island, life is a symbiotic experience. Where one person may have money or genius, another with less money and intellect has services which are needed. Stephen Hawking would have been considered a useless mooch in Rand's time, because of his physical needs and inability to communicate.

Unfortunately we have to share and support each other if we want to thrive as a species. An isolationist upper class can only maintain its self through slavery of a lower class and slavery eventually breeds revolution. We have been living Atlas Shrugged since the invention of society. Rand's books are basically a way to convince the plebs and slaves that it is okay for wealthy people to treat them like crap, and they shouldn't use their democratic powers to tax the rich. Because if the plebs were rich, they wouldn't like people telling them where they can spend their money.

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juniperb
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Posts: 6359
From: Blue Star Kachina
Registered: Apr 2009

posted October 20, 2012 10:51 AM     Click Here to See the Profile for juniperb     Edit/Delete Message   Reply w/Quote
Wonderfully stated
quote:
No person is an island, life is a symbiotic experience. Where one person may have money or genius, another with less money and intellect has services which are needed.

The weight of her objectivism/narcissim was her personal undoing. Objectivism crushs any common society much the way it finally crushed her.

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We dance around the ring and suppose, but the secret sits in the middle and Knows
Robert Frost

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Chahldean
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Posts: 205
From: Everywhere I've Been
Registered: Jun 2009

posted October 23, 2012 09:53 PM     Click Here to See the Profile for Chahldean     Edit/Delete Message   Reply w/Quote
Ayn Rand

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Gnosis ThySelf

Knowledge bows to Spirit

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Chahldean
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Posts: 205
From: Everywhere I've Been
Registered: Jun 2009

posted October 23, 2012 09:54 PM     Click Here to See the Profile for Chahldean     Edit/Delete Message   Reply w/Quote
Ayn Rand

------------------
Gnosis ThySelf

Knowledge bows to Spirit

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Randall
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Posts: 26753
From: Saturn next to Charmainec
Registered: Apr 2009

posted April 10, 2013 09:12 AM     Click Here to See the Profile for Randall     Edit/Delete Message   Reply w/Quote
Never read it.

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