This is really great that you’re doing this. I missed the initial post. Are you doing this weekly? I haven’t read the book in years, but was planning to pick it up again since it seems very timely right now.
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Earlier threads:
Our First Freeper Book Club: Atlas Shrugged
FReeper Book Club: Atlas Shrugged, The Theme
Our vote on posting frequency has gone as follows:
Voting is still open.
I had not before considered that aspect of the bracelet.
I am thinking now that I likely rushed my way through the book last year. I'll make it a point to reread and attempt to stay with the threads.
Thanks!
I didn't get a notice and had to search for the thread by your name.
You get a glimpse of Reardon’s mom, brother and wife but have no clue about his father.
You just don't get grit, determination and that inner sense of accomplishment from no where. It didn't come from dear old Mom.
You are left wondering if Hank came through the ranks of “the school of hard knocks”, he was working in a mine at age 14... or if his family had previously been in the ranks of the moneyed elite.
Brother Phil and Mom certainly act as if they were reared in the laps of unearned luxury.
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Bravo! An introduction to John Galt is a timely project in these trying times.
Please add me to the ping list. Thanx.
Please Ping me.
Thanks
Can you please add me to your ping list for this?
AV
You are doing a great thing here, thank you! Please add me to your ping list.
I am the proud owner of a First Edition (1957 8th printing) hardback of “Atlas Shrugged”, excellent condition, no jacket. I paid a whole dollar for it at the SPCA second hand shop. What a find!
Please add me to the ping list. I first read a borrowed copy in 1975. Since buying my own copy in 1980, I’ve re-read it 3 more times (although, I confess, I skimmed the 90-page John Galt monologue on two of those occasions...)
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Thank you for taking the time to share all of this with us. I have read the book but it was many years ago. I’m sure that I didn’t understand all the ramifications of the work. It is great to be able to read the viewpoints of other Freepers.
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Philip Rearden - from the first time I meet him in Atlas Shrugged I approach his character with an almost visceral hate and desperately wish he comes to a bad end.
Philip is a metaphor for today's typical man who lives upon the welfare of others. Philip has a sense of entitlement that is palpable. He has always been taken care of, he has never had to work, and sees no reason why his life will change. Instead of being grateful to the "Atlas" of his world, and making changes to reduce the load, he adds on to Hank's burden with an arrogance that mirrors those now who neither toil nor spin.
There is a family in a nearby neighborhood with 15 kids (yes, 15). All of the school age children have mentors. The house rent, heat, electricity is paid for courtesy of the tax payers. The food comes courtesy of WIC, food stamps, food bank (to which the mother is given a free taxi ride to and from) and welfare payments. The kids qualify for free and reduced lunch and breakfast, free tutoring, free membership at the county pool. Most of the school age children have IEP's and qualify for additional assistance. How has this family thanked the community? Well the 2 oldest sons are now in jail for a violent crime. The 2 oldest girls have 4 children between them (who also live in the house) and the family was featured in the paper recently as a family in need, with the mother commenting as to how hard it was to raise a family. So, this family mirrors Philip Reardon in that they add nothing, but they take everything they need - without an ounce of gratitude.
Where does the source of superiority come from? I suspect it comes from the power of guilt they these people are able to place on those around them. It comes from the long, ingrained generational welfare that leads the poor in New Orleans to demand more money as they are pictured sitting in front of a large screen TV. It comes from the hands that grasp and the mouths that plead to every person with two pennies to rub together to bestow more and more and more.
When Atlas does shrug, the Philip Reardon's of the world will be the first to go, and Atlas will have an easier job of it after that now won't he?
Paul is weak, but seems to have some insight into how things work and some appreciation for Hank. Perhaps his use of the expression, along with his knowledge that the Powers That Be may be out to get Hank, is to show that, weak and inconsequential as Paul appears, he does have some life outside the family and has picked up information, as well as the phrase. A residual decency lurks below the surface in Paul. He is defeated, not only by his society, but also by the women in his life, Hank's wife and mother. He has some sense of solidarity with Hank against it all. Hank himself is almost oblivious to his milieu.
From the incident with the trainman whistling the concerto, it is obvious that the people who know about Galt’s Gulch are still out in the world. They must be the source of “Who is John Galt?” However, it has always puzzled me that this particular meme is ubiquitous in the society and is a synonym for “Who knows” or “What's the use.” Perhaps it is just a tortured device Rand is using to establish the unifying theme and pique interest in Galt. As far as we know in the universe of the novel, Galt is unknown and his resistance is still underground. How would his name come to be a common expression? The only answer I can come to is that the members of the Gulch who are still in the world have been spreading the expression. There is fertile ground for cynicism and irony in a failing society where some can still sense that the problems are all manufactured. There is an obvious resonance of the phrase among even the most depressed.
