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From: mike@hpfclp.UUCP (mike)
Newsgroups: net.books
Subject: Re: Orphaned Response
Message-ID: <4500021@hpfclp.UUCP>
Date: Fri, 28-Jun-85 21:18:00 EDT
Article-I.D.: hpfclp.4500021
Posted: Fri Jun 28 21:18:00 1985
Date-Received: Thu, 4-Jul-85 04:59:57 EDT
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Nf-From: hpfclp!mike    Jun 28 15:18:00 1985

After reading the various  reviews and comments on ATLAS  SHRUGGED,  and
having  recently  finished  reading it for the second time, I have a few
remarks to add.

> I am also somewhat annoyed by the romanticization of smoking.

Obviously this is something Rand (a smoker) was quite  infatuated  with.
At the  time  of the  book's  publication,  smoking  was  not  generally
considered to be destructive behavior, although drinking was.  Rand made
several comments about drinking in her book (i.e.  liquor-soggy brain, a
drunken  James  Taggart, et al).  Thus, the  romanticization  of smoking
does not really bother me.  I consider it to be simply a cultural  facet
of the book and an error of  knowledge  about the  effects of smoking by
that culture.

> The book is about individualism and capitalism.  When a person is born
> into a system where everybody else ("society") controls how you do things
> it can be difficult to know what has been done to you ("brainwashing").
> Atlas shrugged goes to great length to convince you of what is going on,
> that is, how you are being controlled.  This is taken both on an
> individual level and on an economic level.

Individualism  and  Capitalism are the  consequences  of free,  rational
minds.  Rand's theme was the role of man's mind in  existence.  This was
demonstrated superlatively by pitting those who held a single human life
as a standard of value against the  collectivests  who held the goals of
society as a standard of value.  In Rand's own words:  "Who is to decide
what the goals of society  are?  Blank  out."  Couple  these  ideas with
Rand's belief that reason is an absolute not to compromised at any cost,
and that there are no such  existents as  collective  thoughts,  and you
begin to see how and why the story crystalized as it did.

> Rand greatly simplifies how the world works as to minimize the number
> of variables in the story.  This is like doing a scientific experiment
> where you keep all the variables fixed except the one you are studying.
> Rand does this same thing to make her points.  Further, she speeds up
> the effects (like having everything economically collapse in a year
> or two, where it really would take 20 years) as to speed up the story.

The economic  collapse  took twelve  years in the book, which seems more
than  sufficient time to me.  I often hear people tell me that the story
told by THE FOUNTAINHEAD  could conceivably  happen, but that the events
occuring  in ATLAS  SHRUGGED  are mere  fantasy.  I usually  respond  by
saying  something  like:  "Have you read  today's  newspaper?".  I agree
that a strike by all the  producers in the world would be  difficult  to
achieve,  and that it would take  extraordinary  minds to lead it, but I
firmly believe that the events that destroyed the productive capacity of
the nation, as described in the book, are occuring each and everyday.

>>      Rand's obvious happiness in killing off all the "worthless" characters
>> in this book (which includes over 90% of the general public) makes it
>> somewhat difficult for most people to buy into the good points that she is
>> making.  

I don't recall ever seeing 90% or any other figure mentioned in the book
as the number of characters "killed off".  I don't know why people think
Rand  held such  animosity  for the  "masses".  Her  point is that  some
people are better than others  because they have a better mind, are more
self-reliant,  self-sufficient,  and a score  of other  virtues  clearly
explained in the book.  Each person is an  individual  to be  considered
and judged  individually.  The word  "masses" is a  collective  term and
serves only to diminish one's ability for objective discrimination.

>> The best way to read
>> this book is to skip all the long speeches (particularly in the second half)
>> and read it as a science fiction "end of the world" story.  Then do your
>> philosophizing on your own.

This is  equivalent  to saying the best way to paint a fence is to paint
every other board.  If you don't like the  speeches, why are you reading
the book?  The speeches are there to exercise your mind and give you the
intellectual ammunition you need to survive in this aristocracy-of-pull,
looter  government,  collectivest  world.  In fact, there is really only
one "long" speech; the rest can be read in twenty minutes or less.

> It affected me greatly in terms of "energizing" me
> in my battle against the world for my livelyhood.  

Ditto.

Michael Bishop
hplabs!hpfcla!mike-b