Authors note: This article contains spoilers for Atlas Shrugged.

Love is about sacrificing, serving, surrendering, sharing, supporting, and even suffering for others, writes pastor Rick Warren.1 Hes not alone in this view; many claim that sacrificing for someone is a clear demonstration that you truly love him or her. People often hold up sacrifice (real or supposed) as the true measure of lovewhether the sacrifice is big, as when Jack sacrificed his life for Rose in Titanic; or small, as when Landon gave up his reputation for Jamie in A Walk to Remember.2 But is it true that love requires sacrifice?

First, what is sacrifice? Many consider giving up anything of value, regardless of what one gets in return, to be a sacrifice. For example, people often say that to succeed in your profession, you need to work hard and sacrifice. In this context, sacrificing supposedly means applying ones time and energy to building ones career and giving up or forgoing other goals or activities one might otherwise have pursued. But if you value your career more than those other things, this is not a loss of value but a gain of value. And to call that a sacrifice makes no sense. The reason we need the concept sacrifice is to identify instances when one gives up something of greater value for something of lesser value or of no value. For example, if someone wants to succeed in his career but fritters away his time on social media and thus fails in his career, he has engaged in a net loss. He has committed a sacrifice.

Given that we do not have unlimited time and resources, we must prioritize some values above others. To do so rationally, we must consider which are most important to building a thriving life and which are less important. For example, a career one loves and a creative hobby are both life-serving values, but people tend to spend more time on the work they love than on hobbies, not only because the work pays their bills, but also because a career one loves is a long-range activity that provides meaning and purpose in their lives. To spend ones time and energy on hobbies to the detriment of ones career would be a sacrifice. As Ayn Rand defined it, a sacrifice is giving up a greater value for the sake of a lesser value or a nonvalue; its an action that violates your value hierarchy.3 She further explained:

If you exchange a penny for a dollar, it is not a sacrifice; if you exchange a dollar for a penny, it is. If you achieve the career you wanted, after years of struggle, it is not a sacrifice; if you then renounce it for the sake of a rival, it is. If you own a bottle of milk and give it to your starving child, it is not a sacrifice; if you give it to your neighbors child and let your own die, it is.4

As Rand depicted in her magnum opus, Atlas Shrugged, healthy romantic relationships exclude sacrifice. By examining a few of the most important relationships in the book, we can better understand how sacrifice is incompatible with love and how a totally different approach paves the way for strong, loving relationships.

Hank Rearden is an innovative, self-made businessman. He struggled for decades to build up a steel business and develop a groundbreaking new alloy, Rearden Metal. He holds himself to high standards of integrity and productivity, and he takes pride in his work.

But hes miserable at home. His mother and brother shamelessly live off him, while his wife, Lillian, not only fails to appreciate his achievements but openly mocks them. They look down on him as a greedy materialist, and he accepts their standards and resulting evaluation, thinking, If his family called him heartless, it was true.5 More and more frequently, he escapes his home to spend time at his steel mills, where he uses every ounce of his rationality and energy to produce and innovate. In this, he excels, and his employees and customers appreciate him for it.

But Lillian, an icy, indifferent woman, doesnt appreciate Hank and instead demands that he essentially become someone hes not. She tells him,

To love a woman for her virtues is meaningless. Shes earned it, its a payment, not a gift. But to love her for her vices is a real gift, unearned and undeserved. To love her for her vices is to defile all virtue for her sakeand that is a real tribute of love, because you sacrifice your conscience, your reason, your integrity and your invaluable self-esteem.6

In other words, she demands that he sacrifice his mind, judgment, and values to prove his love for her. Hank cannot fathom such an idea; to expect a person to love another causelesslyor worse, for her failingsis beyond his comprehension. Why would he love a woman he doesnt admire or even respect?

Although Lillians standards dont make sense to Hank, he implicitly accepts the destructive idea that moral truth is different for different individuals. Having adopted this premise, he proceeds on the idea that if Lillian holds that sacrifice is how one shows love, he should respect her view and act accordingly. This very decision requires that Hank sacrifice his independent judgment and go by herssomething he would never dream of doing at work, because it is through his rational judgment that hes built his business. But in his marriage, he struggles to act on the idea that real devotion, as Lillian tells him, consists of being willing to lie, cheat, and fake in order to make another person happyto create for him the reality he wants, if he doesnt like the one that exists.7 And though Hank fortunately never engages in that level of self-deception, he does continue in their marriage for seven years, bound to her by a sense of duty. He spoils his own happiness by choosing to be weighed down by a wife whose values are the opposite of his ownand moreover, are self-destructive.

Surrendering that which makes life meaningful makes life meaningless, as one author put it.8 Though Hank would never do that at work, he does it at home. Hank is unhappy because hes sacrificing his values in his personal relationships. But when he pursues his true valuesnotably, another woman, one who embodies his ideals of rationality, productivity, and justicehe begins to achieve some measure of happiness.

That other woman is Dagny Taggart, a top executive at Taggart Transcontinental Railroad. Hank and Dagny have had a business relationship for a couple of years; she even defies her companys board, vociferous protests of the media, and staunch union opposition to rebuild the railroads most important line using Rearden Metal. Together, they successfully run the first train over the new track, and in the joy and pride of their celebration, finally act on their long-unstated attraction, beginning an affair.

That affair becomes the bright spot of joy and affection that sustains the two of them through a variety of attacks and manipulations by the government and the press. At this point in the story, Hank is beginning to sense that he should be with someone who shares and supports his values, not someone who demands that he sacrifice and destroy them. He adores Dagny, showering her with gifts and seeing her as often as he can. Ive always wanted to enjoy my wealth, he explains to her over a romantic dinner one evening,

I didnt know how to do it. I didnt even have time to know how much I wanted to. But I knew that all the steel I poured came back to me as liquid gold, and the gold was meant to harden into any shape I wished, and it was I who had to enjoy it. Only I couldnt. I couldnt find any purpose for it. Ive found it, now.9

He goes on to explain that the pleasure of treating her to luxuries gives him the feeling of having made it, of being able to experience the success hes worked for all those long years.

Dagny, for her part, loves and admires Hank for, among other reasons, his intelligence and his strength of character. At the beginning of their affair, she tells him, for [the past] two years, the brightest moments I found were the ones in your office, where I could lift my head to look up at you.10

She shows him how to approach personal relationships as non-sacrificially as he approaches his workby trading value for valuein this case, spiritual values, meaning those pertaining to the mind. They support each other through hardships, helping one another sustain their love for existence. For instance, when Hank ably defends himself at trial against unjust charges, his courage and integrity inspire Dagny: Hank, Ill never think that its hopeless, not ever again. . . . Ill never be tempted to quit. Youve proved that the right always works and always wins . . . provided one knows what is the right.11 Hank, following a meeting with fellow producers whom he is helpless to assist against invasive new government regulations, feels that the world [is] a loathsome place where he [does] not want to belonguntil he gets to Dagnys apartment and speaks with her.12 Then, he begins to notice the beauty of the city again, and slowly realizes that

the thing which was returning was within him: the shape coming back drop by drop was his love for the city. Then he knew that it had come back because he was looking at the city past the taut, slender figure of a woman whose head was lifted eagerly as at a sight of distance, whose steps were a restless substitute for flight.13

They admire each other and provide not only comfortable companionship, but inspiration and the sense that their values are achievable and right. Dagny is forthright with Hank about how she approaches their relationship:

My way of trading is to know that the joy you give me is paid for by the joy you get from menot by your suffering or mine. I dont accept sacrifices and I dont make them. If you asked me for more than you meant to me, I would refuse. If you asked me to give up the railroad, Id leave you. If ever the pleasure of one has to be bought by the pain of the other, there better be no trade at all.14

Through the affair, Hank remains married to Lillian. Though he doesnt share Lillians belief that love can be causeless, he does accept that in marrying her, he took on an obligation to her, and he is loath to default on that obligation. And rather than sensibly sever it via a divorce, he continues in the marriage even when they both know its a sham. He sacrifices time and happiness that could have been his if he had left Lillian and been with Dagny openly.

Nonetheless, he refuses to end his affair with Dagny; that is one sacrifice he wont make. Its so important to him that he insists to Lillian, no human being can hold on another a claim demanding that he wipe himself out of existence.15 That is what ending his affair with Dagny would amount to: giving up one of his most important sources of joy, a relationship based on his and Dagnys highest values. Not until Lillian helps government officials blackmail him does he finally divorce her, freeing himself from her clutches forever. He tells Dagny what hes learned: Just as he opposed bureaucrats attempts to stop him from selling the metal he invented to the customers he chose, he ought to oppose those who try to guilt him into hiding his love for the woman he admiresand who demand his support without earning it. He says:

I rebelled against the looters attempt to set the price and value of my steelbut I let them set the moral values of my life. I rebelled against demands for an unearned wealthbut I thought it was my duty to grant an unearned love to a wife I despised, an unearned respect to a mother who hated me, an unearned support to a brother who plotted for my destruction.16

Hank had always been rational and just in his professional life. But he hadnt applied the same standards to his personal life, and it cost him dearly. Only when he stops sacrificing his values to his familys irrational ideas and expectations, when he fully embraces that love is a celebration of ones self and of existence, can he achieve happiness.17

Many readers celebrate Dagny as a determined, intelligent heroine, which she certainly is. But one aspect of her character that is sometimes overlooked is that all her romantic relationships (and friendships) are healthy and non-sacrificial.

We see Dagny in three successive romantic relationships over the course of the novel. The first is with her childhood friend Francisco. Their time together gave her a feeling greater than happiness, the feeling of ones blessing upon the whole of the earth, the feeling of being in love with the fact that one exists and in this kind of world.18 But their youthful romance doesnt last, and Francisco begins to build a reputation as a playboy. We later learn that this reputation is merely a cover and that he is in fact still in love with Dagny; at one point, conversing with Hank, he cries out passionately, Ive never loved but one woman in my life and still do and always will!19

Later, Dagny has the aforementioned relationship with Hank and later still, one with John Galt. Though each relationship is unique, all three are based on their shared values. As well see, knowing this enables Francisco and Hank to take an unusually rational approach to the painful situation of being in love with Dagny when she chooses John over them.

When Dagny and John are initially falling for each other, Francisco (whos close friends with John) doesnt realize it. Dagny worries that John might sacrifice their budding romance to spare Franciscos feelings. She pictures what that would mean for the three of them. John, the novels primary hero, would be

giving up the woman he wanted, for the sake of his friend, faking his greatest feeling out of existence and himself out of her life, no matter what the cost to him and to her, then dragging the rest of his years through the waste of the unreached and unfulfilled.20

Given this, Dagny envisions a bleak future in which she turns for consolation to Francisco, a second choice, faking a love she did not feel, being willing to fake . . . then living out her years in hopeless longing, accepting, as relief for an unhealing wound, some moments of weary affection.21

Nor would Francisco benefit from the imagined sacrifice. Though hed have Dagny, hed be

struggling in the elusive fog of a counterfeit reality, his life a fraud staged by the two who were dearest to him and most trusted, struggling to grasp what was missing from his happiness, struggling down the brittle scaffold of a lie over the abyss of the discovery that he was not the man she loved, but only a resented substitute, half-charity-patient, half-crutch, his perceptiveness becoming his danger and only his surrender to lethargic stupidity protecting the shoddy structure of his joy, struggling and giving up and settling into the dreary routine of the conviction that fulfillment is impossible to man.22

As this reflection eloquently shows, if John gave up Dagny for Francisco, it would harm all three of them in the long run. But John knows this and therefore refuses to sacrifice his values. He admires Dagny, feels himself worthy of her, and pursues her. He spends all the time he can with Dagny and later makes his feelings for her crystal clear. They have a passionate, deeply loving romancethe kind most of us aim for.

When Francisco learns that Dagny and John are in love, he doesnt fault either of them for it. He still loves Dagny, and part of him is naturally hurt and even acknowledges his jealousy. He explains to her that theyll still have certain emotions for each other, because they still share the same values and see the other embodying those values. But, he says, there is a greater emotional response that you grant to another man. No matter what you feel for him, it will not change what you feel for me, and it wont be treason to either, because it comes from the same root, its the same payment in answer to the same values.23 Given that John embodies Dagnys values more completely, she should be with him, and Francisco accepts that. He deeply respects both Hank and John. When he first learns that Dagny and Hank are together, he tells her that if it had to be anyone, Im glad its he.24 When he later learns that John is in love with her, Francisco describes it as all but inevitable that his dearest friend would fall for the same womanincluding her brilliant virtues and sense of life.

Likewise, when Hank learns that Dagnys fallen for someone else, he understands and isnt resentful. He explains to her, What youll give him is not taken away from me, its what Ive never had. I cant rebel against it. What Ive had means too much to meand that Ive had it, can never be changed.25 The two remain friends and allies, sharing meals together and helping each other through the struggles of a collapsing world. When Hank eventually meets John, he sends Dagny a brief note reassuring her: I have met him. I dont blame you.26

All of Dagnys relationships are built on the strongest of foundationsshared fundamental values, including intelligence, honesty, and integrity. But John is the complete embodiment of Dagnys values, the man she didnt know existed but always wanted. Francisco and Hank recognize that encouraging Dagny and John to be happy together is not a sacrifice; theyre not giving up anything. Rather, theyre keeping two wonderful people in their lives, admiring and enjoying their happiness, and embracing a future in which they will meet many other women and, no doubt, fall in love with someone in a noncontradictory, non-sacrificial, mutually self-interested way. Its both healthy and in their best interests.

Through Hank, Dagny, John, and Francisco, Rand shows that healthy relationships are based on shared moral values and a harmony of self-interest, and they exclude sacrifice.

Angelica is a fellow at Objective Standard Institute, an assistant editor and writer for The Objective Standard. Her roles at OSI include managing the internship and scholarship programs, course administration and development, and editing On Solid Ground. She writes nonfiction articles and speaks about Objectivism and fiction; you can see her work at walker-werth.com. She is also a voracious reader of fiction in her spare time, and writes about the ideas in fictional works at fictionosophy.substack.com.

1. Rick Warren, Facebook, November 21, 2013, https://www.facebook.com/pastorrickwarren/posts/10152064979745903.

2. Anna Livia Brady, 5 Cinematic Couples Who Showcase the Power of True Love, Family Theater Productions, February 10, 2023, https://familytheater.org/blog/movies-selfless-love-princess-bride.

3. Ayn Rand, The Virtue of Selfishness (New York: Signet, 1964), 50.

4. Ayn Rand, Atlas Shrugged (New York: Signet, Kindle edition), 1027.

5. Rand, Atlas Shrugged, 128.

6. Rand, Atlas Shrugged, 305.

7. Rand, Atlas Shrugged, 304.

8. Andrew Bernstein, Heroes, Legends, Champions: Why Heroism Matters (New York: Union Square Publishing, 2019), 93.

9. Rand, Atlas Shrugged, 371.

10. Rand, Atlas Shrugged, 255.

11. Rand, Atlas Shrugged, 484.

12. Rand, Atlas Shrugged, 373.

13. Rand, Atlas Shrugged, 376.

14. Rand, Atlas Shrugged, 425.

15. Rand, Atlas Shrugged, 529.

16. Rand, Atlas Shrugged, 858.

17. Rand, Atlas Shrugged, 974.

18. Rand, Atlas Shrugged, 108.

19. Rand, Atlas Shrugged, 493.

20. Rand, Atlas Shrugged, 797.

21. Rand, Atlas Shrugged, 797.

22. Rand, Atlas Shrugged, 797.

23. Rand, Atlas Shrugged, 76768.

24. Rand, Atlas Shrugged, 767.

25. Rand, Atlas Shrugged, 861.

26. Rand, Atlas Shrugged, 1002.

Continue reading here:

Love in Atlas Shrugged - The Objective Standard

The man who refuses to judge, who neither agrees nor disagrees, who declares that there are no absolutes and believes that he escapes responsibility, is the man responsible for all the blood that is now spilled in the world. Reality is an absolute, existence is an absolute, a speck of dust is an absolute and so is a human life. Whether you live or die is an absolute. Whether you have a piece of bread or not, is an absolute. Whether you eat your bread or see it vanish into a looter's stomach, is an absolute.

There are two sides to every issue: one side is right and the other is wrong, but the middle is always evil. The man who is wrong still retains some respect for truth, if only by accepting the responsibility of choice. But the man in the middle is the knave who blanks out the truth in order to pretend that no choice or values exist, who is willing to sit out the course of any battle, willing to cash in on the blood of the innocent or to crawl on his belly to the guilty, who dispenses justice by condemning both the robber and the robbed to jail, who solves conflicts by ordering the thinker and the fool to meet each other halfway. In any compromise between food and poison, it is only death that can win. In any compromise between good and evil, it is only evil that can profit. In that transfusion of blood which drains the good to feed the evil, the compromise is the transmitting rubber tube. Ayn Rand, Atlas Shrugged

Read more from the original source:

Atlas Shrugged Quotes by Ayn Rand - Goodreads

This is a list of characters in Ayn Rand's 1957 novel Atlas Shrugged.

The following are major characters from the novel.[note 1]

Dagny Taggart is the protagonist of the novel. She is vice-president in Charge of Operations for Taggart Transcontinental, under her brother, James Taggart. Given James' incompetence, Dagny is responsible for all the workings of the railroad.

Francisco d'Anconia is one of the central characters in Atlas Shrugged, an owner by inheritance of the world's largest copper mining operation. He is a childhood friend, and the first love, of Dagny Taggart. A child prodigy of exceptional talents, Francisco was dubbed the "climax" of the d'Anconia line, an already prestigious family of skilled industrialists. He was a classmate of John Galt and Ragnar Danneskjld and student of both Hugh Akston and Robert Stadler. He began working while still in school, proving that he could have made a fortune without the aid of his family's wealth and power. Later, Francisco bankrupts the d'Anconia business to put it out of others' reach. His full name is given as "Francisco Domingo Carlos Andres Sebastin d'Anconia".[note 2]

John Galt is the primary male hero of Atlas Shrugged. He initially appears as an unnamed menial worker for Taggart Transcontinental, who often dines with Eddie Willers in the employees' cafeteria, and leads Eddie to reveal important information about Dagny Taggart and Taggart Transcontinental. Only Eddie's side of their conversations is given in the novel. Later in the novel, the reader discovers this worker's true identity.

Before working for Taggart Transcontinental, Galt worked as an engineer for the Twentieth Century Motor Company, where he secretly invented a generator of usable electric energy from ambient static electricity, but abandoned his prototype, and his employment, when dissatisfied by an easily corrupted novel system of payment. This prototype was found by Dagny Taggart and Hank Rearden. Galt himself remains concealed throughout much of the novel, working a job and living by himself, where he unites the most skillful inventors and business leaders under his leadership. Much of the book's third division is given to his broadcast speech, which presents the author's philosophy of Objectivism.

Henry (known as "Hank") Rearden is one of the central characters in Atlas Shrugged. He owns the most important steel company in the United States, and invents Rearden Metal, an alloy stronger, lighter, cheaper and tougher than steel. He lives in Philadelphia with his wife Lillian, his brother Philip, and his elderly mother. Rearden represents a type of self-made man and eventually divorces Lillian, abandons his steel mills following a bloody assault by government-planted workers, and joins John Galt's strike.

Edwin "Eddie" Willers is the Special Assistant to the Vice-President in Charge of Operations at Taggart Transcontinental. His father and grandfather worked for the Taggarts, and himself likewise. He is completely loyal to Dagny and to Taggart Transcontinental. Willers does not possess the creative ability of Galt's associates, but matches them in moral courage and is capable of appreciating and making use of their creations. After Dagny shifts her attention and loyalty to saving the captive Galt, Willers maintains the railroad until its collapse.

One of Galt's first followers, and world-famous as a pirate, who seizes relief ships sent from the United States to the People's States of Europe. He works to ensure that once those espousing Galt's philosophy are restored to their rightful place in society, they have enough capital to rebuild the world. Kept in the background for much of the book, Danneskjld makes a personal appearance to encourage Rearden to persevere in his increasingly difficult situation, and gives him a bar of gold as compensation for the income taxes he has paid over the last several years. Danneskjld is married to the actress Kay Ludlow; their relationship is kept hidden from the outside world, which only knows of Ludlow as a retired film star. Considered a misfit by Galt's other adherents, he views his actions as a means to speed the world along in understanding Galt's perspective.

