Ever read Atlas shrugged?

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  • mmpsteve

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    Yes. That's the kind of cronyism we've always had. Not exactly hard to predict. Where's the canceling of ordinary people?

    I believe the implied threat of the death-ray device at the end was pretty much meant to cancel dissent from the ordinary people.

    I'm sure there are other instances in the book also, but we'll have to think about that. It's been over a decade since I read it last.

    .
     

    jamil

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    My employer is heavily invested in it. When I heard them talk about it I was like, WTF? When I read what it was all about I wished I hadn’t.
     

    Twangbanger

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    'Kut-styled'. :rolleyes: Well that doesn't make me very confident that it's possible to have a good faith conversation with you. But here's trying.

    We write what we write and what gets posted doesn't always reflect everything we have in mind. After re-reading, I can see your point. I assume you're talking about the following (I can't see the bold text on my mac or iPhone. It's all bold)

    "Yes, there is too much regulation, but what makes it exceptionally bad is that the regulation the government levies on everyone isn't fairly apportioned. It picks winners and losers based on which will best keep them in power: cronyism. We'll just say that makes some companies are more equal than other companies, which wasn't really addressed in Atlas Shrugged."

    The "Standard Oil" American style cronyism isn't what I had in mind. The thing that makes me think today's dystopia is quite different from Rand's narrative is that this one isn't like the traditional thinking of big corporate cronyism of the industrial age. It's not just government picking winners and losers.

    This dystopia, the one that's forming, features the government using their crony relationship with big corporations to bypass the constitution and enforce their policies through canceling people, de-platforming, de-banking. I don't recall Atlas Shrugged featuring this. Back when I read it, what I envisioned was the "Standard Oil" kind of standard American cronyism that we've had from the beginning of the industrial age. 1984 predicts what's happening now better than Atlas Srugged.

    Or, Idunno. Maybe I missed the prediction of cancel culture, corporations enforcing infringements of speech at the government's behest, through whatever was neither quite fog or clouds in sloppy wads.
    The Kut comment was in reference to his tendency to rhetorically "walk all the way around the block," to avoid walking 3 feet to admit that he simply mis-stated something. You said a book didn't address cronyism, and I simply pointed out that it did. It's ok. You're not going to die from it. And you responded by heading around the block and into the bushes about how, well, it didn't predict precisely the type of cronyism _I'm_ talking about, & etc., & etc. :rolleyes:

    The "canceling" type of cronyism is an unfortunate development where I (going out on a limb here), like you, would probably say that Ayn Rand was wrong in her assessment that "no private action is censorship." Because in things like the Bantam books case back in the 60s, the SC basically stated that an act can be censorship, even when the actual removal of the offending material is carried out by a private entity (publishers). And I agree with that, and hope that the current SC will take this precedent up on modern instances of canceling, once the proper suits are in place and make their way up.

    But to say that Atlas Shrugged "failed to address Cronyism" is just incorrect, and even when you explain your comments as only applying within the context of the modern concept of "private canceling," I think it's still pretty weak. Ms. Rand is clearly on record in stating that she considers "censorship" to only pertain to explicitly governmental action. You or I may not agree with her philosophy on that, but she's at least being consistent. She fundamentally did not consider private action to be censorship, because her beliefs were that she felt we're all free to dis-associate with commie businesses and not deal with them. That philosophy may be wrong, and I certainly believe we've reached the limits of that being a useful philosophy, today. But to say a book "failed to address cronyism" because it didn't foretell the invention of new "problems" which her philosophy didn't consider a "problem" in the first place, is simply not correct. It's not a problem with her book. It's a problem with her philosophy, overall.

