What is your favorite part of Atlas Shrugged?
Mine is from Galt's speech: A farmer will not invest the effort of one summer if he’s unable to calculate his chances of a harvest. But you expect industrial giants - who plan in terms of decades, invest in terms of generations and undertake ninety-nine-year contracts -to continue to function and produce, not knowing what random caprice in the skull of what random official will descend upon them at what moment to demolish the whole of their effort. Drifters and physical laborers live and plan by the range of a day. The better the mind, the longer the range. A man whose vision extends to a shanty, might continue to build on your quicksands, to grab a fast profit and run. A man who envisions skyscrapers, will not. Nor will he give ten years of unswerving devotion to the task of inventing a new product, when he knows the gangs of entrenched mediocrity are juggling the laws against him, to tie him, restrict him and force him to fail, but should he fight them and struggle and succeed, they will seize his rewards and his invention.
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Galt knew and understood the philosophy, but was some ethereal figure who didnt relate much to humanity. He was more like AR in her everyday life, in that 100% perfection was required all the time.
Bullcrap!, I still say.
I think thats why AS didnt have the impact that AR expected. Trump has more impact with a MUCH less intellectually consistent message at his rallies. Imagine if we had that part of Trump allied with the ideas of AR- maybe things would really change.
The parts I liked best were:
1) The description of the tree that was rotten from the inside and fell over. I still remember seeing in my mind what that tree would look like, and how Caifornia in particular is just like that tree.
2) Rearden's party where Francisco pulls him aside and tells him about how its a war out there, and we must take sides. Boy, is that true today.
3) The passages where the collectivists find out that the mines of Francisco are worthless and they are wiped out. This sort of happened in 2007 with the housing crisis, but our government just bailed out their buddies courtesy of OUR money.
" .. The better the mind, the longer the range. " is much the same as the
Time span of control theory of management guru Elliott Jaques, a contemporary of Rand.
Satan, in the guise of Dr Statler, soft talks Dagny by saying,
you can claim this brilliant motor as yours.
Dagny recoils, she will not steal.
I think more than anything this shows how different people envision in their mind what a writer is saying, and how it differs among many....including the writer!
I have always had difficulty, though, not thinking of Francisco as the hero of AS. Can't help it.
That may not seem like much. Still, it's a concept libs can't handle.
As Ellis Wyatt departs he burns his oil fields because he refuses to validate or take part in the looters’ system or offer them any useful resources to draw from.
Yet he helped him keep the mill functioning. I think because he knew Hank needed to decide for himself when to call it quits. Actually I just loved the way Francisco was an enigma to Hank when ever they interacted?
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