Is Atlas Shrugged Worth the Long Read?

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Chad
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Re: Is Atlas Shrugged Worth the Long Read?

Post by Chad »

Dragline wrote: On the other hand, just because you start reading a book doesn't mean you have to finish it. Or can't come back to it later.
This is very true. It took me a long time to learn this...like 40 years.

theanimal
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Re: Is Atlas Shrugged Worth the Long Read?

Post by theanimal »

Chad wrote:
Dragline wrote: On the other hand, just because you start reading a book doesn't mean you have to finish it. Or can't come back to it later.
This is very true. It took me a long time to learn this...like 40 years.
I have a problem with this myself. It actually applies to a book I'm about two-thirds of the way into now, just having trouble with the idea of not finishing it..

skintstudent
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Re: Is Atlas Shrugged Worth the Long Read?

Post by skintstudent »

Felix wrote:You're not the only one who feels that way.

Yes, Fountainhead is more readable. Less redundant monologue and less cardboard-like characters.
Lol @ the link. I may give Foutainhead a go sometime then.
Dragline wrote:
On the other hand, just because you start reading a book doesn't mean you have to finish it. Or can't come back to it later.
Atlas Shrugged was one of the first books I didn't finish, even after investing the time to read the first 1000 pages. Perhaps it deserves a recommendation on the basis that it taught me this. If a book/film whatever is not satisfying me now, I have far less inclination to see it through to the end (even if it is regarded as a classic).

workathome
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Re: Is Atlas Shrugged Worth the Long Read?

Post by workathome »

TBH... I didn't finish the book either - it lost me after the magical cloaking-shield protected Colorado village that worshipped a giant golden dollar sign.

Dragline
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Re: Is Atlas Shrugged Worth the Long Read?

Post by Dragline »

theanimal wrote:
Chad wrote:
Dragline wrote: On the other hand, just because you start reading a book doesn't mean you have to finish it. Or can't come back to it later.
This is very true. It took me a long time to learn this...like 40 years.
I have a problem with this myself. It actually applies to a book I'm about two-thirds of the way into now, just having trouble with the idea of not finishing it..
This applies to so many things in life. We are inculcated from the beginning to "finish what we start", and sometimes people wrongly equate that idea to be a moral virtue in and unto itself. For lots of people in the world, yes, they do need to learn to finish what they start if they have that problem of never getting anything done. For most of us, though, myself included, at some point this mantra just became one of those "foolish consistencies" that Emerson warned could be the hobgoblin of our little minds if we let it.

To ALWAYS finish what we start just because we started it means we probably aren't thinking too hard in the middle about whether we might be wasting our time with something that turned out to be not as valuable as we thought it might be when we started. It becomes more of a sign of inflexibility than one of virtue.

Like finishing that PhD that we don't really want anymore. Or sticking with that job that one hates just because we started in that field. Or even more seriously, insisting on finishing a physically strenuous event that could kill or maim us. Finishing is often overvalued and overly romanticized, especially in fiction and news stories. Surviving to have another go at it (or not) is undervalued.

tommytebco
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Re: Is Atlas Shrugged Worth the Long Read?

Post by tommytebco »

Here's an interesting aside. Alan Greenspan, noted Fed Chairperson, was an acolyte of Ayn Rand in his younger years.
http://www.noblesoul.com/orc/bio/turbulence.html

Chad
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Re: Is Atlas Shrugged Worth the Long Read?

Post by Chad »

tommytebco wrote:Here's an interesting aside. Alan Greenspan, noted Fed Chairperson, was an acolyte of Ayn Rand in his younger years.
http://www.noblesoul.com/orc/bio/turbulence.html
He was acolyte until 2007-2008...a true believer. Of course, it all crashed and burned around him and he admitted as much in front of congress.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YwpnH_OTZio

Felix
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Re: Is Atlas Shrugged Worth the Long Read?

