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/lit/ - Literature

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4578919 No.4578919[DELETED]  [Reply] [Original]

What does /lit/ think of Atlas Shrugged?

>> No.4578930

long and boring and overly tendentious

>> No.4578933

Fucking retarded.

>> No.4578939

mad gay, do not read

>> No.4578936

Poorly written, and the ideology it proposes is trash.

>> No.4578941

>libertarianism

fuck off. Even /lit/ isnt that stupid to take it seriously

>> No.4578943

It claims that egotism, ethnocentrism, and psychosis are favorable to any other human condition, and that you are moral if you hold those values.
In other words, it's stupid drivel for greedy retards

>> No.4578947

>>4578939
how much homosex is in it?

>> No.4578949

Rand is an idiotic demagogue and her ideology is even more moronic than most.

>> No.4578955

Similar to 1984 and Brave New World, it describes exactly what not to do when running a society. The sad part is it was never intended to be satire.

>> No.4578957

when I see this book, all I remember is that Ayn Rand was on welfare and food stamps.

>> No.4578959

>>4578947
not enough

>> No.4578966

We should make a seal of official /lit/ approval for shitty threads like this.

>> No.4578970

My hobby: Slipping vouchers for free things into copies of Atas Shrugged

>> No.4578976

are we pol yet?

>> No.4578979

>I had a hard time with Ayn Rand because I found myself enthusiastically agreeing with the first 90% of every sentence, but getting lost at "therefore, be a huge asshole to everyone."
Randall Munroe

>> No.4578989

>>4578943
>psychosis are favorable
Where you high wen you read it?
Also /lit/ cant form an argument. Even /pol/ knows how to do that shit.

>> No.4578996

The samefag in this thread is too obvious. Every post is a minute apart from the previous and short one-liners. If this were any other board, it wouldnt be noticed.

>> No.4578997

more like four novels

>> No.4579000
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4579000

One of the greatest books i ever read and /lit/ can go fuck itself.

>> No.4579006

>>4578996
>that paranoia

>> No.4579007
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4579007

>>4578997
LOTR is a novel published as three books. this is not unheard of.

>> No.4579018

>>4579006

Its a valid observation. No thread in /lit/ gets this much traction so quickly. Not even in faster boards like /mu/ or /v/ does it happen in such square timing. Also, /lit/ is generally fond of Rand.

>> No.4579020

>>4579018
>Also, /lit/ is generally fond of Rand.

Loled

>> No.4579021

>>4578970
lol
mademegiggle

>> No.4579026

>>4579018
>Also, /lit/ is generally fond of Rand

U wot?

We have a specific rule banning the discussion of the book.

>> No.4579031

>>4579007
It's actually split in six books published as three

>> No.4579033

>>4579018
>Also, /lit/ is generally fond of Rand.

Haha, no. Even putting the idiotic politics aside, simply as a writer, she's terrible.

>> No.4579040

>>4578919
Not related but, jesus, that joke was so fuckin' predictable

>> No.4579056

>>4579026
No, we don't. We did used to, though.

But your point remains. /lit/ hates it.

>> No.4579072
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4579072

>>4579031
okay, okay.
one novel, three volumes, six 'books'.

>> No.4579082
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4579082

>>4579018
>Also, /lit/ is generally fond of Rand.

>> No.4579090

>>4578919
makes good points but somewhat extremist
that's all i have to say

>> No.4579094

>>4578959
>not enough
dropped

>> No.4579181
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4579181

>>4578955
this is a good comment

>> No.4579242

>>4579018
>Also, /lit/ is generally fond of Rand.
kekekekekek

>> No.4579244

>>4578941
Man, I'm a libertarian and I completely disown randroids and this abortion of a book/"philosophy".

>> No.4579248

it is a terrible novel

>> No.4579286

Why don't someone, that doesn't approve Rand and her philosophy, tell me what's wrong with them? Be very concise.

>> No.4579295
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4579295

>>4579018
>Also, /lit/ is generally fond of Rand.

>> No.4579407

>>4579244
Are you an actual libertarian or an amerifat libertarian?

>> No.4579547

>>4579244
>I'm a libertarian
at least you know why you're assumed to be an idiot.

