Atlas
Shrugged – The Movie (Part 1)
© Susan Fleck
Introduction
My bio
Who is Ayn Rand & history of success of Atlas
Shrugged
Show first half movie – then discuss themes
Who is Ayn Rand?
Rand came to
She saw the principles of the founding of
She knew from a very early age (9) that she wanted to become a writer.
She majored in History and minored in Philosophy in college in order to learn as much as possible about the nature of man and his place in the world.
She established herself as a Hollywood screenwriter, and a novelist with her first novel, We The Living, (published 1936). With her anti-Communist views as expressed in her novel and her public speeches, she was unable to secure additional screenwriting contracts.
But with the success of The
Fountainhead (1943), she could no longer be ignored by
1945 she wrote her first journal notes for Atlas Shrugged. She began writing full time on it in 1946. Published 1957. This was her fourth and last novel.
She turned to non-fiction, producing numerous essays, newspaper column articles, giving speeches at colleges and other venues, and even appearing on TV shows such as Johnny Carson’s and Phil Donahue’s shows.
(new slide) With the help of her friends and associates, her philosophy that she calls Objectivism began to spread by way of lectures, books, audio tapes, and Ayn Rand clubs on college campuses.
To say that Ayn Rand is controversial, in life and in death, is a gross understatement. She challenges thousands of years’ of western culture’s religions and philosophies.
Why is AS still selling? 2009, 2010, 2011 – 1.5 million copies sold (as of Feb. 2012 – since O’bama’s election; average 500,000 copies per year – more than when it was popular after publication!
1991 survey done
for the Library of Congress
and the Book of the Month
Club, Atlas Shrugged was situated as number 2 after the Bible
Modern Library's 1998 nonscientific online poll of the 100 best novels of the 20th century found Atlas rated #1 although it was not included on the list chosen by the Modern Library board of authors and scholars
Although she had begun to write a screenplay for a TV miniseries of AS before her death in 1982, it took 54 years since its publication for this movie to be produced.
(After viewing film;
new slide) Themes – Central ideas
The Right kind of
Society for Individual people to live in
The individual against the Collective; against any kind of dictatorship; against a government on a collision course to socialism, then on to dictatorship
At first,
But she began to explore the questions – why is the mind important? – and began to see that she had a much larger philosophical novel to present. The working title, from her original notes in 1945 up until 1956, was The Strike. Atlas Shrugged was a chapter title – her husband suggested that it be the title of the novel.
Jan. 1, 1945: (her
journal): The Strike; Theme: What happens to the world when
the prime movers go on strike.
This means: a picture of the world with its motor cut off;
. . . showing who are the prime movers and why;
who are their enemies and why;
what are the motives behind the hatred for and the enslavement of the prime movers;
the nature of the obstacles placed in their way . . . etc. [This was in The Fountainhead, but needed to be restated.]
The story must be primarily a picture of the whole – emphasis on the world as opposed to the prime movers or the parasites.
The Fountainhead was about individualism and collectivism within man’s soul (the creator versus the second-hander) – showing what they are as individuals; this new novel is showing the relations to each other.
So, to show in what concrete, specific way the world is moved by the creators; exactly how the second-handers live on the creators, both in spiritual matters and in concrete physical events – keeping in mind at all times how the physical proceeds from the spiritual.
The dreadful desolation of the world, not only in closed factories and ruins, but also in the spiritual emptiness, hopelessness, confusion, dullness, grayness, fear.
(new slide) The two realistic ways in which
prime movers go on strike are: (1) what happens to talented and exceptional men
under dictatorships; [e.g. German scientists fleeing to
. . . and (2) how sensitive, talented people stop functioning when they are disgusted by the society around them, as at the present time here in America (1945)
One form of striking always happens when gifted men find themselves in a morally corrupt society. (And such a society is always collectivist, or on its way to collectivism, because morality and individualism are inseparable.
The degree of individualism in a society determines the degree of its morality.) This form: they function in their proper field but produce a small fraction—it is a strained, unhappy, forced effort for them—their natural desire and energy in conflict with their disgust against the conditions under which their energy has to function. Example—doctors who wish to retire if socialized medicine is passed [who will be retiring under the Affordable Care Act].
. . . the strike is a kind of slow, creeping, progressive “rigor mortis.” Not horror and violence—but slow disintegration. The gray horror of dullness, stupidity, incompetence, inertia. Most particularly inertia.
(new slide): The fantastic
premise of the prime movers going on strike is at the heart of the novel.
. . . it’s why they go on strike and against what. The “against what” must be made crystal clear—or the story is pointless. The prime movers say to the world, in effect: “you hate us. You don’t want us. You put every obstacle in our way. Very well—we’ll stop. We won’t fight you or bother you. We’ll merely stop functioning. We’ll stop doing the things you martyr us for. And see how you like it.”
“We have had enough of you exploitation, persecution, insults, stealing, and expropriation. . .
We will not come back until you recognized and acknowledge the truth of the matter. Until you admit what we are, give us full credit for what we do,
and give us full freedom from you chains, orders, restrictions and
encroachments—physical, spiritual, political, and moral. Until you accept a philosophy that will leave us alone to
function as we please. Until you take your hands off us—and keep them off. . . . Once and for all, we will put an end to
the torture of the best by means of their best—the penalizing of genius for
being genius.
The world lives by the prime movers, hates them for it, exploits them and always feels that it has not exploited them enough. They must suffer and pay for the privilege of giving gifts to society, for being society’s benefactors, by the nature of its altruist-collectivist philosophy.
The achievement of great men are embezzled by the
collective—by becoming “national” or “social” achievements. It was not Victor
Hugo, Tchaikovsky, or the Wright brothers who were great and achieved things of
genius—it was
Since the essence of the creator’s power is the ability of independent rational judgment, and since this is precisely what the parasite is incapable of, the key to every disaster in the story—to the whole disintegration of the world—is a situation where independent rational judgment is needed and cannot be provided. (Cannot—in the case of the parasites involved; will not—in the case of the strikers.)
The strikers’ oath: “I swear by my life and my love of it that I
shall never live for the sake of another man or ask another man to live for
mine.”
(new slide): Philosophical conclusion: The strikers have won, not because the parasites have learned anything or because the parasites have collapsed physically,
but because the last of the strikers have learned the lesson that Galt wanted to teach the best brains of the world—
the lesson of not supporting their own destroyers,
and of the creators’ nature, function, and proper code. From now on, the exploitation of the best by the worst will never again be permitted by the best.