According to Barbara Branden, who was closely associated with Rand at the time the book was written, there were sections written describing Danneskjld's adventures at sea, cut from the final published text.[1] In a 1974 comment at a lecture, Ayn Rand admitted that Danneskjld's name was a tribute to Victor Hugo's novel, Hans of Iceland[fr], wherein the hero becomes the first of the Counts of Danneskjld. In the published book, Danneskjld is always seen through the eyes of others (Dagny Taggart or Hank Rearden), except for a brief paragraph in the very last chapter.

The President of Taggart Transcontinental and the book's most important antagonist. Taggart is an expert influence peddler but incapable of making operational decisions on his own. He relies on his sister, Dagny Taggart, to actually run the railroad, but nonetheless opposes her in almost every endeavor because of his various anti-capitalist moral and political beliefs. In a sense, he is the antithesis of Dagny. This contradiction leads to the recurring absurdity of his life: the desire to overcome those on whom his life depends, and the horror that he will succeed at this. In the final chapters of the novel, he suffers a complete mental breakdown upon realizing that he can no longer deceive himself in this respect.

The unsupportive wife of Hank Rearden, who dislikes his habits and (secretly at first) seeks to ruin Rearden to prove her own value. Lillian achieves this, when she passes information to James Taggart about her husband's affair with his sister. This information is used to blackmail Rearden to sign a Gift Certificate which delivers all the property rights of Rearden Metal to others. Lillian thereafter uses James Taggart for sexual satisfaction, until Hank abandons her.

Ferris is a biologist who works as "co-ordinator" at the State Science Institute. He uses his position there to deride reason and productive achievement, and publishes a book entitled Why Do You Think You Think? He clashes on several occasions with Hank Rearden, and twice attempts to blackmail Rearden into giving up Rearden Metal. He is also one of the group of looters who tries to get Rearden to agree to the Steel Unification Plan. Ferris hosts the demonstration of the Project X weapon, and is the creator of the Ferris Persuader, a torture machine. When John Galt is captured by the looters, Ferris uses the device on Galt, but it breaks down before extracting the information Ferris wants from Galt. Ferris represents the group which uses brute force on the heroes to achieve the ends of the looters.

A former professor at Patrick Henry University, and along with colleague Hugh Akston, mentor to Francisco d'Anconia, John Galt and Ragnar Danneskjld. He has since become a sell-out, one who had great promise but squandered it for social approval, to the detriment of the free. He works at the State Science Institute where all his inventions are perverted for use by the military, including a sound-based weapon known as Project X (Xylophone). He is killed when Cuffy Meigs (see below) drunkenly overloads the circuits of Project X, causing it to destroy itself and every structure and living thing in a 100-mile radius. The character was, in part, modeled on J. Robert Oppenheimer, whom Rand had interviewed for an earlier project, and his part in the creation of nuclear weapons.`[2] To his former student Galt, Stadler represents the epitome of human evil, as the "man who knew better" but chose not to act for the good.

The incompetent and treacherous lobbyist whom Hank Rearden reluctantly employs in Washington, who rises to prominence and authority throughout the novel through trading favours and disloyalty. In return for betraying Hank by helping broker the Equalization of Opportunity Bill (which, by restricting the number of businesses each person may own to one, forces Hank to divest most of his companies), he is given a senior position at the Bureau of Economic Planning and National Resources. Later in the novel he becomes its Top Co-ordinator, a position that eventually becomes Economic Dictator of the country. Mouch's mantra, whenever a problem arises from his prior policy, is to say, "I can't help it. I need wider powers."

The following secondary characters also appear in the novel.[note 3]

More:

List of Atlas Shrugged characters - Wikipedia

I was visiting an old friend for the past few days, and she showed me this cover of Atlas Shrugged I made for her when we lived in Ukraine:

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It was a necessary repair, but it pretty much proves I should be a cover designer._____________________________________________

Original review:

I think Francisco DAconia is absolutely a dream boat. This books like blah blah blah engineering, blah blah blah John Galt, blah blah blah no altruistic act, blah bla- HE-llo, Francisco DAconia, you growl and a half. Also, theres a pirate. So, whats everyone complaining about?

Okay, its not that I dont get what everyones complaining about. I get that Rand is kind of loony tunes of the Glenn Beck variety, and some people (maybe?) use her to justify being assholes, but I just dont like to throw the bathwater out with that baby. Warning: I think, to make my point, I have to refer to Dostoyevsky a lot, which I seem to always do because he really is some kind of touchstone to me. The point Im trying to make with all this blabbering is that the debate over Atlas Shrugged brings out something that I might hate more than anything else (more than weddings and kitty litter even). It makes people say that ideas are dangerous. People on all sides of the spectrum do this about different stuff, and whatever the argument, I dont like it. If an idea is wrong, say its wrong. But genocide doesnt happen because people put forward too many ideas. It happens because people put forward too few ideas.

Anyway, back to the book:

First, story. The third part of this book is super weird. Its definitely not the actual ending of the book, Ive decided, but more of a choose-your-own-adventure suggestion. Its kind of fun that way because any end that you, the reader, come up with will be better than the one Rand suggested. My favorite part of her ending is how John Galt gives the most boring speech possible, and it lasts for about a bazillion pages, and you have to skip it or die. Then, at the end, Rands like, The entire world was listening, ears glued to the radios, because Galts speech was the most brilliant thing they had ever heard. No. Nope. Nice try, liar. So, thats super lame, I agree, and you should just skip the third part.

But people dont get as mad about the epilogue in Crime and Punishment. Why? Thats the same situation, where it kills all fun, and you have to ignore that it happened. Is it just because its shorter, and its called Epilogue? Maybe thats enough. But, on the other hand, maybe people didnt read all the way to the end of Crime and Punishment. Maybe, because it was written by a crazy Russian man, not a crazy Russian woman, people think theyll sound deep if they say they like it.

Second, writing. People complain about Rands writing, and I always think, When was the last time you wrote a 1000 page book in a second language and pulled off a reasonably page-turning storyline? The woman spoke Russian for crying out loud! It most certainly would have been a better choice for her to have written the books in Russian and had them translated, but, I mean, most native English speakers couldnt be that entertaining. Its at least A for effort. Im not going to make excuses for the unpronounceable names she chooses for her characters, but Ill just say Dostoyevsky again and leave it at that.

I know it made a huge difference in my reading of this book that I was living in a Soviet bloc apartment in Lozovaya, Ukraine at the time and had forgotten a little bit how to speak English. Im sure a lot of weird phrasing didnt sound weird to me because it makes sense in Russian. But, also, I feel like Ive read a lot of translations of Dostoyevsky and other Russians that feel really weird in English. You know, everyones always having some kind of epileptic fit or whatever with Mr. D. But, we allow for the weirdness because we picture the stuff happening in Russia, where the weird stuff typically goes down anyway. Ill tell you right now, Atlas Shrugged takes place in Russia. No joke. She might tell you theyre flying over the Rocky Mountains, or whatever, but this book is a Russian if there ever was one. Just so its clear, I LOVE that about it. Thats no insult, only compliment.

Third, philosophy. Maybe I told you this story already, so skip it if you already know it. When I lived in Ukraine, I had the same conversation with three or four people of the older generation who grew up in the Soviet Union. They would tell me, Things were really wonderful in the Soviet Union, much better than they are now. We had free health care, free housing, and now we have nothing. I mean, every once in a while your neighbor would disappear, but it was completely worth it. This was really disturbing to me, because it gave me this picture of the people around me that they were the ones who ratted out the neighbors who wanted a different life. Sure, Rands vision is narrow and sometimes inhuman, but I think it is because she was really terrified of this equally narrow and, as far as Im concerned, inhuman vision. I want a public health care option real bad, and my neighbor has some really annoying Chihuahuas, but if forced to choose between them, Id probably still pick my neighbor.

Admittedly, the problem with this argument is that it sets up a dichotomy where our only choices are the prosperity gospel and Soilent Green. From what I know of Rand, though, she had seen her neighbors and family thrown out of Russia or killed for being rich. She was fighting something extreme by being extreme. Unfortunately, in America, this rhetoric turns into the idea that having public services = killing your neighbor. To me, this comes from people taking her arguments too seriously on both sides. Dostoyevsky has ghosts and devils coming out of every corner, and people take his stories for what theyre worth. We dont think that liking his books makes us mystics and hating them makes us inquisitors. Why is it different with Rand?

Fourth, women. Im not going to lie and tell you that there werent other badass female characters when Dagney Taggert came around. All I want to say about this is that the most valuable thing I got from this book was the idea that one person being unhappy doesnt, and shouldnt, make other people happy. I think, in this way, it was particularly important to me that the protagonist was a woman. I see a lot of women complain about their lives and families, but say its all worth it because theyve been able to devote their lives to making their husbands or children happy. Im paraphrasing, I guess. Anyway, that kind of hegemony really creeps me out.

When I read this book, I was just realizing that I had joined Peace Corps with a similarly misguided motivation. I wanted to go to the needy and unfortunate countries of the world and sacrifice myself to save them. It might sound more nasty than it really was when I say it like that, but I think it is a really arrogant attitude to have. We might have hot running water in America (for which I am forever grateful), but if somewhere doesnt have that, its probably not because of a problem a silly, 23-year-old English major is going to solve. Dont get me wrong, I loved Peace Corps, and it was maybe the best experience of my life so far. But I love it for the things that I got out of it, and if someone else benefited from my being in Ukraine, it was dumb luck.

I dont know about other women, but I was raised to believe that the more selfless (read: unhappy) I was, the better off everyone else would be. I think its a pretty typical way that women talk themselves into staying in abusive situations that their lives are worth less than the lives around them. This would be the Hank Rearden character in the novel. I love that Rand sets up characters who destroy this cycle of abuse. I love that her female protagonist lives completely outside of it.

So, not to undercut my noble feminist apologetics, but really Franciscos just hawt, and I think thats the reason I like this book. There are lots of other reasons to read Rand, but most of those get into the argument about her ideas being dangerous. I just dont think they are, or should be. I think ignorance is dangerous, but I think it should be pretty easy to fill in the gaping holes in Rands logic. Yes, she conveniently ignores the very old, very young, and disabled to make a specific and extreme point. I dont think her point is entirely without merit, though (in the sense that our lives are valuable, not in the sense of kill the weak!). I also think that if we give a danger label to every book that conveniently ignores significant portions of the population to make a point, we wouldnt be left with much.

Anyway, read, discuss, agree, disagree. Ill be making up some Team John, Team Hank, Team Francisco t-shirts later. I hear in the sequel there are werewolves.

Continue reading here:

Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand - Goodreads

2011 film by Paul Johansson

Atlas Shrugged: Part I (referred to onscreen as simply Atlas Shrugged) is a 2011 American political science fiction drama film directed by Paul Johansson. An adaptation of part of the philosopher Ayn Rand's 1957 novel of the same name, the film is the first in a trilogy encompassing the entire book. After various treatments and proposals floundered for nearly 40 years,[4] investor John Aglialoro initiated production in June 2010. The film was directed by Paul Johansson and stars Taylor Schilling as Dagny Taggart and Grant Bowler as Hank Rearden.

The film begins the story of Atlas Shrugged, set in a dystopian United States where John Galt leads innovators, from industrialists to artists, in a capital strike, "stopping the motor of the world" to reassert the importance of the free use of one's mind and of laissez-faire capitalism.[5]

Despite near universally negative critical response and commercial failure, grossing just under a fourth of its budget, a sequel, Atlas Shrugged: Part II, was released on October 12, 2012, albeit with an entirely different cast. The third installment, Atlas Shrugged Part III: Who Is John Galt?, was released on September 12, 2014,[6] again with an overhaul on production.

In 2016, the United States is in a sustained economic depression. Industrial disasters, resource shortages, and gasoline prices at $37 per gallon have made railroads the primary mode of transportation, but even they are in disrepair. After a major accident on the Rio Norte line of the Taggart Transcontinental railroad, CEO James Taggart shirks responsibility. His sister Dagny Taggart, Vice-President in Charge of Operations, defies him by replacing the aging track with new rails made of Rearden Metal, which is claimed to be lighter yet stronger than steel. Dagny meets with its inventor, Hank Rearden, and they negotiate a deal they both admit serves their respective self-interests.

Politician Wesley Mouchnominally Rearden's lobbyist in Washington, D.C.is part of a crowd that views heads of industry as persons who must be broken or tamed. James Taggart uses political influence to ensure that Taggart Transcontinental is designated the exclusive railroad for the state of Colorado. Dagny is confronted by Ellis Wyatt, a Colorado oil man angry to be forced to do business with Taggart Transcontinental. Dagny promises him that he will get the service he needs. Dagny encounters former lover Francisco d'Anconia, who presents a faade of a playboy grown bored with the pursuit of money. He reveals that a series of copper mines he built are worthless, costing his investors (including the Taggart railroad) millions.

Rearden lives in a magnificent home with a wife and a brother who are happy to live off his effort, though they overtly disrespect it. Rearden's anniversary gift to his wife Lillian is a bracelet made from the first batch of Rearden Metal, but she considers it a garish symbol of Hank's egotism. At a dinner party, Dagny dares Lillian to exchange it for Dagny's diamond necklace, which she does.

As Dagny and Rearden rebuild the Rio Norte line, talented people quit their jobs and refuse all inducements to stay. Meanwhile, Dr. Robert Stadler of the State Science Institute puts out a report implying that Rearden Metal is dangerous. Taggart Transcontinental stock plummets because of its use of Rearden Metal, and Dagny leaves Taggart Transcontinental temporarily and forms her own company to finish the Rio Norte line. She renames it the John Galt Line, in defiance of the phrase "Who is John Galt?"which has come to stand for any question to which it is pointless to seek an answer.

A new law forces Rearden to sell most of his businesses, but he retains Rearden Steel for the sake of his metal and to finish the John Galt Line. Despite strong government and union opposition to Rearden Metal, Dagny and Rearden complete the line ahead of schedule and successfully test it on a record-setting run to Wyatt's oil fields in Colorado. At the home of Wyatt, now a close friend, Dagny and Rearden celebrate the success of the line. As Dagny and Rearden continue their celebration into the night by fulfilling their growing sexual attraction, the shadowy figure responsible for the disappearances of prominent people visits Wyatt with an offer for a better society based on personal achievement.

The next morning, Dagny and Rearden begin investigating an abandoned prototype of an advanced motor that could revolutionize the world. They realize the genius of the motor's creator and try to track him down. Dagny finds Dr. Hugh Akston, working as a cook at a diner, but he is not willing to reveal the identity of the inventor; Akston knows whom Dagny is seeking and says she will never find him, though he may find her.

Another new law limits rail freight and levies a special tax on Colorado. It is the final straw for Ellis Wyatt. When Dagny hears that Wyatt's oil fields are on fire, she rushes to the scene of the fire where she finds a handwritten sign nailed to the wall that reads "I am leaving it as I found it. Take over. It's yours."

Wyatt declares in an answering machine message that he is "on strike".

In 1972, Albert S. Ruddy approached Rand to produce a cinematic adaptation of Atlas Shrugged. Rand agreed that Ruddy could focus on the love story. "That's all it ever was," Rand said.[9][10][11] Rand insisted on having final script approval, which Ruddy refused to give her, thus preventing a deal. In 1978, Henry and Michael Jaffe negotiated a deal for an eight-hour Atlas Shrugged television miniseries on NBC. Jaffe hired screenwriter Stirling Silliphant to adapt the novel and he obtained approval from Rand on the final script. However, in 1979, with Fred Silverman's rise as president of NBC, the project was scrapped.[12]

Rand, a former Hollywood screenwriter herself, began writing her own screenplay, but died in 1982 with only one third of it finished. She left her estate, including the film rights to Atlas Shrugged, to her student Leonard Peikoff, who sold an option to Michael Jaffe and Ed Snider. Peikoff would not approve the script they wrote and the deal fell through. In 1992, investor John Aglialoro bought an option to produce the film, paying Peikoff over $1 million for full creative control.[12]

In 1999, under Aglialoro's sponsorship, Ruddy negotiated a deal with Turner Network Television for a four-hour miniseries, but the project was killed after the AOL Time Warner merger. After the TNT deal fell through, Howard and Karen Baldwin, while running Phillip Anschutz's Crusader Entertainment, obtained the rights. The Baldwins left Crusader, taking the rights to Atlas Shrugged with them, and formed Baldwin Entertainment Group in 2004. Michael Burns of Lions Gate Entertainment approached the Baldwins to fund and distribute Atlas Shrugged.[12] A two-part draft screenplay written by James V. Hart[13] was re-written into a 127page screenplay by Randall Wallace, with Vadim Perelman expected to direct.[14] Potential cast members for this production had included Angelina Jolie,[15] Charlize Theron,[16] Julia Roberts,[16] and Anne Hathaway.[16] Between 2009 and 2010, however, these deals came apart, including studio backing from Lions Gate, and therefore none of the stars mentioned above appear in the final film. Also, Wallace did not do the screenplay, and Perelman did not direct.[1][17] Aglialoro says producers have spent "something in the $20 million range" on the project over the last 18 years.[2]

In May 2010, Brian Patrick O'Toole and Aglialoro wrote a screenplay, intent on filming in June 2010. While initial rumors claimed that the films would have a "timeless" settingthe producers say Rand envisioned the story as occurring "the day after tomorrow"[18]the released film is set in late 2016. The writers were mindful of the desire of some fans for fidelity to the novel,[18] but gave some characters, such as Eddie Willers, short shrift and omitted others, such as the composer Richard Halley. The film is styled as a mystery, with black-and-white freeze frames as each innovator goes "missing". However, Galt appears and speaks in the film, solving the mystery more clearly than in the first third of the novel.

Though director Johansson had been reported as playing the pivotal role of John Galt, he made it clear in an interview that with regard to who is John Galt in the film, the answer was, "Not me."[7] He explained that his portrayal of the character would be limited to the first film as a silhouetted figure wearing a trenchcoat and fedora,[8] suggesting that another actor will be cast as Galt for the subsequent parts of the trilogy.

Though Stephen Polk was initially set to direct,[19] he was replaced by Paul Johansson nine days before filming was scheduled to begin. With the 18-year-long option to the films rights set to expire on June 15, 2010, producers Harmon Kaslow and Aglialoro began principal photography on June 13, 2010, thus allowing Aglialoro to retain the motion picture rights. Shooting took five weeks, and he says that the total production cost of the movie came in on a budget around US$10 million,[20] though Box Office Mojo lists the production cost as $20 million.[3]

Elia Cmiral composed the score for the film.[21] Peter Debruge wrote in Variety that "More ambitious sound design and score, rather than the low-key filler from composer Elia Cmiral and music supervisor Steve Weisberg, might have significantly boosted the pic's limited scale."[22]

In a lot of ways, this project reflects the ethos of the Tea Party. You had both Republicans and Democrats who felt rejected by the establishment, and the same process is going to happen with Atlas Shrugged: We're going to build a constituency of people who believe in limited government and individual liberty.

Matt Kibbe, President of FreedomWorks[23]

The film had a very low marketing budget and was not marketed in conventional methods.[24] Prior to the film's release on the politically symbolic date of Tax Day, the project was promoted throughout the Tea Party movement and affiliated organizations such as FreedomWorks.[23] The National Journal reported that FreedomWorks, the Tea Party-allied group headed by former House Majority Leader Dick Armey, (R-Texas), had been trying to get the movie opened in more theaters.[23] FreedomWorks also helped unveil the Atlas Shrugged movie trailer at the February 2011 Conservative Political Action Conference.[23] Additionally, it was reported that Tea Party groups across the country were plugging the movie trailer on their websites and Facebook pages.[23] Release of the film was also covered and promoted by Fox News TV personalities John Stossel and Sean Hannity.[25][26]

The U.S. release of Atlas Shrugged: Part I opened on 300 screens on April 15, 2011, and made US$1,676,917 in its opening weekend, finishing in 14th place overall.[27] Producers announced expansion to 423 theaters several days after release and promised 1,000 theaters by the end of April,[28] but the release peaked at 465 screens. Ticket sales dropped off significantly in its second week of release, despite the addition of 165 screens; after six weeks, the film was showing on only 32 screens and total ticket sales had not crossed the $5 million mark, recouping less than a quarter of the production budget.[29]

Atlas Shrugged: Part I was released on DVD and Blu-ray Disc on November 8, 2011 by 20th Century Fox Home Entertainment.[30] More than 100,000 DVD inserts were recalled within days due to the jacket's philosophically incorrect description of "Ayn Rand's timeless novel of courage and self-sacrifice".[31] As of April 2013, 247,044 DVDs had been sold, grossing $3,433,445.[32]

The film received overwhelmingly negative reviews. Rotten Tomatoes gives the film a score of 12% based on 52 reviews, with an average score of 3.8/10. The site's consensus was: "Passionate ideologues may find it compelling, but most filmgoers will find this low-budget adaptation of the Ayn Rand bestseller decidedly lacking."[33] Metacritic gives the film a "generally unfavorable" rating of 28%, as determined by averaging 19 professional reviews.[34] Some commentators noted differences in film critics' reactions from audience members' reactions; from the latter group, the film received high scores even before the film was released.[35][36][37]

Let's say you know the novel, you agree with Ayn Rand, you're an objectivist or a libertarian, and you've been waiting eagerly for this movie. Man, are you going to get a letdown. It's not enough that a movie agree with you, in however an incoherent and murky fashion. It would help if it were like, you know, entertaining?