I lived through the period when Rand was writing this. I was 14 when the book was published. I do not recall a lot of ubiquitous and current political catch phrases back then. Rand may be drawing on her experience in the USSR, when information/commentary was passed from person to person, not only because of the lack of mass communication, but the personal insecurity of publishing critiques of society/government. The usage may be to show that there is still some connection between individuals, even in a dehumanizing environment. Everyone, so far, recognizes the subtext of the phrase.
I grew up in PA. I remember our local steel mill closing sometime in the '80's. Lots of families put food on the table working in the steel mill up to then.
Two topics catch my whimsy at the moment - first, the bracelet and all it symbolizes, and second, the source of Philip Reardon's sense of entitlement.
The bracelet. It is, of course, a chain, and as a symbol of bondage it has already been pointed out that it cuts two ways - first, the bondage of the individual wearing it toward Reardon and second, the reverse of the same. Clearly he is a prisoner of his own feelings for family (however unmerited by any real return of love, but more of that later). Clearly those are the bonds he must break before he can contemplate a refuge in Galt's Gulch or the like.
But more to the point, it's a bracelet. What else would one expect him to make for his wife of a small batch of prototypical metal? At what point does one's insistence on thinking in symbols get in the way of communication rather than enhance it? I recall making this point in argument with an insistent feminist who was appalled at where the bracelet ended up - no spoilers, I promise - because she felt that Rand was challenging her conviction that the relationships between the sexes were purely a social construct. Rand was, actually, and when we get to that part of the book it's going to be a very interesting discussion.
That was quite a debate, actually - we touched on whether people think in symbols or words (yes, in her case the feminist was the postmodern) or whether they're really the same thing. I'm ashamed to admit I ended the debate by cheating, pointing out that she was wearing a charm bracelet at the time. When next I saw her the bracelet was off. I still feel a little bad about that.
Now, the sense of entitlement evidenced in Philip Reardon turns into one of the overarching themes of AS. It is simply this - it is, in actuality, a feeling of superiority, and it stems from the idea that all of them in the room have succeeded in making a living off Reardon's creation by doing things that he did not - marketing, on the more innocent hand, bribery and corruption on the other. (And isn't "Wesley Mouch" one of the great names in fiction? I mean, given...) This is, if you like, derivative wealth, but it is clear that Rand regards it as earnable only by virtue of the fact that the society that mandates its necessity is irremedially corrupt in doing so. That does not make it less necessary, or Reardon less innocent for either not realizing it or refusing to play by a set of debased rules.
His family's sense of superiority is, in Rand's terms, the same felt by a thief toward his victim. It is the same sense of superiority we see in media, celebrity, and politician in the present day, as if a cutpurse with a Harvard degree is inherently more deserving of the loot than the person who accumulated it, the moocher a superior creature to the taxpayer. Washington, D.C., is lousy with this specimen. Can anyone imagine Obama and Pelosi and Reid actually regarding a welder as their rightful employer, to whom they are accountable? Or as their inferior, to be led, cajoled, manipulated, and fooled?
We know, of course, Rand's answer to that, or rather we're about to find out.
To people like Philip Reardon, the only valid contribution one can make to their fellow man is in the form of a handout. Just give them a fish instead of teaching them how to fish.
Instead, there is only scorn and reproach for the industrialists that create products that make life easier and enable people to “do for themselves”; no acknowledgment whatsoever that the goods and services they provided do contribute to the general welfare.
The extent of their wealth is in itself proof that people valued the services and the resulting opportunities their services provided and a lot of people were willing to exchange money for it.
Then there’s the chain itself. This was just a joke to Lillian, wasn’t it? She even used it to make Hank feel guilty!
The chain, that little palm-full of metal represented Hank’s hopes and aspirations and a LOT of effort. For that reason alone you’d think a wife would cherish it. That was the most hurtful part of the chapter. She would rather have had something glamorous. If she had believed in him, she might have considered the notion that many years hence, Reardon Metal would be everywhere and a part of daily life for many people and that bracelet would come to have great value in terms of its cultural significance, being the first thing made from Reardon Metal.
"In former times, when the honor of work had some hold upon us, it was the practice of a maker to give his name to the product, and pride of family was linked up with the maintenance of quality. Whether it was New England ships or Pennsylvania iron or Virginia tobacco, the name of an individual usually stood behind what was offered publicly as a tacit assumption of responsibility.
But, as finance capitalism grew and men and property separated, a significant change occurred in names: the new designations shed all connection with the individual and became "General," "Standard," "International," "American," which are, of course, masks. Behind these every sort of adulteration can be practiced, and no one is shamed, because no one is identified; and, in fact, no single person may be responsible. Having a real name might require having a character, and character stands in the way of profit. The invented names have a kinship with the dishonest hyperboles of advertising."
-Richard Weaver, Ideas Have Consequences