(new slide): Altruism:
The scourge of Western Civilization (see handout)
Ethical Altruism: Individuals are morally obliged to benefit others; the good of others is the moral standard and an end in itself
Ethical Egoism: moral
agents should always act in their own
self-interest
(includes the right to property – use of and disposition of) –
all other rights are
derivatives of these.
The right to one’s own life – i.e., survival, is an end in itself – the ultimate standard of morality / ethics
Utilitarianism: view that every individual’s well-being (including one’s own) is of equal moral importance. (Whatever brings the best good for the most people)
Altruism is not to be confused with – benevolence, charity,
kindness, generosity, compassion, or good will.
(new slide): Sanction
of the Victims (continuation of Altruism theme)
[
The parasites cannot exploit us or rule creators—unless they voluntarily agree to be exploited and hand them the tools with which to rule us. Let us withdraw the tools. We permit it . . . for one essential reason: the generosity of the creator.
discuss movie scene – Rearden and his dependents –
Phillip asks for $$
for his ‘charity.’
Rearden has just poured the first heat of his new metal—in a great mood. Comes home, proud of his success. Phillip (his brother) asks him for a favor. “Money, doesn’t everyone want it?” (touching and spinning the globe – to symbolize that money makes the world go around) He does not want it for himself, but for the less fortunate – for “Friends of Global Awareness.” He is derisive of Rearden for enjoying the fact of his fortune. He wants the money to be wired to an account – claiming that it would be an embarrassment to have Rearden on the list of contributors—suggesting that money from Rearden is “dirty” money, as if it needs to be laundered via the anonymous wire.
Paul Larkin admires Rearden as a producer, but is attuned to the opinions of others. He discusses Rearden’s need for a press agent, that the press is against him. Rearden should not say that his only goal is to make money.
This demonstrates
Why do the bad guys seem to be winning? What is the power they seem to have over those on whom they are so dependent? How does Phillip get away with his “begging” in such an insulting manner? Why does he get the money? (Why doesn’t Rearden say “to hell with it”) This is one of the deepest questions in Atlas Shrugged.
Journal, 1946, in “Characters needed:” A man who is the most tragic victim of collectivist exploitation. He is the one who finds it so hard to break the ties. Hank Rearden—possibly a great, self-made industrialist, torn by the naiveté of his own generosity.]:
(new slide) 1946 journal – John Galt tells one who is unconsciously on strike from bitterness and disillusionment: -- partial text:
We see no danger in giving. We give, we help, we let [what we suppose is someone in unfortunate circumstances] lean on us and bleed us, we carry him—‘why not?’ we say, we are so strong, we have so much to spare.
We are incapable of conceiving of the parasite’s mind, so we can never understand him. We are incapable of hatred and malice. . . . we cannot find the cause [of his hatred and malice] since we can’t understand him.
We become bewildered by him. We never accuse him. He yells that we are selfish, cruel, tyrannical by reason of the very abundance and magnificence of our talents. And we almost come to believe this. “Almost” . . . we are the men of truth, we cannot fall that far into lying; and since our talents, our creative energy, are our sacred possessions, the source of our joy in living, we cannot commit so great a sacrilege against them.
[But] we begin to feel that we must atone for something, make amends to someone, pay someone for something in some manner. . . .
[today’s examples]:
campaign against Mitt Romney;
[new slide] We refuse to admit to ourselves the truth that we are being damned for the best within us, and that the creature making the accusation is small, inferior, and truly evil. . . . contempt for a human being is totally unnatural to us, perhaps impossible—because we think and act as if we were dealing with men . . . One’s opinion of mankind comes from one’s opinion of oneself, which is the only first-hand knowledge of man one can have. . . . The man who despises himself, carries the contempt, the malice, the hatred, the suspicion to all humanity. We, the creators, cannot conceive of this.
We have not faced or recognized the truth about the parasites—so we fail, we’re disarmed, and they’ve got us.
Did they win over us? No, we won the battle for them. They rule the world? No, we handed it over to them. The guilt is ours, but not in the way they think; in the exactly opposite way. The guilt is that we have refused to see the truth about us and about them.
What makes a man a parasite? The recognition by a man, stated or unstated in his mind (and I think it is usually stated) . . .
[the belief] that he is the creature and the product of others, dependent upon them for the content of his soul.
The negation by a man of his primary human attribute (his essential attribute, the one and only attribute that makes him human): his independent rational judgment.
This is all that’s necessary; the rest—all the evils, corruptions, perversions—follow automatically.
When a man rejects his independent rational judgment he has rejected himself as an entity, as a man, as an end in himself. . . . he is acting against the laws of his own survival. And by the very fact that he is a man (or was born to be and can’t be anything else), some last conscious remnant of [his betrayal] makes him hate himself. He ascribes every possible cause to his feeling of helplessness against the universe of which he knows so little: his fear of others; his envy of them; his knowledge that he’ll never be able to equal their achievements; that he doesn’t possess their talents.
(New Slide)What caused him do do it? Fear—laziness—the desire to escape the responsibility of rationality—
the belief in a malevolent universe—
the half-digested teachings of others to which he succumbed in childhood before he had begun the think for himself—the whole vicious mess of irrationalism altruism, and collectivism—
all of that can be and is the cause of his pronouncing the verdict of parasite on himself and rejecting his nature as man.
What concerns us [purpose of novel] are the results [of the cause] as they affect us, the results of our relation with the parasite. In what manner do we allow the parasite to rule us, and what happens when he does? We accept him as an equal, i.e., a rational being. Then we are torn by the awful spectacle of the irrational around us. We have allowed him to create around us the kind of world he live in, or imagines, or fears: the senseless, malevolent universe.
(new slide): We begin to doubt the power of the human mind, the reality or practicality of truth, the possibility of good or justice.
We suspect that we might be living in an insane chaos, but that is a supposition with which we cannot exist or function.
Yet we must function, that is the basic law of our nature, and so we are caught in a civil war within ourselves and we become objects of perpetual suffering, made so by that very thing which is our life source, our happiness, the moving force of man’s survival—our spiritual independence and creative energy.
And when we suffer within ourselves in this essential, primary way, we cannot function at our best—and we are disarmed. The parasite has us where he wants us: functioning only enough to support him, but not enough to be happy, to be strong, to shake him off and get forever out of his reach.
(new slide) In every other sphere [apart from our work]—in our private lives, in our relations with men and the world—we accept the codes of altruism—that we, the stronger, must support the others and suffer their insults, without understanding the insults and hatred.
Generally, creators say, in effect, by accepting the
generally accepted creed of altruism: “I am evil in my selfishness—I’ll pay for
it in my private life. I’ll accept my suffering—but I’ll go on working and
being selfish about my work.”
It is we who work for
our own destruction . . . by allowing the parasites to be a major concern
within us.