Roger Ebert, Chicago Sun-Times, April 14, 2011[1]

Roger Ebert of the Chicago Sun-Times gave the film only one star, calling it "the most anticlimactic non-event since Geraldo Rivera broke into Al Capone's vault."[1] Columnist Cathy Young of The Boston Globe gave the film a negative review.[38] Chicago Tribune published a predominantly negative review, arguing that the film lacks Rand's philosophical theme, while at the same time saying "the actors, none of them big names, are well-suited to the roles. The story has drive, color and mystery. It looks good on the screen."[39] In the New York Post, Kyle Smith gave the film a mostly negative review, grading it at 2.5/4 stars, criticizing its "stilted dialogue and stern, unironic hectoring" and calling it "stiff in the joints", but also adding that it "nevertheless contains a fire and a fury that makes it more compelling than the average mass-produced studio item."[40]

Reviews in the conservative press were more mixed. American economist Mark Skousen praised the film, writing in Human Events, "The script is true to the philosophy of Ayn Rand's novel."[41] The Weekly Standard senior editor Fred Barnes noted that the film "gets Rand's point across forcefully without too much pounding", that it is "fast-paced" when compared with the original novel's 1200-page length, and that it is "at least as relevant today as it was when the novel was published in 1957."[42] Jack Hunter, contributing editor to The American Conservative, wrote, "If you ask the average film critic about the new movie adaptation of Ayn Rand's Atlas Shrugged they will tell you it is a horrible movie. If you ask the average conservative or libertarian they will tell you it is a great movie. Objectively, it is a mediocre movie at best. Subjectively, it is one of the best mediocre movies you'll ever see."[43] In the National Post, Peter Foster credited the movie for the daunting job of fidelity to the novel, wryly suggested a plot rewrite along the lines of comparable current events, and concluded, "if it sinks without trace, its backers should at least be proud that they lost their own money."[44]

The poor critical reception of Atlas Shrugged: Part I initially made Aglialoro reconsider his plans for the rest of the trilogy.[45] In an interview with The Hollywood Reporter, he said he was continuing with plans to produce Part II and Part III for release on April 15 in 2012 and 2013, respectively.[46] In a later interview with The Boston Globe, Aglialoro was ambivalent: "I learned something long ago playing poker. If you think you're beat[en], don't go all in. If Part 1 makes [enough of] a return to support Part 2, I'll do it. Other than that, I'll throw the hand in."[47]

In July 2011, Aglialoro planned to start production of Atlas Shrugged: Part II in September, with its release timed to coincide with the 2012 U.S. elections.[48] In October 2011, producer Harmon Kaslow stated that he hoped filming for Part II would begin in early 2012, "with hopes of previewing it around the time of the nominating conventions". Kaslow anticipated that the film, which would encompass the second third of Atlas Shrugged, would "probably be 30 to 40 minutes longer than the first movie." Kaslow also stated his intent that Part II would have a bigger production budget, as well as a larger advertising budget.[49]

On February 2, 2012, Kaslow and Aglialoro, the producers of Atlas Shrugged: Part II, announced a start date for principal photography in April 2012 with a release date of October 12, 2012.[50] Joining the production team was Duncan Scott, who, in 1986, was responsible for creating a new, re-edited version with English subtitles of the 1942 Italian film adaptation of We the Living. The first film's entire cast was replaced for the sequel.

The sequel film, Atlas Shrugged: Part II, was released on October 12, 2012.[51] Critics gave the film a 4% rating on Rotten Tomatoes based on 23 reviews.[52] One reviewer gave the film a "D" rating,[53] while another reviewer gave the film a "1" rating (of 4).[54] In naming Part II to its list of 2012's worst films, The A.V. Club said "The irony of Part II's mere existence is rich enough: The free market is a religion for Rand acolytes, and it emphatically rejected Part I."[55]

Excerpt from:

Atlas Shrugged: Part I - Wikipedia

Russian-born American writer and philosopher (19051982)

Alice O'Connor (born Alisa Zinovyevna Rosenbaum;[a] February 2 [O.S. January 20], 1905 March 6, 1982), better known by her pen name Ayn Rand (), was a Russian-born American writer and philosopher. She is known for her fiction and for developing a philosophical system she named Objectivism. Born and educated in Russia, she moved to the United States in 1926. After two early novels that were initially unsuccessful and two Broadway plays, she achieved fame with her 1943 novel, The Fountainhead. In 1957, Rand published her best-known work, the novel Atlas Shrugged. Afterward, until her death in 1982, she turned to non-fiction to promote her philosophy, publishing her own periodicals and releasing several collections of essays.

Rand advocated reason as the only means of acquiring knowledge; she rejected faith and religion. She supported rational and ethical egoism and rejected altruism. In politics, she condemned the initiation of force as immoral and opposed collectivism, statism, and anarchism. Instead, she supported laissez-faire capitalism, which she defined as the system based on recognizing individual rights, including private property rights. Although Rand opposed libertarianism, which she viewed as anarchism, she is often associated with the modern libertarian movement in the United States. In art, Rand promoted romantic realism. She was sharply critical of most philosophers and philosophical traditions known to her, except for Aristotle, Thomas Aquinas, and classical liberals.

Rand's books have sold over 37 million copies as of 2020. Her fiction received mixed reviews from literary critics. Although academic interest in her ideas has grown since her death, academic philosophers have generally ignored or rejected her philosophy because of her polemical approach and lack of methodological rigor. Her writings have politically influenced some right-libertarians and conservatives. The Objectivist movement attempts to spread her ideas, both to the public and in academic settings.

Rand was born Alisa Zinovyevna Rosenbaum on February2, 1905, to a Russian-Jewish bourgeois family living in Saint Petersburg. She was the eldest of three daughters of Zinovy Zakharovich Rosenbaum, a pharmacist, and Anna Borisovna (neKaplan). She was twelve when the October Revolution and the rule of the Bolsheviks under Vladimir Lenin disrupted the life the family had enjoyed previously. Her father's business was confiscated, and the family fled to the city of Yevpatoria in Crimea, which was initially under the control of the White Army during the Russian Civil War. After graduating high school there in June 1921, she returned with her family to Petrograd (as Saint Petersburg was then named), where they faced desperate conditions, occasionally nearly starving.

When Russian universities were opened to women after the revolution, she was in the first group of women to enroll at Petrograd State University. At 16, she began her studies in the department of social pedagogy, majoring in history. Along with many other bourgeois students, she was purged from the university shortly before graduating. After complaints from a group of visiting foreign scientists, many of the purged students were allowed to complete their work and graduate, which she did in October 1924. She then studied for a year at the State Technicum for Screen Arts in Leningrad. For an assignment, Rand wrote an essay about the Polish actress Pola Negri, which became her first published work. By this time, she had decided her professional surname for writing would be Rand, and she adopted the first name Ayn (pronounced ).[b]

In late 1925, Rand was granted a visa to visit relatives in Chicago. She departed on January17, 1926, and arrived in New York City on February19, 1926. Intent on staying in the United States to become a screenwriter, she lived for a few months with her relatives learning English before leaving for Hollywood, California.

In Hollywood, a chance meeting with famed director Cecil B. DeMille led to work as an extra in his film The King of Kings and a subsequent job as a junior screenwriter. While working on The King of Kings, she met an aspiring young actor, Frank O'Connor; the two married on April15, 1929. She became a permanent American resident in July 1929 and an American citizen on March3, 1931.[c] She made several attempts to bring her parents and sisters to the United States, but they were unable to obtain permission to emigrate.

Rand's first literary success came with the sale of her screenplay Red Pawn to Universal Studios in 1932, although it was never produced.[d] Her courtroom drama Night of January16th, first staged in Hollywood in 1934, reopened successfully on Broadway in 1935. Each night, a jury was selected from members of the audience; based on its vote, one of two different endings would be performed.[e]

Her first published novel, the semi-autobiographical[f] We the Living, was published in 1936. Set in Soviet Russia, it focused on the struggle between the individual and the state. Initial sales were slow, and the American publisher let it go out of print, although European editions continued to sell.[48] She adapted the story as a stage play, but the Broadway production was a failure and closed in less than a week.[49][g] After the success of her later novels, Rand was able to release a revised version in 1959 that has since sold over three million copies.[51]

Rand started her next major novel, The Fountainhead, in December 1935, but took a break from it in 1937 to write her novella Anthem. The novella presents a vision of a dystopian future world in which totalitarian collectivism has triumphed to such an extent that even the word I has been forgotten and replaced with we. It was published in England in 1938, but Rand could not find an American publisher at that time. As with We the Living, Rand's later success allowed her to get a revised version published in 1946, which has sold over 3.5million copies.[56]

During the 1940s, Rand became politically active. She and her husband were full-time volunteers for Republican Wendell Willkie's 1940 presidential campaign. This work brought her into contact with other intellectuals sympathetic to free-market capitalism. She became friends with journalist Henry Hazlitt, who introduced her to the Austrian School economist Ludwig von Mises. Despite philosophical differences with them, Rand strongly endorsed the writings of both men throughout her career, and they expressed admiration for her. Mises once referred to her as "the most courageous man in America", a compliment that particularly pleased her because he said "man" instead of "woman". Rand became friends with libertarian writer Isabel Paterson. Rand questioned her about American history and politics long into the night during their many meetings, and gave Paterson ideas for her only non-fiction book, The God of the Machine.[h]

Rand's first major success as a writer came in 1943 with The Fountainhead, a novel about an uncompromising young architect named Howard Roark and his struggle against what Rand described as "second-handers"those who attempt to live through others, placing others above themselves. Twelve publishers rejected it before Bobbs-Merrill Company accepted it at the insistence of editor Archibald Ogden, who threatened to quit if his employer did not publish it. While completing the novel, Rand was prescribed the amphetamine Benzedrine to fight fatigue. The drug helped her to work long hours to meet her deadline for delivering the novel, but afterwards she was so exhausted that her doctor ordered two weeks' rest. Her use of the drug for approximately three decades may have contributed to what some of her later associates described as volatile mood swings.

The success of The Fountainhead brought Rand fame and financial security. In 1943, she sold the film rights to Warner Bros. and returned to Hollywood to write the screenplay. Producer Hal B. Wallis hired her afterwards as a screenwriter and script-doctor. Her work for him included the screenplays for Love Letters and You Came Along. Her contract with Wallis also allowed time for other projects, including a never-completed nonfiction treatment of her philosophy to be called The Moral Basis of Individualism.[i]

While working in Hollywood, Rand became involved with the anti-Communist Motion Picture Alliance for the Preservation of American Ideals and wrote articles on the group's behalf. She also joined the anti-Communist American Writers Association. In 1947, during the Second Red Scare, Rand testified as a "friendly witness" before the United States House Un-American Activities Committee that the 1944 film Song of Russia grossly misrepresented conditions in the Soviet Union, portraying life there as much better and happier than it was. She also wanted to criticize the lauded 1946 film The Best Years of Our Lives for what she interpreted as its negative presentation of the business world, but was not allowed to do so. When asked after the hearings about her feelings on the investigations' effectiveness, Rand described the process as "futile".

After several delays, the film version of The Fountainhead was released in 1949. Although it used Rand's screenplay with minimal alterations, she "disliked the movie from beginning to end" and complained about its editing, the acting and other elements.

Following the publication of The Fountainhead, Rand received many letters from readers, some of whom the book had influenced profoundly.[78] In 1951, Rand moved from Los Angeles to New York City, where she gathered a group of these admirers that included future chair of the Federal Reserve Alan Greenspan, a young psychology student named Nathan Blumenthal (later Nathaniel Branden) and his wife Barbara, and Barbara's cousin Leonard Peikoff. Initially, the group was an informal gathering of friends who met with Rand at her apartment on weekends to discuss philosophy. Later, Rand began allowing them to read the manuscript drafts of her new novel, Atlas Shrugged. In 1954, her close relationship with Nathaniel Branden turned into a romantic affair, with the knowledge of their spouses.

Published in 1957, Atlas Shrugged was considered Rand's magnum opus. She described the novel's theme as "the role of the mind in man's existenceand, as a corollary, the demonstration of a new moral philosophy: the morality of rational self-interest".[83] It advocates the core tenets of Rand's philosophy of Objectivism and expresses her concept of human achievement. The plot involves a dystopian United States in which the most creative industrialists, scientists, and artists respond to a welfare state government by going on strike and retreating to a hidden valley where they build an independent free economy. The novel's hero and leader of the strike, John Galt, describes it as stopping "the motor of the world" by withdrawing the minds of the individuals contributing most to the nation's wealth and achievements. The novel contains an exposition of Objectivism in a lengthy monologue delivered by Galt.[85]

Despite many negative reviews, Atlas Shrugged became an international bestseller, but the reaction of intellectuals to the novel discouraged and depressed Rand. Atlas Shrugged was her last completed work of fiction, marking the end of her career as a novelist and the beginning of her role as a popular philosopher.

In 1958, Nathaniel Branden established the Nathaniel Branden Lectures, later incorporated as the Nathaniel Branden Institute (NBI), to promote Rand's philosophy through public lectures. He and Rand co-founded The Objectivist Newsletter (later renamed The Objectivist) in 1962 to circulate articles about her ideas; she later republished some of these articles in book form. Rand was unimpressed by many of the NBI students and held them to strict standards, sometimes reacting coldly or angrily to those who disagreed with her. Critics, including some former NBI students and Branden himself, later described the culture of the NBI as one of intellectual conformity and excessive reverence for Rand. Some described the NBI or the Objectivist movement as a cult or religion. Rand expressed opinions on a wide range of topics, from literature and music to sexuality and facial hair. Some of her followers mimicked her preferences, wearing clothes to match characters from her novels and buying furniture like hers. However, some former NBI students believed the extent of these behaviors was exaggerated, and the problem was concentrated among Rand's closest followers in New York.

Throughout the 1960s and 1970s, Rand developed and promoted her Objectivist philosophy through her nonfiction works and by giving talks to students at colleges and universities.[98] She began delivering annual lectures at the Ford Hall Forum, responding to questions from the audience. During these appearances, she often took controversial stances on the political and social issues of the day. These included: supporting abortion rights, opposing the Vietnam War and the military draft (but condemning many draft dodgers as "bums"), supporting Israel in the Yom Kippur War of 1973 against a coalition of Arab nations as "civilized men fighting savages", saying European colonists had the right to invade and take land inhabited by American Indians,[106] and calling homosexuality "immoral" and "disgusting", while also advocating the repeal of all laws concerning it. She endorsed several Republican candidates for president of the United States, most strongly Barry Goldwater in 1964, whose candidacy she promoted in several articles for The Objectivist Newsletter.

In 1964, Nathaniel Branden began an affair with the young actress Patrecia Scott, whom he later married. Nathaniel and Barbara Branden kept the affair hidden from Rand. When she learned of it in 1968, though her romantic relationship with Branden had already ended, Rand ended her relationship with both Brandens, and the NBI was closed. She published an article in The Objectivist repudiating Nathaniel Branden for dishonesty and other "irrational behavior in his private life". In subsequent years, Rand and several more of her closest associates parted company.[114]

Rand underwent surgery for lung cancer in 1974 after decades of heavy smoking. In 1976, she retired from writing her newsletter and, after her initial objections, allowed a social worker employed by her attorney to enroll her in Social Security and Medicare. During the late 1970s, her activities within the Objectivist movement declined, especially after the death of her husband on November9, 1979.[118] One of her final projects was work on a never-completed television adaptation of Atlas Shrugged.

On March6, 1982, Rand died of heart failure at her home in New York City. At her funeral, a 6-foot (1.8m) floral arrangement in the shape of a dollar sign was placed near her casket. In her will, Rand named Peikoff as her heir.

Rand described her approach to literature as "romantic realism". She wanted her fiction to present the world "as it could be and should be", rather than as it was.[124] This approach led her to create highly stylized situations and characters. Her fiction typically has protagonists who are heroic individualists, depicted as fit and attractive. Her villains support duty and collectivist moral ideals. Rand often describes them as unattractive, and some have names that suggest negative traits, such as Wesley Mouch in Atlas Shrugged.

Rand considered plot a critical element of literature, and her stories typically have what biographer Anne Heller described as "tight, elaborate, fast-paced plotting". Romantic triangles are a common plot element in Rand's fiction; in most of her novels and plays, the main female character is romantically involved with at least two different men.[131]

In school Rand read works by Fyodor Dostoevsky, Victor Hugo, Edmond Rostand, and Friedrich Schiller, who became her favorites. She considered them to be among the "top rank" of Romantic writers because of their focus on moral themes and their skill at constructing plots. Hugo was an important influence on her writing, especially her approach to plotting. In the introduction she wrote for an English-language edition of his novel Ninety-Three, Rand called him "the greatest novelist in world literature".

Although Rand disliked most Russian literature, her depictions of her heroes show the influence of the Russian Symbolists and other nineteenth-century Russian writing, most notably the 1863 novel What Is to Be Done? by Nikolay Chernyshevsky. Rand's experience of the Russian Revolution and early Communist Russia influenced the portrayal of her villains. Beyond We the Living, which is set in Russia, this influence can be seen in the ideas and rhetoric of Ellsworth Toohey in The Fountainhead, and in the destruction of the economy in Atlas Shrugged.

Rand's descriptive style echoes her early career writing scenarios and scripts for movies; her novels have many narrative descriptions that resemble early Hollywood movie scenarios. They often follow common film editing conventions, such as having a broad establishing shot description of a scene followed by close-up details, and her descriptions of women characters often take a "male gaze" perspective.[141]

Rand called her philosophy "Objectivism", describing its essence as "the concept of man as a heroic being, with his own happiness as the moral purpose of his life, with productive achievement as his noblest activity, and reason as his only absolute".[142] She considered Objectivism a systematic philosophy and laid out positions on metaphysics, epistemology, ethics, political philosophy, and aesthetics.

In metaphysics, Rand supported philosophical realism and opposed anything she regarded as mysticism or supernaturalism, including all forms of religion.[144] Rand believed in free will as a form of agent causation and rejected determinism.[145]

In epistemology, Rand considered all knowledge to be based on sense perception, the validity of which she considered axiomatic, and reason, which she described as "the faculty that identifies and integrates the material provided by man's senses".[147] Rand rejected all claims of non-perceptual knowledge, including "'instinct,' 'intuition,' 'revelation,' or any form of 'just knowing'". In her Introduction to Objectivist Epistemology, Rand presented a theory of concept formation and rejected the analyticsynthetic dichotomy. She believed epistemology was a foundational branch of philosophy and considered the advocacy of reason to be the single most significant aspect of her philosophy.[151][j]

In ethics, Rand argued for rational and ethical egoism (rational self-interest), as the guiding moral principle. She said the individual should "exist for his own sake, neither sacrificing himself to others nor sacrificing others to himself".[153] Rand referred to egoism as "the virtue of selfishness" in her book of that title. In it, she presented her solution to the isought problem by describing a meta-ethical theory that based morality in the needs of "man's survival qua man". She condemned ethical altruism as incompatible with the requirements of human life and happiness, and held the initiation of force was evil and irrational, writing in Atlas Shrugged that, "Force and mind are opposites".

