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Posted on 12/04/2009 7:52:57 AM PST by Titus Quinctius Cincinnatus
We all can’t be climbing on top of Dagny Taggart, Ms. Rand. Family endures after money and profit fade.
If Angelina Jolie really does play Dagny that mental picture just got even better...
“Rand had a few problems with drawing a distinction between res publica and res privata. Same problem as the socialists/nanny statists, just in the opposite direction.”
That’s one of the more coherent and accurate criticisms I’ve heard of her, but I prefer her confusion to the left’s.
I disagree.
The only problem I had with her was her diatribe against “organized religion” (seemingly the Catholic church, of which I have my own issues with it) in Atlas Shrugged.
But the rest is sound.
“and an “Atlas” cable miniseries is reportedly in the works.”
oh crap, let me guess JG is an eco-warrior railling against big oil and the evils of capitalism in general.
True dat. At least Rand's confusion leaves everyone else alone...
I am at the part in the book where Dannager retires and disappears. I just can’t put the book down.
Dittos! We have been ‘going galt’ since last fall. Ayn Rand is one of my heroines....I don’t care about her religion(or lack thereof). She was right about the statists.
I agree.
over here
Exactly.
Rand is a genius at illustrating the economic dead end that is statism, but the rest of her philosophy is a dead end for society.
The one striking thing I remember about “Atlas” is it’s almost total absence of children (and given the number of pages in that thing, that’s tough to do).
As I recall, children show up twice - kind of. There’s a bunch a pages at the beginning involving the young Dagny and her little friends. But of course if you read Rand’s dialog for them, they’re not really children - they’re just adults in children’s bodies having grown-up conversations.
And there’s one sentence in the middle of the book where a mom is carrying her baby in that cloaked hideaway in the Colorado mountains.
And as I recall, that’s it - Rand, I expect, had little interest in children, and that’s not surprising: raising children is, at it’s core, a multi-year exercise in altruism (and we can’t have any of that!).
Rand had wonderful insights on the problems that arise when do-gooders project their altruism onto economic policy. But she never quite clued into the fact that life is pretty much pointless without the kind of love that involves giving of yourself.
And as best as I can tell, she ended up living a life that included a boatload of personal misery.
I finished the book not to long ago. Started out painfully slow to me and I put it down for almost a year. When Dagney got together with Hank Reardon is when I really stuck with it and couldn’t put it down either.
Great point. At least Rand's conundrum can be sorted out without resorting to gunpoint; everything the Left demands is always at gunpoint. Rand's first-principles ethical and political argument was that your life belongs to you. All else follows from that.
There are also the feral children who break the window of Hank’s car in Starnesville. Now just substitute those feral children for the actual children who live in Starnesvil...uh... Detroit!
I'm not an anti-government absolutist. I believe in free-market capitalism because I feel that's the best way to create wealth for all. But I, and I sure many conservatives feel the same, don't worship money for itself. It's just a means to an end.
What Rand get's wrong is that no person is an island. All the great people couldn't have made it without the support of the countless millions who provided the framework for the giants to stand on. But I have no problem with the Gates's of the world and their billions. That's how the market works.
p.s. I've read "The Fountainhead" and have purchased "Atlas Shrugged."
I just can’t put the book down.
Thats called a good plot, structure and writing. Couple good this with deep original philosophy and you have a classic. BTW, Rand, like Conrad and Kosinsky, wrote in a second language, not their own. I always find that amazing.
Excellent point!
I bought my paperback copy cheap, got it home, and when I opened the book, the print was the tiniest font I have ever seen this side of microfilm! I've literally had to use my stamp-collector husband's magnifying glass to read it.
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