Withdraw the tools. Cut every spiritual connection and practical cooperation with the parasite. Face them for what they are. And let them learn what you are.
This was John Galt’s speech to persuade creators to join his Strike
John Galt (probably in broadcast): “I am the first man of
ability who has refused to feel guilty.” John Galt must embody that which is
lacking in the lives of all the strikers. It is he who gives them the answer,
to solve their personal stories – “The man innocent of all sense of guilt.”
(new slide) For Dagny—Three lines of approach: Her hunger for her own kind of world.
She works so fiercely because she knows she can have her world only by creating it—
but she makes mistakes about people;
Her attempt (or desire) to be “the spark of initiative and the bearer of responsibility for a whole collective;” Her conflict (it must be concrete, emotional, dramatized, personalized). [Her love for TT.]
Her error—and the cause of her refusal to join the strike—is over-optimism and over-confidence.
Her over-optimism is in thinking that men are better than they are; she doesn’t really understand them and is generous about it.
Her over-confidence . . . she will show them how, she can teach them and persuade them, she is so able that they’ll catch it from her.
(This is still faith
in their rationality, in the omnipotence of reason.
The mistake? Reason is not automatic. Those who deny it cannot be conquered by it. Do not count on them. Leave them alone.)
(new slide) While a
creator does and must worship Man
(which is reverence for his own highest potentiality),
he must not make the
mistake of thinking that this means the necessity to worship Mankind; these are two entirely
different conceptions with diametrically opposed consequences.
Mankind is merely an
abstract collective of all men.
Man, at his highest
potentiality, is realized and fulfilled with each creator himself, and within
such other men as he finds around him who live up to that idea. This is all
that’s necessary.
[The individual] alone or he others like him are mankind, in the proper sense of being the proof of what man actually is, man at his best, the essential man, man at his highest possibility (the rational being who acts according to his nature). . . let him live up to that ideal himself; this is all the “optimism” about Man that he needs. But this is a hard and subtle thing to realize—and it would be natural for Dagny always to make the mistake of believing others are better than they really are . . . and to be tied to the world by that hope.
If Dagny is the leading figure and carries the story, then the climax must be the destruction of TT (and almost the destruction of John Galt) by her attempt to deal with the parasites. Galt’s ultimatum: “Do not function on the collectivist-altruist premise.”
*** In real life, the creators stop functioning in a collectivist society—but they do it either as victims, forced to stop, or in helpless pessimism, simply believing that collectivism is natural, the law of the universe, and that they are hopeless, doomed rebels against it. Galt makes them go on strike as a conscious, deliberate protest, with full knowledge of their being in the right: they thus demonstrate to themselves and to the parasites their function, their power in the world, and the true nature of the universe.
(new slide) Second-handedness
The parasite discards his status as a human being, his attribute of survival—the independent rational mind. He has his rational mind; he could function as the moral man; but he doesn’t want to exercise even such ability as he has. Now what makes the parasite do it?
It is the desire to get more than he deserves, in both the spiritual and the material realm.
The axiom of living by reason implies most powerfully, without room for escape, that each man stand essentially on his own and get nothing except what he deserves (which means: what he earns, what he produces, what qualitities he possesses—all of his claims must be based on reality, on objective fact.)
The escape from reason is the escape from reality.
(new slide) What does the parasite want? Anything that is of value, spiritually or materially.
Materially—here we
have any bureaucrat or politician, any man who wants to gain through
restricting competition, any man who seeks economic advantages through
political power, i.e., through force, any man who tries to make a success
through pull, through friendship rather than merit—any man who chooses his
profession because of the returns he sees others getting from it, not because
of his actual ability or desire to do that work.
(new slide): Spiritually – this type want a sense of
superiority, which he lacks. Therefore, this sense must be given to him by
others, second-hand; but this is impossible—
so the parasite is
never satisfied, never reaches any kind of happiness. He wants, from others,
any reward given to human values or virtues—without possessing these values or
virtues. Above all, he wants admiration (without an achievement to admire). He
wants authority, unearned and causeless. He wants prestige—of the comparative
kind, being considered better than
others. He wants, not to do something
good, but to do something better than somebody else has done it.
He wants, actually, to reverse cause and effect—thinking that the effect will create in him the cause—thinking that the effect (admiration) will create in him the cause (achievement).
(new slide): Having
started with the idea that value is established by comparison,
the parasite will
naturally hate the genius, and any man of ability. In effect, he will have the
insane idea that he can become great simply by eliminating those who are
better.
The parasite hates
competition—because he sees all life as competition. He doesn’t think that
material wealth is created by the energy and intelligence of men—an
inexhaustible source;
he thinks that there’s
just so much material wealth (a static amount) and whoever gets rich takes that
much away from him; his “share” is that much smaller.
He doesn’t realize
that in a free society of producers each wealthy man adds to the total wealth, that each creates his own new wealth, and
also adds to the wealth of others by his ideas and his energy. But to realize
this would be to cease being a parasite.
(new slide): Here is one of the key pillars of my story: if the lesser man thinks that a top job would be his if he destroys the genius—he will learn that the job, created by genius for genius, is not for him. If he forces his way into it—by compulsion, collectivism, and destruction of the genius—he will merely destroy the job—and himself.
It’s logical that the parasite’s most frequent and strongest emotion is envy: Envy of ability, of achievement, of virtue, of happiness. This why he will hate any success and relish every failure.
This is why he will surround himself with mediocrities, with his inferiors (and boy! how low he has to go in order to find inferiors!).
Since emotions come from reason, from the premises one has accepted, the premise of second-handedness can produce only the most second-hand of all emotions: envy.
1946 Journals: characters needed: The man corroded by envy of genius—the best must be destroyed for the sake of the worst. This is the monstrous kind of second-hander’s selfishness—the primary consideration here being in the others and in measuring one’s value by comparison. He considers his own talent worthless, because the talent of the genius is greater—therefore, to be best, he must destroy the genius; his standard of perfection is not absolute, but relative, he wants to do, not the best possible, but the best others will see. This man against Galt in the final climax is a good possibility. His most revealing line: “The genius destroys the individuality of the lesser men.” (?!) (But the god-damn “lesser men” feed on the genius—and that’s why they hate him. This is the fable of the pig and the oak tree.) {In the fable, the pig uproots the oak tree to get the acorns, thus destroying his source of food.]
(new slide): Parasite: James Taggart:
He tries to make his able employees feel that they are
dependent upon him, that he does them a favor by giving them a job. . . .
he encourages the
incompetent ones; he is “a friend of the workers” and yelps a lot about “team
work.” He tries to crush the individual—and fawns over the collective.