Rand's political philosophy emphasized individual rights, including property rights. She considered laissez-faire capitalism the only moral social system because in her view it was the only system based on protecting those rights. Rand opposed collectivism and statism,[156] which she understood to include many specific forms of government, such as communism, fascism, socialism, theocracy, and the welfare state.[157] Her preferred form of government was a constitutional republic that is limited to the protection of individual rights. Although her political views are often classified as conservative or libertarian, Rand preferred the term "radical for capitalism". She worked with conservatives on political projects, but disagreed with them over issues such as religion and ethics. Rand denounced libertarianism, which she associated with anarchism. She rejected anarchism as a naive theory based in subjectivism that would lead to collectivism in practice.

In aesthetics, Rand defined art as a "selective re-creation of reality according to an artist's metaphysical value-judgments". According to her, art allows philosophical concepts to be presented in a concrete form that can be grasped easily, thereby fulfilling a need of human consciousness. As a writer, the art form Rand focused on most closely was literature. She considered romanticism to be the approach that most accurately reflected the existence of human free will.

Rand's ethics and politics are the most criticized areas of her philosophy. Numerous authors, including Robert Nozick and William F. O'Neill, in some of the earliest academic critiques of her ideas, said she failed in her attempt to solve the isought problem. Critics have called her definitions of egoism and altruism biased and inconsistent with normal usage. Critics from religious traditions oppose her atheism and her rejection of altruism.

Multiple critics, including Nozick, have said her attempt to justify individual rights based on egoism fails.[171] Others, like libertarian philosopher Michael Huemer, have gone further, saying that her support of egoism and her support of individual rights are inconsistent positions.[172] Some critics, like Roy Childs, have said that her opposition to the initiation of force should lead to support of anarchism, rather than limited government.

Commentators, including Hazel Barnes, Albert Ellis, and Nathaniel Branden, have criticized Rand's focus on the importance of reason. Branden said this emphasis led her to denigrate emotions and create unrealistic expectations of how consistently rational human beings should be.

Except for Aristotle, Thomas Aquinas and classical liberals, Rand was sharply critical of most philosophers and philosophical traditions known to her. Acknowledging Aristotle as her greatest influence, Rand remarked that in the history of philosophy she could only recommend "three A's"Aristotle, Aquinas, and Ayn Rand. In a 1959 interview with Mike Wallace, when asked where her philosophy came from, she responded: "Out of my own mind, with the sole acknowledgement of a debt to Aristotle, the only philosopher who ever influenced me."

In an article for the Claremont Review of Books, political scientist Charles Murray criticized her claim that her only "philosophical debt" was to Aristotle. He asserted her ideas were derivative of previous thinkers such as John Locke and Friedrich Nietzsche. Rand found early inspiration from Nietzsche, and scholars have found indications of this in Rand's private journals. In 1928, she alluded to his idea of the "superman" in notes for an unwritten novel whose protagonist was inspired by the murderer William Edward Hickman. There are other indications of Nietzsche's influence in passages from the first edition of We the Living (which Rand later revised),[184] and in her overall writing style.[185] By the time she wrote The Fountainhead, Rand had turned against Nietzsche's ideas, and the extent of his influence on her even during her early years is disputed.

Rand considered her philosophical opposite to be Immanuel Kant, whom she referred to as "the most evil man in mankind's history";[189] she believed his epistemology undermined reason and his ethics opposed self-interest.[190] Philosophers George Walsh and Fred Seddon have argued she misinterpreted Kant and exaggerated their differences. She was also critical of Plato, and viewed his differences with Aristotle on questions of metaphysics and epistemology as the primary conflict in the history of philosophy.[193]

Rand's relationship with contemporary philosophers was mostly antagonistic. She was not an academic and did not participate in academic discourse. She was dismissive toward critics and wrote about ideas she disagreed with in a polemical manner without in-depth analysis. She was in turn viewed very negatively by many academic philosophers, who dismissed her as an unimportant figure who need not be given serious consideration.

The first reviews Rand received were for Night of January 16th. Reviews of the Broadway production were largely positive, but Rand considered even positive reviews to be embarrassing because of significant changes made to her script by the producer.[198] Although Rand believed that her novel We the Living was not widely reviewed, over 200 publications published approximately 125 different reviews. Overall, they were more positive than those she received for her later work.[199] Her novella Anthem received little review attention, both for its first publication in England and for subsequent re-issues.[200]

Rand's first bestseller, The Fountainhead, received far fewer reviews than We the Living, and reviewers' opinions were mixed.[201] Lorine Pruette's positive review in The New York Times, which called the author "a writer of great power" who wrote "brilliantly, beautifully and bitterly", was one that Rand greatly appreciated. There were other positive reviews, but Rand dismissed most of them for either misunderstanding her message or for being in unimportant publications.[201] Some negative reviews said the novel was too long; others called the characters unsympathetic and Rand's style "offensively pedestrian".[201]

Atlas Shrugged was widely reviewed, and many of the reviews were strongly negative.[204] Atlas Shrugged received positive reviews from a few publications,[204] but Rand scholar Mimi Reisel Gladstein later wrote that "reviewers seemed to vie with each other in a contest to devise the cleverest put-downs", with reviews including comments that it was "written out of hate" and showed "remorseless hectoring and prolixity". Whittaker Chambers wrote what was later called the novel's most "notorious" review for the conservative magazine National Review. He accused Rand of supporting a godless system (which he related to that of the Soviets), claiming, "From almost any page of Atlas Shrugged, a voice can be heard ... commanding: 'To a gas chambergo!'".[k]

Rand's nonfiction received far fewer reviews than her novels. The tenor of the criticism for her first nonfiction book, For the New Intellectual, was similar to that for Atlas Shrugged. Philosopher Sidney Hook likened her certainty to "the way philosophy is written in the Soviet Union", and author Gore Vidal called her viewpoint "nearly perfect in its immorality". These reviews set the pattern for reaction to her ideas among liberal critics. Her subsequent books got progressively less review attention.

With over 37million copies sold as of 2020[update], Rand's books continue to be read widely.[l] A survey conducted for the Library of Congress and the Book-of-the-Month Club in 1991 asked club members to name the most influential book in their lives. Rand's Atlas Shrugged was the second most popular choice, after the Bible. Although Rand's influence has been greatest in the United States, there has been international interest in her work.

Rand's contemporary admirers included fellow novelists, like Ira Levin, Kay Nolte Smith and L. Neil Smith; she has influenced later writers like Erika Holzer, Terry Goodkind, and comic book artist Steve Ditko. Rand provided a positive view of business and subsequently many business executives and entrepreneurs have admired and promoted her work. Businessmen such as John Allison of BB&T and Ed Snider of Comcast Spectacor have funded the promotion of Rand's ideas.

Television shows, movies, and video games have referred to Rand and her works. Throughout her life she was the subject of many articles in popular magazines, as well as book-length critiques by authors such as the psychologist Albert Ellis and Trinity Foundation president John W. Robbins. Rand or characters based on her figure prominently in novels by American authors, including Mary Gaitskill, Matt Ruff, Kay Nolte Smith, and Tobias Wolff. Nick Gillespie, former editor-in-chief of Reason, remarked that, "Rand's is a tortured immortality, one in which she's as likely to be a punch line as a protagonist. Jibes at Rand as cold and inhuman run through the popular culture." Two movies have been made about Rand's life. A 1997 documentary film, Ayn Rand: A Sense of Life, was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature. The Passion of Ayn Rand, a 1999 television adaptation of the book of the same name, won several awards. Rand's image also appears on a 1999 U.S. postage stamp illustrated by artist Nick Gaetano.

Rand's works, most commonly Anthem or The Fountainhead, are sometimes assigned as secondary school reading.[235] Since 2002, the Ayn Rand Institute has provided free copies of Rand's novels to teachers who promise to include the books in their curriculum. The Institute had distributed 4.5million copies in the U.S. and Canada by the end of 2020.[215] In 2017, Rand was added to the required reading list for the A Level Politics exam in the United Kingdom.

Although she rejected the labels "conservative" and "libertarian", Rand has had a continuing influence on right-wing politics and libertarianism. Rand is often considered one of the three most important women (along with Rose Wilder Lane and Isabel Paterson) in the early development of modern American libertarianism. David Nolan, one founder of the Libertarian Party, said that "without Ayn Rand, the libertarian movement would not exist".[242] In his history of that movement, journalist Brian Doherty described her as "the most influential libertarian of the twentieth century to the public at large". Historian Jennifer Burns referred to her as "the ultimate gateway drug to life on the right".

The political figures who cite Rand as an influence are usually conservatives (often members of the Republican Party), despite Rand taking some atypical positions for a conservative, like being pro-choice and an atheist. She faced intense opposition from William F. Buckley Jr. and other contributors to the conservative National Review magazine, which published numerous criticisms of her writings and ideas. Nevertheless, a 1987 article in The New York Times referred to her as the Reagan administration's "novelist laureate". Republican congressmen and conservative pundits have acknowledged her influence on their lives and have recommended her novels. She has influenced some conservative politicians outside the U.S., such as Sajid Javid in the United Kingdom, Siv Jensen in Norway, and Ayelet Shaked in Israel.

The financial crisis of 20072008 spurred renewed interest in her works, especially Atlas Shrugged, which some saw as foreshadowing the crisis. Opinion articles compared real-world events with the novel's plot. Signs mentioning Rand and her fictional hero John Galt appeared at Tea Party protests. There was increased criticism of her ideas, especially from the political left. Critics blamed the economic crisis on her support of selfishness and free markets, particularly through her influence on Alan Greenspan. In 2015, Adam Weiner said that through Greenspan, "Rand had effectively chucked a ticking time bomb into the boiler room of the US economy". Lisa Duggan said that Rand's novels had "incalculable impact" in encouraging the spread of neoliberal political ideas. In 2021, Cass Sunstein said Rand's ideas could be seen in the tax and regulatory policies of the Trump administration, which he attributed to the "enduring influence" of Rand's fiction.

During Rand's lifetime, her work received little attention from academic scholars. Since her death, interest in her work has increased gradually. In 2009, historian Jennifer Burns identified "three overlapping waves" of scholarly interest in Rand, including "an explosion of scholarship" since 2000. As of that year, few universities included Rand or Objectivism as a philosophical specialty or research area, with many literature and philosophy departments dismissing her as a pop culture phenomenon rather than a subject for serious study. From 2002 to 2012, over 60 colleges and universities accepted grants from the charitable foundation of BB&T Corporation that required teaching Rand's ideas or works; in some cases, the grants were controversial or even rejected because of the requirement to teach about Rand.

In 2020, media critic Eric Burns said that, "Rand is surely the most engaging philosopher of my lifetime", but "nobody in the academe pays any attention to her, neither as an author nor a philosopher". That same year, the editor of a collection of critical essays about Rand said academics who disapproved of her ideas had long held "a stubborn resolve to ignore or ridicule" her work, but he believed more academic critics were engaging with her work in recent years.

In 1967, John Hospers discussed Rand's ethical ideas in the second edition of his textbook, An Introduction to Philosophical Analysis. That same year, Hazel Barnes included a chapter critiquing Objectivism in her book An Existentialist Ethics. When the first full-length academic book about Rand's philosophy appeared in 1971, its author declared writing about Rand "a treacherous undertaking" that could lead to "guilt by association" for taking her seriously. A few articles about Rand's ideas appeared in academic journals before her death in 1982, many of them in The Personalist. One of these was "On the Randian Argument" by libertarian philosopher Robert Nozick, who criticized her meta-ethical arguments. Other philosophers, writing in the same publication, argued that Nozick misstated Rand's case. In an article responding to Nozick, Douglas Den Uyl and Douglas B. Rasmussen defended her positions, but described her style as "literary, hyperbolic and emotional".

The Philosophic Thought of Ayn Rand, a 1984 collection of essays about Objectivism edited by Den Uyl and Rasmussen, was the first academic book about Rand's ideas published after her death. In one essay, political writer Jack Wheeler wrote that despite "the incessant bombast and continuous venting of Randian rage", Rand's ethics are "a most immense achievement, the study of which is vastly more fruitful than any other in contemporary thought".[273] In 1987, the Ayn Rand Society was founded as an affiliate of the American Philosophical Association.

In a 1995 entry about Rand in Contemporary Women Philosophers, Jenny A. Heyl described a divergence in how different academic specialties viewed Rand. She said that Rand's philosophy "is regularly omitted from academic philosophy. Yet, throughout literary academia, Ayn Rand is considered a philosopher." Writing in the 1998 edition of the Routledge Encyclopedia of Philosophy, political theorist Chandran Kukathas summarized the mainstream philosophical reception of her work in two parts. He said most commentators view her ethical argument as an unconvincing variant of Aristotle's ethics, and her political theory "is of little interest" because it is marred by an "ill-thought out and unsystematic" effort to reconcile her hostility to the state with her rejection of anarchism. The Journal of Ayn Rand Studies, a multidisciplinary, peer-reviewed academic journal devoted to the study of Rand and her ideas, was established in 1999.

In a 2010 essay for the Cato Institute, Huemer argued very few people find Rand's ideas convincing, especially her ethics. He attributed the attention she receives to her being a "compelling writer", especially as a novelist, noting that Atlas Shrugged outsells Rand's non-fiction works and the works of other philosophers of classical liberalism. In 2012, the Pennsylvania State University Press agreed to take over publication of The Journal of Ayn Rand Studies, and the University of Pittsburgh Press launched an "Ayn Rand Society Philosophical Studies" series based on the Society's proceedings. The Fall 2012 update to the entry about Rand in the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy said that "only a few professional philosophers have taken her work seriously". That same year, political scientist Alan Wolfe dismissed Rand as a "nonperson" among academics, an attitude that writer Ben Murnane later described as "the traditional academic view" of Rand. Philosopher Skye C. Cleary wrote in a 2018 article for Aeon that, "Philosophers love to hate Ayn Rand. It's trendy to scoff at any mention of her." However, Cleary said that because many people take Rand's ideas seriously, philosophers "need to treat the Ayn Rand phenomenon seriously" and provide refutations rather than ignoring her.

Academic consideration of Rand as a literary figure during her life was even more limited than the discussion of her philosophy. Mimi Reisel Gladstein could not find any scholarly articles about Rand's novels when she began researching her in 1973, and only three such articles appeared during the rest of the 1970s. Since her death, scholars of English and American literature have continued largely to ignore her work, although attention to her literary work has increased since the 1990s. Several academic book series about important authors cover Rand and her works,[m] as do popular study guides like CliffsNotes and SparkNotes. In The Literary Encyclopedia entry for Rand written in 2001, John David Lewis declared that "Rand wrote the most intellectually challenging fiction of her generation." In 2019, Duggan described Rand's fiction as popular and influential on many readers, despite being easy to criticize for "her cartoonish characters and melodramatic plots, her rigid moralizing, her middle- to lowbrow aesthetic preferences... and philosophical strivings".

After the closure of the Nathaniel Branden Institute, the Objectivist movement continued in other forms. In the 1970s, Peikoff began delivering courses on Objectivism. In 1979, Peter Schwartz started a newsletter called The Intellectual Activist, which Rand endorsed. She also endorsed The Objectivist Forum, a bimonthly magazine founded by Objectivist philosopher Harry Binswanger, which ran from 1980 to 1987.

In 1985, Peikoff worked with businessman Ed Snider to establish the Ayn Rand Institute, a nonprofit organization dedicated to promoting Rand's ideas and works. In 1990, after an ideological disagreement with Peikoff, David Kelley founded the Institute for Objectivist Studies, now known as The Atlas Society. In 2001, historian John McCaskey organized the Anthem Foundation for Objectivist Scholarship, which provides grants for scholarly work on Objectivism in academia.

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Ayn Rand - Wikipedia

Trilogy of American science fiction drama films

Productioncompany

The Strike Productions (Part I)

Release dates

Running time

Atlas Shrugged is a trilogy of American science fiction drama films. The series, adaptations of Ayn Rand's 1957 novel of the same title, are subtitled Part I (2011), Part II (2012) and Part III (2014); the latter sometimes includes Who Is John Galt? in the title.

The films take place in a dystopian United States, wherein many of society's most prominent and successful industrialists abandon their fortunes as the government shifts the nation towards socialism, making aggressive new regulations, taking control of industries, while picking winners and losers.

See Part I's production, Part II's production, Part III's production

See Part I's plot, Part II's plot, Part III's plot

The trilogy received predominantly negative critic reviews[3] and the aggregate USA box office is just under $9 million, with each film performing worse than the last on both accounts.

Part I was released on DVD and Blu-ray on November 8, 2011; Part II on February 19, 2013; and Part III on January 6, 2015.

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Atlas Shrugged (film series) - Wikipedia

James Taggart: Here's to my wife, Mrs. James Taggart. Love does, indeed, conquer all. Even social and economic barriers. You know, money cannot buy happiness. Truer words were never spoken. We're no longer chasing the almighty dollar. Our ideals are higher than profit. Instead of the aristocracy of money, we have...

Francisco d'Anconia: The aristocracy of pull. I mean, now, it's about influence. But you knew that already.

James Taggart: What I know is that you need to learn some manners.

Reception Guest #1: If you ever doubted that money was the root of all evil, there's your proof.

Francisco d'Anconia: So, you think that money is the root of all evil. Have you ever asked yourself "What's the root of money?" Money is a tool that allows us to trade with one another. Your goods for mine. Your efforts for mine. The keystone of civilization. Having money is not the measure of a man. What matters is how he got it. If he produced it by creating value, then his money is a token of honor.

James Taggart: Look who's talking about honor.

Francisco d'Anconia: But if he's taken it from those who produce, then there is no honor. Then you're simply a looter.

Reception Guest #2: Seor d'Anconia, we all know that money is made by the strong at the expense of the weak.

Francisco d'Anconia: What kind of strength are you talking about? The power to create value? Or the ability to manipulate, to extort money in back room deals, - to exercise pull?

James Taggart: All right... just leave.

Francisco d'Anconia: Hey. When money ceases to be the tool by which men deal with one another, then men become the tools of men. Blood, whips, chains or dollars. Take your choice. There is no other. And your time is running out.

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Atlas Shrugged II: The Strike (2012) - IMDb

Ayn Rand (1905-1982) was a Russian-American novelist, playwright, and philosopher who has a lasting legacy as one of the foremost thinkers of the twentieth century. Her philosophy of Objectivism, presented throughout both her works of fiction and nonfiction, is groundbreaking and unique.

Objectivism is consistently mischaracterized and stereotyped in popular media, and is blamed as responsible for any right-leaning political development. Here are five common myths that you may have heard about Ayn Rand.

A cornerstone of Ayn Rands philosophy was her opposition to altruism and her support of selfishness. Naturally, in common language this would imply she was fundamentally opposed to any and all forms of charity.

Charitable giving under the guise of altruism is contrary to the principles of Objectivism. However, giving can be fully consistent with rational self-interest. Giving money to specific individuals or causes actually has an important role to play in a nightwatchman state.

Rand held that some individuals are unable as opposed to unwilling to provide for themselves, and thus voluntary charity would be the only legitimate means of survival for some. However, it is of crucial importance that such giving remains motivated by reason rather than a sense of altruism.

In her article The Ethics of Emergencies, Rand stated:

By elevating the issue of helping others into the central and primary issue of ethics, altruism has destroyed the concept of any authentic benevolence or good will among men.

Objectivism holds that government should not be in the business of redistributing money. Critics of Ayn Rand would point to her eventual collecting of Social Security money as a point of hypocrisy.

In Letters of Ayn Rand (letter 524, to Mrs. Milton W. Broberg), she addressed a fan whose husband had become unemployed and was receiving money from the government. Rand asserted that the man should not be ashamed to receive this assistance.

This was on the grounds that he had earned money that the state had plundered from him while he was working, and that he was merely getting back some of what was already his. It is precisely because Rand opposed collectivist wealth redistribution that she viewed collecting Social Security as restitution for what had been taken.

Furthermore, one of the characters in Atlas Shrugged, Ragnar Danneskjld, would rob US merchant ships, convert the loot into gold, and return it to the people in Galts Gulch whose earnings had been taken by the state.

Objectivism is a philosophy fundamentally at odds with religion, where there is no room for metaphysical mysticism. This does not mean, however, that Ayn Rand was intolerant of religious people. On the contrary, Ayn Rand is known to have held certain religious people in high regard and, while disagreeing, would gladly listen to their ideas and engage in debate.

Thomas Aquinas, a 13th-century priest, was one of two philosophers that Rand drew significant influence from, alongside Aristotle. Rands appreciation of Aquinas stems from the latters attempts to apply Aristotelian logic to his own beliefs. Reason was important to Aquinas, even though he ultimately did not reach the same conclusion as Rand.

