I shrugged

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Why give mindlessly to a bodied mass you hold in such high contempt? Surely you will concede that people will only change their inclinations when impelled to do so. The hand-out for the sake of your having your hand stuck out is irrational. It creates noting. And only weakens an already weakened social fabric. I speak here of wealth. Food as alms has always been given. But you give someone money for no reason, then they will expect money for no reason. It's the way the world is.

Philanthropy will endow its recipient with two things. One, recognition. Two, responsibility.

Philanthropy wins hands-down.

I have read a great deal many books. Dickens may not be the best, but at his best, the man knew how to write. I consider Bleak House to be his magnum opus, though admittedly I have only read four of his books.

And what is wrong with humanism?



I've never read Dostoyevsky or Joyce. Maybe I should, so that I can deliver a decent rebuttal. But entertainment is the primary focus of any fiction novel. I wasn't a fan of Dickens when I came to his books, nor was I of Michael Dobbs (House of Cards), Eoin Colfer (Artemis Fowl), Lois McMaster Bujold (The Vorkosigan Saga), or HP Lovecraft. And yet, I did enjoy their works.



Oh, don't get me wrong. I thought Twilight utterly mediocre, not worth buying. But it still had some entertainment value in it. Only a small amount, but it was more interesting than Atlas Shrugged. And believe me when I say that was saying something.



The only one that I have read is Of Mice and Men. I do intend to read Heinlein, but currently, the only one of his I wish to read is The Moon is a Harsh Mistress. And all these works may rightly be in the all-time greatest works list. Of Mice and Men, if I recall, certainly doesn't sacrifice as much entertainment value as Atlas Shrugged. Not to mention that it doesn't overstay its welcome.



The best works of that type do it while entertaining you. Atlas Shrugged didn't do it for me. 'Nuff said.

I watched a documentary (called What Lies Beneath, on a Doctor Who DVD) which said that science fiction uses the application of science to take everyday life and present alternatives that, at their best, entertain as well educate. They noted a number of examples:

The Time Machine: A satire of the class divide

The Day The Earth Stood Still: Dangers of increasing militarism

Invasion of the Body Snatchers: Communist infiltration

Quatermass and the Pit: Xenophobia and human evolution

Doctor Who: The Daleks: Nuclear war, ethnic cleansing

Doctor Who and the Silurians: Immigration, colonialism, racism, civil servants putting their agenda above that of the public's, coexistence with a potential rival group of people.



I may consider it, but historical fiction isn't my bag.



Of course not. It's how the message gets through that I have issue with.



Being a writer, I prefer the 'be careful what you wish for' variation. In other words, they are where they would most like to be, but fate conspires against them, making the place they want to be not so.



One, her prose may have been clear, but it was drier than the Sahara and about as easy to swallow. Two, I agree wholeheartedly that she will endure longer than Twilight. But Harry Potter? I doubt it.



Your analogy is broken, or at least appears to have no point. Did the State Science Institute find a use for the glue other than screwing over the strikers? I've forgotten that part of the novel. Did Rand predict the existence of Post-It notes? I doubt it. Although I am surprised at the lack of sonic weaponry available nowadays. Unless you count doof-doof music played through heavy-duty speakers to be such, which I do. But not the sort that can bring buildings down.

Rand is not a visionary genius. I will not deny that she is a genius, but she is also only a queen of her own little world. Her characters may value their own lives, but they don't value the lives of others as well. Galt doesn't give a flying one about the amount of people his strike will kill, even if they weren't involved with the moochers. Valuing your own life, and that of others, need not be mutually exclusive.

I read Atlas Shrugged for a bet elsewhere, with the other person reading House of Leaves as the price of my bet. We didn't like each other's books, but House of Leaves, when I read it, was a departure from what I usually read, as much as Atlas Shrugged was. Difference was, I actually enjoyed House of Leaves. I'll leave it at that.

I think you're right, IIRC she denounced the early libertarian party because they only embraced some of her ideals; but I also don't really care what she'd think either. I was simply pointing out that she's taken way too seriously by people of all stripes, when to me the better approach is to take value where it's found and discard the rest.

rofl, part 1.

I know. The book's so damn long, they can only adapt it in three parts.

