Atlas Shrugged

[Jeff K.]

No offense buy I have read Jennifer Burn's material elsewhere. As a Berk graduate you will see her focusing on the negative aspects of anything that might be to the right from her Berkley spectacles.

A rebuttal to your position regarding "worshipful praise of Hickman" (which sounds like a typified talking point from the left) is found in Classicly liberal.

The story she was considering writing was tentatively called The Little Street. All this was published by Rand’s estate in her Journals in 1996, long before Jennifer Burns wrote her book. Rand's estate revealed the information, not Burns. The protagonist in the The Little Street would be Danny Renahan. Remember all the information that is purported to show Rand’s evil views come from her own journals. Yet, what they don’t quote is Rand’s own appraisal of the relationship of Renahan to Hickman. She said that Renahan is “very far from him [Hickman], of course. The outside of Hickman, but not the inside. Much deeper and much more. A Hickman with a purpose. And without the degeneracy. It is more exact to say that the model is not Hickman, but what Hickman suggested to me.”

In her notes for The Little Street, Rand echoed a theme used by the Left. She wrote:

“Yes, he is a monster—now. But the worse he is, the worst must be the cause that drove him to this. Isn’t it significant that society was not able to fill the life of an exceptional, intelligent boy, to give him anything to out-balance crime in his eyes? If society is horrified at this crime, it should be horrified at the crime’s ultimate cause: itself. The worse the crime—the greater it’s guilt. What would society answer, if that boy were to say: “Yes, I’m a monstrous criminal, but what are you?”

Rand confessed in her notes that it sounds as if she is idealizing Hickman and that “he probably isn’t” like the Renahan character at all. She said that didn’t matter for her fictional story because she was writing about what could be, not what was. She wasn’t writing about Hickman but about a character that the Hickman case “suggested” to her.

Rand did not praise Hickman but created a fictional story about an exceptional young man destroyed by the society around him. But Rand’s story, and her theory about the cause of the crime, is not uniquely Rand’s. There are eerie similarities to another crime, one in which a leading light of the American Left, stood up in a courtroom and made the same arguments that Rand made above. He, however, is lionized by the Left, while Rand is derided

[Jeff K.]

I would question the conclusions of the approach and conclusions Jennifer Burns took.

I will look at the quotes recorded in context later, its off to church.

[WalkerW]

Utter male bovine fecal material.

Here is the real Ayn Rand. Back in the late 1920s, as Ayn Rand was working out her philosophy, she became enthralled by a real-life American serial killer, William Edward Hickman, whose gruesome, sadistic dismemberment of 12-year-old girl named Marion Parker in 1927 shocked the nation. Rand filled her early notebooks with worshipful praise of Hickman. According to biographer Jennifer Burns, author of Goddess of the Market, Rand was so smitten by Hickman that she modeled her first literary creation — Danny Renahan, the protagonist of her unfinished first novel, The Little Street — on him.

What did Rand admire so much about Hickman? His sociopathic qualities: “Other people do not exist for him, and he does not see why they should,” she wrote, gushing that Hickman had “no regard whatsoever for all that society holds sacred, and with a consciousness all his own. He has the true, innate psychology of a Superman. He can never realize and feel ‘other people.’”

This echoes almost word for word Rand’s later description of her character Howard Roark, the hero of her novel The Fountainhead: “He was born without the ability to consider others.”

And for the religiously minded.

http://www.youtube.c...feature=related

Please cite things when you quote them.

[WalkerW]

I would question the conclusions of the approach and conclusions Jennifer Burns took.

I will look at the quotes recorded in context later, its off to church.

Burns' book is on my to-read list. Out of curiosity, what other work have you read of her's?

See my previous posts also. I posted an interview with her by Reason TV.

[Deborah]

Tss, yeah some really horrible things from those two videos. Things like "Man's life is a standard of Value; we should not force other people nor accept force from other people; we should allow others to follow their own rational self-interest; man is entitled to his own happiness but he must work to achieve his own happiness and not demand others provide it for him (which in my view is impossible anyway)."

I seriously don't find fault with any of these statements and it is because her philosophy is not about control or force but about each person working to achieve his own best place in the world that I find it fitting in with gospel principles of self-reliance and hard work. Even charity which Christ taught is dependent on one making a free choice to give of his own largesse, not some nameless entity taking it and then deciding where it should go. The latter cannot be charity and can have no benefit on the person who has no choice in the matter.

