Sines: Removed the following due to political arguing and completely leaving the topic.
- Since Alan's Greenspan's legacy has been the worst economic crisis since '27, I'd take his advice with a grain of salt...
- Oh puhleaze, we aren't going here, are we? However much one may object to Greenspan, his was hardly the fatal link in the entire thing. Case in point: Andrew Mellon, the now-almost-unknown "financial wizard" in the years leading up to the burst, and who was largely credited with the boom beforehand before getting scarred with the blame. But the thing most fail to notice is that the boom had occurred before Mellon (back to before WWI), and that the explosion- like that in 2008/09- was from a source that they had little control over: loans that were not good. Can it be said that Mellon and Greenspan may have made their respective busts worse? Certainly, and one can make a case. But to say that is the whole of their "Legacy" is impossibly dishonest. Oh yes, and the worst ecconomic crisis since '27? Try the Hungarian Pengo in the 30's-50's. Or the Argentine currancy in the 70's. Or Bosnia, Bolivia, or Zimbabwae/Rhodesia today. Play nice.
- Although when Greenspan was in control of the Federal Reserve, his policy decisions were fundamentally Keynesian (i.e. counter-cyclical monetary policy). Objectivists oppose central banking.
Inkblot: The main part of the article doesn't have enough detail, and it's not that clever, either. We should add more information on the book, such as what Objectivism is about.
Jordan: Is the fandom really misaimed if they agree with the author's opinions?
Nornagest: I've got no idea what the
Misaimed Fandom reference is pointing to. In my experience, this book's core fandom is strongly capitalist, slightly unhinged, and worships
Ayn Rand like a minor god — all of which she actively encouraged during her lifetime. The last bit is a little ironic considering the major themes of her work, but she missed the implications just as much as her audience did.
Yanked this —
** This is an urban legend. A few decades ago a mail-order bookstore happened to sell a large number of copies of Atlas Shrugged. A few of her discip...admirers convoluted this into a legitimate government survey. Note that the specific "survey" is never named, only vaguely referred to.
- Not true
. The survey was only sent to five thousand members of the Book-of-the-Month club, about two thousand of whom responded, so while it can hardly be taken as representative of America, the survey does exist.
...and made a minor rewrite of the top-level comment to accommodate the objection. Also rewrote large chunks of the lead; seems we've got someone who
really doesn't like this book on our hands. Fair enough, but let's try to keep ourselves to
objective criticism, okay? No pun intended — but the book is what's on trial here, not the philosophy.
After reflection, also pulled this from the lead —
For extra bonus points, read
Harry Potter and compare Lord Voldemort to John Galt, and then pat yourself on the back for graduating to post-post-modernism.
Voldemort's a transparent Nazi analogue that wants to purge his world of the "impure" and then take it over. John Galt is an elitist prick that wants to destroy society by convincing key individuals to withdraw from it voluntarily. Other than the elitism, there's no overlap whatsoever.
Unless that's the joke, but I doubt it.
- That's not actually what John Galt is trying to do. It's a funny way of putting what he is doing that you might have gotten if someone told you the plot or you didn't really pay attention while reading the novel. He doesn't seem like much of a prick either, hard to be a prick if he's asking people to do things voluntarily or they are actively searching for the man who is, "stopping the engine of the world" IIRC. Galt is trying to create a better society by bringing them to the brink of economic and production collapse. He doesn't actually want to kill or destroy anyone who is not a "capable" person, he just wants them to get out of the way so we can all benefit from their gifts. The only person that comes close to being actively a prick or evil would be Ragnar Danneskjold who is, with an apology on his lips, actually fighting and killing people at sea.
BobSagetYYZ Am I the only troper on this wiki that actually enjoys Ayn Rand's work? Yeah, it was all sorts of
Anvilicious. And her more rabid followers don't want to get behind a political movement THAT ACTUALLY DOES A GOOD JOB OF MATCHING UP TO OBJECTIVISM simply because Ayn Rand said so. (Basically, the argument is whether Ayn Rand made Objectivism as a closed system or an open system.) But, really, what's wrong with man working for the benefit of himself and himself only, helping out other people when HE feels it's appropriate, not when a robber decides so?
Gattsuru: I started the page, and I enjoy her works. It's not the best writing I've encountered, structurally, but the work with themes and catch phrases and tiny mannerisms more than make up for the parts with purple prose. I personally agree with a lot of her ideas, although not all of them or even enough to consider myself an Objectivist or even Libertarian. But most people hate the theme, and it's important to recognize that. A lot of people believe that it's not only wrong, but the worst type of wrong, to not take from the successful to give to the unsuccessful. Certain parts (especially the tunnel disaster, but also the final collapse of civilization) seem built from the ground up to tap on the glass wall of that mentality.
BobSagetYYZ: I just want to know why it's considered noble for the government to rob from the most successful of our population and give their ill-gotten booty to those who lack the work ethic to live? How is this NOT robbery? How is this noble? You're basically saying, "don't try to be successful, because we'll tax the shit out of you."
