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Related: About this forumDON'T WASTE 9 MONTHS READING “ATLAS SHRUGGED!”
Why waste 9 months reading the 1,200 page Republican economic bible when everything you need to know about Atlas Shrugged and its author Ayn Rand is in a 9-minute video?
I did the reading, so you don't have to!
Walk away
(9,494 posts)geefloyd46
(1,939 posts)lame54
(35,284 posts)"How I Met Your Mother."
ewagner
(18,964 posts)Dean: "As your Dean it is my duty to tell you that you will never become an Ophthalmologist"
Rand: "I AM an Ophthalmologist!"
Walk away
(9,494 posts)zeemike
(18,998 posts)And to whoever made that...
fasttense
(17,301 posts)I should have listen to her. But Nooooo. I had to read it. I was 16 and had to read everything my Mom said was bad.
When I got to the part where he complains about wearing clothes I laughed out loud.
And I think there is a rape scene in it but because of her clumsy writing I didn't catch on to it. A rape scene would have put it on the list of must read for my group of teenage girls (back then, anything with sex was on the must read list.). Later someone explained it was a rape scene and I had to go back and find it. I still have my doubts that they even had sex. All I know is that he ran around his hotel room naked because he didn't want to wear clothes, it was too conformist.
What a total waste of time. I could have been reading "Catcher in the Rye".
Bainbridge Bear
(155 posts)was written by Rand and she demanded that nothing be changed. Regardless of her insistence it is one of the most unintentionally funny movies ever made. In retrospect, I think that Raymond Massey was the smartest actor in the film because his character shoots himself before it ends. I will give the film one compliment. It was well photographed.
MrYikes
(720 posts)SemperEadem
(8,053 posts)we have scholarship on our side.
Walk away
(9,494 posts)There are hundreds, if not thousands, of Liberal novels. The difference is that ours are readable, beautifully written pieces of art.
JDPriestly
(57,936 posts)We are always seeking better ideas, and don't look for simplistic answers. Therefore don't try to put all our ideas into just a couple of books.
We don't really think that one basic story, or one basic theory is "the" answer. We are not dogmatic.
So, we look to all experience and all literature and information to guide us. We don't apply a single set of ideas to answer all questions. Each answer raises for us new questions.
MrYikes
(720 posts)a Democrat will tell a teenager to read every other book in print.
Kinda seems a little lopsided.
JDPriestly
(57,936 posts)You need to understand a lot of different points of view. That's what our party is about. Diversity, understanding, humanity, science, the earth, love, caring, different lifestyles, different economic strata, diversity.
All that cannot be contained in one book.
MrYikes
(720 posts)I understand what you are saying and I appreciate and am honored by your response, but (there had to be a but, right?) the right has atlas to point towards and the left NEEDS a simplistic, readable story to which we can also point. The story need not inundate the reader with excruciating detail, but simplify it maybe down to: do unto others,,,
I believe that such a book would have an immediate readership and that an author would be well compensated for their time writing. Would that I could,,,,,
But one of us surely has the ability. How about YOU. eh, what say you.
fascisthunter
(29,381 posts)JaneyVee
(19,877 posts)homegirl
(1,428 posts)Atlas Drugged: Ayn Rand be Damned. Available on Amazon, Kindle version $7.99.
LibertyBell7
(22 posts) The Declaration of Independence
The Constitution
About any speech by Teddy Roosevelt about fighting inequality, such as:
(Find this here: http://www.ssa.gov/history/trspeech.html)
Or, do you mean fiction?
Maybe Paddy Chayefsky's 1976 masterpiece about today's Corporazi led anti-democracy revolution, Network, where we find this warning:
"You think you've merely stopped a business deal. That is not the case! The Arabs have taken billions of dollars out of this country, and now they must put it back! It is ebb and flow, tidal gravity! It is ecological balance! You are an old man who thinks in terms of nations and peoples. There are no nations. There are no peoples. There are no Russians. There are no Arabs. There are no third worlds. There is no West. There is only one holistic system of systems, one vast and immane, interwoven, interacting, multivariate, multinational dominion of dollars. Petro-dollars, electro-dollars, multi-dollars, reich-marks, rins, rubles, pounds, and shekels. It is the international system of currency which determines the totality of life on this planet. That is the natural order of things today. That is the atomic and subatomic and galactic structure of things today!"
