My favorite thoughts about Atlas Shrugged:
“There are two novels that can change a bookish fourteen-year old’s life: The Lord of the Rings and Atlas Shrugged. One is a childish fantasy that often engenders a lifelong obsession with its unbelievable heroes, leading to an emotionally stunted, socially crippled adulthood, unable to deal wit…
“There are two novels that can change a bookish fourteen-year old’s life: The Lord of the Rings and Atlas Shrugged. One is a childish fantasy that often engenders a lifelong obsession with its unbelievable heroes, leading to an emotionally stunted, socially crippled adulthood, unable to deal with the real world. The other, of course, involves orcs.” -John Rogers
That quote from John Rogers is perfect. Atlas Shrugged is hundreds of pages of pure drivel. It would make a good comic book, but as literature or philosophy it is rubbish.
I got my copy in my early 30's. My father gave it to me, and I read it while on a lengthy vacation in Italy.
It was tripe, simplistic, and just utter bullshit. I am 99.9% certain in my teens, I would have just laughed at it, the writing is so awful. Then there is the 30+ page monolog that really goes nowhere.
At the end of it, I was thinking of the "Maker" utopia, and then the video of Bush Senior trying to buy groceries, and I realized that these "Makers", these "Titans" of industry need their servants to cook, clean, and serve them. They are manifestly unfit to "go it alone" as they were trying to do.
I was taken by Ayn Rand as a teenager - including in my college years. This was the late 60s early 70s. We should not mistake Ayn Rand's prose for the genuine influence she had. Among her followers was Alan Greenspan. There was an objectivist newsletter that gained currency in NYC especially - in an era where small societies of all sorts existed with newsletters passed around in colleges.
Again, charity. The Bible, which is an anthology of stories that gained admittance partly through chance, and partly by natural selection whereby what has both pleased and aggrandized those whose choice of what to preserve determined what was included, has more than a little of everything -- which is essential in a proof text with claims to universality. Anyone can find in it pretty much whatever one pleases. People like me prefer the bits like the sermon on the mount and the parables encouraging empathy, humility, and compassion. The "christians" you mention likely find such stuff weak tea, and are more drawn to the parts that celebrate wrath, anger, and war crime. They understand their bible perfectly well.
My favorite thoughts about Atlas Shrugged:
“There are two novels that can change a bookish fourteen-year old’s life: The Lord of the Rings and Atlas Shrugged. One is a childish fantasy that often engenders a lifelong obsession with its unbelievable heroes, leading to an emotionally stunted, socially crippled adulthood, unable to deal with the real world. The other, of course, involves orcs.” -John Rogers
This is actually a funny line.
Don’t throw the baby out with the bath water. Rand’s description of The Twentieth Century Motor Company of Starnesville, Wisconsin is pretty funny.
That quote from John Rogers is perfect. Atlas Shrugged is hundreds of pages of pure drivel. It would make a good comic book, but as literature or philosophy it is rubbish.
I got my copy in my early 30's. My father gave it to me, and I read it while on a lengthy vacation in Italy.
It was tripe, simplistic, and just utter bullshit. I am 99.9% certain in my teens, I would have just laughed at it, the writing is so awful. Then there is the 30+ page monolog that really goes nowhere.
At the end of it, I was thinking of the "Maker" utopia, and then the video of Bush Senior trying to buy groceries, and I realized that these "Makers", these "Titans" of industry need their servants to cook, clean, and serve them. They are manifestly unfit to "go it alone" as they were trying to do.
Total, 100% bullshit
I was taken by Ayn Rand as a teenager - including in my college years. This was the late 60s early 70s. We should not mistake Ayn Rand's prose for the genuine influence she had. Among her followers was Alan Greenspan. There was an objectivist newsletter that gained currency in NYC especially - in an era where small societies of all sorts existed with newsletters passed around in colleges.
Bullshit to be sure. But so in the laffer curve.
Yes Rand was not exactly the most prolific author.
My favorite from a philosophy class was: one day someone bet Ayn Rand that she couldn't come up with a philosophical defense to being a total asshole.
Neither can Paul Ryan.
Brilliant Jerry Buday!
I think we need to be more charitable. It's not that they don't believe what they preach, it's more they don't understand it.
To be honest, most of the "christians" I see clearly haven't read and internalized the Bible, given by their rhetoric.
Again, charity. The Bible, which is an anthology of stories that gained admittance partly through chance, and partly by natural selection whereby what has both pleased and aggrandized those whose choice of what to preserve determined what was included, has more than a little of everything -- which is essential in a proof text with claims to universality. Anyone can find in it pretty much whatever one pleases. People like me prefer the bits like the sermon on the mount and the parables encouraging empathy, humility, and compassion. The "christians" you mention likely find such stuff weak tea, and are more drawn to the parts that celebrate wrath, anger, and war crime. They understand their bible perfectly well.