>> No.4579560

LOTR is overrated as fuck, significantly more overrated than Atlas Shrugged, which is still overrated.
I fucking hate tolkien

>> No.4579570

>>4579286
Well, in my experience, the way that advocates of free-market economics reconcile themselves with humanitarianism is through the promotion of charitable giving. Ayn Rand opposes any sort of charity, instead pushing for rational self-interest. She promotes every hurtful quality of capitalism, in effect making her philosophy the evil version of conservative economics.

>> No.4579569

>>4579560

the edge is strong in this one

>> No.4579593

>>4579286
*won't/doesn't/can't (depending on your selected case), *who, *her espoused position

Because her philosophy is valid in and only in the context of her novels. When viewing her life in relation to her work, they're hyperthetical responses to her experience with communism and self-justifications of personal avarice borne from oppression rather than legitimate discussions. We don't like Rand because at the end of the day, she was a pulp fiction writer who exhibited a shockingly small amount of self-conscious reflection for what she was attempting to say, who self-aggrandized her fiction by masquerading it as a valid standpoint epistemology. She's a fine performance artist when it comes to providing slippery-slopes; she's a poor philosopher otherwise.

>> No.4579615

>>4578919
Who the fuck is John Rogers?

That's a silly quip, and when I hear it in my head it's said by a fiery gay man with braces.

So srsy, why do I see this quote all over the place as if it's clever?

>> No.4579653

>>4579286
She seems to presuppose that the best form of government is an objective-value based on where the sellers determine the value of their goods: caveat emptor!

But the fallacy also lies in how she assumes that this is remedied through the buyer's choice, as if they, who cannot know every single intricacy of industrial production or the intricate relationships of the production trees created therein. These are intricate relationships indeed. Not only this, but somehow she purports that the reason people are so corrupted is because of law in the first place when it was the law that created the system to begin with. Intellectual property, as she says, doesn't exist, yet she complains when someone takes from another person, which is exactly what stealing another's invention is. The machine which gave infinite energy is, simply put, an idea of innovation taken out of the market simply due to corruption of the market. All this corruption, which is currently battled today through litigious means, would have absolutely flourished under a completely free market much like the utopia at the end of her novel.

This is coming from a Marxist though, so everything I say that's wrong about her ideal society applies to capitalism in general.

>> No.4579696

>>4578919
>John Rogers
>"He wrote an early screenplay for Catwoman"

Pot meet Kettle

>> No.4580097

>>4579615
>That's a silly quip, and when I hear it in my head it's said by a fiery gay man with braces.

You certainly have weird tastes, anon.

>> No.4580223

>>4579615
*john galt

>> No.4580233
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4580233

>>4578955
>this also applies to The Prince

>> No.4580378

>>4578919
It's the unfocused essay that never ends.

>> No.4580437

Why does netflix perpetually try to make me watch the Atlas Shrugged movie? I get that they put the movie under science-fiction, but it ends up showing up under "imaginative" and "quirky" science fiction as well. I watched a few documentaries as well, so it sees that as the perfect opportunity to force a recommendation there under political dramas, along with thrillers, "emotional" dramas, and even independent movies.

>> No.4580455

>>4580233
Well the prince is both how and how not to run a principality.

Atlas Shrugged is just how not to.

>> No.4580472

>>4580233
The Prince is how society is run. Discourses on Livy integrates it for democratic use, they're totally compatible. They were really the ONLY way to run society until the Enlightenment, when as Foucault says, it became evident the overt power was being resisted too much, and so it started going underground. The key element of power today, is hiding it; people who are subjected to power they did not consent to, cannot resist where they cannot see its mechanisms, which makes it far more efficient.

>> No.4580489

>>4580472
I tend to disagree. I believe up until the fall of feudalism, the principalities' rulers had a certain kind of art to controlling the people. This was the 'magic era' that Machiavelli talks about with regards to controlling a society and it's people. The thing is, and why it is so applicable today, is that the means to control people didn't exist for the people whose positions were lower on the totem pole, so for the mass majority of the citizens (the plebeians), they had no knowledge of such control mechanisms. Now though, controlling people is the name of the game with capitalism. You see it right at it's worst here in the 21st century. People are gregarious and nasty, much like the upper noble classes of the feudalistic era. But now, Machiavellianism is best represented in a Bret Easton Ellis world, where everyone treats each other like complete shit and masculinity is still revered as the ultimate lovely trait, yet no one actually has it, just tries to emulate it.