As to her views on atheism, they are no different from those atheists who participate on this board and I certainly don't consider them evil. She doesn't see any proof of God but then atheists don't which is why they are atheists.

[Jeff K.]

Burns' book is on my to-read list. Out of curiosity, what other work have you read of her's?

See my previous posts also. I posted an interview with her by Reason TV.

I subscribe to Foriegn Policy Review (to which she sometimes contributes) and heard her speak at UVA once.

[thesometimesaint]

Deborah:

I never said that Ayn Rand was evil. Let alone all Atheists, even ones on this MB. I said she was a hypocrite. When added to the fact that she was an early proponent of the concept of Open Marriage, and was quite the hedonist herself. I still would not call her evil, but I don't see the appeal of her personal philosophy to LDS.

As to her philosophy of absolute Laissez Faire economics. We need look no further than the late 19th and early 20th Centuries in Europe and America to see the results.

[WalkerW]

Deborah:

I never said that Ayn Rand was evil. Let alone all Atheists, even ones on this MB. I said she was a hypocrite. When added to the fact that she was an early proponent of the concept of Open Marriage, and was quite the hedonist herself. I still would not call her evil, but I don't see the appeal of her personal philosophy to LDS.

In TSS's defense, he has a point. There is some great stuff to pull from Rand, but the overall philosophy I find to be a bit shallow.

As to her philosophy of absolute Laissez Faire economics. We need look no further than the late 19th and early 20th Centuries in Europe and America to see the results.

If anything, pointing to the late 19th, early 20th centuries should bolster ones case for free markets. See, for example, Thomas E. Woods, Jr., "Warren Harding and the Forgotten Depression of 1920," The Intercollegiate Review 44:2 (Fall 2009).

[thesometimesaint]

WalkerW:

Yes and no. The three depressions of the 1920's were no fun, however they were a picnic compared to the one that started in 1929.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_recessions_in_the_United_States

Ps. You might find these interesting.

http://www.show.me.uk/site/show/STO1041.html

http://www.history.com/topics/tenements

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Triangle_Shirtwaist_Factory_fire

[Connie]

One of the main things i find hard to stomach is her use of the words "ideal" versus "non-ideal" and "inferiors" as per the quote that Deborah quoted above of her views on Christ. It became pretty obvious to me in reading her novels that she does not think people are equal. Some are "superior" and others "inferior."

I don't know what she believed as far as where humans came from since she did not believe in a Creator, but does anyone know of her views on the Founding Fathers in general and specifically their idea that "all men are created equal?"

[thesometimesaint]

Connie:

Ms. Rand and SOME of the Founding Fathers would have gotten along fabulously. Specific Thomas Jefferson who wrote the Declaration of Independents, and owned slaves. George Washington who presided over much of the Constitution debate also owned slaves. Further it wasn't until 1933 that women in the US got the right to vote.

[WalkerW]

Woods' article was expanded in his Meltdown (Regnery Pub., 2009). The Austrian theory of the business cycle explains the Great Depression (and the recent one) quite well (and it won Hayek the Nobel Prize in Economics). The arbitrary lowering of interest rates has incredibly negative effects on the economy.

An excellent resource on the Progressive Era is Princeton economist Thomas C. Leonard. A collection of his works can be found here.

[Jeff K.]

Connie:

Ms. Rand and SOME of the Founding Fathers would have gotten along fabulously. Specific Thomas Jefferson who wrote the Declaration of Independents, and owned slaves. George Washington who presided over much of the Constitution debate also owned slaves. Further it wasn't until 1933 that women in the US got the right to vote.

I suggest you read "An Imperfect God". Owning slavery is not the same as endorsing it. It goes to a context of the times and overcoming what society raises us to be.

[thesometimesaint]

Jeff K.:

That is just too much sophistry for me. If you really don't believe in something, you don't do it; and you certainly don't hand it down to your children.

Of the first five presidents, four owned slaves. All four of these owned slaves while they were president.

Of the next five presidents (#6-10), four owned slaves. Only two of them owned slaves while they were president.

Of the next five presidents (#11-15), two owned slaves. Both of these two owned slaves while they were president.

Of the next three presidents (#16-18) two owned slaves. neither of them owned slaves while serving as president.

The last president to own slaves while in office was the twelfth president, Zachary Taylor (1849-1850).

The last president to own slaves at all was the eighteenth president, Ulysses S. Grant (1869-1877).

