FReeper Book Club: Atlas Shrugged, Afterword and Suggested Reading

A Billthedrill Essay | 15 August 2009 | Billthedrill

[Publius]

This concludes our FReeper Book Club on Ayn Rand’s Atlas Shrugged that began back in January. For 31 weeks we’ve come together as a group to read, analyze and discuss Rand’s magnum opus. Billthedrill and I want to thank those FReepers who joined the book club and participated, and those who just dropped by. We hope the experience has been as enjoyable for you as it was for us.

We especially want to thank those FReepers who forced us on occasion to check our premises, which forced us to change both narrative and questions. When it comes to peer review, FReepers rock!

Thank you for making this such a wonderful experience.

[Publius]

FReeper Book Club

Atlas Shrugged

Afterword and Suggested Readings

Ping! The thread is up.

Prior threads:
FReeper Book Club: Introduction to Atlas Shrugged
Part I, Chapter I: The Theme
Part I, Chapter II: The Chain
Part I, Chapter III: The Top and the Bottom
Part I, Chapter IV: The Immovable Movers
Part I, Chapter V: The Climax of the d’Anconias
Part I, Chapter VI: The Non-Commercial
Part I, Chapter VII: The Exploiters and the Exploited
Part I, Chapter VIII: The John Galt Line
Part I, Chapter IX: The Sacred and the Profane
Part I, Chapter X: Wyatt’s Torch
Part II, Chapter I: The Man Who Belonged on Earth
Part II, Chapter II: The Aristocracy of Pull
Part II, Chapter III: White Blackmail
Part II, Chapter IV: The Sanction of the Victim
Part II, Chapter V: Account Overdrawn
Part II, Chapter VI: Miracle Metal
Part II, Chapter VII: The Moratorium on Brains
Part II, Chapter VIII: By Our Love
Part II, Chapter IX: The Face Without Pain or Fear or Guilt
Part II, Chapter X: The Sign of the Dollar
Part III, Chapter I: Atlantis
Part III, Chapter II: The Utopia of Greed
Part III, Chapter III: Anti-Greed
Part III, Chapter IV: Anti-Life
Part III, Chapter V: Their Brothers’ Keepers
Part III, Chapter VI: The Concerto of Deliverance
Part III, Chapter VII: “This is John Galt Speaking”
Part III, Chapter VIII: The Egoist
Part III, Chapter IX: The Generator
Part III, Chapter X: In the Name of the Best Within Us

[MtnClimber]

Thanks to you and Billthedrill! It has been a very interesting series. You two sure put in much thought!

[r-q-tek86]

Thank you both for sticking with this project. I know you were getting frustrated as the numbers of posts went down, but I know a lot of the members were reading faithfully even if they didn't post.

The insights you offered and the discussions that were generated made me look forward to Saturday mornings.

[parsifal]

If I may suggest another book, “The True Believer” by Eric Hoffer.

parsy who is just sobering, er waking up.

[CrappieLuck]

I’ve enjoyed this venture though Atlas Shrugged almost as much as the book itself. Your analysis is excellent and very instructive.

This has been a very timely venture and it’s obvious that this was no small effort on your part.
Thank you!!!!

[Sans-Culotte]

Bump, and thanks for the effort!

[seowulf]

Although I only posted once or twice, I found the commentary to be excellent.

Thank you.

I suppose the moral of the story for me in the end was if you don’t choose to be a John Galt, you will end up an Eddie Willers.

[Malesherbes]

Well done, good and faithful Freeper. Among other positive qualities of Free Republic, it is efforts such as this that make FR stand head and shoulders above the alternatives.

The work and thought that went into this should not be lost. I would hope that it might find a more permanent form.

[Billthedrill]

A quick echoing of Publius's thanks to all, and a very special thank-you to Pub' himself. Like many Book Club contributors I hadn't read Atlas Shrugged since early adulthood and had, in the mean time, listened far too closely to the novel's many detractors. The latter would profit from an opportunity to take the dusty copy down from the shelves and reconsider in the full light of their subsequent life experience. For that I have Publius to thank.