I'm suggesting maybe there are a few contenders... .
Bainbridge Bear
(155 posts)BUSINESS, Mr. Beale!" - Arthur Jensen
Brilliant scene.
Another fine film written by Chayefsky was "The Hospital" about the shortcomings of American medicine. It starred George C. Scott and Diana Rigg.
JEFF9K
(1,935 posts)There isn't one. Thankfully.
Jackpine Radical
(45,274 posts)Steinbeck, The Grapes of Wrath
Sinclair Lewis, just about everything, but especially
It Can't Happen Here
Main Street
Babbitt
Elmer Gantry
nuxvomica
(12,421 posts)While listening to your video, I found an interesting piece of trivia: Rand was an extra in a blockbuster silent movie, Cecil B. DeMille's "The King of Kings", which was about the life of Christ.
Orrex
(63,200 posts)LibertyBell7
(22 posts)glean the leavings from the money lenders tables?
That is an interesting tidbit. Besides reading Atlas Shrugged I read seven biographies of Ayn Rand. A fascinating person, but not nice.
zeemike
(18,998 posts)And I was one of those young and inexperienced readers that bought into it in the early 60s....I actually made it a few pages into John Galt's speech before giving up on finishing it....I thought at the time it was my fault that I did not get it....did not realize it was total bullshit
And I love the part about it being the inspiration for La Vay's Satanic bible...and I read that too and he is right.
JDPriestly
(57,936 posts)theories were utterly crazy and would never work in my life, not if I wanted to have a husband and children and live in a good world. Why wouldn't it work? Because there is no room for love and self-sacrifice in Rand's world.
And you can't marry or raise children or do really meaningful work or live the life your soul is meant to live if you don't have love and self-sacrifice or at least working toward some goals other than being rich and master or mistress of your universe. That's just not where a good life is.
Ayn Rand was a kook.
zeemike
(18,998 posts)But sociopaths have problems with love....and she clearly was one.
Lots of people read the book when they are students, with limited knowledge of how things work. It's really hard to read as an adult.
EastKYLiberal
(429 posts)JEFF9K
(1,935 posts)Lots of people START reading it. It took me about four months at ten pages a day.
tavalon
(27,985 posts)At least that way it could be funny. Sad, but funny. Bunny theater makes every thing better.
Walk away
(9,494 posts)<a href="" target="_blank"><img src="" border="0" alt="Photobucket"></a>
Cooley Hurd
(26,877 posts)tavalon
(27,985 posts)tavalon
(27,985 posts)Don't feel bad, my desire was infinitesimal so it's not a great loss. I find it interesting that of your nine minute video, only about 30 seconds was devoted to the plot which seems about right.
I'm going to hold out for bunny theater, after all.
Darkhawk32
(2,100 posts)The music was played by my computer. I used a program called Finale Songwriter. It's the theme from ALBERT E. & JESUS C. which I had to stretch from about two-and-a-half minutes to nine. I should have stretched it out longer to cover the last few slides.
hobbit709
(41,694 posts)There's not much reading material beyond a military training manual that does that.
JEFF9K
(1,935 posts)I was able to get through it by reading a little bit every day and taking four months. Compiling all the crazy stuff on a database kept it interesting for me.
marble falls
(57,075 posts)tiresome Randites or people who finding it necessary to waste time re-explaining that nasty little solipsist. Where's John Galt? Who really freaking cares.
JEFF9K
(1,935 posts)I think my video brings something new to the table.
samsingh
(17,595 posts)thelordofhell
(4,569 posts)underpants
(182,766 posts)I don't think I read another book for about 8 years. Yes our high school was such a joke that I did any paper that was needed on "Animal Farm".
Anyway I had such a miserable experience with The Iron Mask that I just sat and watched TV - this was the Reagan years so I think that we the plan anyway.