That's very interesting. I read that H.G. Wells' War of the Worlds was basically a commentary on the 'Gunboat Diplomacy' of the European powers. I guess one could say Science Fiction arose partially as a reaction to imperialism & colonialism

Lots of things. Try, of the same period, juxtaposing George Eliot with Elizabeth Gaskell and you'll see my point. Both are better than Dickens.

As to the rest of your spiel, it is possible to read Atlas Shrugged as science-fiction. But it isn't. It's literary fiction. It's literary in its intent and will always remain such.

But as to your point about dryness, and limiting myself here, have you read George RR Matin's A Song for Lya? Surely you will concede that philosophy in a novella in this case, is worthwhile, while not necessarily boosting the 'entertainment' factor. It makes you think. As did Martin's Sandkings, Nightflyer and With Morning comes Mistfall. All philosophical, all literary, all not terribly 'entertaining' but brilliant for their conception, their articulation and their awareness of the broader implications of social policy of the time. Such is why people worship Havilland Tuf. Tuf, if you've read Martin's Tuf stories, was as inscrutable as Galt. If not more so.

So, yes, science fiction is fun. It was all I read before I discovered Dostoyevsky and Joyce, but it is still the philosophical underpinning of an 'entertainment' that is stilted for the needs of the exposition of the broader struggle of man and himself.

I wonder if it's not just literary taste that leads to your dispelling Rand's philosophies. If you didn't enjoy the novel, it doesn't discredit the philosophical underpinning of its conception.

It was both literary taste and many of the aspects of Objectivism, as it was expressed by the characters of Atlas Shrugged, that basically makes me deride it.

And as for not discrediting the philosophical underpinning of its creation, I will agree that Objectivism was obviously the product of a lot of time and effort. But then again, as a great man once almost said, "You may be entitled to your opinion, but it is your assumption that we all are entitled to it that is irritating."

point 1
Have you all ever noticed the parallels between Ayn (rhymes with mine) Rand's Objectivism and Anton LeVey's Church of Satan? Both are philosophies based on the inversion of pre-existing Philosophies marxism for Ayn and christianity for the ex-lion tamer. Since as we all know Marxism is a christian heresy the relationship is not uncanny.
As mechanical inversions they contain the faults of their parent philosophies as well as some novel errors created by the fact most things don't have opposites.
I have never read a book more anti-family than 'Atlas Shrugged"

point 2
'We the living' is quite good. To bad she lost her way and spent the rest of her life writing fanatical screed she might of had a good second novel in her.

Last edited by JakobVirgil on 17 Feb 2011, 9:15 pm, edited 3 times in total.

I don't have a problem with the protagonist being complete scum. In fact, I'd like to see that more.

.

Have you read Ayn Rand's second novel, Anthem? Brave New World was much the same. Funny how Aldous isn't considered fanatical and insane. Or Orwell. Or Burgess. The great dystopians who never offered an alternative. Give credit where it's due. Rand at least offered hope in her dystopian world.

Anti-family. Interesting, that one. Just because there are no families, doesn't make it anti-family. And, if anything else, it was the great Jim Taggart who destroyed families, not his protaganist sister and Objectivist Dagny Taggart, despite her affair with Rearden. Her affair didn't kill anyone. If I recall, it was James' indifference to everything but his design for his wife that killed her in the end...

The essence of Rand is her total contempt for the general population and her adulation for what she considers the superior fraction of humanity that conforms to her particular ideals. This vicious arrogance is one of the inherent sicknesses of humanity wherein even the most superficial glance at history demonstrates that the assumed best of the species is repeatedly subject to the most horrific idiocies and their seductive nonsenses have resulted in the most terrible tragedies in all times.

It depends on the scum. They have to be interesting scum like, say, Francis Urquhart from House of Cards.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YiIXVGF7ixY[/youtube]

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=un5sLNT5-_c[/youtube]

Are you talking about anthem? I liked it better when it was called We. It is so heavy handed I felt like it was writen in all caps. like she was yelling at me.
Maybe ones politics are determined by what best serves them.
I am one of the weak. I am one of the defectives. I am a person that needs other people to survive. In the Utopia of Miss Rand I would be dead. You have every right to want this. but you should not expect me to thank you or help you.

-Jake

Try some of Flannery O'Connor's stories/novels. It's seldom that the protagonist is anything like a sympathetic character; and she manages to pull you into his/her mind anyway.