He tries “to keep in his place” any man on whom he knows himself to be dependent. [Scene with Eddie Willers –“know who is president”]
This is the man who has a direct interest in the destruction of genius—steal their achievements, take the credit for his own two cents’ worth of “improvement,” and destroy them, so nobody can challenge you. And then look for another victim.
In movie scene – crash
on the Rio Norte Line, serving
James is not concerned with the problem—the crash, but with others’ perceptions of him and his position in the company, and what others think about the metal.
Dagny is focused on
the problem and uses her independent judgment for solving it. She has a fundamental
commitment to rationality and the perception of reality. “I studied
Engineering; when I see things, I see them.” She does rely on information
from others, but understands why the tests were valid.
James: “I’m not taking
responsibility.”
Dagny: “That’s OK,
Jim, I will.”
(new slide): He takes
full credit for making all the changes in the Mexican line right before the
nationalization of the railroad. He
saved TT, he tells the Board.
He forces a competing,
rising new railroad company out of business through political means; Unions
with their rules and quotas of admission, to keep their profession limited; he is forever running to
He sneers and makes disparaging remarks whenever anyone is praised in his presence; his envy—of everything and everyone—is constant and motivates most of his actions; he loves to talk about and gloat over any misfortune; he hates Dagny and needs her.
Somebody suggests lunch cars on trains and there are gadgets to make this feasible—James declares that there’s no reason to give passengers quick lunches—that they’ll ride on floors in boxcars if necessary, why should he give them lunches? The gadget and the unborn industry are killed. [This may not be example AR used in novel.]
He discontinues the TT research laboratory: “Why look for the new when everybody hasn’t got everything of the old? Let’s stop progress until everybody is equal, then we will all go forward together slowly.”
He tries to have the whole economy frozen and stopped, so that he will have “security”—a set market, a set amount of traffic, etc. “How can I do anything when things change all the time?”
(new slide): Dagny
& James
By accepting James’ decisions, which Dagny knows to be wrong (she things, for the sake of the railroad—and hoping to counteract their bad effects), then by helping him to carry out bad ideas well (such as efficiently delivering the “soybean freight,” when it should never have been attempted at all),
she only helps him to run the railroad badly and thus contradicts and defeats her own purpose, which is to run it well.
She postpones the
natural consequences of his bad decisions, leaving him free to do more damage .
. .
A bad thing done well is more dangerous and disastrous than a bad thing
done badly.
(new slide): Dr. Stadler, the professor and physicist—
who wants unearned
material wealth for his laboratory; who fools himself and others into believing
that he works “for the common good,”
and who supports and
makes possible all the brutal police methods of the parasites’ government. He
invents a deadly weapon—and is violently destroyed by the very machinery and
the very principles he has created.
In the name of his
institute, Rearden Medal is condemned as unsafe and dangerous. He does nothing
to stop this unfounded scientific judgment, which is not his own.
He was passionately
devoted to his work, understood nothing about men, principles or the world.
He drowned himself in
his work and shut out his uneasiness about the world—to the growing surrender
to the parasites’ authority (spiritually and in his work). He claimed that
“science belongs to the people,” that he can do so much for mankind if he gets
his laboratory.
AR shows the gradual
disintegration of his conscience and of the direction of his work in the course
of one collectivist compromise after another. [Today’s analogy – global warming
“scientists.”]
(new slide): The worst victim: the industrialist (probably
steel): self-made, extremely active, extremely generous, extremely naïve. [Hank
Rearden]
His wife: a decadent society bitch—neither too beautiful, nor too
rich, nor too well-born, but some of all of it. She does not need his prestige
or money—her sole aim in life is to keep him down spiritually, to snub and
ridicule him, destroy his every personal aspiration, humble him so that she may
feel her own personal superiority through the sense of crushing a giant.
His brother: a swindling [failure] who is “ashamed of his brother”
and drools that he has no chance because his brother “crushes him. A socialist.
His mother: an empty old bag who will never let go of the pretense
that her son “owes everything to his mother”—who much prefers her younger son,
a worthless failure—and who makes the industrialist’s life miserable by
constant demands that he “make up to his brother” for his own success.
He works
enthusiastically—then feels guilty about it; he attempts to make up in the
altruistic sense; he gives in to every accusation of his family.
He loves Dagny and
considers this his sin, his guilty passion—while his forced love for his wife
he thinks to be virtuous, pure, idealistic
He has a slow awakening to the truth—his understanding of the parasites (his family) and their motives; his understanding of his own value and that his sins had been virtues; his realization that his love for Dagny was his best emotion.
(new slide): Now what
is the exact pattern of the parasite’s actions in exploiting the genius?
The simplest: kill
him and seize his goods; but then he himself will starve when he’s consumed the
food/goods and can’t produce any more.
Or, he can try to
enslave the genius and make him work, taking as much of the genius’ production
as he can get away with. The last is the basic pattern of what has been done to
the genius throughout history.
But the genius
doesn’t work under compulsion; the nature of his genius is the independence of
his mind, so the necessary condition for the exercise of his genius is
destroyed when he is enslaved. But he is crippled, hobbled, tied, held back
constantly by the encroachments and restrictions of the parasites who get their
unearned sustenance from him.
** How do the parasites do it and what is their long-range policy? They do it by two means: through actual force—this is political power, the regulated society, collectivism; and by spiritual poisoning—this is the philosophical means to disarm and enslave the genius from within, the corruption by the parasite’s morality of altruism. (Galt leads the revolt against both.)
(new slide): As
parasites,
they have no
long-range policy. Long-range planning belongs to the producer.
The parasite acts on
the psychology of the animal or the savage: grab the kill or the bananas of the
moment and
don’t worry about
tomorrow; tomorrow you will start looking for another victim. The parasites
will not face the fact that they are destroying their own providers, their own
means of survival. If they think anything at all on the subject . . . there
will always be some genius around, we can milk one of them dry, destroy him,
and then pick on the next one. . .
It’s only a question
of how much we can get away with. And this has always been true: the geniuses
did come along and the parasites got away with as much as the traffic on any
particular time would bear.
They refuse to
recognize the producer’s rights—but they want him to recognize and accept their
right to exploit him. They act on the premise of exploiting the better man—yet
refuse to admit that he is better. [Obama’s “you didn’t build that” disclosure]
How does the parasite
escape facing the implication that somebody else produces the wealth he wants
to expropriate? He never quite escapes it. Hence, the undefined, untenable
theories (they are really shouted slogans, not theories)
about wealth being a matter of natural resources (forgetting who and what made resources out of matter that was useless per se), about wealth and success being just a matter of luck, and all the variations of determinism. (Under determinism, nothing has to be explained too clearly---nothing can be changed, it works that way because it has to work that way, so it’s quite all right—to be parasitic.)
