As mentioned on rasfw

[james_davis_nicoll]

Comments

[seawasp]

No. You can't make me watch that, James, no matter how temptingly period-colored it looks. Even though the idea that they're NOT trying to cram it into one single movie is encouraging. I *KNOW* they'll f*ck it up and probably reduce it to a parody of itself, the way many people who talk about it often do.

[carloshasanax.livejournal.com]

Honest question: what about Atlas Shrugged do you find non-parodic? could you give us a quick summary?

[seawasp]

It's as non-parodic as any "one person with a vision philosophy" fiction can be. She wrote it as a response to what she saw as a pernicious and destructive political movement that disguised destructiveness as progress, and true greed and cowardice behind platitudes. As such, it's no different than (and in my opinion, infinitely more fun to read) 1984.

The basic core of the philosophy is perfectly sensible: people should have the right to the fruits of their labors, they should deal rationally with each other, and any interaction, including emotional ones, can be seen as a transaction. Anyone trying to MAKE you to give up what is yours is initiating force against you; they're not bargaining or offering fair value.

Within the context she was writing, this was a perfectly good thesis. The problem, of course, comes from two things: first, she was (like any author-trying-to-make-a-point novel) stacking the deck by taking the world to extremes. Second -- again like any one-person philosophy I've ever heard of -- she was including several tacit assumptions which boiled down to "this would work perfectly as long as human beings would act SENSIBLY", where the author defines "sensibly". And often "sensibly" ends up meaning "the way I *THINK* I act" rather than the way the person actually does.

Rand basically didn't (philosophically) allow for the fact that as biological beings with a lot of messy, uncontrolled processes, we did not, and could not, control all aspects of thought and emotion along rational ways. Perhaps "Atlas Shrugged"'s pure philosophy would work for Vulcans.

Still, I find it a great *story*. It's longer than it has to be because she does pause for the lectures, but as a story it's fairly compelling, not badly written, and has some absolutely MARVELOUS scenes.

[carloshasanax.livejournal.com]

You don't need biology to explain how Rand's philosophy is flawed. She ignores externalities and she denies the fallacy of composition -- and this is central to her philosophy. Since these things exist, Vulcans would not agree with Rand. Doubtless she would call them "mystics" and "collectivists".

[seawasp]

She generally assumes people have all appropriate knowledge to make a decision and that, given that knowledge, they will generally make the rational choice. Rational, of course, is a matter of opinion. But trying to discuss the entirety of that book isn't something to be done here (and I'm at work, so I shouldn't do any more now); if you *really* want to get into that you're welcome to Email me, but I suspect you've already had a great sufficiency of such discussion elsewhere. :)

[carloshasanax.livejournal.com]

These things take place even if every person acts rationally, under the definition of rationality as "making choices to maximize things they want."

In the 1930s, the ideas were new. But over and over again, across the social sciences, scientists have found examples where individual rationality screws over everyone collectively. Rand excommunicated anyone who dared suggests that this was the case.

This is setting aside human biological economic irrationality, which is its own fascinating topic (and gets me close to some non-disclosure agreements, so I have to stop).

[zxhrue.livejournal.com]

human biological economic irrationality, which is its own fascinating topic

indeed. thanks for the search string. ::goes off to start reading::

[mme-hardy.livejournal.com]

Thank you very much for "fallacy of composition". I didn't know that one, and it's useful.

[fridgepunk.livejournal.com]

As such, it's no different than (and in my opinion, infinitely more fun to read) 1984.

Oh 1984 is pretty parodic, considering that it's a tale about how evil totalitarian dictatorships will view middle civil servants getting laid as an existential threat – like with atlas shrugged, the use of political theory to turn incredibly benign and mundane concepts into grand world shaking drama in some sort of inversion of Joyce's Ulysses renders pretty much the entirety of those kinds of books into things that are ultimately auto-parodic.