    You're doing the mirror image of what the A/R fan-bois are doing. They like her book because it agrees with their philosophy. On this point, you're criticizing it because it doesn't align with yours.
     

    jamil

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    The Kut comment was in reference to his tendency to rhetorically "walk all the way around the block," to avoid walking 3 feet to admit that he simply mis-stated something. You said a book didn't address cronyism, and I simply pointed out that it did. It's ok. You're not going to die from it. And you responded by heading around the block and into the bushes about how, well, it didn't predict precisely the type of cronyism _I'm_ talking about, & etc., & etc. :rolleyes:
    No dancing around anything. It was claimed that it was "genius of foretelling exactly what's going on in our country right now." No it isn't. I know the story contains cronyism. That's not a foretelling, it's American History. My post was about how today is too different from the narrative of Atlas Shrugged that anyone should consider it a foretelling. There are similarities. I'll give the fanbois that.



    But to say that Atlas Shrugged "failed to address Cronyism" is just incorrect, and even when you explain your comments as only applying within the context of the modern concept of "private canceling," I think it's still pretty weak.
    Is Atlas Shrugged really a "genius of foretelling exactly what's going on in our country right now?" No. It's not. It gets some things right. It gets a lot wrong if you're looking at it as a window from the past to the present. It's not a foretelling of the future. It's a fictional novel where she worked out her ideas about Objectivism. Judge it for what it is. The canceling of dissent is everything. It IS the prominent feature of this dystopia. Cronyism is in the book, and I think it's fair that I qualify it as nothing new enough to call it a foretelling. But I don't like that paragraph I wrote either. I think it's wrong as stated.

    You're doing the mirror image of what the A/R fan-bois are doing. They like her book because it agrees with their philosophy. On this point, you're criticizing it because it doesn't align with yours.

    ********. A mirror image would need to represent me as someone as devoid of any positives about the book as the fanbois are devoid of any negatives about the book. But, as I've said earlier in the thread, which I'm sure you read, my complaints about Atlas Shrugged aren't even about her ideology. I agree with most of what she says about it, but I have a serious problem with her belief about human nature. She got altruism wrong. She got self-interest mostly right.

    What else I've said about it is that my primary problem with it is that the writing is ****. And maybe people can like the message so much that they don't notice how ****** it is. Maybe they don't notice how many paragraphs she makes the reader endure, expounding on a ****ing cloud. My criticism isn't based on ideology. It's based on the story. And, she's not a god for **** sake.

    BTW, I do appreciate the sentiment expressing doubt about Objectivism's usefulness today. That ship has sailed. I think it's all but dead.
     

    BigRed

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    View attachment 175917


    Another thank you for bringing this up.....I am very much appreciating getting back into this read.
     

    BJHay

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    If you haven't read it be prepared, it is a dense ~900 page novel and some parts seem to drag on but the scenarios and characterizations are brilliant and even more so since many have come true. I think it took me two years (working parents and two young kids) but it was well worth the time.

    I leaned libertarian prior to reading it but that pushed me over the edge.
     

    jamil

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    If you haven't read it be prepared, it is a dense ~900 page novel and some parts seem to drag on but the scenarios and characterizations are brilliant and even more so since many have come true. I think it took me two years (working parents and two young kids) but it was well worth the time.

    I leaned libertarian prior to reading it but that pushed me over the edge.
    Eh, it's okay. You can recover. I did. :):
     

    jamil

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    "The code of competancy is the only system of morality that's on a gold standard."


    A far cry from where we are today.
    But that quote is nonsense.

    Spoiler alert:

    So I went back and read that passage and the context around it. I think what's meant about "code of competence" is the broader point made in that whole exchange earlier between Francisco and James, and later with Dagny. The conversation with James sets up that quote to Dagny. He told James, "So I want to be prepared to claim the greatest virtue of all—that I was a man who made money." Now people might criticize that as being petty, but I'll give Rand credit for using the words precisely, because she has Fransisco say as much. Okay, so it's not the money that's focal point. It's about making it. Not just getting it. Money is secondary to doing that which it took to earn it. And in my book that's a damn good principle on its own. But Rand explains further in Francisco's discussion with Dagny after James left which ****s that all up.