(new slide): Why do
they get away with it?
The parasite could
exist only so long as he had the creators to lean on, to be fed by, to exploit;
in this sense, the creators were responsible for him—by permitting him to do
it.
The position of any
parasite—the exploitation made possible only by the generosity of the creator. This
is what John Galt wants the creators to understand and to stop.
Now—what happens in a world where there is nothing but parasites
left? – in a world run by parasites? – left to their own devices and methods?
This is the rule of
the brute—the economics of gangsters, the mixture of production and guns, the
“expediency of the moment,” the plain, crude attempt to seize whatever’s still
available, with no pretense of any plan or thought of the future.
The revolting obscenity of acting on the cult of need, of taking need as claim and motive. [“Their Brothers’ Keepers” chapter]
(new slide): WSJ Jan.
2009:
Atlas Shrugged: From
Fiction to Fact in 52 Years
(Stephen Moore, Sr. economics writer)
[
If “Atlas” were
required reading – congress & Obama political appointees—we’d get out of
financial mess a lot faster
each successive
bailout plan & economic-stimulus scheme—current politicians committing very
acts of economic lunacy that “Atlas” parodied in 1957
Moral of story:
“Politicians invariably respond to crises—that in most cases they themselves
created—by spawning new gov’t programs, laws and regulations. These, in turn,
generate more havoc and poverty, which inspires the politicians to create more
programs . . . and the downward spiral repeats itself until the productive
sectors of the economy collapse under the collective weight of taxes and other
burdens imposed in the name of fairness, equality and do-goodism.”
Wealth redistributionists & their programs disparaged by
Every new act of gov’t carries with it a benevolent-sounding title: The Anti-Greed Act (Obama’s “fair share” tax increases); Equalization of Opportunity Act to prevent people from starting more than one business. (Obama’s Solyndra and other subsidizing of private businesses); Anti Dog-Eat-Dog Act – to restrict cut-throat competition. [Directive 10-289, the “freeze” applied because the parasites cannot find people to take positions of responsibility—because of the “double-cross” when two people were blamed for the tunnel catastrophe and convicted of manslaughter.]
Sounds comical? More
than actual events in
The more incompetent
you are, the more handouts: $2 trillion to keep afloat distressed insurance
companies, banks, Wall Street investment houses, and auto companies – with many
more industries standing in line for their share of the booty.
As “Atlas” foretold,
we now treat the incompetent who wreck their companies as victims, while those
resourceful business owners who manage to make a profit are portrayed as
recipients of illegitimate “windfalls.”
(new slide): Dagny
Taggart is continuously badgered, cajoled, taxed, ruled and regulated—always in
the public interest—into bankruptcy. Sound far-fetched? When
Critics of “Atlas” dismiss it as simple-minded, lacking in
compassion. One warning resounds
throughout the book: When profits and wealth and creativity are denigrated in
society, they start to disappear—leaving everyone the poorer.
In one respect, we
did not need anyone to make a movie about “Atlas” – we are living it right now.
AR: [Fannie
Mae/Freddie Mac comparison] For the banker (Mulligan?): he quit because of the
squeeze; he was ordered (by law) to give unsound credit to some group of the
needy (investment as charity, not on the ground of production, but on the
ground of need)—and then he would be
blamed as a vicious capitalist for the collapse of the bank, for the wiping out
of the savings of “the little people, widows and orphans, etc.”
(new slide): AS – first work of fiction to celebrate
the businessman, the producer?
Not pro-business per
se; plenty of villains in this novel are businessmen
AR: Blast the fool
idea that material production is some sort of low activity, the result of a
base “materialistic” impulse—as opposed to the “spiritual realm” (whatever they
think that is), which consists of
some sort of vague, passive contemplation of something or other.
Show that material
production is the result of and comes from the highest and noblest aspect of
man, from his creative mind, from his independent rational judgment—which is
his highest attribute and the sole base of his morality. To exercise one’s own
independent rational judgment is the essence of man’s morality, his highest
action, his sole moral commandment that embraces all his virtues. Material
production comes from that.
The material is only the expression of the spiritual; it can be neither created nor used without the spiritual (thought);
it has no meaning without the spiritual; it is only the means to a spiritual end—and, therefore, any new achievement in the realm of material production is an act of high spirituality, a great triumph and expression of man’s spirit. Show that those who despise “the material” are those who despise man and whose basic premises are aimed at man’s destruction.
(new slide): Go to the
roots of the whole vicious error, blast
the separation of man into “body” and “soul,” the opposition of “matter” and
“spirit.”
Man is an indivisible
entity, possessing both elements—but not to be split into them, since they can
be considered separately only for purposes of discussion, not in actual fact.
In actual fact, man is
an indivisible, integrated entity—and his place is here, on earth. His “spirit”
is his mind—his control over the earth.
(new slide): Movie
scene Rights to Rearden Metal:
Dr. Potter comes to
Rearden with a contract to purchase the rights of Rearden Metal. He is from the
State Science Institute, a political organ with an agenda.
They want to stop
producing the metal until the economy stabilizes. “We can’t allow one industry
to flourish so much, while others are failing. That is not a way to have a
balanced economy.”
Rearden: “Tell me if
the metal is good or not.” [But Rearden would never sell the rights.] Dr: “The
question is irrelevant. If no, it is a physical threat; if yes, it is a social
threat.
Why is it so important
for you to struggle for years for a relative small return versus the enormous
sum we are offering you to sell it?” Rearden: “Because it is MINE. Do you understand
that concept?”
Collectivists like Dr.
Potter sees the overall economy with various aspects simply as cogs in a wheel
that the government needs to control.
Rearden, as an
individual, knows that he has created
it, it is his, he is proud of it, wants
to sell it to whomever he wants, and to reap the rewards. Metal is not just
some stuff. What people produce is a
part of themselves (the material effect of their spiritual thought) – and,
because it is good.
When you hear politicians talking about managing health care or the economy—they are the Dr. Potters of our world.
(new slide): Crony
Capitalists are Villains
The villains are the
crony capitalists; those who gain by ‘pull,’ by gov’t favoritism; by immoral
practices (i.e., not by the Trader Principle)
Never mind the weak
little second-handers, of all degrees and variations, who coast on the thinking
of the few geniuses . . .
those who manage to
amass fortunes through the “human,” rather than the creative angle, through the
politician’s method of using and exploiting men,
not originating ideas. . . .
They are not the representatives of the essence of material production. They are not its sources. The genius is.