So twelve of our presidents owned slaves and eight of them owned slaves while serving as president.

[Bill “Papa” Lee]

Now for the other half of the story.

From http://www.thenation.com/blog/159963/rand-appalling-new-atlas-shrugged-movie-booed-planet

It takes a lot to get a 0% at the mass market critics' consensus site Rotten Tomatoes. Pick an awful movie you can think of and it probably managed a 5% or maybe even a 25%. Somehow, Atlas Shrugged, Part I (yes! more to look forward to!), which opens Friday, has at this writing achieved the rare feat.

In other words, not a single critic to date, from major and minor outlet, high or lowest of low of lowbrow, likes it one bit. I like the headline over the Chicago Tribune review: "Taxing Indeed." Still waiting for "Don't Go (Galt) There." Or "Born Under a Bad Ayn."

Oddly, there's no New York Times review today. A political statement? Or was the paper barred from the screening room?

Here's a sampling of commentary:

Carrie Rickey, Philadelphia Inquirer: "Atlas Shrugged. I arched eyebrow, scrunched forehead, yawned."

Roger Ebert: "The most anticlimactic non-event since Geraldo Rivera broke into Al Capone’s vault. I suspect only someone very familiar with Rand’s 1957 novel could understand the film at all, and I doubt they will be happy with it. For the rest of us, it involves a series of business meetings in luxurious retro leather-and-brass board rooms and offices, and restaurants and bedrooms that look borrowed from a hotel no doubt known as the Robber Baron Arms."

Joe Morgenstern, Wall Street Journal: "The book was published in 1957, yet the clumsiness of this production makes it seem antediluvian."

Bill Goodykoontz, Arizona Republic: "It has taken decades to bring Ayn Rand's "Atlas Shrugged" to the big screen.They should have waited longer."

Kurt Loder, the former Rolling Stone writer, for the Libertarian site, Reason Online: "The new, long-awaited film version of Atlas Shrugged is a mess, full of embalmed talk, enervated performances, impoverished effects, and cinematography that would barely pass muster in a TV show. Sitting through this picture is like watching early rehearsals of a stage play that's clearly doomed."

Peter Dubruge, Variety: "Part one of a trilogy that may never see completion, this hasty, low-budget adaptation would have Ayn Rand spinning in her grave."

Washington Post: "nearly as stilted, didactic and simplistic as Rand’s free-market fable."

Loren King, Boston Globe: "Even fans of Rand’s 1957 antigovernment manifesto may balk at having to endure dialogue that would be banal on the Lifetime channel, along with wooden performances..."

Greg Mitchell's two latest books are "The Age of WikiLeaks" in print or as an e-book, and "Bradley Manning: Truth and Consequences" as e-book here and print here.

I won’t say more but the book reveals what is happening to us…and no one wants us to know. I would not think any with a liberal bent would like the movie or the book.

[frankenstein]

I won’t say more but the book reveals what is happening to us…and no one wants us to know. I would not think any with a liberal bent would like the movie or the book.

The opposite must be true then, I wouldn't think anyone other than one with a satanist bent would like the movie or book. *satanism and rand's philosophy go virtually hand in hand

[Jeff K.]

Sophistry does "not" mean understanding the context of the the times. If you were a communist growing up in the US, it does not mean you don't use capitalism to look for a bargain. One can, by circumstances be forced into a lifestyle that isn't theirs by choice. Especially an economic lifestyle in which the dominant industry is agriculture. It may be hard for you to imagine living in an economy that is varied and has a number of different venues for growth, or, if you will, opportunities to subscribe to different philosophical stances.

The context is the pre-industrial revolution (which itself depended upon geogrpahical areas which limited its spread to the north). Anything beyond subsistance agriculture required slavery, and everyone, north and south benefitted from that agriculture. Slave built the whitehouse and much of DC. You may be unaware of the role slavery played in almost every part of this nation, and most nations throughout the world. Given an understanding of that context, it appears your judgement is myopic to the context, and employs an absence of some of the fundamental issues. For instance, in your analysis regarding presidents who owned slaves, you neglect to understand that even Adam's from Beantown (itself built on slavery) spoke against granting freedom to slaves in Massachusetts.

Your condemnation perhaps should be concerning all mankind at the time, not merely those of a certain political stripe. This type of whistful presentism is an arrogant view. We should in stead celebrate how many of these founding fathers rose up past their environment of monarchism and slavery in order to bring about the first steps of freedom for all adults. I wonder if your reaction is as strong for the disenfranchisement of women until 1920?

