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  • Posted by $ MichaelAarethun 9 years, 10 months ago in reply to this comment.
    this thread reminds me of a cross between the check out line at the supermarket, the morning dumb chicks show with Whoooo Peee and Row see,and a choice of CBS, NBC, or ABC.

    Except for dissecting the book.I'll stick with Let's shrug first comment. Objectively

    I wish I could give you a second thumbs up.
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  • Posted by xthinker88 9 years, 10 months ago in reply to this comment.
    Of course it is what you implied. And it's what she did in her inner circle.

    But of course only you have knowledge of AR. Afraid you're in the wrong place for that sort of argument.
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  • Posted by $ jlc 9 years, 10 months ago in reply to this comment.
    No, not the way I see it. As a character, Dagny did not know what was in her future. As a writer, Ayn Rand DID know what was in Dagny's future. Ayn could well have designed Dagny to have 'stepped through' a series of lovers, each matching the phase of development Dagny was personally in...she outgrew one lover and grew into the next.

    Jan
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  • Posted by Watcher55 9 years, 10 months ago
    I think it was more like Kira in We the Living, where she had two men each of whom gave her something, than Dagny in Atlas Shrugged, where Galt gave her everything she was after. Rand's husband was most definitely not her intellectual equal - and I can understand how she could need a partner who provided that.
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  • Posted by khalling 9 years, 10 months ago in reply to this comment.
    I just do not buy that she was unaware how hurtful acting on her desires were. Branden was in a new marriage with a young wife. No one can convince me that BB was not hugely betrayed
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  • Posted by XenokRoy 9 years, 10 months ago in reply to this comment.
    I agree, and I suspect it would be one of the very few things she regretted from her life.
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  • Posted by teri-amborn 9 years, 10 months ago in reply to this comment.
    That is because the Catholic Church redefined the term to suit the whims of the political hierarchy.
    If you read the gospels and highlight the places where Jesus remarked about a certain person's "faith" you will see that each person has an innate ability to see patterns to come to conclusions...or deductively and inductively reason.
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  • Posted by teri-amborn 9 years, 10 months ago in reply to this comment.
    My first clue was the dark circles under her eyes.
    Then I heard about how this effects sleep patterns which she was well known to stay up until all hours.
    It is just a theory but it might solve a few mysteries.
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  • Posted by 9 years, 10 months ago in reply to this comment.
    Oh, yes, honey! I was 16 reading Atlas the first time, and Francisco was extremely sexy. Still is!
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  • Posted by khalling 9 years, 10 months ago in reply to this comment.
    Oh brother. Objectivists can certainly hypothesize and speculate about extraordinary circumstances. There are basic facts known . Where there are gaps in a story, people wonder about those gaps. what's with the shaming-unless you want to shame me into being quiet
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  • -2
    Posted by Esceptico 9 years, 10 months ago
    The culture, undoubtedly stemming from religious teachings, is sex simply for its own sake is inherently bad in and of itself—something to be allowed only to express love or for procreation. Procreation and love are separate issues from just having a good time. Once we can control pregnancy and disease, what is wrong with an orgasm among friends?

    Rand made many mistakes in her writings, and she was internally inconsistent at times. For example, Rand’s more explicit sex scenes seem to be rape fantasy oriented, including the initiation of the use of force. The theme is clear in both “The Fountainhead” and “Atlas.”

    Wikipedia says ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rape_fan... ): “Studies have found rape fantasy is a common sexual fantasy among both men and women. The fantasy may involve the fantasist as either the one being forced into sex or as the perpetrator. Some studies have found that women tend to fantasize about being forced or coerced into sexual activity more commonly than men.”

    Maybe Rand portrayed her rape fantasy in her writing and acted out her animal desire for sexual variety with Branden and others not yet known or whose identities were suppressed to keep the idol from having clay feet. I suppose it depends upon the fantasy of the participants.
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  • Posted by khalling 9 years, 10 months ago in reply to this comment.
    I have a hard time with the Francisco love affair. He does betray Dagny in a way-but I do not see young Dagny at the same development as Francisco. and why is it that Hank and Dagny discuss the end of their relationship but the only discussion about Francisco and Dagny ending that is a frank one-is between Galt and Francisco and Rearden and Francisco. Maybe I'm too close because I was a little in love with Francisco when I read AS for the first time.
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  • -4
    Posted by AmericanGreatness 9 years, 10 months ago in reply to this comment.
    By faith, I meant faith in God. She was incorrect in her rejection of God, and it created a flaw in her perception of morality.

    She had great reverence for reason, logic, the absolute nature of things (i.e.- A is A), but she failed to understand that reason for those absolutes is God.

    Again, I'm a Rand/Atlas devotee, but she was entirely wrong in her atheism.
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  • Posted by khalling 9 years, 10 months ago in reply to this comment.
    as I said above, one of her closest confidants before Brandon was Frank's brother, Nick. He was a very close adviser. Obviously it did not keep her from appreciating the individual.
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  • Posted by LetsShrug 9 years, 10 months ago in reply to this comment.
    Rand valued sex. Some people put a value on it and some don't.....BUT
    "Love is blind, they say; sex is impervious to reason and mocks the power of all philosophers. But, in fact, a man’s sexual choice is the result and the sum of his fundamental convictions. Tell me what a man finds sexually attractive and I will tell you his entire philosophy on life. Show me the woman he sleeps with and I will tell you his valuation of himself. No matter what corruption he’s taught about the virtue of selflessness, sex is the most profoundly selfish of all acts, an act which he cannot perform for any motive but his own enjoyment–just try to think of performing it in a spirit of selfless charity!–an act which is not possible in self-abasement, only in self-exaltation, only in confidence of being desired and being worthy of desire." AR
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  • -1
    Posted by Esceptico 9 years, 10 months ago in reply to this comment.
    I find a slap in the face as black and white. Perhaps there is an explanation for "tough love" that I do not understand. To me, it is wrong. Anyhow, my point was, and is, it is not just one of Rand's sex scenes which approvingly depict the initiation of the use of force as part of sex, is appears to be constant premise.
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