Cliche: You argue under the fallacy that success is proportional to work ethic, which is hardly true. Some people are simply born into privilege. Do you honestly think that Paris Hilton and many other celebrities got far by work ethic? Speaking of which, work ethic hardly applies when you consider that the lowly farmer who has a hard, integral job to society gets paid less than singers/sports stars who have jobs purely for entertainment value, and like the celebrities I mentioned, some don't even need to do anything. And really, the people you mention have a shitload of money that they really don't need and blow on luxuries anyway, and even with Canadian progressive taxing, for example, they still make more money than those with lower income in the end anyways. It's even less noble to hoard money that you don't need away when there are millions that could put that money to much better use.
Funnily enough, this argument has been immortalized in the
mocking term of
lucky duckies.
Daedalus: @Cliche - No, he's just arguing that success is proportional to value added to the market - the inherent principle that capitalism is based on. Francisco made a whole speech about that very point in the book. If people have money, it's because other people gave it to them because they believed that what they were getting in return was valuable, and on the more metaphysical level - if people say something has value, it does. Work can have value, but so can inspiration and emotion. I wouldn't pay Paris Hilton a dime to spend time with me, but millions would, and I've got no OBJECTIVE basis on which to say that my perception of value is more valid than theirs.
I'm assuming you haven't read the book, because using the word "need" to argue with Objectivists is practically a straw man. I'm not going to bother trying to change your mind, but suffice it to say that you're barking up the wrong tree.
Jerrik: I don't think there are all that many people who are against the book because they think the government has the right to steal from the rich. There are a few ideas, mostly related to an individuals rights and wellbeing, that a lot of people wouldn't have a problem with. It is the other ideas in the book that people don't agree with, like the idea that if you are not an Objectivist, then you are stupid, evil, and you deserve to die. The book would have been a lot more convincing if the extreme parts of it were toned down.
Matthew The Raven: In my view, things like individuality and capitalism are generally good, but where Objectivists fail is their childishness. Everything is framed as 'people are robbing from the rich' while somehow lauding a heroic ideal. It reminds me of Nietzschean philosophy, except Nietzsche recognized that struggling and overcoming obstacles are what make people heroic. Objectivists want what is rightfully theirs, and anyone standing in their way is a Commie - that's the message of Atlas Shrugged. The untermenschen have no right to stand in the way of Rand's Heroic Uebermenschen, even though a truly heroic figure should have to overcome
something. It creates the notion of a privileged overclass allowed to trample over the rights of the poor - just read Rand's genocidal comments directed towards Native Americans, who she condemned for not having European-style property rights, and therefore no right to their land. It doesn't help matters that I've never heard of a real life Objectivist actually doing anything interesting. Steve Ditko, Clarence Thomas, Alan Greenspan, and Neil Peart of Rush are the best they can produce?
Twin Bird: Steve Ditko is interesting enough...and then, of course, there's
Jimbo
Flashx11: As I have enjoyed Rand's works (at least, the ones that I've read), I can say confidently that most of her works are based on her philosophy, so the article is better of discussing the writing style and the controversy that surrounds Rand's works. Also, no mention is made of the existence of the movie (which I have not seen).
For extra credit, compare it to "The Day the Earth Stood Still" (specifically 2008), for which the directors just added the spaceships and removed the imminent collapse of society, so that the people of Earth suffered only from present-day problems before and after the events of the movie.
Studiode Kadent: Floating the idea of de-snarkifying the main page. Rand counts as
Serious Business, I want to avoid this place devolving into mudslinging and edit wars and flame wars, so in 3 days (unless I get objections), I'll be removing the implied insults like comparing the books to "Left Behind" (a series Rand would indisputably hate and which bears no resemblance to Atlas on any meaningful level) and lines like "for sufficiently flexible values of eloquent" etc. Everyone is welcome to agree or disagree, just don't attempt to generate negative (or positive) predjudice for or against Rand's work by controlling a wiki article.
Jerrik: Making the page more neutral is probably the right thing to do, and I wish you luck. But just keep in mind that there are a lot of people who don't like
Atlas Shrugged (including me), and they will probably fight you on some of your edits. If no one else will, I'll probably end up doing it. I don't mean to oppose you personally, but I do think that if something isn't explicitly
wrong, there is no reason to change it. Especially when it's criticism of this book.
Studiode Kadent: Even if you don't
like Atlas Shrugged there is no reason to attempt to keep criticism in the article. Rand clearly fits the definition of
Serious Business (i.e. many people, including myself, have significant emotional investment in it) and thus the
Rule Of Cautious Editing Judgement applies. If you wish to submit a review of Atlas, feel absolutely free to do so.
Studiode Kadent: Removed the following;
"Although it should be noted that Camille Paglia is no more a democrat than she is a feminist..."
Camille Paglia states she votes Democratic. Now, both the Republican party and the Democratic party are coalitions of people that have different worldviews; not all Republicans are Christian social conservatives and not all Democrats are university-educated leftists. These coalitions are held together very loosely and entirely on the basis of electoral pragmatism. So we should keep debates about what a "true Republican" or "true Democrat" away from this discussion.
Additionally, Paglia does identify herself as a feminist, albiet an individualist feminist. Feminism can refer to a very wide variety of very different viewpoints, some of which are based on classical liberal individualism, and some of which are based on variants of collectivism. These two sides constantly accuse each other of stealing feminism and attempting to define each other out of the category 'feminist,' and this is
not the page for this discussion to take place.