GTurck
(826 posts)"The Man in the Iron Mask" would not be my choice for a high schooler who is not basically a reader. "Swift Family Robinson", "Robinson Crusoe", or "Tale of Two Cities" would be closer to my choices. For girls "Black Beauty" or "The Secret Garden". The thing is to find the interest and tease it with good books on that subject.
I loved reading but movie adaptations and love of horses kept my interest up.
I also think that assigning each student the opportunity to read from a list of books and do a comprehensive report would be better. Every kid thinks they are unique and don't want to be seen reading what everyone else is.
JEFF9K
(1,935 posts)I hadn't seen that. It's great!
factsarenotfair
(910 posts)Major Nikon
(36,827 posts)It's no surprise the political right is drawn to it like flies to a turd.
Dragonfli
(10,622 posts)[center]Atlas Shrugged: A Summary[/center]
Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand (Random House, 1957) takes place in a universe where trucking, shipping and air freight are impractical, where hard alloys can be made of soft elements, where oil can be extracted from shale to any degree desired, where steam engines are incapable of out-pulling diesel, where gasoline does not evaporate over long periods of time, where sound waves can destroy structures hundreds of miles away without damaging the transmitter, and -- in a particularly important plot point -- where the laws of optics do not apply. It is a universe, in other words, that resembles our own so closely that the allegorical argument can easily be carried over to life in the real world.
Since the novel is for the most part character-driven, I will describe the more important characters as we meet them. Those we meet early on include:
* Dagny Taggart, an attractive, hard-working, creative, well-spoken, somewhat aloof railroad manager who is a hyper-capitalist.
* Hank Rearden, an attractive, hard-working, creative, well-spoken, somewhat aloof steel magnate who is a hyper-capitalist (but doesn't quite know it yet).
* James Taggart, a lazy, unreasonable, unproductive, whiny, hypocritical, communist, physically repugnant, grammatically challenged CEO who is desperate to kill your children and pets.
* Eddie Willers, a regular guy who works for Taggart Transcontinental, and who worships the ground Dagny walks on.
As the novel begins, Dagny, in order to preserve her flagship route's unbroken record of punctuality, orders the train's engineer to run a red light and assumes personal responsibility for the order. In this way, Dagny becomes personally responsible for a head-on collision of trains at eighty miles per hour killing hundreds of people.
Or would, if this were anything like the real world -- in this world, all goes well and the train pulls in on time.
Hank, a man who prides himself on always keeping his promises, invents a metal, which he modestly calls Rearden Metal, and which is virtually indestructible compared to Orren Boyle's Steel.
* Orren Boyle, a lazy, unreasonable, unproductive, whiny, hypocritical, communist, physically repugnant, grammatically challenged CEO who is desperate to kill your children and pets.
Dagny wants to build a new railroad out of Rearden Metal instead of Orren Steel -- since, as everyone knows, the brittleness of a material is inversely proportional to its owner's capitalistic tendencies. James refuses. Dagny goes to build it herself.
For a period of months, she works constantly, takes her type-A personality everywhere she goes, almost never sleeps, and lives pretty much on a diet of caffeine and nicotine. At the end of three months, she drops dead.
Or would, if this were anything like the real world -- in this world, she succeeds in building the railroad. Dagny and Hank celebrate by making the inaugural run of the new route to the oilfields of:
* Ellis Wyatt, an attractive, hard-working, creative, well-spoken, somewhat aloof oil magnate who is a hyper-capitalist.
They spend the night at Wyatt's pad, where Hank rapes Dagny. Kind of. Actually, she wanted it -- and will be the first to say so, as evidenced by a flashback to the first time she was kind-of-raped by her first lover:
* Francisco Something Something Something d'Anconia, an attractive, hard-working, creative, well-spoken, somewhat aloof copper magnate who is a hyper-capitalist.
Anyway, Dagny then begins a full-fledged affair with Hank, who prides himself on always keeping his promises. And who is married. Did I forget to mention that? Silly me. But don't worry, he's not breaking his marriage vows.
* Lillian Rearden, a lazy, unreasonable, unproductive, whiny, hypocritical, communist, physically repugnant, gramatically challenged housewife who is desperate to kill your children and pets.
Promises made to such people don't count.