Post by Felix »

Dragline wrote:
This applies to so many things in life. We are inculcated from the beginning to "finish what we start", and sometimes people wrongly equate that idea to be a moral virtue in and unto itself. For lots of people in the world, yes, they do need to learn to finish what they start if they have that problem of never getting anything done. For most of us, though, myself included, at some point this mantra just became one of those "foolish consistencies" that Emerson warned could be the hobgoblin of our little minds if we let it.

To ALWAYS finish what we start just because we started it means we probably aren't thinking too hard in the middle about whether we might be wasting our time with something that turned out to be not as valuable as we thought it might be when we started. It becomes more of a sign of inflexibility than one of virtue.

Like finishing that PhD that we don't really want anymore. Or sticking with that job that one hates just because we started in that field. Or even more seriously, insisting on finishing a physically strenuous event that could kill or maim us. Finishing is often overvalued and overly romanticized, especially in fiction and news stories. Surviving to have another go at it (or not) is undervalued.
Yes, the sunk cost fallacy is one of the beneficial concepts in economics.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sunk_costs

Tell me about the PhD ... :lol: ... :(

Applying it is difficult to a large part because of the ingrained cultural bias you mentioned.

About the Greenspan connection: It's amazing how much real world damage that psychopathic woman has done already.

Sometimes I like to entertain the thought that Greenspan pulled a D'Anconia on this one. Setting the entire economy up for failure and then handing the wheel over to Bernanke before the iceberg is hit and just playing the senile idiot. :lol:
I wonder whose idea it was to hand over the wheel of the economy to a member of an apocalyptic cult obsessed with economic collapse to begin with ...

Bringing forth the apocalypse to save the good souls and punish the evil ones like all apocalyptic cults.

In line with all the other cults, despite the best efforts of the followers, the mothership has a tendency of delaying arrival ... the collapse of the dollar is half a century overdue already.

I guess next to right-leaning people without life experience, Atlas Shrugged also tests for those who will never get the memo.

I expect to die a long and agonizing death in a train accident any day now really - like all other unworthy life - deservedly of course, as I fail to properly revere billionaire super-humans with six-packs and perpetuum mobiles for single-handedly running entire economies. :roll:

One should really read Atlas Shrugged. Just to see the insanity directly.

If only it were better written. Objectivist aesthetics is simply a euphemism (Rand's own euphemism to boot) for Ayn Rand's personal idea of what aesthetics supposedly is. Given that even many of those who like her message find her writing insufferable makes her stand alone with that idea, though.

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jennypenny
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Re: Is Atlas Shrugged Worth the Long Read?

Post by jennypenny »

You don't have to hold back with us, Felix. Tell us what you really think. :D

I definitely have to read at least some of Atlas Shrugged now. I hope the librarian doesn't give my 11yo grief when he checks it out for me. (she did when he checked out Dirty Wars for me)

JohnnyH
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Re: Is Atlas Shrugged Worth the Long Read?

Post by JohnnyH »

It's generally a horrible read with a lot of worthwhile ideas buried within it... I had to put the book down and listen to the audiobook which was incredibly well read/acted and made the whole experience more tolerable... How did this book not get edited? What were they thinking?

I agree with Jacob, litmus test. But rather than left vs right I think it's more government is generally good/effective vs not (on domestic/trade issues at least, when war/ "defense" is involved the right literally worships dense centralized power it vehemently claims to oppose).

I'm not really left or right, but I think the larger, more centralized the government the less good and effective (except at destroying/taxing). Therefore, I shook my head at the well-meaning laws passed in Atlas and can see parallel laws being passed and proposed today... As someone structuring my ERE to pay 0 taxes I can also identify with the Galt movement.

The "psychopath" label is pathetic slander has essentially no basis in reality.
http://www.objectobot.com/?p=442
Googling those words guess what comes up first: dailykos, democratic underground, salon, billmoyers.com. :roll:

skintstudent
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Re: Is Atlas Shrugged Worth the Long Read?

Post by skintstudent »

JasonR wrote:... stinkystudent....

Gee, thanks! :cry:

Seneca
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Re: Is Atlas Shrugged Worth the Long Read?