Moreover, when writing her magnum opus, Atlas Shrugged, Ayn Rand had initially intended to include a priest in the story, a character who would be a most glamorized projection of a Thomist philosopher, of a man who thought he could combine reason with religion.

Objectivism does not condemn the pursuit of money something that makes it stand out from other philosophies. However, money is not one of the cardinal values of Objectivism.

Instead, these are reason, purpose, and self-esteem. The means of reaching these values are rationality, productivity, and pride. As such, money is not a goal in and of itself but is rather the outcome (in a capitalist society) of productivity, which is the central purpose of a rational mans life.

In Atlas Shrugged, Rand presents heroes and villains at both ends of the wealth spectrum. Indeed, many antagonists in the story, such as James Taggart and Orren Boyle, are wealthy characters, while Galts Gulch has a place for productive people in all lines of work.

Due to a number of conservative figures crediting Ayn Rand as an influence, a pervasive myth has arisen, claiming her as a conservative. Rand, however, would have categorically rejected this idea. Indeed, she was known to be fiercely critical of conservatives, disliking conservative figures such as Richard Nixon and Ronald Reagan.

Ayn Rand disagreed with conservatives on religion and religious morality. She also disagreed with them on policy. But, importantly, she also staunchly disagreed with the conservative approach to defending capitalism.

When conservatives defend capitalism, it is usually approached from an altruistic or utilitarian angle, i.e. it produces the greatest good for the greatest number of people. Conservatives may also defend capitalism on the grounds of tradition, rejecting the disruption of socialism. However, conservatism does not defend capitalism for the sake of capitalism.

In her essay Conservatism: An Obituary, Ayn Rand characterizes conservatives as follows, They declare that we must defend the American political system not because it is right, but because our ancestors chose it, not because it is good, but because it is old.

If you would like to receive a free copy of thirteen previously unpublished letters by Ayn Rand, be sure click on the button below.

Rand, Ayn. The Ethics of Emergencies. The Virtue of Selfishness: A New Concept of Egoism. Fiftieth anniversary edition. New York: Signet, 1964, 49.

Rand, Ayn. The Journals of Ayn Rand. Ed. David Harriman. New York: Plume, [1997] 1999. 540-541.

Rand, Ayn. Conservatism: An Obituary. Capitalism: The Unknown Ideal. 2nd ed. New York: Signet, [1966] 1967, 221.

This piece solely expresses the opinion of the author and not necessarily the organization as a whole. Students For Liberty is committed to facilitating a broad dialogue for liberty, representing a variety of opinions.

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Five myths about Ayn Rand and Objectivism - Learn Liberty

By: Paris Procopis

The Spring election cycle proved to be a resounding red wave for Wisconsin Conservatives. April 6th, 2022 could go down in history as the moment when Wisconsin turned the tide against the draconian Left-wing, WOKE indoctrination of our public schools and local governments.

While we should be elated, its time for a reality check.

Yes, ordinary people engaged, ran for office, and fought back. Southeast Wisconsin elected a Conservative to the State Court of Appeals and even saw Kenosha County elect their first woman and Republican County Executive, ever.

We saw cities like Cedarburg, Brookfield, New Berlin, Menomonee Falls, and Waukesha rip their school boards right out of the very clutches of the WOKE left, and in most cases, it wasnt even close.

In Waukesha County, the WisRed initiative led by Terry Dittrich and Chris Slinker won over 150 of their 173 endorsed races.

All this success last night and things look amazing for the November elections. Right?

WRONG!

We reclaimed what was ours, we did not gain anywhere new, except in Kenosha.

There remains a dismal cloud of failure over Milwaukee County by producing some of the worst numbers in the state.

While WisRed and the Waukesha GOP surely set the standard for success, the Milwaukee County GOP showed us the precise recipe for failure. The county party did nearly NOTHING to recruit, engage with, and help local candidates.

Sure, there were some shining moments when the city of West Allis shot down another boondoggle school referendum, and at the county level, incumbent Milwaukee County Supervisor, Patti Logsdon, won but came dangerously close to losing.

The Milwaukee County GOP barely sent out one email and made one Facebook post on who to vote forand there were only eight people on that list, eight!

Obviously, Bob Donovan was at the top of that list, but barely got any help from the Milwaukee County GOP. They donated $1500, thats all. In a real campaign, the local party would have provided the infrastructure for the campaign, like the Democrats did with Chevy Johnson.

This was a squandered opportunity to find new or disgruntled voters, especially in the City of Milwaukee where crime is running rampant and people are longing for leadership.

At the county level, Patti Logsdon, the only conservative on the Milwaukee County Board, was begging for help with her campaign. She got nothing. To make things worse, they didnt say a word about Deanna Alexanders write-in campaign.

The City of Wauwatosa saw significant losses to several WOKE candidates, and in some cases, it was very close. Even a little bit of help from the Milwaukee County GOP could have helped tip the scales in several races.

I lay these losses directly at the feet of the Milwaukee County GOPs feckless leader, County Chairman, David Karst.

In a conversation I had with some prominent people, I mentioned I was writing this op-ed talking about David Karst, and their response was LITERALLY, Who is David Karst?

That speaks volumes.

Sadly, this is not even close in comparison to the Who is John Galt? of Atlas Shrugged fame.

You see, losing is nothing new to David Karst, he has a long history of doing nothing and snatching defeat from the jaws of victory. Last night was just the icing on the cake.

In a nutshell, the Milwaukee County GOP has no infrastructure to recruit local candidates, raise money, assist campaigns with volunteers, or even coach them on what to do. To make things worse, the Milwaukee County GOP office on S. 108th St in West Allis is only open from 11 am to 2 pm on Wednesday and Saturday, if you are lucky.

For years now, the state party has refused to hold David Karst accountable for his lack of leadership and failure to help the Get out the vote in Milwaukee County. Not once have they pushed David Karst to resign.

This is not without precedent, the state party has gotten involved when they forced then St. Croix GOP Chairman, John Kraft, out of his position after he casually told his Facebook friends to prepare for war with the left, a few days after January 6. He was a very active Chairman and had the largest Trump rallies in the state. The state party turned his board against him, and he was forced to resign.

But in the case of David Karst, we got crickets, saying they do not interfere at the county level.

The state GOP literally went after an active GOP member because they were afraid of bad news coverage, yet they allowed a consistently incompetent Chairman to continue in the most populated county in the state.

To add salt to the many wounds, David Karst now wants a promotion. He is running for State Assembly in a newly drawn district. With his lack of progress, he is surely undeserving of it.

Years ago, Conservatives like Scott Walker and David Clarke could win the entire county, and now we barely get over 30%. For comparison, on election night in 2020, Trump only got about 31%.

The reality is if we do not get 38% or better in Milwaukee County, WE LOSE! End of story. David Karst remaining will likely cost us 2022 and maybe even 2024. We must get more votes out of Milwaukee County if the Republican Gubernatorial candidate and Sen. Johnson are to win.

There is more to being a county chairman than just having a fancy title and getting to sit at the head table at Lincoln Day dinners. There is real work required and with hard work come victories. Just look at Waukesha County, they work hard and win.

David Karst must resign and be immediately replaced before its too late. We have too much at stake and with republicans like Karst, who needs Democrats?

Ask yourself this, what would John Galt do?

See the article here:

In The Midst Of Election Night Success, There Are Concerns For November - Wisconsin Right Now

The search for the Great American Novel should have ended in 1957 when a Russian immigrant named Ayn Rand publishedAtlas Shrugged. Arresting in its breadth, depth, and style,Atlas Shruggedis a manifesto on politics, philosophy, and economics wrapped up in a compelling narrative featuring larger-than-life (and smaller-than-life) characters.

Atlas Shruggedhas shaped the worldview of many devotees of liberty, and it surged in popularity in the wake of the recent financial crisis since it became clear that the government's response to crisis and recession would not be to learn from its mistakes and recede but to expand its reach.

I first readAtlas Shruggedduring my fourth year of graduate school. On one hand, I wish I had read it much earlier. On the other, I feel like I appreciate it on a much deeper level than I would have had I read it in high school or college.Atlas Shruggedis my favorite novel for two reasons.

Atlas Shruggedhas shaped the worldview of many devotees of liberty, and it surged in popularity in the wake of the recent financial crisis.

The first is its treatment of human potential.Atlas Shruggedis a brilliant exposition of the things that are made possible by the rational, thinking human mind. A lot of things that we take for granted are the product of free markets harnessing the power of free minds. Something as mundane as a hot cup of coffee, for example, embodies innumerable decisions by innumerable people, each with their own specialized knowledge. We see what happens throughout the book when people are unshackled and allowed to pursue their own goals. Production increases. Lives are saved. Life is meaningful.

The second reason is its exploration of how a society disintegrates when we deny human nature. The great tragedy I see throughoutAtlasis the tragedy of what might have been. The producers are destroyed, and their destroyers continue to be oblivious to their destruction. One of the most important principles of economics is that we rarely if ever take account of the unseen, unintended consequences of policies and actions. In several places throughout the book, Rand explores how an "emergency directive" to help someone in one part of the country leads to the ruin or suicide of a bankrupt entrepreneur in another part of the country. The book is an extended lesson in what happens when we focus only on what we see.

Production is the outpouring of the human mind.

Atlas Shruggedconfronts its reader with a difficult and uncomfortable set of moral questions. Production is the outpouring of the human mind. The mind responds to the problems presented by the physical and material environment, but without the application of intelligence, no production is possible. Life, if one would call it that, would be nasty, brutish, and short.

The most interesting moral question occurring to me as I read it concerns the unintended consequences of supposedly good intentions. The idea that we should serve one another and that we should practice love and charity is appealing (as a Christian, I think them obligatory), but these principles are often applied in an almost strictly superficial sense.

Reprinted from Forbes.

See more here:

What Ayn Rand's "Atlas Shrugged" Teaches Us About the Insufficiency of Good Intentions | Art Carden - Foundation for Economic Education

When the first passenger train to Wichita arrived the night of Thursday, May 16, 1872, it seemed the entire town had waited up to meet it. Rolling up to the wooden depot on Douglas, the steam train and its 44 occupants were met by a cowboy brass band.

Jubilation is not a strong enough word to describe the mood in the city.

Regular through trains reached our depot yesterday, wrote Marshall Murdock, the usually sober frontier editor, in the next days paper. The bosom of our valley heaved and sot with ecstatic emotion. All is joy and many, very many, are too full for utterance. We are exhausted, bewildered and can say no more. It is enough.

Such was the relief, as Murdock put it, of being within the bounds of civilization. You could board the train one day in Wichita and be in St. Louis the next, and Chicago the day after. By May 1872, the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railway had already crossed most of Kansas and was nearing the Colorado border. It had already reached Emporia in 1870 and Newton in 1871. It did not veer south to Wichita, but continued its westward journey, generally following the old Santa Fe Trail, which had been scouted half a century before. It took a spur line, the Wichita and Southwestern Railway Co., to bring passenger service to the city, but that line was soon absorbed by the Santa Fe.

I dont know exactly what old mutton chopped Murdock meant when he said the Ark Valleys bosom was sot drunk with joy, perhaps? But I am reminded of the rich history of passenger rail in Kansas nearly every summer when my wife, Kim, boards the Southwest Chief in the middle of the night at Newton for points west. Shes typically bound for some location La Junta, Colorado, or Albuquerque, New Mexico, or Las Vegas, Nevada (which requires a bus ride) to meet me at the Western Writers of America convention, which drifts about the mountains and the plains. I will go on ahead and road trip with my New York editor, and after a week in which said editor and I alternately pledge our undying friendship and plot to kill one another, rendezvous with Kim a week or so later at whatever station is closest to the convention hotel. She alights from the train, sometimes after a day or more, suffering delays and fools, with her eyes like saucers and craving coffee and roadhouse food.

Such were the spirits too, perhaps, of the first passengers that alighted that giddy night in 1872. The depot was near the location of what is now the railway viaduct over Douglas. In 1914, Union Station which would serve three major railways, the Santa Fe, the Frisco and the Rock Island would be built on an impressive elevated platform overlooking downtown. Thousands upon thousands of soldiers would leave for World War I and World War II from this platform, and one can only imagine the tearful, and sometimes final, farewells.

In 1971, as passenger rail service declined nationally in favor of air travel, the federal government stepped in by founding Amtrak, a quasi-public corporation to operate passenger rail routes. Amtrak served more than 30 million passengers annually before the pandemic, and about half that currently. It depends on a combination of state and federal subsidies. In comparison, U.S. airlines carry about 2.9 million passengers every month.

Amtrak typically incurs heavy losses on its long-distance lines, such as the Southwest Chief, and received $1.8 billion in federal subsidies in the last fiscal year. Past cost-cutting measures typically have been reflected in reduced service or routes, and Amtrak service to Wichita ended early in the national passenger rail experiment.

The last Amtrak train left Union Station in Wichita on Oct. 6, 1979, bringing an end to passenger rail service that had begun in 1872. There are still great hulking steam and diesel locomotives on the elevated platform above Douglas, poised as if to pull into the station, but theyre mostly displays of the Great Plains Transportation Museum. Freight trains still rattle over the tracks on the west side of the viaduct, however. The Union Station building remains, but has been repurposed as commercial office space.

As with most things in our pandemic world, answers to our most pressing problems may be found in the past. From masks to social distancing, we have returned to what works best. For mass transportation as most modern nations know rail works exceedingly well. But the most important reason for Americans to again embrace passenger rail is that its better for the environment. With the world at a code red point for climate change, according to a recent United Nations report, we should be employing every strategy available to reduce our carbon emissions. Rail travel produces 84% fewer carbon emissions than driving and up to 73% fewer emissions than flying, according to Amtrak. The rail service may be using the best possible scenario here, but other sources generally agree, with a 2020 report showing, per passenger, rail has fewer CO2 emissions for trips less than 700 miles.

The problem with Amtrak in Kansas is there are only six places to board, limited to the same route the Santa Fe forged across the state in 1870-72. Thats great if you live in one of the towns with an Amtrak station and want to go to Kansas City, Missouri, or Lamar, Colorado. Its not so good if you dont live where the Southwest Chief stops or if youd rather go, say, to Oklahoma City. The stations in Kansas are Topeka, Lawrence, Newton, Hutchinson, Dodge City, and Garden City.

Although the Southwest Chief passes through Emporia, it hasnt stopped since 1997, when service was eliminated because the existing bus shelter style stop was insufficient. The old train depot, built in the 1880s, later burned down, and the city was uninterested in building something new. In 2017, there was community interest in bringing Amtrak back, but the cost seemed prohibitive to city officials, according to the Emporia Gazette.

Bashing Amtrak for a failure to turn a profit is a kind of sport among conservatives, and the service is often held up as an example of government inefficiency. Yet, the fact that we continue to have a national rail passenger service at all is an accomplishment, and a vital part of our infrastructure that should not just be maintained, but expanded.

The thing the Ayn Randos dont get is that not every damned thing is transactional. There are some things, like education and safety and national passenger rail service, that contribute to the public good and which must not be treated as businesses. We have seen, over and over, how privatization poisons everything, from prisons to the DMV. Atlas Shrugged, Rands 1957 manifesto disguised as a novel (with passenger rail!), is not just wrong, but morally corrupt. Its the stuff of dreaming oligarchs. It should be abundantly clear at this inflection point in history as it was in the Great Depression that it takes a strong central government (and yes, federal money) to meet the challenges of a hostile world. Only by sustained and coordinated effort, aimed at the public good, and not private profit, can we transcend the plagues upon us.

The bipartisan, $1 trillion infrastructure bill that recently passed the Senate would give Amtrak $66 billion, the most since the services founding. It would also change Amtraks legal mandate, from satisfying a performance level sufficient to justify expending public money to meeting the intercity passenger rail needs of the United States.

Amtraks plans for increased service, thanks to the prospect of the infrastructure bill, may bring passenger rail back to Wichita, via the Heartland Flyer. The Flyer currently connects Oklahoma City and Fort Worth, but a proposal calls for an extension to Wichita and Newton.

Now is the time for communities to create the infrastructure necessary to provide Amtrak stops or stations. Emporia, in particular, should reconsider the long-term benefits of providing a stop for the Southwest Chief. Not only is it the green thing to do, but its the practical thing to do; as home to a state university, a station would be convenient for students and become a point of civic pride.

The deeper we go into the successive waves of the pandemic, and the greater a toll is taken on our institutions, the more important our infrastructure becomes. We have forgotten, as a nation, how much we rely on what the government provides, from schools to rail service. There will always be the myopic who complain the future is unclear, the selfish who are against anything that doesnt enrich themselves, the ignorant who decry the inefficiency of government.

Somehow, we must find our enthusiasm again for real progress.

When passenger rail returns to Wichita, it would be fitting to meet that first Heartland Flyer with a cowboy brass band.

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On the frontier, trains brought progress. They still do. - Kansas Reflector

Ive just begun to re-read Ayn Rands 1,200-page behemoth Atlas Shrugged. The book left such a positive impression on me six years ago when I read it for the first time that I vowed to re-read it every five years or so to keep picking up on new things.

In the meantime, I became a little curious to see what other people online had to say about the book. Ive long heard the rumor that Atlas critics give such undue hostility to the book that its plausible to imagine that most of them never read it in the first place!

Atlas Shrugged is a vast and complex forest but Hartmann is peering only at a couple of the trees.

Thom Hartmanns Distortions of Atlas

It didnt take long before I came across a couple of videos and articles from Thom Hartmann, a popular far left-wing commentator, and I knew my suspicions were justified. As youll see shortly, his descriptions of Rand's classic novelare so extremely caricatured and unfounded that you really have to doubt his claim that hes actually read the book.

(In fairness, he claims to have read the book in high school, which would have been more than 40 years ago. Perhaps the following is a fault of memory)

Atlas Shrugged Is about the Importance of CEOs

Hartmann: "Do you really think if all the CEOs went on strike that society would collapse? This is the basic premise of the book.

Yes, exactly! Atlas Shrugged: the tale of a societys downfall when its CEOs skip work for the golf course!

This, of course, isnt what the book is about. It is true that some of Rands protagonistsHank Rearden and Ellis Wyatt, for examplewere heads of large and important companies. And yes, these innovative corporate leaders did eventually go on strike, but it is also true that some of Rands villainsJames Taggart and Orren Boyle, for examplewere presidents of large and important companies as well.

So, what actually caused the strike and ensuing collapse in Atlas? Altruism.

Any conscientious reader would have observed at least somewhere between page 1 and 1,200 that had the latter, and not the former, gone on strike, society would never have collapsed. This explodes the idea that Atlas was some sort of apologia for CEOs in specific and the rich in general.

Atlas Shrugged Is about Billionaires Who Don't Want to Pay Taxes

Hartmann: "So, in Atlas Shrugged, when the billionaires, tired of paying taxes and complying with government regulation, go on strike, Ayn Rand writes that the American economy promptly collapsed.

Atlas Shrugged is such a vast and complex forest, yet Hartmann is peering like a hawk at only a couple of the trees. Taxation and regulation are both separate elements in the books periodic table, but together they are not enough to cause the explosion of society.

So, what actually caused the strike and ensuing collapse in Atlas? To answer this question is to get to the basic theme of the book, a theme that is present on every single page: altruism.

Its absurd to think Rand labeled anybody over a certain income threshold as a producer.

Atlas Shruggedhas to do with the differences between a society based on altruismin which the masses are told that their noblest deed is to sacrifice for othersand a society based on individualismwhere individuals are respected as ends in themselves and free to pursue their own interests.

Through policies such as the Equalization of Opportunity Act and the Anti-dog-eat-dog Rule, people who embody altruism treat the individualists as mere pieces on a chessboard, to be manipulated and harassed as the altruists please (since its in the name of others).

Eventually, a mysterious man named John Galt persuades the most innovative and oppressed individualists to simply go on strike. This puts society in the hands of the Altruists, who know nothing of how to produce wealth, only how to redistribute it and that is why society collapses.

As Galt lays out:

Weve heard so much about strikes, and about the dependence of the uncommon man upon the common. Weve heard it shouted that the industrialist is a parasite, that his workers support him, create his wealth, make his luxury possibleand what would happen to him if they walked out? Very well. I propose to show to the world who depends on whom, who supports whom, who is the source of wealth, who makes whose livelihood possible, and what happens to whom when who walks out.