Brother James, not wanting to feel left out, meets and marries a girl:
* Cherryl Brooks, a shop clerk who is completely irrelevant to the story of the novel, and exists only to prove a philosophical point, which she does by committing suicide about 600 pages later.
Meanwhile, the government seizes certain property, including Rearden Metal and Wyatt's oil. The hyper-capitalists believe that they have no right to do this; after all, their property is not legitimately their property because the government recognizes it as such and imposes limitations on property recognition, but because they created the land, metal and oil out of thin air, and patrol the boundaries every night with a rifle slung over their shoulder to keep out trespassers.
Hank strikes up a friendship with Francisco Something Something Something d'Anconia, who says that if he saw Atlas holding up the world, he would tell him to shrug. This is good novel titling, but bad mythology -- the Greek Titan Atlas did not, as Rand believed, hold up the world -- instead, he was holding up another Greek Titan -- namely, Uranus, the god of the sky. Hence, an equally appropriate title for this novel would have been, The Sky Is Falling.
Hank also meets a mysterious stranger:
* Ragnar Danneskjöld, an attractive, hard-working, creative, well-spoken, somewhat aloof pirate who is a hyper-capitalist.
Yes, I said pirate. In this world, piracy is perfectly acceptable, provided a hyper-capitalist does it for the purpose of furthering his political agenda.
Meanwhile, in Colorado, a Taggart train suffers various mechanical problems and is forced to take a diesel engine into a very long tunnel. Everyone on the train dies of asphyxiation. The author provides a very brief philosophical biography of all the waking passengers on the train, and makes it clear, as they go to their deaths, who they are.
* Every person who dies in the Winston Tunnel: a lazy, unreasonable, unproductive, whiny, hypocritical, communist, physically repugnant, grammatically challenged something-or-other who is desperate to kill your children and pets.
Yes, including the children on the train. The obvious implication is that they deserved their fate, and the author even suggests that they somehow caused it.
After dealing with the ensuing crisis the way only a hyper-capitalist can, Dagny meets a hobo who tells her about John Galt, an engineer who, when his company adopted some liberal policies, quit in protest and found work somewhere else.
Or would have, if this were the real world -- in this world, the company in question adopted full blown Marxism, and in response, Galt made a vow to destroy all of civilization.
Dagny comes to suspect that this John Galt is responsible for the rash of unexplained disappearances of hyper-capitalists around the country. She buys a plane, takes off in search of him -- somehow, in the midst of working herself to death keeping the railroad afloat, she found time to get her pilot's license.
Or not; she crashes.
When she comes to, she is looking at . . .
* John Galt, an extremely attractive, very hard-working, unbelievably creative, spellbindingly well-spoken, very much aloof engineer who is so hyper a hyper-capitalist that before long, Dagny dumps Hank and starts fucking John.
He's living in a cloaked valley with all the other hyper-capitalists that he persuaded to join him. Everything here is powered by the Galt Engine, a device that extracts energy from ambient static electricity -- literally drawing energy out of thin air. (Because they're in the mountains, ha ha.) They have their own little hyper-capitalist society, complete with currency in the form of gold.
They come here because John has talked them into going on strike from society -- in this world, it's appropriate to strike from society if you're a hyper-capitalist, but not if you're a teacher or a nurse. Dagny sympathizes, but goes back to the world because she loves her railroad.
Meanwhile, James Taggart and Lillian Rearden engage in a contemptible repudiation of life and existence: they have sex. You see, it's contemptible when communists commit adultery, but a grand, life-affirming act when hyper-capitalists do it.
Anyway, Cherryl catches them in the act, realizes that James is a communist -- something which he has remarkably kept secret from her during their entire marriage. She further realizes that the world is chock full of communists and, as noted earlier, promptly commits suicide to prove a philosophical point. This is tragic because she wanted to be a hyper-capitalist when she grew up -- as opposed to the children on the train in the tunnel, who of course were fully capable of understanding and willfully adhering to communism, and therefore deserved to die.
Well, with all the hyper-capitalists disappearing, civilization is beginning to fall apart piece by piece. Fortunately, there are intelligent and creative people who are not hyper-capitalists, who still give a damn about their fellow man, and who, with time, effort and teamwork, manage to put it all back together.