As a note, Washington was against slavery and not only emancipated his slaves, but also convinced his wife to do so (though she refused until her death, not for malice but for the economic need of the time). All were provided with pensions upon their freedom.

Something to consider in your reviewing and judgement of the morality in the past.

What do you think you will be condemned for in future generations?

[Deborah]

The opposite must be true then, I wouldn't think anyone other than one with a satanist bent would like the movie or book.

Or someone who believes people should be responsible for their own choices and should be allowed to pursue their own goals without being punished or hampered by constant government interference.

[Jeff K.]

The opposite must be true then, I wouldn't think anyone other than one with a satanist bent would like the movie or book. *satanism and rand's philosophy go virtually hand in hand

Or that only a satanist would accept government control? And a true saint would take responsibility for his or her own actions?

Seems it could easily go either way frankenstein.

[thesometimesaint]

Jeff K.:

I'm all for living in our own times, and culture.

The sophistry comes in in trying to use economics, as an excuse for slavery in America in the late 18th, and well into the 19th Centuries.

England had already outlawed the practice in 1772. Four years before our Declaration of Independence was signed, and some 90 years before the US Civil War.

Ps. John Adams refused slaves. Abigail washed her own darn floors.

[Jeff K.]

Economics is merely the study of choice. It is amazing how choices we make are dictated by the times, or if you will, how the economics we live by are dictated by the times.

England had already outlawed the practice in 1772. Four years before our Declaration of Independence was signed, and some 90 years before the US Civil War.

Interesting, and yet they were ready to recognize the South for the cheap cotton slavery produced. The Emancipation Proclamation of Lincoln's was specifically to keep England from doing just that.

Just something to think about.

Ps. John Adams refused slaves. Abigail washed her own darn floors.

She didn't wash her own floors, she had servants who were sometimes paid little or nothing.

I would also point out, as I did before that Adams was indifferent to the plight of slaves and for political purposes would have kept them slaves as he voted against their emancipation in MA.

As I said, not as black and white as you make it out to appear in your judgement of the times.

[thesometimesaint]

Jeff K.:

England had no problem with accepting the cotton from the US slaves work. They were in competition with the northern US textile mills after all. If England got the cotton that would place a tremendous strain on the US. Further weakening and maybe even eliminating the US as a economic competitor.

England outlawed the practice of slavery in England. So if we are going by English, and the Founders were English, culture the practice of slavery would have ended with the signing of the Declaration of Independence. You know all that "All men are created equal" stuff. But I guess money trumps pretty much everything in some peoples minds. Including some of the Founders.

The Emancipation Proclamation only addressed slaves in the states that were in rebellion. No mention of slavery in non-rebel states was made.

As to John Adams

http://www.christiananswers.net/q-wall/wal-g003.html

“[M]y opinion against it [slavery] has always been known… [N]ever in my life did I own a slave.”

—John Adams, Signer of the Declaration of Independence and U.S. President. The Works of John Adams, Second President of the United States (Boston: Little, Brown, and Company, 1854), vol IX pp. 92-93. In a letter to George Churchman and Jacob Lindley on January 24, 1801.

[WalkerW]

Today, slavery is too often discussed as an abstract question with an easy answer, leading to sweeping condemnations of those who did not reach that easy answer in their own time. In nineteenth-century America, especially, there was no alternative that was not traumatic, including both the continuation of slavery and the ending of it in the manner in which it was in fact ended by the Civil War--at a cost of one life for every six slaves freed. Many problems can be made simple, but only by leaving out the complications which those in the midst of these problems cannot so easily escape with a turn of a phrase, as those who look back on them in later centuries can. (Thomas Sowell, "The Real History of Slavery" in his Black Rednecks and White Liberals, Encounter Books, 2005: 144)

Good thing innovation and markets made slavery economically unsound:

Don J. Boudreaux, "Capitalism and Slavery," Pittsburgh Tribune-Review (Feb. 17, 2005).

Better yet, see Matt Ridley, "The Release of Slaves: Energy After 1700" in his The Rational Optimist: How Prosperity Evolves (HarperCollins, 2010).

[thesometimesaint]

WalkerW:

I never said that getting rid of slavery was easy. Only the right thing to do.

[WalkerW]

WalkerW:

I never said that getting rid of slavery was easy. Only the right thing to do.

And I don't think anyone has argued against the latter, so what is your point?