    "She heard him chuckling, and after a while he said, “Dagny, there’s nothing of any importance in life—except how well you do your work. Nothing. Only that. Whatever else you are, will come from that. It’s the only measure of human value. All the codes of ethics they’ll try to ram down your throat are just so much paper money put out by swindlers to fleece people of their virtues. The code of competence is the only system of morality that’s on a gold standard."

    Competence here, of course, means the dictionary definition. "code of competence" is is doing, not just your best, regardless of how good that really is, but being competent. Maybe, to be charitable to Rand, getting good at something. But also, that any other virtue comes from that. Rand sees that as the primary virtue. And we know it's Rand actually talking here because whenever one of the heros waxes philosophical, it's Rand talking through her all-vertuous characters. And whenever a concept she frowns upon, she has the "looters" say it. But I digress.

    So she really means competence. And she really means it as a guiding principle. But competence isn't a moral virtue. Some principles which are moral virtues can lead to competence. But it's still about ability. Ability comes from both nature and nurture. And ability is integral with competence. I know competent people who have poor work ethic. They excel at their jobs because they're really ****ing good at it, and because of just pure natural ability.

    ya, so that **** is...okay, I'll back down a little and qualify it as mostly nonsense. there's a bit of truth in it but only because part of what makes one competent is the real virtue here. And I'd have been fine with it if she'd have just said work ethic. But even that's not a virtue from which all others flow. I suppose if you need to make Rand correct, one might scrounge up some facile reasoning to support it. But I don't buy it.

    This post was extended for the benefit of BR.
     

    BigRed

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    But that quote is nonsense.

    Spoiler alert:

    So I went back and read that passage and the context around it. I think what's meant about "code of competence" is the broader point made in that whole exchange earlier between Francisco and James, and later with Dagny. The conversation with James sets up that quote to Dagny. He told James, "So I want to be prepared to claim the greatest virtue of all—that I was a man who made money." Now people might criticize that as being petty, but I'll give Rand credit for using the words precisely, because she has Fransisco say as much. Okay, so it's not the money that's focal point. It's about making it. Not just getting it. Money is secondary to doing that which it took to earn it. And in my book that's a damn good principle on its own. But Rand explains further in Francisco's discussion with Dagny after James left which ****s that all up.

    "She heard him chuckling, and after a while he said, “Dagny, there’s nothing of any importance in life—except how well you do your work. Nothing. Only that. Whatever else you are, will come from that. It’s the only measure of human value. All the codes of ethics they’ll try to ram down your throat are just so much paper money put out by swindlers to fleece people of their virtues. The code of competence is the only system of morality that’s on a gold standard."

    Competence here, of course, means the dictionary definition. "code of competence" is is doing, not just your best, regardless of how good that really is, but being competent. Maybe, to be charitable to Rand, getting good at something. But also, that any other virtue comes from that. Rand sees that as the primary virtue. And we know it's Rand actually talking here because whenever one of the heros waxes philosophical, it's Rand talking through her all-vertuous characters. And whenever a concept she frowns upon, she has the "looters" say it. But I digress.

    So she really means competence. And she really means it as a guiding principle. But competence isn't a moral virtue. Some principles which are moral virtues can lead to competence. But it's still about ability. Ability comes from both nature and nurture. And ability is integral with competence. I know competent people who have poor work ethic. They excel at their jobs because they're really ****ing good at it, and because of just pure natural ability.

    ya, so that **** is...okay, I'll back down a little and qualify it as mostly nonsense. there's a bit of truth in it but only because part of what makes one competent is the real virtue here. And I'd have been fine with it if she'd have just said work ethic. But even that's not a virtue from which all others flow. I suppose if you need to make Rand correct, one might scrounge up some facile reasoning to support it. But I don't buy it.

    This post was extended for the benefit of BR.


    "Why say something in 100 words that you can say in 1,000" is a trait you and Rand have in common!

    This will be a fun revisit!
     
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