Or there would be, in the real world; in the world of the novel, no such luck. So it is that we meet . . .
* Mr. Thompson: a lazy, unreasonable, unproductive, whiny, hypocritical, communist, physically repugnant, grammatically challenged head of state who is desperate . . . yeah I know, you get the idea by now, but I had to suffer through more than eleven hundred pages full of tiny little words of this shit, and I want you to feel some of my pain, okay?
With the crisis deepening, he prepares to make a nationally broadcast speech on the radio -- but John Galt jams the signal, everywhere in the country, and gives a speech of his own.
The speech is sixty or seventy pages long, takes about three hours to read if you read it aloud, and constitutes the nucleus of Ayn Rand's philosophy. I will condense it here to twelve words: A equals A; therefore if you're not selfish, you deserve to die.
The government locates Galt and kidnaps him. Mr. Thompson and others try to persuade him to help repair things; Galt refuses. They torture him. It doesn't work; Galt is simply too fucking handsome to be tortured. Discovering this, James Taggart realizes for the first time that he is a communist asshole, and promptly goes catatonic.
This gives Dagny Taggart, Hank Rearden, Francisco Something Something Something d'Anconia and their buddies a chance to rescue him -- which they do, killing those who stand in their way, which is justified because they chose to stand in their way.
As they fly away, the cities go dark. Everything stops. (Eddie, the regular guy who worshiped the ground that Dagny and her buddies walked on, is on a train that breaks down at the time, and is abandoned in the middle of nowhere. There's probably a lesson there.)
And then all is well. The hyper-capitalists settle down to a simple but well-electrified life in Galt's Gulch, waiting for the day when the masses will beg for them to come back to the world. The book ends with John Galt standing and gazing out at the landscape, majestically tracing the sign of the dollar in the air.
There's no joke here -- that's exactly how the book ends.
**please note I can't remember the DUer's name that posted it, I didn't remember to save his/her name the with text, hopefully he/she will show up and take a deserved bow**
a2liberal
(1,524 posts)instead of taking all the credit got yourself? How un-hyper-capitalist of you!
Curmudgeoness
(18,219 posts)but not quite. And it is so accurate that I am glad I can get some humor out of having read the book. (I had to when it became apparent that the GOP were so excited about it.)
And the only thing that really struck me in the whole book was the way Willers ended up. Yes, there was a lesson there. A big freaking lesson.
Response to Dragonfli (Reply #31)
guyton This message was self-deleted by its author.
Kalidurga
(14,177 posts)olegramps
(8,200 posts)It explains how this supposedly devote Christian espouses concepts totally in opposition to the teaching of Jesus. He identifies with the rich and powerful and has nothing more than contempt for the majority of mankind who he regards as parasites. Nor is it surprising to me that he also identifies with the Catholic bishops who believe that their teachings are without error and are most importantly to be accepted without equivocation. Anyone who disagrees are in error especially in regard to human sexuality. It is laughable that celibates would be taken seriously in this regard, but unfortunately they can influence some impressionable people, however, thankfully with a lessening degree than in the past.
JEFF9K
(1,935 posts)I don't believe that Paul Ryan understands the book. Or that he's the intellectual that some people think.
Boomerproud
(7,951 posts)She's the idiot's idiot.
possiblylogical
(18 posts)This is really the only reason the book has done as well as it has.
If you're conservative leaning, you don't even notice that the only "moral" characters in the story are ones that agree with her world view. This allows her writing to more persuasive than her ideas warrant.
BlancheSplanchnik
(20,219 posts)Wonder if it would help my rand worshipping friend wake up......
JEFF9K
(1,935 posts)That's a scary thought.
BlancheSplanchnik
(20,219 posts)She's very very smart. Mathematician. And she's an athiest. Young professional.
It just shocks me...maybe partly she enjoys expressing the hostility of such a view point. That kind of intellectual cynicism is pretty comon, specially when you're young.
I'm just speculating.
The Wizard
(12,541 posts)of Douche Baggia.
progressoid
(49,978 posts)that would be great.
.
Thanks for this suggestion