(new slide): Theme: The
collapse of a society run by parasites is analyzed into five stages,
what AR calls the
“Pattern of Disintegration.” Stage 1:
1. The miserable scrambling to evade personal decisions and personal responsibility: evasion, hoping that their inactivity will somehow eliminate the issue. The pointless stalling everywhere will be appalling.
(The theories about “nothing is absolute” are enormously popular.)
Opinion polls are used
as substitutes for judgment and as guides for action on all issues. [The
American People voted for this . . . ]
Worship of authority
[the ‘talking heads’ on political radio and TV]
Contradictions and
inconsistencies—in speeches, ideas, policies and actions—are unbelievable. When
this is applied to business matters—the disasters follow. Nothing and nobody is
reliable.
[Dec. 2012 Financial
Cliff; continual increase of debt limit; kicking can of social programs /
financial crises into the future]
(new slide): Stage 2,
Disintegration:
Parasites try to keep
their “prestige” and positions—but switch the work and actual responsibility to
someone else. The ‘lower’ parasite repeats this and passes the buck to another
parasite . . .
But there is now no
man to stop this chain—to take responsibility and action.
The pretense of an
explanation is only a routine remembered from the world of the creators,
performed but no longer understood or taken seriously. [Bengazzi (sp?) disaster
– killing of U.S. Ambassador and three other Americans.]
This is one example of the sickening way in which remnants of a rational world still persist in this insane asylum.
(new slide): Stage 3,
Disintegration:
Nobody wants a
position of responsibility any longer. It has now become dangerous to be
important.
The big-shot
figureheads are beginning to be blamed for the accelerating failures and
disasters—The big shots collectively.
[Fat-cat Bankers and Wall Street Brokers. The Rich – never pay their “fair
share”]
The performance of the
“authorities” and celebrities begins to be grotesquely ludicrous during this
period.
People who stumble
into the class of celebrity instantly becomes an “authority.” No one questions what is said or why the
celebrity became a celebrity, or whether there is any reason to respect his
opinion. [Michael Moore]
[Nature of Mitt
Romney’s defeat in 2012 election, and nature of that defeat: what honorable man would want that job?]
(new slide): Stage 4,
Disintegration:
The hysterical
compromise, in a growing panic:
the parasite wants creators without having to call them creators or give them the conditions they require in order to function. He wants creators as tools—a contradiction in terms.
He attempts to develop experts and leaders, but to keep them in check, safely harnessed. He wants these alleged creators to function, yet “be kept in their place.”
Those who swim to the
top now, those boosted into leadership, are the criminal element—the real
gangster type. These new figures are the reemergence of the savage; they have
no scruples, principles, or anti-individualist complex—they don’t mind carrying
out the orders of the parasite and they don’t care about his reasons or motives
–
they are there to loot—the exponents of man without a mind, trying to exist through naked brute force. Their relation to the parasite, who is their official boss and who is now mere window dressing in public top positions of alleged authority, is that of G.P.U. agents to Communist Party theoreticians—both know who is doing whose dirty work and who is the real boss.
(new slide): Stage 4,
Disintegration (continued):
Directive No.
289—“Moratorium on Brains” chapter:
Everybody is attached
to their jobs—cannot quit or be fired.
(Freedom from worry.)
The industrialists are
forbidden to quit—if they do, their property will be nationalized. (Freedom
from risk.)
No more inventions and
new products for the duration of the emergency.
(Freedom from speculation.)
All patents and
copyrights are taken over—to be used equally by everybody “for the public
good.” . . . to be signed over to the nation “voluntarily” as a patriotic
emergency gift. (Freedom from greed)
everybody is to
produce the same amount as in the “basic year”—no more and no less. (Freedom
from exploitation.)
Everybody has to spend
as much as they did in the “basic year.” (Freedom from privation.)
All wages, prices, dividends and interest rates are frozen as in the “basic year.” (Freedom from future.)
(new slide): Stage 5,
Disintegration:
The final stage is the
abject surrender to the creators—without an honest admission or realization of
it.
The surrender is in
the attempts to find Galt, to beg him for help, then to torture him, with pain
as sole impetus and motivation.
This is the climax,
the parasite showing his trump card—this
is the symbol of what he has considered as the source of his right to loot,
exploit, rule and devastate the world all these centuries—this is his badge, his banner, his essence: torture.
Since the theme is, in
a basic way, that the material comes from the spiritual and the collectivists
cannot even feed themselves without the mind.
Under a collectivist system, the basic principle is suffering and incompetence. A worker works to contribute something to the collective—not for his own profit, reward, or satisfaction. His boss is not supposed to make a profit. The customer is not supposed to be the man who has earned the price of the product, but just someone who needs it. The purpose of the whole society is to work for and be inspired by the incompetent and the disabled.
(new slide):
Collectivism (all variants)
Also, every man in such a society is a beggar, whether he earns or doesn’t earn his “share.” A worker simply gives his effort—as alms to society. Whatever he gets in return is alms given to him by society (by other workers), since he has no claim or right to a reward; he does not sell his product (or work), he gives it. It is not even supposed to be his to give; he has no property rights to his product or to himself.
From each according
to his ability, to each according to his need.
A system which penalizes honesty and rewards dishonesty is vicious. This is what happens in the “needs” society. If an honest man, trying to be an altruist-collectivist, will have to minimize his needs, and thus be penalized, i.e., get less value; whereas a dishonest man will exaggerate his needs in every way he can, demand as much as possible from society and thus be rewarded . . .
The better you observe this moral code, the more you suffer; the greater your break of the code, the more you are rewarded.
If the person himself is not allowed to present his demands and define his own needs—who does it? the vote of the collective? By what standard does the collective then decide and define it?
Old worker at the 20th Century Motor Co. tells Dagny about the terrible state of working in the “needs” system—
when you hate your own effort, when you lose your self-respect by the constant pressure of the incentive to do less and less, the incentive not to do your best.
You begin to hate all your brothers because you worry which one of them is going to develop new needs that will become your responsibility, your burden.
You begin to meddle
into their private lives, because if they break a leg it’s you who’ll suffer,
who’ll have to work and pay for it; if they produce more babies, it’s you
who’ll have to carry the burden. etc.
If a man has to work, not for his own pleasure, but for the pleasure of others, then others have to take care of him, of providing his pleasure.
(new slide): “Money is
the root of all good”
d’Anconia’s speech at
James Taggart’s wedding in response to claim: Money is the root of all evil”
•
ever asked what
is the root of money? – deal by trade (value for value); need able men to
produce; evil?