For the frequently astonishing insights toward the book that would have passed me by completely I have the rest of you to thank. That's why we do this sort of thing, I suppose. Let's do it again.

;-) BtD

[Publius]

Billthedrill and I have a literary agent in New York, and he is attempting to market this work as a book titled A Navigational Tool for Atlas Shrugged.

[Morgan in Denver]

I also thank you both for the information, review and discussion. The insight and added information provided has extended my understanding of Atlas Shrugged.

What has amazed me as much as anything else is how relevant this is today, as we see our country moving to the left, using the same reasoning and excuses Rand used in her book.

[Betis70]

Hear hear! Thanks to Publius and Billthedrill for the great series, something I looked forward to each Sat morning. I didn’t always post, and started in on the book club a little late, but always took away new insights from your stellar work.

[r-q-tek86]

I would add to the suggested reading list Thomas Sowell’s The Vision of the Anointed

I have read Atlas Shrugged a number of different times, the last time being the summer of 2008. Throughout the Freeper Bookclub’s examination of AS, we have noted the similarities of the events in the book to modern times. As has been well documented in our discussions, the villains of the novel are more interesting and better developed than the heroes and their actions and attitudes more closely equate to events happening now.

I recently finished The Vision of the Anointed and it gave me some interesting insight into the thinking of the real world villains of the liberal elite.

The Vision of the Anointed examines the thought processes of the modern elites and documents the fallacies in their “vision”.

A synopsis from The Education Resource Center:

Most contemporary social and political discourse in the United States takes place within a particular framework of assumptions. The rise of mass media, mass politics, and massive government means that an elite group of articulate people have great leverage in determining the course of the whole society. This book examines the vision of the country's elite intelligentsia, the anointed, and explores how their vision consists of a set of self-congratulatory assumptions that are rhetorical assertions rather than critical thinking. The prevailing vision of our time holds that those who are not in agreement are on a lower plane morally, inferior to the benighted [I think he meant “the anointed” here] who hold other views. When social policies favored by the anointed fail, a pattern of crisis, proposed solution, results, and response that does not acknowledge failure ensues. The contemporary vision of the anointed treats reality as highly malleable and handles unpleasant experiences as readily preventable. The self-flattering and self-centered vision of the anointed makes assumptions that empirical evidence cannot confirm. The nine chapters in this book are entitled: (1) "Flattering Unction"; (2) "The Pattern"; (3) "By the Numbers"; (4) "The Irrelevance of Evidence"; (5) "The Anointed versus the Benighted"; (6) "Crusades of the Anointed"; (7) "The Vocabulary of the Anointed"; (8) "Courting Disaster"; and (9) "Optional Reality."

[Fast Moving Angel]

I too have looked forward to this every Saturday morning. Thanks to both of you for providing explanations and insight into a book I thought I knew well — but now know much better, as a result of your excellent efforts.

[Still Thinking]

Thanks to both of you for all your hard work for the last eight months. I admit I struggled with a lot of the discussion questions but they led me to appreciate the book, and Rand, a lot more. And I reiterate once again what I said before, that a lack of posting doesn’t imply a lack of interest.

[whodathunkit]

A wonderful experience indeed!

Though the time invested in this effort was substantial, the return was even more so.

Great job, everyone.

[ladyvet]

Thank you! Whats next?! :)

[Still Thinking]

It occurred to me that this has been a LOT of work for Pub and Bill. They might prefer to let someone else “lead the read” for the next book, or at least to take a break in between.

[stylin_geek]

I suggest you read “Destructive Generation” as a companion to “The Vision of the Anointed.”

“Destructive Generation” is hair raising in spots, because it shows how a lot of the groundwork for our current society was laid.