Atlas Shrugged. April 15. Is your body ready?

[Luna]

Or, maybe I'm reading too much into it and go with the simpler explanation of Ayn Rand was a very fucked up woman.

Bingo.

[President Television]

Today, me and some friends took a cab to the theatre to watch Atlas Shrugged for shits and giggles. We did nothing but mock Objectivism and Ayn Rand the whole way. I think the cab driver was an Objectivist, because his eyes popped nearly out of his head when one of my friends brought up "Ayn Rand's man hands".
But then it turned out that the theatre wasn't showing it. We fucked up the date, I guess.

[Cardinal Pizza Deliverance.]

Ive never read Atlas Shrugged (tl;dr) but I know Ayn Rand was really critical of religion, especially Christianity. How often is that brough up in Atlas Shrugged?

I think Atlas Shrugged is more about how Liberals want to shut down anything that's productive.

And some rape.  It isn't an Ayn Rand novel without a little rape.

But rape is okay if he's her ideal archetype!

Today I learned that Ayn Rand is also V. C. Andrews.

Also: Screw "Atlas Shrugged" I'm holding out for Thor on May 6th.

[Telarus]

"Your Highness" dropped this week.

[Prince Glittersnatch III]

"Your Highness" dropped this week.

According to the free market this is a better film than Atlas Shrugged(We all know what the box office numbers are going to be).

I wish to hear an objectivist explain this.

[Requia ☣]

The public adores mediocrity.

No really, that's the objectivist explanation for Hollywood.

[Placid Dingo]

Yeah. I read it this year and the anti-religion angle wasn't very clear.

Neither was there anything that was obviously rape, although I recall one character being mighty proud of the fact that he wasn't murdering his wife, seeing as how she was being terribly unfair by being critical of his cheating on her.

He should have been down on his knees thanking all that's holy that she didn't geld him in his sleep.

If it's the character I am thinking of they were BOTH bags of douche, and should have been gassed in their sleep.

All of them?

Actually it was Rearden.

And you know there actually was one decent human being in that book.

They leave him to rot in the collapsing world, without so much as a thank you. Really cheesed me off.

[hooplala]

Yeah. I read it this year and the anti-religion angle wasn't very clear.

Neither was there anything that was obviously rape, although I recall one character being mighty proud of the fact that he wasn't murdering his wife, seeing as how she was being terribly unfair by being critical of his cheating on her.

He should have been down on his knees thanking all that's holy that she didn't geld him in his sleep.

If it's the character I am thinking of they were BOTH bags of douche, and should have been gassed in their sleep.

All of them?

Actually it was Rearden.

And you know there actually was one decent human being in that book.

They leave him to rot in the collapsing world, without so much as a thank you. Really cheesed me off.

I never finished the book.  I can't imagine who that single person was.

And yes, all of them.

[Slyph]

I never finished the book.  I can't imagine who that single person was.

Think Placid is referring to Eddie Willers.

[Slyph]

You know, the Galt torture bit at the end was actually kind of cool. Think about it as a kind of Anti Plato's cave, with each of the person's present standing in for the reader's, I don't know, "archetypes"? the voices you use to argue to yourself when you're thinking shit out. Galt telling them how to repair the torture machine was supposed to be like; "Why should I keep intellectualising, to myself, reasons to feel shit all the time?" I think Rand might have cut down on the speed and had a little talk with Nathaniel before she wrote that part maybe.

I mean, it's "good" compaired to the other six thousand pages. It's as "good" as like, the best episode of Dragonball Z or something.

http://www.nathanielbranden.com/catalog/articles_essays/benefits_and_hazards.html
And it's not like the little lift you might get from that part compensates any for the torture every Objectivist has to endure within themselves by taking anything else that nutter said seriously.

In the days of my association with Ayn Rand, we heard over and over again the accusation that we are against feelings, against emotions. And we would say in all good faith, "What are you talking about? We celebrate human passion. All the characters in the novels have powerful emotions, powerful passions. They feel far more deeply about things than does the average person. How can you possibly say that we are against feeling and emotion?"

The critics were right. Here is my evidence: When we counsel parents, we always tell them, in effect: "Remember, your children will pay more attention to what you do than what you say. No teaching is as powerful as the teaching of the example. It isn't the sermons you deliver that your children will remember, but the way you act and live." Now apply that same principle to fiction, because the analogy fits perfectly. On the one hand, there are Rand's abstract statements concerning the relationship of mind and emotion; on the other hand, there is the behavior of her characters, the way her characters deal with their feelings.

If, in page after page of "The Fountainhead" and "Atlas Shrugged," you show someone being heroic by ruthlessly setting feelings aside, and if you show someone being rotten and depraved by, in effect, diving headlong into his feelings and emotions, and if that is one of your dominant methods of characterization, repeated again and again, then it doesn't matter what you profess, in abstract philosophy, about the relationship of reason and emotion. You have taught people: repress, repress, repress.

[Placid Dingo]

Slyph, love that quote in terms of literary criticism. That's great.

In truth I ended A.S feeling really up about it, and having enjoyes probably most of it from the end of that Galt speech onwards. The torture sequence is fantastic. But it doesn't begin to make up for the flaws.

Yeah, i couldn't remember the person, but it was Willers. He's loyal, kind and considerate and that bitch just leaves him to rot. No explanation. No happy ending. That company would have shit itself without him, and she discards him like a used tissue.

[hooplala]

And they made Willers black in the movie version.  That should make for some interesting film interpretation.

[The Good Reverend Roger]

Slyph, love that quote in terms of literary criticism. That's great.

In truth I ended A.S feeling really up about it, and having enjoyes probably most of it from the end of that Galt speech onwards. The torture sequence is fantastic. But it doesn't begin to make up for the flaws.

Yeah, i couldn't remember the person, but it was Willers. He's loyal, kind and considerate and that bitch just leaves him to rot. No explanation. No happy ending. That company would have shit itself without him, and she discards him like a used tissue.

The Free Market™ demands it.

Oddly enough, many working class folks (read: teabaggers) support the idea of disposable employees.

[hooplala]

As the Generalissimo says, "Peoples are full of dumb."

[Slyph]

And they made Willers black in the movie version.  That should make for some interesting film interpretation.

I've said before and I'll say again: a Black JOHN GALT would make for an interesting film.

A black Eddie, the character who is like, this well meaning lackey without the Genius of the main characters, this worker who "knows his place". Wow. Bad implications, really.