• claim money made by strong at expense of weak? Wealth is product of man’s capacity to think (not by guns, muscles)
– money is made before it can be looted
– Money demands recognition: men must work for own benefit
•
Only a tool to
take you wherever you wish; will not provide you with the desires and values
– will not purchase happiness for one who does not know what he wants
•
A living power
that dies without its root
– if you get it by fraud or doing work you despise: can’t enjoy it
•
To love
money is to know it is creation of best within you—your passkey to trade your
effort for others’ best effort
(new slide): Money is
the root of all good, continued
•
Men who
apologize for being rich—will not remain rich
– natural bait for looters who come crawling
out from the rocks at first smell of man who begs to be forgiven for guilt of making
wealth
– they will hasten to relieve him of the
guilt (and his life energy)
•
Then you will
see the rise of double standard—those who live by force, yet count on those who
live by trade & create value
– When a society establishes
criminals-by-right and looters-by-law
– their loot becomes magnet for other
looters—rat race goes not to ablest at production, but to those most ruthless
at brutality
•
Money is the
barometer of a society’s virtue [our debt clock]
– your society is doomed—a sure sign that the
society is evil--- when you see money flowing to those who deal, not in goods,
but in favors; when men get richer by graft and by pull than by work, and your
laws don’t protect you against them, but protect them against you.
– Money is so noble a medium—it does not compete with guns—it will not permit a country to survive as half-property, half-loot
(new slide): Money is
the root of all good, continued
•
Whenever
destroyers appear— start by destroying money
– [no more gold standard; printing more money; arbitrary setting of values, interest rates, other such controls]
•
To glory of
mankind, first time in history, a country of money
– country of reason, justice, freedom, production, achievement
– first time: man and money were set free—no
fortunes-by conquest, only fortunes-by-work
– the highest type of human—the self-made man
•
proudest
distinction of Americans: people who created phrase
to make money
– the first to understand that wealth has to be created
– yet Americans denounced for these words by
the rotted cultures of the looters’ continents
– your greatest men, the industrialists, were denounced as blackguards
– your magnificent factories—seen as the labor of whip-driven slaves
– they do not know difference between power
of dollar versus the whip
(New Slide): Money is
root of all good, continued
Throughout history, money was made by the producers and seized by the looters. Men have continued, in every different form, to exploit and despise the producers and exalt the looters. Now the one country of money is proclaiming the looter’s standards: its men of honor are the looter, the moocher and the beggar. Unless and until it accepts money as its highest, noblest standard—it is doomed to the destruction nit is asking for and deserves.
The apologizing rich won’t stay rich for long. The free enterprise system—the system based on the morality of the producers—is now being destroyed because the producers have never identified their proper morality. The present struggle is a conspiracy against the mind, a conspiracy against ability.
They [looters] want Rearden’s admission that the “planning” and the controls are good, but that he selfishly ignored them. They want him to apologize for his action. He doesn’t. They wanted an industrialist’s endorsement of the public value of controls. They wanted it to be a debate over the “public good.” If he had done so, even though nobody would believe it, they would have had the moral sanction.
Hank to Dagny: “Ask
yourself why plain highwaymen and robbers have never been a grave problem to
mankind, but legal looters have made the whole of human history into a tragedy
and a procession of horrors.”
(new slide): Celebrating
the creator – pyramid of values
The actual form of
relationship between men is as follows: in an exchange between two men of equal
ability (two creators), the exchange is even;
in an exchange
between a man of greater ability and a man of lesser ability (a creator and an
average man), the lesser one actually receives much more than he gives—
and it’s all right if
he leaves the creator alone; the creator doesn’t rob or sacrifice himself, it’s
only that his ability and his contribution are so great.
Example: a good able engineer earns the salary which the head of the railroad pays him; it’s not charity, it’s his, he’s earned it, he’s produced its equivalent in value. But he has earned it because the genius who runs the railroad has created an industry in which the engineer’s native ability can earn much more than it could on its own. . . .
When the head of a company is not a genius, but inferior to his employees, something else happens . . .
(new slide): Celebrating
the creator – pyramid of values, continued
A great, cooperative
enterprise of many men is like a pyramid, with the single best brain on top,
and then at lower levels the ability required is less and the number of men in
that category is greater.
Even though each man,
assuming all work to the best of their ability, earns his living by his own
effort and his wages represent his own, legitimate contribution—
each has the
advantage of all the strata above him, which contribute to the productive
capacity of his own energy and raise that capacity (without diminishing their
own); each man of lesser ability receives something extra from the men of
greater ability above him;
while the man at the
top (the genius, the originator, the creator) receives nothing extra [extra
from that which he earns for his
efforts] from all those under him, yet contributes to the whole pyramid (by the
nature of his work).
Now this is the creative over-abundance of
the genius, this is the pattern of how he carries mankind, properly and without
self-sacrifice, when left free to assume his natural course and function.
(new slide): Celebrating
the creator – pyramid of values, continued
In economics, the
realm of material exchange, collectivists demand that a man give his idea as well as its physical
consequences or manifestations, keeping none of it for himself.
He can’t get any
spiritual payment for his creation—and he is expected to renounce even the
physical payment.
The physical objects
of exchange among men come from someone’s ideas, but all men are expected to
share in them equally—which implies a complete denial of the source of physical
wealth and of the rights of its creators.
The creators, then,
keep the others going for nothing—receiving neither spiritual nor physical
reward. And the parasites get the material benefits for nothing, for the mere
fact of being parasites—and enslave the creator, besides.
But in a society of free exchange, the creator gets his fair material reward (by voluntary exchange)—and the rest of mankind gets his idea as a priceless gift.
The spiritual (the realm of consciousness) is the completely individual—indivisible and unsharable. (I do not divide my book among many men, nor do I give it to all men as a collective, to enjoy together, collectively. It is one single book, and it is given individually to single men—those who want it or can get anything out of it.) The spiritual can be given indefinitely, without diminishing the creator’s wealth, because its value depends upon each individual recipient, his spirit, and what his spirit can do with the idea. This is individualism again.
(new slide): Celebrating
the creator – pyramid of values, continued
I receive all the great inventions, great thinking, great art of the past. [If I create a new idea or invention] I do not give anything to the actual source of the gifts I received—to the great creators of the past, each as an individual. I pay the debt to mankind? . . . “Mankind” as a species is only an abstraction.
Since the material
proceeds from the spiritual, production from ideas, men must conduct their
material existence and their productive activities according to the principles
of their source—
the principles of the
spiritual realm, of man’s free, rational thinking.
To preserve the
effect, one must preserve the cause; to have a river, one must keep free and
open the “fountainhead,” the source which produces the water.