Post by Seneca »

JohnnyH wrote:How did this book not get edited? What were they thinking?
Agreed. Maybe a case where Rand was a bit too famous when it came out and could dictate terms? Did she self-publish the first edition?
I'm not really left or right, but I think the larger, more centralized the government the less good and effective (except at destroying/taxing). Therefore, I shook my head at the well-meaning laws passed in Atlas and can see parallel laws being passed and proposed today... As someone structuring my ERE to pay 0 taxes I can also identify with the Galt movement.
What's interesting about that is as the central government is elected on a platform of growing larger, people are going Galt with their feet and moving from states with more social services, more restrictions and the commensurate higher taxes (California), to places with lower taxes, fewer restrictions and lower services (Texas). And they darn sure aren't doing it for the weather. The largest groups doing this are not the wealthy, either.

Felix
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Re: Is Atlas Shrugged Worth the Long Read?

Post by Felix »

Not sure how else to call someone who describes in delicious detail how those people who don't support your own ideology of "helping the needy is the definition of evil" and their children deserve to suffocate to death.

JohnnyH
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Re: Is Atlas Shrugged Worth the Long Read?

Post by JohnnyH »

Felix wrote:Not sure how else to call someone who describes in delicious detail how those people who don't support your own ideology of "helping the needy is the definition of evil" and their children deserve to suffocate to death.
"The fact that a man has no claim on others (i.e., that it is not their moral duty to help him and that he cannot demand their help as his right) does not preclude or prohibit good will among men and does not make it immoral to offer or to accept voluntary, non-sacrificial assistance."

Felix
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Re: Is Atlas Shrugged Worth the Long Read?

Post by Felix »

I know the verbiage. If you take this to its logical conclusion, you end up, as Rothbard -another champion of personal liberty- did, at a point where you are not allowed to hit your children, but you can let them starve to death.
Applying our theory to parents and children, this means that a parent does not have the right to aggress against his children, but also that the parent should not have a legal obligation to feed, clothe, or educate his children, since such obligations would entail positive acts coerced upon the parent and depriving the parent of his rights. The parent therefore may not murder or mutilate his child, and the law properly outlaws a parent from doing so. But the parent should have the legal right not to feed the child, i.e., to allow it to die.
http://mises.org/rothbard/ethics/fourteen.asp

The glove still fits.

Seneca
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Re: Is Atlas Shrugged Worth the Long Read?

Post by Seneca »

Felix wrote:Not sure how else to call someone who describes in delicious detail how those people who don't support your own ideology of "helping the needy is the definition of evil" and their children deserve to suffocate to death.
She was an ideologue, that's how they are.

Felix
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Re: Is Atlas Shrugged Worth the Long Read?

Post by Felix »

That's how psychopaths are.

JohnnyH
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Re: Is Atlas Shrugged Worth the Long Read?

Post by JohnnyH »

1. That is a strawman, two actually.
2. Got it... Libertarian philosophers and economists are psychopaths for being wary of governments that have demonstratively killed/maimed countless millions in the name of some alleged well intentioned morality.

Felix
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Re: Is Atlas Shrugged Worth the Long Read?

Post by Felix »

Talking about strawmen... :D

Both Rand and Rothbard defend an ideology that legitimizes psychopathic behavior, Rand even turns it into the ideal towards those who oppose her ideology in the train wreck scene. You really want to defend that?

Seneca
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Re: Is Atlas Shrugged Worth the Long Read?

Post by Seneca »

Felix wrote:Talking about strawmen... :D

Both Rand and Rothbard defend an ideology that legitimizes psychopathic behavior, Rand even turns it into the ideal towards those who oppose her ideology in the train wreck scene. You really want to defend that?
The Sierra Club and Earth First! published pamphlets and "Battle Books" that detailed how to sabotage trees and off road use trails in a way that intentionally harmed and killed people who did not agree with their version of environmentalism. And real world people were injured by their actions.

Does that mean environmentalism is "psychopathic", or that broadly defending environmentalism is defending people who wish to injure/kill loggers, lumber mill workers and dirt bike riders?
Last edited by Seneca on Tue Mar 11, 2014 11:52 am, edited 1 time in total.

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