Atlas Shrugged Is about the Rich Producers vs. The Poor Looters

Hartmann: "On one side are the billionaires and the industrialists. People like Dagny Taggart, a railroad tycoon, and Hank Rearden, a steel magnate On the other side are the looters, or everyone else who isnt as rich or privileged, or who believed in a democratic government to provide basic services, empower labor unions, and regulate the economy.

Once again, any detailed reading of the book would quickly reveal the sloth resting in this cartoonish summary. First of all, based on the fact that many of the villains in Atlas are wealthy, its absurd to think that Rand indiscriminately labeled anybody over a certain income threshold as a producer.

Secondly, Rand had nice words for the middle class, which she termed as the heart, the lifeblood, the energy source of a free, industrial economy So this idea that Rand would have considered you a moocher if you werent a rich industrialist is just plain old propaganda.

Conclusion

Hartmann and similar critics of AtlasShrugged seem to be so wrapped up in a class-conflict outlook that they struggle to comprehend an author who judged individuals with standards having nothing to do with their current economic status.

Atlas Shrugged is many pages long, but well worth the effort. All sorts of themes exist within its pages, just waiting to challenge the readers understanding of himself and the rest of the world.

Read the rest here:

What the Critics Get Wrong About Atlas Shrugged | Nate Russell - Foundation for Economic Education

Whens the last time you made a promise?

Maybe you gave your word that youd help wash the dinner dishes. Or you borrowed a friends book, and told her youd return it by the end of the week.

When we make promises, were giving the message that well do what we say.

In this favorite tale from Circle Round Season 2, we meet a princess who makes an important promise. But when she tries to keep that promise, shes thrown for a real loop!

Story continues below

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Our tale is called The Princess and the Egg. Youll hear versions of this story in many places, from Portugal and Denmark in Europe, to the Mediterranean world and Middle East, to the island nation of Haiti!

Voices in this episode include Luis Negron, Jeff Song and Amber Stevens West. Grown-ups, watch for Amber on the CBS sitcom, Happy Together, as well as the Starz comedy, Run the World.

This episode was adapted for Circle Round by Rebecca Sheir. Original music and sound design is by Eric Shimelonis. Our artist is Sabina Hahn.

This episode was originally released on October 23, 2018.

Coloring Page

ADULTS! PRINT THISso everyone can color while listening. Were also keeping an album so share your picture on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and tag it with #CircleRound. We'd love to see it! To access all the coloring pages for past episodes click HERE. Our resident artist is Sabina Hahn and you can learn more about her HERE.

Things To Think About After Listening

Think of a promise youve made.

What was your promise?

And who did you make it to?

Now, find someone you like to have fun with a family member or friend and tell that person all about your promise and whether you did, indeed, follow through!

Musical Spotlight: Harpsichord

The stringed keyboard instrument known as the harpsichord is shaped like a grand piano, and most likely was developed in the late Middle Ages.

The harpsichord can have one keyboard or two; either way, when you hit a key, a small piece of material known as a plectrum plucks a metal string and voila! You have sound. The problem is, you dont have control over how loud or soft that sound is, so when the more dynamic piano came along, that more modern instrument pretty much superseded the harpsichord. Still, youll hear plenty of the harpsichords charming, elegant, even formal sound in renaissance and baroque music and in 1960s baroque pop songs by such bands as The Beatles and The Rolling Stones.

Script:

NARRATOR: All her life Princess Pearl dreamed of traveling the world. She wanted to see new places, try new foods, and meet new friends.

But what she didnt want was to have people bowing down to her at every port of call, just because she was royalty. So she swore that when she finally got to embark on her adventure, she would never wear her crown. No one would know she was a princess.

Once Princess Pearl finished all of her schooling, the King and Queen surprised their daughter with a swift, sturdy sailboat to whisk her around the high seas, and a brand new atlas, so she wouldnt lose her way.

PEARL: Oh, Mother! Father! Thank you for these gifts! I cant wait to start my journey. I promise Ill send you a letter from every port I visit!

NARRATOR: But Princess Pearl was not able to fulfill that promise.

On her very first night at sea, do you know what happened? A massive storm blew in, and gusts of wind and rain tossed her sailboat this way and that!

Pearl clung to the boats ropes as wave after wave frothed and foamed across the deck. The next thing she knew, it was morning and she and her ship were washed up on an empty beach.

PEARL: Well, this trip isnt off to a very good start. (as she looks at boat) Yikes - look at this boat! What a wreck. I should thank my lucky stars it got me to shore!

NARRATOR: Pearl pulled off her soggy shoes and jumped down from the splintered remains of her sailboat. As her bare feet touched the soft, warm sand, the princess looked around her. Her heart leapt when she spotted a quaint seaside town in the distance.

PEARL: Oh boy! Civilization!

NARRATOR: Pearl sprinted across the beach. When she got to town, she stepped inside the first establishment she saw: a tiny little bed and breakfast. Thats a small hotel, or inn, where people can spend the night and enjoy a nice morning meal.

The innkeeper narrowed his eyes as Pearl entered. He wrinkled his nose as he beheld her torn, drenched clothing and bare feet - not to mention the seashells and seaweed sticking out of her soaking-wet hair!

INNKEEPER: May I help you?

NARRATOR: Pearl flashed her warmest smile.

PEARL: Why, yes, you may - thank you! Do you serve breakfast? Im so hungry I could eat a life preserver!

NARRATOR: The innkeeper sniffed.

INNKEEPER: Well, it just so happens we do serve breakfast... given that were a bed and breakfast and all. But were about to close the kitchen.

NARRATOR: One thing you should know about the innkeeper: he was a very greedy man. So although the kitchen was closing, he suddenly realized he had one last chance to make a few extra bucks. He softened his tone.

INNKEEPER: Look. I tell you what. Ill have the cook whip up something for you - something fast and simple. How about... a scrambled egg?

NARRATOR: Pearls mouth watered.

PEARL: Oh - that would be lovely! My stomachs rumbling so loudly, youd think Ive got an orchestra in there! Not a very good one... the timpani is way too loud and the tuba is hopelessly out of tune... but -

INNKEEPER: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Have a seat. One scrambled egg, coming right up.

NARRATOR: As you can imagine, that one scrambled egg was the best scrambled egg Pearl had ever tasted! Within seconds, her plate was empty. She raised her hand and called the innkeeper over.

INNKEEPER: What now?

PEARL: Well, first, thank you for the egg, sir. It was delicious! But, you see, when I rushed over here for breakfast, I kind of forgot one teensy-weeny little thing. I dont have any money.

NARRATOR: The innkeepers eyebrows shot up so high, they disappeared into his hairline.

INNKEEPER: Come again?

PEARL: I said, I dont have any money. You see, yesterday, I set out on a sailing trip around the world. Then this massive storm blew in, and I was sure I was a goner. But the winds blew me to your lovely town... and when I came to your inn for breakfast, I didnt even think about the fact that my money everything I own, actually got lost at sea!

NARRATOR: The innkeeper took a deep breath.

INNKEEPER: Okay So how, then, do you propose paying for that one scrambled egg? It costs two gold coins, you know!

PEARL: I know. And I promise: I will return to this town, and when I do, you will get your money.

NARRATOR: The innkeeper glanced again at Pearls bare feet and soggy clothing and the seashells and seaweed sticking out of her hair.

INNKEEPER: And why should I believe youll actually come back and pay up?

NARRATOR: Pearl shrugged.

PEARL: Lets just say I have some savings back home. Thanks again for the egg, sir. Have a good day!

NARRATOR: As Pearl waltzed out of the bed and breakfast and onto the street, the innkeeper grumbled to himself.

INNKEEPER: I have some savings back home. Sure ya do! Ugh. What a waste of a perfectly good egg. I bet Ill never see that ragamuffin again!

NARRATOR: As it turns out, the innkeeper was right and very, very wrong.

NARRATOR: What do you think will happen? Will the princess come back to settle her debt?

Well find out, after a quick break.

[MIDROLL]

NARRATOR: Welcome back to Circle Round. Im Rebecca Sheir. Today our story is called The Princess and the Egg." When we left off, Princess Pearl had promised a greedy innkeeper that shed come back and pay for one scrambled egg. Her sailboat had crashed in the innkeepers quaint seaside town, so she wasnt able to give him the two gold coins necessary to cover the meal.

After her shipwreck, Princess Pearl eventually found her way back to her own kingdom. The king and queen hugged their daughter extra tight when she got home. Then they surprised her with an even bigger boat, with even more sails so that she could try again with her world travels.

And she did.

Several months into her journey, she found herself back at the quaint seaside town: the one where shed been shipwrecked and where she had a debt to settle with the owner of the bed and breakfast.

But this time when she stepped into the cafe, she was not barefoot; on her feet she wore a pair of fine leather boots. Her clothing was well-tailored and trim. And her hair wasnt disheveled and strewn with sea life; it was tucked neatly beneath a green velvet cap.

As you can imagine, the innkeeper did not recognize her.

INNKEEPER: May I help you?

PEARL: Yes, I think you may! Several months ago, I got into a shipwreck and was unable to pay you for one scrambled egg: a humble breakfast that cost two gold coins. I promised Id come back and pay for that delicious meal. And... here I am!

NARRATOR: The innkeeper stared at Pearl with disbelief. Was this really the same ragamuffin from all those months ago? She looked so fancy, so elegant!

PEARL: And further, sir, to thank you for your generosity and your patience I intend to pay you double. No - make it quadruple. So, instead of two gold coins, that would be, what, eight?

NARRATOR: The innkeeper thought for a moment. Why should this prosperous woman pay a mere eight gold coins when obviously she could pay so much more?

INNKEEPER: Im sorry. Eight gold coins, you say? No, no! You owe me far more than eight gold coins.

NARRATOR: Pearl was confused.

PEARL: I do?

INNKEEPER: You bet you do! Think about it. If I hadnt served you that one scrambled egg, that egg would have hatched into a chick! And then that chick would have grown up and laid eggs and hatched a dozen more chicks! And each one of those chicks would have gone on to lay eggs and hatch a dozen more chicks! You see where Im going with this?

NARRATOR: Pearl shook her head.

PEARL: Um, Im not sure I -

INNKEEPER: Long story short... you dont owe me eight gold coins. You owe me

NARRATOR: He pulled out a pencil, grabbed a napkin, and began scribbling.

INNKEEPER: (to himself, as he scribbles his calculations on the napkin) Lets see multiply this times this, add up that and that Okay uh-huh alright. You owe me eight-million gold coins.

PEARL: Im sorry eight-million?!?!

INNKEEPER: Yup! Eight-million! I mean, give or take a few thousand. I rounded down. Figured Id give you a bit of a discount.

NARRATOR: Pearl could hardly believe what she was hearing.

PEARL: But sir, I cant pay you eight-million gold coins!

NARRATOR: The innkeeper scowled.

INNKEEPER: Really? You cant pay?

NARRATOR: He gestured toward Pearls fancy clothes and shoes.

INNKEEPER: ...or you wont pay?

NARRATOR: Pearls mind raced. She reached into her purse.

PEARL: Look. What do you say I give you a hundred gold coins and we call it a deal.

NARRATOR: The innkeeper fixed Pearl with a steely gaze. He crossed his arms.

INNKEEPER: Nope. Eight-million gold coins, or I see you in court. Tomorrow.

NARRATOR: Pearl sighed.

PEARL: Alright, then. See you in court.

NARRATOR: As Pearl sat down to dinner that night in another hotel, blocks away from the bed and breakfast she was so distraught could hardly eat. She picked at her boiled peas took half-hearted nibbles of her steamed corn and by the time dessert was served a warm bowl of roasted chestnuts she couldnt even take a bite.

She stared at her plate of food, wondering what in the world she would do tomorrow in court.

Then, suddenly, it hit her.

PEARL: Ive got it! The answer is in the peas! And the corn! And the chestnuts! Id better get some sleep; tomorrow is going to be a big day.

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Encore: The Princess and the Egg - WBUR

It was inspiring really inspiring. I remember watching clip after clip of Sam Harris, Richard Dawkinsand Christopher Hitchens debating Christians, Muslimsand "purveyors of woo," exposing the fatuity of their faith-based beliefs in superstitious nonsense unsupported by empirical evidence, often delivered to self-proclaimed prophets by supernatural beings via the epistemically suspicious channel of private revelation. Not that Harris, Dawkinsand Hitchens were saying anything particularly novel the inconsistencies and contradictions of religious dogma are apparent even to small children. Why did God have to sacrifice his son for our sins? Does Satan have free will? And how can the Father, Sonand Holy Spirit be completely separate entities but also one and the same?

The "New Atheist" movement, which emerged from the bestselling books of the aforementioned authors, was the intellectual community that many of us 15 or so years ago were desperately looking for especially after the 9/11 terrorist attacks, which seemed to confirm Samuel P. Huntington's infamous "clash of civilizations" thesis. As Harris once put it, with many of us naively agreeing, "We are at war with Islam." (Note: This was a dangerous and xenophobic lie that helped get Donald Trump elected. As Harris said in 2006, anticipating how his brand of Islamophobia would enable Trump's rise, "the people who speak most sensibly about the threat that Islam poses to Europe are actually fascists.")

New Atheism appeared to offer moral clarity, it emphasized intellectual honestyand it embraced scientific truths about the nature and workings of reality. It gave me immense hope to know that in a world overflowing with irrationality, there were clear-thinking individuals with sizable public platforms willing to stand up for what's right and true to stand up for sanity in the face of stupidity.

Fast-forward to the present: What a grift that was! Many of the most prominent New Atheists turned out to be nothing more than self-aggrandizing, dogmatic, irascible, censorious, morally compromised people who, at every opportunity, have propped up the powerful over the powerless, the privileged over the marginalized. This may sound hyperbolic, but it's not when, well, you look at the evidence. So I thought it might be illuminating to take a look at where some of the heavy hitters in the atheist and "skeptic"communitiesare today. What do their legacies look like? In what direction have they taken their cultural quest to secularize the world?

Let's see if you can spot a pattern:

Sam Harris: Arguably the progenitor of New Atheism, Harris was for me one of the more entertaining atheists. More recently, though, he has expended a prodigious amount of time and energy vigorously defending the scientific racism of Charles Murray. He believes that IQ is a good measure of intelligence. He argued to Josh Zepps during a podcast interview not only that black people are less intelligent than white people, but that this is because of genetic evolution. He has consistently given white nationalists a pass while arguing that Black Lives Matter is overly contentious, and has stubbornly advocatedprofiling "Muslims, or anyone who looks like he or she could conceivably be Muslim," at airports. (When Harris believes he's right about something, it becomes virtually impossible to talk him out of it, no matter how many good arguments, expert opinionsor hard data are presented to him. Like Donald Trump, he's pretty much unteachable.) Harris has also partly blamed the election loss of Hilary Clinton on "safe spaces, trigger warnings, [and] new gender pronouns," released a private email exchange with Ezra Klein without Klein's permission, and once suggested that New Atheism is male-dominated because it lacks an "extraestrogen vibe."

His primary focus these days is boosting the moral panic over "social justice warriors" (SJWs), "political correctness" and "wokeism," which he apparently believes pose a dire threat to "Western civilization" (a word that has a lot of meaning for white nationalists). Consequently, Harris has become popular among right-wingers, and the sentiment of solidarity appears to be mutual. For example, he's described Ben Shapiro as being "committed to the rules of intellectual honesty and to the same principles of charity with regard to other people's positions," which is odd given that Shapiro is a pathological liar who routinely misconstrues his opponents in service of a racist, misogynistic, climate-denying agenda.

Michael Shermer: The founding publisher of Skeptic magazine, which once published a favorable review of Milo Yiannopoulos' book "Dangerous" and a defense of child-rapist Jerry Sandusky, Shermer made a name for himself as a "skeptic." However, his legacy has been overshadowed by, among other things, a protracted history of sexual harassment and assault allegations, with James Randi once calling him "a bad boy" whom numerous people at atheism conferences had complained about. In 2014, he was accused of rape, which he later flippantly joked about on Twitter. Since then, he has dedicated an impressive amount of time belittling "SJWs" and "the woke," often hurling ad hominem attacks and middle-school insults towards those with whom he disagrees. For example, Shermer has referred to "SJWs" as "mealy-mouthed, whiney, sniveling, and obsequious," and "a bunch of weak-kneed namby-pamby bedwetters." He once tweeted, in Trumpian fashion: "Know this Regressive Lefters/SJWs you will lose. Those of us who believe in truth & justice will prevail. Yours is a failed ideology. Losers." After I wrote a critique of Steven Pinker's recent book "Enlightenment Now!", which contains many serious errors, Shermertook to Twitter to call me a "cockroach." None of this should be that surprising, since he describes himself as an anti-woke, anti-reparations libertarian who thinks Ayn Rand's "Atlas Shrugged" is "a remarkable book."

But be careful: Shermer has also acknowledged, in writing, that he's fantasized about murdering people. "Or, if not actually killing the particular bastard," he reports, "at the very least I imagine dislocating his jaw with a crushing roundhouse knuckle sandwich that sent him reeling to the pavement." This comes from his book"The Moral Arc," which received an extended, glowing blurb from Steven Pinker.

Lawrence Krauss: A world-renowned cosmologist who authored "A Universe From Nothing" and ran the Origins Project formerly at Arizona State University, Krauss was among the most academically accomplished of the New Atheists. In 2018, though, he was dismissed from his job as director of the Origins Project after an investigation found that he had violated the sexual harassment policy of the university "by groping a woman's breast while on an ASU-funded trip in late 2016." He has also repeatedly and vigorously defended his onetime friend Jeffrey Epstein, the child sex trafficker, who "donated $250,000 to the Origins Project over a seven-year span." According to a 2011 Daily Beast article, Krauss claimed, "I don't feel tarnished in any way by my relationship with Jeffrey; I feel raised by it," adding that he didn't believe the "beautiful women and young women" surrounding Epstein were underage. (Plenty of other peoplehave saidit was impossible not to realize that, and Krauss himself has acknowledgedthat Epstein favored "women ages 19 to 23," which surely should have been a red flag.) After a 2018 BuzzFeed article detailing some of the sexual harassment allegations against Krauss was published, a flood of further accusations emerged online, some of which I catalogued here.

Richard Dawkins: Once a heavyweight within the world of evolutionary biology, Dawkins energized atheists the world over with his book "The God Delusion." Over time, though, it became increasingly clear that he's neither an adult-in-the-room nor a particularly nice guy. For some bizarre reason, he obsessively targeted a Muslim teenager in Texas, who was arrested after a homemade clock he brought to school was wrongly thought to be a bomb. He also flipped out over what came to be called "Elevatorgate," which began with Rebecca Watson calmly asking men to be thoughtful and considerate about how they make women feel at conferences for example, in the enclosed space of an elevator. This resulted in a flood of rape and death threats directed toward Watson, while Dawkins mocked the situation by writing a shocking letter addressed "Dear Muslima," in which the first line was "Stop whining, will you." More recently, he's made it clear that he isn't bothered by the allegations against Krauss, and posted seemingly anti-trans comments on Twitter. When asked why Twitter has caused him so much trouble, he claimed: "I love truth too much." (For Dawkins' troubling views on aborting fetuses with Down Syndrome, see this.)

James Lindsay: Once a promising young atheist, Lindsay published "Everybody Is Wrong About God"in 2015 and, three years later, "How to Have Impossible Conversations," co-authored with Peter Boghossian (below). Referring to himself as "apolitical" but boastinga profile page on the right-wing, anti-free-speech organization Turning Point USA, he is now one of the most unhinged crusaders against "critical race theory" (CRT), an idea about which he seems to have very little actual knowledge. (This is unsurprising, given that Lindsayhas literally argued that he doesn't need to understand "gender studies" to call for the entire field to be canceled. See #10 here.) Over the past few years, he has teamed up withChristian nationalist and COVID conspiracist Michael O'Fallon, and now rakes in plenty of cash via Patreon proof that grifting about "free speech" and "CRT" pays. Known for his social media presence, Lindsay has called women he disagrees with "bitches," while seriously hurling "your mom" insults at intellectual opponents who point out his mendacities. He recently argued that antisemitism is caused by woke Jews (i.e., they're doing it to themselves), spread COVID conspiracy theories, and claimed in 2020 that people should vote for Donald Trump (as he did) because Joe Biden is a neo-Marxist, or will succumb to the influence of scary neo-Marxists like Black Lives Matter.