[i.e., capitalism
based on free voluntary exchange]
[Trader Principle]:
Cooperation is possible only among independent men, by free, voluntary,
rational agreement to mutual advantage, each being concerned primarily with his
own personal benefit, and being concerned with the benefit of the other
only to the extent of not making himself a parasite, not getting something from
the other for which he gives nothing in return.
(new slide): Political
novel with widest scope
within a total system
of philosophy: Objectivism
e.g., Consciousness as Spirit:
It is possible that
there was a sharp break, that the rational faculty was like a spark, added to
the animal who was ready for it—and this would be actually like a soul entering
a body.
Or it might be that
there is a metaphysical mistake in considering animals as pure matter. There
is, scientifically, a most profound break between the living and the
non-living. Now life may be the
spirit; the animals may the forms of spirit and matter, in which matter
predominates; man may be the highest form, the crown and final goal of the
universe, the form of spirit and matter in which the spirit predominates and
triumphs.
If it is now added
that the next step is pure spirit—I would ask, why?
Pure spirit, with no
connection to matter, is inconceivable to our consciousness; and what, then, is
the sense, purpose or function of matter?
That division into spirit and matter as antagonists or opposites, that idea of “setting man free from natter,” in untenable, irrational, and vicious (and has led only to man’s agony on earth, to rejection of his joy in living—the highest expression of his spirit).
(new slide):
Consciousness as Spirit
The unity of spirit
and matter seems unbreakable; the pattern of the universe, then, would be:
matter, as the tool of the spirit, the spirit giving meaning and purpose to
matter.
Also to be noted here:
the spiritual is the totally individual, since it is a consciousness and a consciousness is an “I.” (Whether it’s God,
man or an animal, a universal consciousness or the faintest flicker or it—it’s
an indivisible “I.”
This is why the
Oriental idea of consciousness dissolving into an impersonal universal spirit is nonsense, irrational, and a
contradiction in terms. Once the indivisible unity, integrity, continuity of an “I” is broken, there’s no
consciousness” to speak about.)
Men’s intellectual
capacities have always been so unequal that to the thinkers the majority of
their brothers have probably always seemed sub-human. And some men may still
be, for all the evidence of rationality, or lack of it, that they give. We may
still be in evolution, as a species, and living side by side with some “missing
links.” J
(new slide): Notes for
Tunnel Catastrophe
The disaster is made
possible by the illusion of the old morality, on which people rely, even though
it is not there any longer, they count on it after they have destroyed it. The
old morality, which created discipline and confidence among the employees of a
railroad,
was the principle of rationality and of self-interest based on reason and rights: and that objective truth was the criterion and standard of justice.
every man knew that
the purpose of the railroad and of everyone connected with it was to run trains
well, that this was in their common interest, that every man could expect a
good performance from every other man
If anyone tried to be
a vicious exception and to pass the buck, he would be exposed and penalized,
because the principle of objective truth was the standard, and the objective
fate of the railroad enforced this standard upon the owners. . . . and the
passengers do not even imagine that the railroad employees can have any motive
other than to move them safely; they take this motive and safety for granted.
(new slide): Notes for
Tunnel Catastrophe
But now, the purpose of the railroad is not the objective success of an
objective performance—as it is not the purpose of the whole society and of its
present economic system.
Now, one lives, not by the objective result of one’s effort, but by
means of and at the expense of other men.
Therefore, every man
on the railroad has only one interest: to gain an advantage over others, to
protect the appearance of his
performance in the eyes of authority, to be judged
right, not to be right. Therefore, every man has to fear and distrust all the
others. Their interests now clash.
This is how,
functioning on the dead hulk of a morality which they have destroyed, counting
upon it when they have made it impossible, men come to the spectacle of a great
physical machinery (the railroad)—built for safety on the basis of a moral
principle (individualism)—becoming the tool of a dreadful destruction, instead.
This is what the material shell will do, when its soul has been destroyed. This is all the good that the seizure of material wealth, without the mind, will do for the looters.
(new slide/ last slide):
What Galt Represents to Others
|
Dagny |
Rearden |
Francisco |
|
Danneskjöld |
|
|
|
|
|
the professor |
(misc excerpts):
Have characters (or incidents or both) dramatize a world in which: the best has been turned into a source of evil (Danneskjöld); competence is the source of failure; life energy is the source of destruction (Francisco d’Anconia); the capacity for joy is the source of the most terrible suffering (the composer; the industrialist).
The pattern is this: when men refuse to live according to the
principles of the good, the principles proper to them [rationality], the best
among them are forced to turn against them, to become a danger, an enemy, a
source of evil to them. (Because the good
has been declared to be the evil.) In
a proper society, Danneskjöld would have been a
*** p. 622-23 – List of sayings by The passengers “who weren’t guilty”
Journals of Ayn Rand, Ed. David Harriman, Penguin
Group,
Stephen Moore, Wall Street Journal, Atlas Shrugged: From Fiction to Fact in 52 Years, Jan. 2009
Wright Brothers: [http://garypalamara.com/Articles_USAFM%20Wright%2002.htm] In October 1942, after lengthy discussions, the Smithsonian finally came to an agreement with Orville Wright over the display of the 1903 flyer. Dr. Charles G. Abbott, then Director of the Smithsonian Institute, issued a multi page statement, outlining the past transgressions of the Smithsonian and its directors. In part Dr. Abbott wrote:
“It is everywhere acknowledged that the Wright
brothers were the first to make sustained flights in a heavier-that-air machine
at
[salem-news.com – Feb., 2012] In 2011 all English editions of “Atlas Shrugged” sold 445,000 copies.
“This is incredible,” says Dr. Yaron Brook, executive director of the Ayn Rand Institute. “Since Obama was elected, ‘Atlas Shrugged’ has sold more than 1.5 million copies. This is unheard of in the publishing industry, for a 55-year-old novel to register sales of this magnitude. And what’s even more remarkable is that this is even more than the book sold in 1957 . . . when it was a best seller!”
In addition, Penguin’s new “Atlas Shrugged” iPad app recently won the Publishing Innovation Award for best
app in the fiction category.
(Wikipedia) According
to a 1991 survey done for the Library of Congress and the Book of the Month Club, Atlas Shrugged
was situated [as number 2] between the Bible and M.
Scott Peck's The Road Less Traveled as the book that made the
most difference in the lives of 5,000 Book-of-the-Month club members surveyed,
with a "large gap existing between the #1 book [Bible] and the rest of the
list".[52]
(link): http://www.englishcompanion.com/Readings/booklists/loclist.html
Modern
Library's 1998 nonscientific online poll
of the 100 best novels of the 20th century[53][54] found Atlas rated #1
although it was not included on the list chosen by the Modern Library board of
authors and scholars (following link): http://www.modernlibrary.com/top-100/100-best-novels/