Last year, Lindsay co-authored the commercially successful book "Cynical Theories,"which received a glowing endorsement from Steven Pinker but repeatedly misrepresents the ideas of those it hysterically, and incorrectly, claims are tearing down "Western civilization." And let's not get into his wildly delusional conspiracy theories about the "Great Reset," which apparently, as someone Lindsay retweeted put it, "aims to introduce a new global planetary diet"! If you want to understand Lindsay's worldview, I suggest reading Jason Stanley's excellent book "How Fascism Works," whichcaptures the anti-intellectual, anti-academic, anti-social justice spirit of Lindsay's activism perfectly.

Peter Boghossian: A "philosopher" at Portland State University and "longtime collaborator of Stefan Molyneux" (a white supremacist demagogue who once declared, "I don't view humanity as a single species "), Boghossian wrote "A Manual for Creating Atheists"in 2013. A year later, he tweeted: "I've never understood how someone could be proud of being gay. How can one be proud of something one didn't work for?" This was followed by a defense of Nazis (no one outsideHitler's Germany should ever be called a "Nazi"), and a stern rejection of the historically accurate claim that "slavery was not merely an unfortunate thing that happened to black people. It was an American institution, created by and for the benefit of the elites."

In 2017, Boghossian and Lindsay attempted to "hoax" gender studies by publishing a fake article in a peer-reviewed gender studies journal (note: the journal had nothing to do with gender studies). Butit turnedoutthis was based on a demonstrable lie, which they of coursenever admitted. Theirpaper ultimately ended up in a pay-to-publish journal. That wasfollowed by an even more elaborateand even more bad-faith"hoax," which resulted in a response from Portland State University professors alleging that "basic spite and a perverse interest in public humiliation seem to have overridden any actual scholarly goals." Indeed, Boghossian and his crew failed to get institutional review boardapproval for this experiment, resulting in serious accusations of unethical actions. "I believe the results of this office's view of your research behavior," wrote the vice presidentfor "research and graduate studies" at Boghossian's university, "raises concerns regarding a lack of academic integrity, questionable ethical behavior, and employee breach of rules." On May 6 of this year, Boghossian a vocal critic of "cancel culture" called for "the defunding of Portland State University," which he incorrectlydescribed as promoting "illiberal ideologies." (See here for more.)

David Silverman: Silverman made a name for himself as a "firebrand" atheist, even appearing on Bill O'Reilly's Fox News show several times to take on "Papa Bear" himself. But "explosive allegations of sexual assault and undisclosed conflicts of interest" got Silverman fired from American Atheists, where he was president. In the years since, he has given voice to a stream of grievances about feminism, social justiceand the like, referring to social justice as "a cancerous social movement" that "has to be undone," adding: "I have a lot of regrets for being in your whiney culty immitation [sic] of feminism." The same day, he spoke with Sargon of Akkad (aka Carl Benjamin, a member of Britain's far-right party UKIP) about "Feminist Tyranny." (More here, hereand here.)

Steven Pinker: To many of us early on, Pinker seemed to genuinely care about maintaining his intellectual integrity. But, once again, high expectations only meant a harder crash. Consider that Pinker has claimed that rape is often "over-reported." To support this, he cites right-wingers like Christina Hoff Sommers and Heather MacDonald as primary sources. Over the past few years, he has become unhealthily fixated on "political correctness," social justiceand "wokeness," and participated in the 2017 "Unsafe Space Tour" of college campuses, organized by the right-libertarian magazine Spiked. It also came out, much to Pinker's chagrin, that he'd assisted the legal defense of sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein, even appearing in photographs with Epstein taken after the latter was convicted of sex crimes in 2008. Here's a picture of Pinker with Dawkins (and fellow New Atheist Daniel Dennett) flying to a TED Conference with Epstein. Pinker's response? It's hard to make this up: despite being a vociferous "opponent" of censorship bad ideas must be exposed to the light! Free speech must never be hindered! Pinker blocked half of Twitter to stop people from mentioning his past links to this rapist and pedophile. Of course this backfired, drawing even more attention to the issue, a phenomenon that I call the "Pinker-Epstein Effect" (which is nearly identical to the Streisand Effect but specific to, well, Pinker and Epstein). Although Pinker was never as prominently connected to "New Atheism" as the others, his influence within the movement, partly because of his advocacy for secularism, is undeniable. (See here for more.)

This is hardly an exhaustive list. But it's enough to make clearthe epistemic and moral turpitude of this crowd. There is nothing ad hominem in saying this, by the way: The point is simply that the company one keeps matters. What's sad is that the New Atheist movement could have made a difference a positive difference in the world. Instead, it gradually merged with factions of the alt-right to become what former New York Times contributing editor Bari Weiss calls the "Intellectual Dark Web" (IDW), a motley crew of pseudo-intellectuals whose luminaries include Jordan Peterson, Eric and Bret Weinstein, Douglas Murray, Dave Rubinand Ben Shapiro, in addition to those mentioned above.

At the heart of this merger was the creation of a new religious movement of sorts centered around the felt loss of power among white men due to the empowerment of other people. When it was once acceptable,according to cultural norms, for men to sexually harass women with impunity, or make harmful racist and sexist comments without worrying about losing a speaking opportunity, being held accountable can feel like an injustice, even though the exact opposite is the case. Pinker, Shermerand some of the others like to preach about "moral progress," but in fighting social justice under the misleading banner of "free speech," they not only embolden fascists but impede further moral progress for the marginalized.

Another way to understand the situation goes like this: Some of these people acted badly in the past. Others don't want to worry about accusations of acting badly in the future. Still others are able to behave themselves but worry that their friends could get in trouble for past or future bad behavior. Consequently, the most immediate, pressing threat to their "well-being" has shifted from scary Muslim immigrants, evangelical Christiansand violent terrorists to 19-year-old kids on college campuses and BLM activists motivated by "wokeness." This is why Lindsay has teamed up with a Christian nationalist and why Boghossian talks about the "Great Realignment"in which anti-woke alarmists, like him, end up joining hands with "conservative Christians" in "Culture War 2.0."

What ties these people together is an aggrieved sense of perpetual victimhood. Christians, of course, believe that they are relentlessly persecuted (note: they aren't). The IDWs similarly believe that they are the poor helpless victims of "CRT," "standpoint theory" and other bogeymen of woke academia. But really, if "Grievance Studies" studies anything, it should be how this group of extremely privileged white men came to believe that they are the real casualties of systemic oppression.

An excellent example of this delusion comes from an inadvertently hilarious interview with Boghossian for the Epoch Times, a media company associated with the Falun Gong movement that is "fueling the far-right in Europe" and has spread COVID conspiracy theories. In it, Boghossian warns that "woke ideology" has produced "a recipe for cultural suicide." This has led him the co-author of "Howto Have Impossible Conversations" to spoutextremist rhetoric like this:

I'm done playing. I am waging full-scale ideological warfare against the enemies of Western Civilization. We must broker absolutely zero tolerance with this ideology, and the only way forward at this point is full-scale ideological war, and I will take no prisoners, . I seek the complete eradication and extirpation of the ideology from every facet of life.

That's scary,intolerant and evenfascistic. And it's exactly where the New Atheism movement has ended up, to the exasperation of those who still care about secularism.

To conclude, let me bring things full circle: At least some studies have shown that, to quote Phil Zuckerman, secular people are "markedly less nationalistic, less prejudiced, less anti-Semitic, less racist, less dogmatic, less ethnocentric, less close-minded, and less authoritarian" than religious people. It's a real shame that New Atheism, now swallowed up by the IDW and the far right, turned out to be just as prejudiced, racist, dogmatic, ethnocentric, closed-mindedand authoritarian as many of the religious groups they initially deplored.

Read more from the original source:

Godless grifters: How the New Atheists merged with the far right - Salon

Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos are two of the richest men in the world, and while both are clearly brilliant titans of industry, neither of them achieved that status without multiple handouts from the government. Musks Tesla and SpaceX have received nearly $5 billion in government aid over the years in various formsgrants, environmental credits, tax breaks, discounted loans, and morewhile Amazon received more than $3.7 billion in taxpayer subsidies at the federal level alone.

Recently, the two men have been competing for another taxpayer-funded contracta NASA grant to put astronauts on the moon.

Last month, it was announced that Musks company, SpaceX would be awarded the contract after their bid came in at almost half the cost of Bezoss Blue Origins offer.

After the loss, Blue Origin and a third company in the running filed protests with the Government Accountability Office, but it seems that the review process may be bypassed thanks to the actions of federal lawmakers who are now angling to help Bezos receive a $10 billion contract anyway.

Thats right. Since Bezos lost the bid, lawmakers are scrambling to make a second grant, in addition to the contract awarded to SpaceX. To make that happen theyre working to pass an amendment to the Endless Frontier Actlegislation meant to increase scientific research and technology funding.

The amendment was added to the bill by Sen. Maria Cantwell (D-WA), who happens to represent the state where Blue Origins is headquartered.

While the third company, Dynetics, would technically also be in the running for the new pot of cash, most seem to believe Bezos would be a shoo-in for it.

Despite its massive price tag, the legislation is being moved rapidly through Congress and appears to have broad bipartisan support.

A [Senate] procedural vote last week passed by a 71-27 margin, The Intercept reports, "and Senate Democratic leaders are eyeing a Thursday vote for final passage, after which it would need to move through the House of Representatives.

Disclosures show Blue Origin spent $625,000 lobbying the Senate between January and March of 2021. Reports show that $50,000 of that went to a team of lobbyists that focused on the moon landing program. All in all, thats a heck of a bargain in exchange for a $10 billion government contract.

Though the notoriety of Bezos and Musk is drawing attention to this particular handout, this is really just rank and file behavior for Congress, which spends much of its time doling out tax dollars to billionaires and corporations.

The federal government alone spends roughly $75 billion a year on subsidies to private businesses, and thats only scratching the surface. Boeing gets billions of dollars from states and Congress. Under the initial stimulus package of 2020 The Cheesecake Factory got $50 million. Nike has received more than $2 billion. On and on it goes.

Theres no easy way to fully measure the dollar amount of corporate handouts across federal, state, and city budgetsmuch less the amount of corporate welfare given via other means like selective tax breaks or regulatory favoritism.

As Charles Koch once said, Subsidies and mandates are just two of the privileges that government can bestow on politically connected friends. Others include grants, loans, tax credits, favorable regulations, bailouts, loan guarantees, targeted tax breaks and no-bid contracts.

Corporate welfare is a form of cronyism, and it is a direct attack on free market capitalism. It allows the government to pick winners and losers and it is flatly wrongethically and economically.

In her seminal novel Atlas Shrugged, Ayn Rand wrote, When you see that in order to produce, you need to obtain permission from men who produce nothingWhen you see that money is flowing to those who deal, not in goods, but in favorsWhen you see that men get richer by graft and by pull than by work, and your laws dont protect you against them, but protect them against youWhen you see corruption being rewarded and honesty becoming a self-sacrificeYou may know that your society is doomed.

When the government interferes in the market it limits competition, often rewards people for bad business practices, reduces consumer choice, stifles innovation, and forces taxpayers to fund products and programs against their will. It is a complete perversion of a free market system, and the fact is neither Bezos or Musk should receive public dollars for their space exploration desires.

Its time we stop bailing out billionaires.

Read the original here:

Congress Is Trying to Give Jeff Bezos's Space Firm $10 Billion of Your Tax Dollars | Hannah Cox - Foundation for Economic Education

Alisa Rosenbaum was one of the most controversial writers in Americas history. Why, then, have few people heard of her? Because both peoples plaudits and their intemperate attacks have been aimed at the new name she adopted after leaving Russia for AmericaAyn Rand.

Her influence is beyond question. She sold more than 30 million books, and decades after her 1982 death, hundreds of thousands more sell each year. Atlas Shrugged has been ranked behind only the Bible as a book that influenced readers lives.

Some are devoted enough that Randian has become a descriptive term. Others use her name only to disparage opponents. Still others disagree with some of her ideas (e.g., while Rand was an often-strident atheist, capitalism is clearly defensible on Christian principles, and most historical defenses of liberty employed Christian rationales which conflict with Rands reasoning), yet find a great deal of insight in her analysis of liberty, rights and government.

As we mark the anniversary of Rands February 2 birth, consider some of her most insightful words:

However much some adore Ayn Rand and others despise her, those who seek wisdom wherever it can be found will find serious food for thought in her words on liberty, rights and government.

When so many promote the cognitive dissonance of pursuing supposed collective or social justice by the unjust expedient of violating the rights of individuals who make up society, she can stimulate our thought about foundational questions. And that is crucial, because, as George Mason said, No free government, or the blessings of liberty, can be preserved to any people but by frequent recurrence to fundamental principles.

See original here:

35 of Ayn Rand's Most Insightful Quotes on Rights, Individualism, and Government | Gary M. Galles - Foundation for Economic Education

Senate majority leader Mitch McConnell speaks during a news conference. (Tom Brenner / Pool via AP)

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The US Senate was a mistake. Its a fundamentally antidemocratic institution that gives political power to land instead of people, and it was structured that way at the request of slavers who worried about losing their right to hold people in bondage. Abolishing it should have been part of the conditions of surrender at Appomattox.1

As it is, nothing can be done to change the Senates antidemocratic structure. (Article V of the Constitution literally mandates that equal representation of the states must be preserved in the chamber.) But something can be done about the Senates anti-majoritarian nature. Ending the filibuster is one way to make the Senate less beholden to a ruthless minority and more responsive to the majority of its members. Its also the only practical way for Democrats to move their agenda through Congress, because many Republicans just proved theyd rather overthrow the government than work with the Biden administration.2

Unfortunately, senators generally like the filibuster.It gives each and every one of them the power to grind democratic self-government to a halt.That was made evident at the start of the new Senate term, when minority leader Mitch McConnell staged a week of parliamentary temper tantrums to try to force the Democrats to promise they wouldnt end the filibuster. He finally relented when Democrats Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema reiterated their long-standing commitment to keeping it intact.3

But what does that promise really mean?4

The filibuster refers generally to the ability of any senator to delay or block a vote on a bill. But when people talk about ending the filibuster, what they really mean is reforming the rules of cloture. Cloture is the procedure that ends Senate debate and allows the body to vote on legislation and move forward with the peoples business. Its this process that needs to be changed.5

The cloture rules have been rewritten multiple times over the course of US history. The current rules have been in place only since 1975. Thats when thenSenate majority leader Mike Mansfield, a Montana Democrat, pushed a change to Rule 22one that allowed the Senate to achieve cloture with a three-fifths majority (60 votes) as opposed to two-thirds (67 votes), which had been the rule since the Wilson administration. That would have been fine, but Mansfields new three-fifths majority applied to the total number of senators (all 100) instead of those who were actually in the building at the time a vote was taken. That massively changed how the filibuster could be deployed. Instead of minority senators having to be physically present for the entire filibuster, only a single one needs to be there. In addition, since 1970, Mansfield had allowed the Senates work to proceed on two tracks, meaning members could continue to debate and vote on other bills while one was held up by a filibuster, awaiting cloture. The age of the talking filibusterthink Jimmy Stewart in Mr. Smith Goes to Washingtonwas over.6

One can see why all this sounded very progressive in 1975. On paper, the change made for less gridlock. In practice, it has been a disaster. The use of the filibuster has skyrocketed, largely because it costs the members of the minority nothing. They dont have to talk; they dont even have to be present. And they dont have to explain to the American people why C-Span is showing Ted Cruz reading Atlas Shrugged for eight hours a day while Americans suffer and die.7Current Issue

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Fixing this doesnt require centrist Democrats to abandon the filibusters anti-majoritarian principles in favor of aggressive progressive policies; it simply requires them to go back and fix one of their own mistakes. Letsto borrow a phrasemake the filibuster great again. Lets require the minority to do something to exercise it. The people who are against cloture should have to be in the chamber, all day and all night, to vote against it. The Senate should have to stop all other business until one side or the other relents.8

Im confident Democrats would win these battles, if only they would fight them. I can imagine an army of volunteers providing food, water, and moral support to Democrats as they battle to the last to preserve the Affordable Care Act. I can imagine Republicans looking like fools as they filibuster Covid-19 relief. And I can imagine both parties using the filibuster only as a last-ditch effort to protect some cherished belief, not as a de facto requirement that nearly all bills must get 60 votes to pass.9

Are Manchin and Sinema against that? Do they have a principled reason to support the cowards filibuster?10

We dont have to nuke the filibuster (though many of us would still like to). We just have to make senators show up to work and account for their actions. Thats not too much to ask. And if it is, well, thats just another reason we should abolish the whole chamber and start over.11

See the article here:

If Senators Wont Kill the Filibuster, They Should at Least Sweat for It - The Nation

Earlier this year, we published two articles about a reading list that two lawmakers state Sen. Cory V. McCray (D-Baltimore City) and Del. Marc Korman (D-Montgomery) assembled for their colleagues after consulting with a range of experts.

They were inspired by a retired Navy admiral and former NATO supreme commander, James G. Stavridis, who had written a book in 2017 called The Leaders Bookshelf, which is essentially a recommended reading list of 50 books for aspiring leaders.

Perhaps the single best way a leader can learn and grow is through reading, Stavridis has said.

McCray and Korman essentially compiled an A list the true essentials divided into five distinct subject areas, and a B list of equally good reads over a broader set of topics.

After we published the recommendations of Korman, McCray and friends, we asked readers to provide their own lists of suggested reading for people in leadership positions. The response was overwhelming.

Now, with apologies for the delay, but just in time for late holiday gifts or pre-2021 General Assembly session gifts we finally present the readers recommendations, in their own words. They are listed in the order in which we received them:

Gus B. Bauman, attorney and former head of the Montgomery County Planning Board

The greatest, most profound non-fiction book ever written by an American is The Education of Henry Adams (1918), by Henry Adams. No American who purports to lead other human beings in either the governmental/political realm or the business realm should be permitted to do so without reading and reflecting upon this deeply thoughtful, fascinating so-called autobiography (really, an excursion into American philosophy: how should one think and act in a complex democracy and ever-changing world?).

Jim Rose, Maryland Alliance for Justice Reform

Senator Charles Sydnor (D-Baltimore County) mentioned he was reading Charged: The New Movement to Transform American Prosecution and End Mass Incarceration, by Emily Bazelon.

David Reel, Maryland director, Quantum Communications

A Sense of Urgency, by John P. Kotter

Getting More, by Stuart Diamond

Churchill on Leadership, by Steven Hayward

Therese M. Hessler, president & CEO, Ashlar Government Relations & Consulting

Start with Why, by Simon Sinek

This is a must read for anyone in a leadership role. Start With Why shows that the leaders whove had the greatest influence in the world all think, act, and communicate the same way and its the opposite of what everyone else does. It provides a framework upon which organizations can be built, movements can be led, and people can be inspired. And it all starts with WHY.

Daniel Golombek, retired NASA scientist

I recommend The Education of a Christian Prince by Erasmus of Rotterdam and Immanuel Kants Perpetual Peace: A Philosophical Sketch.

Erasmus book, written in 1516, is as prescient as any current book about political leadership could be. The teachings he suggests be given to leaders are extremely un-Machiavellian, and probably the ones we need; e.g.:

Follow the right, do violence to no one, plunder no one, sell no public office, be corrupted by no bribes.

The tyrant looks upon nothing with greater suspicion than the harmonious agreement of good men and of cities; good princes especially rejoice in this. A tyrant is happy to stir up factions and strife between his subjects and feeds and aids chance animosities. This means he basely uses for the safeguarding of his tyranny. A king has this one interest: to foster peaceful relations between his subjects and straightway to adjust such dissensions among them as chance to arise, for he believes that they are the worst menace to the state that can happen. When a tyrant sees that affairs of state are flourishing, he trumps up some pretext, or even invites in some enemy, so as to start a war and thereby weaken the powers.

The second book is a short essay that complements Erasmus. Kant wrote that countries should be republics and harmoniously work together. In fact he describes (in 1795!) a federation very similar to the current European Union.

Jamie Kendrick, senior project manager, Mead & Hunt

The Truly Disadvantaged, by William Julius Wilson.

I read this book in college 25 years ago. it shaped my worldview of what it means to be poor and living in inescapable poverty and just how miraculous it is when someone does.

Patricia Helfrich

The American Crisis: What Went Wrong, How We Recover, by writers from The Atlantic.

Our Bodies, Their Battlefields: War Through the Lives of Women, by Christina Lamb

The Bully Pulpit: Theodore Roosevelt, William Howard Taft, and the Golden Age of Journalism, by Doris Kearns Goodwin.

Ray Feldmann, Feldmann Communications Strategies

Red Ball Express and Dorie Miller: Greatness Under Fire. Written by Elkton High School history teacher Dante R. Brizill, these two books celebrate the achievements of Black Americans during World War II. Red Ball Express is the true story of unsung heroes from World War II who drove the trucks that supplied American armies in Europe. Three out of every four of these men were Black.

Dorie Miller tells the true story of Doris Dorie Miller, a Black cook on the USS West Virginia who became a hero when the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor on Dec. 7, 1941. During the attack Miller manned anti-aircraft guns, for which he had no training, and tended to the wounded. He was recognized by the Navy for his actions and awarded the Navy Cross.

Cover My Dreams In Ink, a poignant memoir written by Annapolis author Jessie Dunleavy about her late son, Paul, who died in 2017 of an accidental opioid overdose. Jessies book shines a light on the human toll of the war on drugs and drives home the urgency for drug policy reform. It is a tremendous resource for families who are dealing with the horrors of drug addiction, especially opioid addiction.

Kelby Brick, director, Governors Coordinating Offices, Office of the Deaf & Hard of Hearing

I would like to suggest War Against the Weak: Eugenics and Americas Campaign to Create a Master Race by Edwin Black. A must read for any public leader interested in basic human rights as this outlines how American corporate philanthropies launched a national campaign of ethnic cleansing in the United States, helped found and fund the Nazi eugenics of Hitler and Mengele and then created the modern movement of human genetics.'

Patrick Roddy, partner, Rifkin Weiner Livingston LLC

Role of a Lifetime, by Lou Cannon.

I did not like Ronald Reagan and famously told a boss that America would never vote for an actor but this book explained to me his gifts as a politician including his ability to use fictional metaphor as if it were reality (the conversation with Charles McDowell about the VMI movie scene is worth the whole book)

Robyn Elliott, partner, Public Policy Partners

I wanted to recommend March: Book One by John Lewis, Andrew Aydin, and Nate Powell. This graphic novel is hands-down one of the best books that Ive ever read. With just over 100 pages to tell John Lewis story about student sit-ins at lunch counters in the 1960s, every word and every pen stroke has to convey both the fact and meaning of this part of our history. I dont think a stand-alone narrative could have captured this story as well. The illustrations and concise narrative are worth more than 1,000 words. This book is priceless in the truest meaning of the word.

M.Q. Riding, director of marketing and communications, Chesapeake Utilities

My recommendation for a book to read is Atlas Shrugged, by Ayn Rand It is a quintessential novel on the rebirth of independence with a woman as a strong protagonist.

Christopher Costello, Public Sector Consulting Group

The Death of Common Sense: How Law Is Suffocating America, by Philip Howard

Del. Jazz M. Lewis (D-Prince Georges)

Here are a list of good reads in no particular order:

Between the World and Me, by Ta-Nehisi Coates. He discusses the struggles of growing up in Baltimore and generally forgotten about urban America.

Hillbilly Elegy, by J.D. Vance, provides similar takes on forgotten rural America from a more conservative perspective.

Strangers in Their Own Land, by Arlie Russell Hochschild, gives an in-depth view of conservatives from their own eyes. I think it is important to understand those you disagree with in order to make real progress on policy.

Leadership, by Doris Kearns Goodwin, examines the leadership lessons of four American presidents.

Man of the House, by former U.S. House Speaker Tip ONeill. A lesson on cultivating power and being effective.

Saving Capitalism, by Robert Reich, summarizes how income inequality has grown in America and provides a roadmap to doing something about it.

Youre More More Powerful Than You Think, by Eric Liu. This is about civic engagement and is officially non-partisan. I use lessons from this book whenever I talk to students.

Crucial Conversations: Tools for Talking When Stakes Are High, by Kerry Patterson and others. If you are to lead, you will need to build consensus and negotiate. This is a great way to navigate difficult conversations without compromising your values.

Rules for Radicals, by Saul Alinsky a primer on community and labor organizing that has been used effectively over the years.

The Breakthrough, by Gwen Ifill a veteran journalists take on the impact of Barack Obamas electoral victory and its creation of a pathway for other Black and relatively new political leaders.

Hassan Giordano, Mr. Politics, owner, DMV Daily Media Group

I would suggest The Prince, Art of War, 48 Laws of Power and 33 Strategies of War, which I believe were all mentioned, as well as a great read by John J. Pitney Jr., The Art of Political Warfare, and one that would make for a great read in this moment, The Nine: Inside the Secret World of the Supreme Court by Jeffrey Toobin.

Eric Sterling, executive director of the Criminal Justice Policy Foundation

Tribes on the Hill, by Jack McIver Weatherford is an anthropological study of the U.S. Senate from the mid-1980s. What would be useful for Maryland legislators is to think about how the features, relationships and problems that were facing the U.S. Senate can be instructive now.

Weatherford was a professor of anthropology who was doing field work on the staff of Sen. John Glenn (D-Ohio). He points out the site of the Capitol much earlier was a gathering place for trade and barter by the Native peoples from other areas along the Mid-Atlantic region. He notes the familial and kinship relationships that exist for generations. And he describes the interest-based tribes that exist on Capitol Hill, such as the tribe that supports military appropriations in Maine, Mississippi, Georgia, Virginia, California, Washington state, etc. He also identifies different kinds of ritual and performance roles played by different Senators and analogizes how they compare to roles played by leaders of Native peoples.

Weatherford identifies a critical problem arising from open meeting rules and government in the sunshine pressures. Real deliberation is often tentative, and bargaining can look sordid when done in public and thus the unflattering work is not done in public, leaving the primary activity in the meetings of the committees to be ritualistic. The pressure to take a position on the record and to make sure that ones opinion is counted means that more and more of the activity is performative. The senators become consumed with issuing statements for the record on this bill and that, in this committee and that.

The ability of the senators to spend time with each for the purpose of finding common ground and compromise to pass legislation becomes reduced, and the necessary work gets delegated to staff, to parasenators, who operate in the corners. The senators stop talking with each other, other than with a handful of allies, or in a very stilted way.

The need to exchange information about what other senators are actually thinking and want from one another is met in a way that I did not expect and thought was quite insightful. It is the lobbyists. Weatherford compares lobbyists, going from office to office, gathering intelligence, to the way bees incidentally gather and spread pollen as they seek nectar, and that the lobbyist intelligence sharing is as essential to the production of legislation as bees are to the pollination of fruit. With no bees, there is no harvest; with no lobbyists there is no legislation.

Weatherford ends with a warning that the ritual demands of appearing at every subcommittee meeting, and making a statement on every issue leads to a kind of non-productive frenzy. He dramatically compares the ritual behavior of appeasing the need to be on the record to the need of Aztec priests for prisoners to make the ritual human sacrifices demanded by their gods. The demand for sacrificial victims leads the Aztec nation to ever-more extensive and expensive wars to find the necessary prisoners to sacrifice. Thus, Weatherford argues, the consequential wars weakened the Aztec nation making it vulnerable to conquest by the relatively weak forces of that Spain could place on the ground in Mexico.

Patrick H. Murray, chief of staff to Baltimore County Executive John A. Olszewski Jr. (D)

The Wise Men: Six Friends and the World They Made and The Man Who Ran Washington: The Life and Times of James A. Baker III. These books are reminders that relationships and reputations are the currency of our realm and, leveraged properly, are invaluable in shaping public policy.

Identity Crisis: The 2016 Presidential Campaign and the Battle for the Meaning of America, The Politics of Resentment: Rural Consciousness in Wisconsin and the Rise of Scott Walker, and Steadfast Democrats: How Social Forces Shape Black Political Behavior.

These books were required reading for the students in my Campaigns & Elections class this fall. They examine the role of group identity in political behavior. Identity Crisis and Steadfast Democrats rely heavily on data. All three books will burst your partisan bubble and challenge your assumptions.

Last, but certainly not least: William F. Zorzi, senior contributor to Maryland Matters

For years, philosophers and historians have warned us with some variation of Edmund Burkes admonishment, Those who dont know history are doomed to repeat it. But the truth of the matter is that we as a race have been repeating the same moronic mistakes for years with little to no thought of the experience and fallout.

Those mistakes dont really need to be detailed. You know what they are; you dont have to look too far into the distance or past to find them. Nevertheless, history can be instructive as we peer blankly into the future.

I was intrigued and heartened a bit by the list of books assembled by Sen. Cory V. McCray (D-Baltimore City), Del. Marc Korman (D-Montgomery) and their associates, and published by Maryland Matters, as volumes that should be found on the bookshelf of any state legislator aspiring to understand and master the political game.

McCray and Korman came up with the idea from a 2017 book by retired U.S. Navy Adm. James G. Stavridis and R. Manning Ancell, The Leaders Bookshelf, published by the Naval Institute Press in Annapolis.

It makes perfect sense that good legislators would want to school themselves on government, politics and leadership through the experiences of the best and worst in those areas. But I never realized how broad a collection that might be until I stared down the expansive lists of suggested books, ranging from Lucille Cliftons collected poems to The Bible.

Despite how all-encompassing those lists aspired to be, I thought there were a few holes in them that needed plugging, notably, but not exclusively, in the category of Maryland-specific Politics and Government History. What follows is a list of some of the books I would include, with some comment. Naturally.

Thimbleriggers: The Law v. Governor Marvin Mandel, by Brad Jacobs of The Evening Sun, published in 1984 by Johns Hopkins University Press.

This is the part of the Marvin Mandel story that seemed to slip the former governors mind in his 2010 memoir, Ill Never Forget It that is, the federal governments racketeering and mail fraud case against him and five members of his cabal in the little matter of a racetrack bill (and more).

Among the Baltimore Democrats five codefendants was one Irving Kovens, the bankrolling political padrone whose stable included William Donald Schaefer as city councilman, mayor and governor.

Time somehow seems to heal most reputations, and the stain on the Mandel name has just about been remediated. But for a while, the Mandel political corruption case, with all its tentacles, seemed to be Marylands Scandal of the Century.

There is no intention here to tarnish Mandels wings in the centenary of his birth, but the State House antics and alleged graft (including a double-secret-reverse veto override on legislation transferring racing days for fun and profit) involving this gang are quite educational and make for entertaining reading for all the wrong reasons.

Jacobs, a lifelong political writer for The Evening Sun who took leave from his position as the papers editorial page editor to write the book, also spends time comparing Mandel & Co. to The Ring, featuring Maryland bossisms greatest characters of the late 19th and early 20th centuries, former U.S. Sen. Arthur Pue Gorman and I. Freeman Rasin, who could easily keep up with Tammany Halls best.

Honestly, even at a presumably digestible 250 pages, Thimbleriggers can, at times, be a tough read. It covers a lot of ground and touches on a lot of characters. It traces the intricacies of the Mandel conspiracy and the dizzying back-and-forth of the case, and still manages to offer a short course on the states political history of the preceding century along with a dash of high-minded moralizing (as editorialists are wont to do).

But its worth it.

Acclaimed author William Manchester, another Evening Sun alum, who wrote the foreword, called the book a fascinating political autopsy of Marylands Marvin Mandel.

Indeed.

After his 1977 conviction, Mandel did 19 months of a three-year term (reduced from four) at the federal prison camp on Elgin Air Force Base near Pensacola, Fla., before President Ronald Reagan commuted his sentence at the request of defense attorney, Arnold M. Wiener, and the persistent urging of lobbyist Bruce C. Bereano thus freeing him in 1981.

The book ends there, in 1981 but the Mandel tale did not.

A few years later, attorneys for Mandel et al petitioned the U.S. District Court in Baltimore to reconsider the convictions, based on a Kentucky case that the Supreme Court tossed out in 1987, finding that the federal government had overreached in prosecuting certain alleged violations of the mail fraud statute.

A federal judge in turn vacated the earlier guilty findings, and Mandel declared victory and vindication.

The 4th Circuit affirmed the decision on appeal, but not everyone least of all, the government was convinced that eliminating the convictions on what many saw as arguably a technicality absolved Mandel and his cronies of wrongdoing, especially after Congress the following year amended the law to close the loophole created by the Supreme Court action. (The government appealed the 4th Circuits Mandel decision to the Supreme Court, but the justices refused to take up the case.)

In the end, Mandel got his law license back, returned to Annapolis as a lobbyist and even eventually was embraced by the GOP, which made sure his memoir, Ill Never Forget It, was published by its thinly disguised non-partisan think tank, the Maryland Public Policy Institute.

The Great Game of Maryland Politics, by Barry Rascovar, former deputy editorial page editor of The Sun of Baltimore, published in 1998 by The Baltimore Sun Co.

In a collection of his Sunday columns on State House politics, Rascovar covers the political history of The Free State for the two decades preceding the millennium. Love him or hate him, Rascovars insights which continue today on his politicalmaryland.com website are spot on and invaluable in tracing how Maryland got to be where it is now.

Plus, spread throughout, the book features the editorial cartoons by the late, great Mike Lane, formerly of The Evening Sun. Whats not to like?

The Great Game of Politics, by Frank R. Kent, also formerly of The Sun, published in 1923 by Doubleday, Page & Co., is what today would be called a deep dive into precisely how a political machine works, from top to bottom, with all the ugly barely cosmeticized, as well as an examination of the other finer points of, uh, governance. Its chapters were serialized in The Sun.

This could be the granddaddy of all political books by a reporter who went on to cover the goings-on in Washington and became the nations first syndicated political columnist before all the pundits and prognosticators and the television talking-head class with dime-a-dozen opinions.

In a sense it is dated the world does not operate the way it did 100 years ago but there are still some revealing seemingly germane explanations. The books subtitle probably says it best: An Effort to Present the Elementary Human Facts About Politics, Politicians, and Political Machines, Candidates and Their Ways, for the Benefit of the Average Citizen.

For most of his career, Kent wrote a political column under the standing head of The Great Game of Politics for The Sun, first focusing on local and state politics and then turning his attention to Washington and what later became known as inside the Beltway meaning Interstate 495, not I-695. The older he got, the more conservative he grew.

Excerpt from:

Just in Time for the Holidays: Your Book Recommendations - Josh Kurtz

The Postal Service Is Not A Business

Dear Editor,

FYI, the book 1984, along with Atlas Shrugged and Animal Farm should be on the reading list for ALL Americans. Atlas Shrugged is a huge book, full of wordy paragraphs a slog at times. You can listen to this book much more easily.

The best movie version of 1984, starring Richard Burton and John Hurt, is now playing on one of the streaming pay TV networks. Even if you have read the book, this is a must-see. The opening scenes of massed people gathered to ridicule opposing views and stonewall other opinions by shouting en masse, big, big, big, big, big, big (Brother) draws chilling congruence to leftist Brown Shirt street tactics. This book is not an attack on the Democrat Party, but an expos on Big Brother socialism.

On another subject, I recently received a priority mail flat rate box (2-day delivery) shipped from West Palm Beach, FL. Received after 12 days in transit. Five of those days residing at the USPS sorting facility near the Greensboro airport. Conversely, I received a first class letter from Boone, NC, the day after it was mailed less than 24 hours.

When the pandemic began, people began to shop on line v/s visiting the stores. This put a severe strain on all the shipping services. FedEx has reacted by simply going bad. FedEx lost one of my packages; you cannot get them on the phone, they literally dont want to talk to you. The local reps dont have a clue. FedEx also took six days to deliver an overnight letter, then rubbed salt in the wound by charging me $36 to not do so. They wont do that to me again.

Rather than stomp and holler, I went to a couple of post offices to find out what is going on. So straight from the firing line, this is what is going on with the USPS. When the on-line biz picked up, USPS could not train new employees (who might be temps) quickly enough, so the employees worked overtime to get the mails delivered a little slower, but OK.

The problem begins with the new postmaster general, Mr. Louis DeJoy, appointed to the post in June 2020. Mr. Dejoy is a trustee at Elon University and was in private business for companies such as New Breed Logistics and XPO Logistics for 35 years. The statement from the USPS website says that Mr. DeJoy has committed to creating a long-term, viable operating model for the Postal Service that will ensure the organization can fulfill its public service mission while remaining self-sustaining.

This statement proves the problem as related to me by several of his employees in Greensboro. The terms public service mission and self-sustaining are incongruent. To his credit, Mr. DeJoy is trying to run the USPS as a profitable business. The USPS is a service, not a business.

Anyone alive knows that our government does not make money. It does not live within its means. For 55 cents, you can send a first class letter to anywhere in the U.S. and possessions (Guam, W. Somoa). Letters have to be sorted numerous times, and gathered and delivered by hand. 55 cents is a bargain, for the simple reason that it costs a lot more than that to process the letter.

What Mr. DeJoy has done is to eliminate and curtail overtime pay for the employees in order to reduce costs. So whether the mail is processed or not, at the end of the day, work stops. Would you work for your employer for free? Should you? The USPS is a service, not a business.

Miller Forester

Black Lives Matter Both Concept And Organization

Dear Editor,

Black lives matter. All lives add value to this world. All lives matter equally. The problem at hand is partially due to using the term Black Lives Matter to both describe a concept and name an organization. Disagreeing with the organization does not equal disagreeing with the concept. Most group opponents openly support the concept. However, individuals disagreeing with the group have faced false accusations of racism.

To encourage a difficult conversation, here are several criticisms of the loosely organized Black Lives Matter group.

1) Stop and frisk policies caused devastating mistrust of police in the African American community. However, the BLM group over demanded. It crossed the line from a defensive to an offensive group. It has morphed into an antiestablishment, anti-police, anti-constitutional rights, and antigovernment organization. Two wrongs remain two wrongs.

2) The group leveraged confusion between concept and group to force support and punish disagreement.

3) It is dangerous to attack individuals for saying all lives matter. The term implies equality not racism. Black lives are included within all lives matter. Supporting all lives supports black lives. If you truly support equality, you must believe that we are equally capable of good as well as bad acts. If you believe we are all capable of graduating from college given environmental factors, you must also believe that we are capable of committing crimes given environmental factors. If you believe everyone are capable of good but only that other group is capable of bad, we risk defensiveness crossing over to offensiveness. We all risk being both abused by and abusers of racism. By becoming angered over all lives matter comments, increasing extremism risks crossing into racist ideology. We must all worry about extremism crossing the line into racism/discrimination. No one is immune. The individuals demanding only Black Lives Matter comments demand support for the organization not the concept.

4) The groups extremism increases tensions increasing threat to all sides. Fear and animosity has been heightened. Today, when police stop citizens, both sides become defensive. Both sides misinterpret the others defensiveness as offensiveness. This will only escalate tensions resulting in greater number of painful outcomes. In order to truly fix this situation, all sides must be listened to and understanding of the other attempted. After all, we are all, ALL, capable of mistakes. Demanding understanding without offering the same only amplifies distrust.

Alan Burke

Be Careful Of Propaganda From Both Sides

Dear Editor,

propaganda

Propaganda has been going on sense man developed speaking, reading, and writing. It has always been a very valuable tool used for good and bad. Advertising is probably the single largest use ever.

If you are paying close attention to what is being written and said you will spot the subtle use of words and phrases that other people begin using in any conversation on the subject. The best, most obvious example is where members of the media who are graduates of the Joseph Goebbels School of Journalism have managed to insert the word troops in place of the word agents when talking about federal law enforcement across the country. This allows the segue into the other lie about having federal troops on the streets of American cities

Goebbels is often credited with being the originator of the following;

If you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it. The lie can be maintained only for such time as the State can shield the people from the political, economic and/or military consequences of the lie. It thus becomes vitally important for the State to use all of its powers to repress dissent, for the truth is the mortal enemy of the lie, and thus by extension, the truth is the greatest enemy of the State.

In this example, the State is replaced by the collective leftist, Marxist/communist, socialist, anarchist groups being given cover and support by the (National Socialist) Democrat party.

They are able to get away with this because not enough people do actual comparative research. Too many people simply accept what they read and hear without challenging it, without looking at other sources and what they have to say. These are the people that help to spread the propaganda. And I will point out that that applies to both sides. There are those organizations on the extreme right and some that are truly racist that are as bad.

There is nothing wrong with being a little bit cynical. It keeps you safe and healthy. And it helps to make for a better, stronger America.

Dont buy into the B.S. Do your research before you vote.

Alan Marshall

See original here:

Letters To Editor: August 5, 2020 - The Rhino TImes