Indeed, if Machiavelli knew capitalism was coming he could not have written a more perfect book about it, because 'how to control a principality' is essentially 'how to control capital'

>> No.4580496

>>4580472
>>4580489
That being said though, I didn't disagree with everything you said, just a minor concept.

>> No.4580510

>>4580496
I think you overestimate the people who control things. The mechanism has gotten so terrific that the idea of it being controlled by a contemporary equivalent of a Prince isn't likely. Yes, Machiavelli talks about how to cater to the aristocracy or set up one of your own, and that's roughly analogous the the bourgeoisie, but there is no longer any thing of man external from the mechanism who controls it, they are all a part of it.

>> No.4580535

>>4580510
>but there is no longer any thing of man external from the mechanism who controls it, they are all a part of it.
B-but that was the point I was trying to make. We are all our own princes at this popint.

Whether this is a good or bad thing is for you to judge.

>> No.4580560

>>4580535
I thought what he was trying to say is that our machine has escaped our grasp, and that no man is a Prince.

>> No.4580616

>>4579056
What, the no-Rand rule got removed? Moot, what the fuck?

>> No.4580632

>>4580616
Back when /q/ was around, /lit/ begged for it to be removed. Honestly, the rule was silly anyway. The solution is for /lit/izens to become desensitized to it and stop losing their shit every time it's mentioned, not to make a rule against it being mentioned in the first place.

/lit/ had more Rand shitstorms before the rule was removed than since.

>> No.4580650

>>4579547
Insult me now, but you've probably agreed with me plenty of other threads.

>> No.4580657

>>4579407
I'm admittedly a right-leaning libertarian, but I understand why many people make fun of right-libertarians. Especially when they take people like Rand and Rothbard seriously.

>> No.4580660

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1ooKsv_SX4Y

Here is an interview from Ayn Rand herself, in which her cognitive dissonance and completely contradictory statements shine the brightest.

I spy with my little eyes a complete contradiction within 4 minutes of the interview, can you?

>> No.4580672

>>4580660
Damn, Gollum grew some hair.

>> No.4580674

>>4580660
In this video, she literally says something to the effect that she will 'restrict people from voting on rights that restrict people'. I literally think punching myself in the face would be more intellectually stimulating than listening to her talk

>> No.4580680

As someone that enjoyed fountainhead should I read Atlas Shrugged? I didn't exactly buy the philosophy that it seemed to preach, but I still enjoyed reading it.

>> No.4580689

>>4580680
If you enjoyed splattery diarrhea, you may indeed enjoy a big steaming log.

>> No.4580721

>>4580560
Yes, that's what I was saying. Machiavelli's works come about as close to "great man theory" as you can get while still being scientific, in the sense that they are a guide to how to become master of the machine. But we have created so many systems of intricate and nigh invisible, non-consensual power, that they function almost of their own accord. It wasn't even a handful of men who shaped them, it was a series of trends over the past few hundred years that were so big that the people making them probably didn't fully realize what they were making. At this point, one man can no more control them than one cell could control the human body.

>> No.4580734

>>4580721
You're right in some regard, in that every person now has the knowledge and power thirst that princes did in the last age.

But one has to wonder to what purpose this has existed. One has to wonder if this wasn't just allowed for the sake of humanity as a way to privatize them. Indeed, in a capitalistic system, everyone is separated and sheep-like morality reigns supreme.

We are social, but private. Equal but separate. Contemporary American society is based on nothing but dichotomies. And this privatized, power-hungry culture is hell-bent on destroying any sort of 'difference' to your neighbor that the old Christian morals supported.

>> No.4580737

>>4580734
>'difference'
Deference. I'm sleepy.

>> No.4580740

I had a liberal economics professor in high school who legit assigned as satire. I read the first chapter, and then told him I wouldn't read the rest. The prose is literally that bad.

>> No.4580745

>>4580740
>professor
Teacher I guess

>> No.4580749

>>4580734
The purposes is efficiency. Taylorism. There is reason why Taylor, despite being a capitalist adviser, was adored by Lenin. The rest of what I'm referencing is Foucault's concept of biopower, which is very much in line with a society trending toward Taylorism.

>> No.4580758

>>4580749
Efficiency at the price of individuality of morals.

What a crime.

>> No.4580762

>>4580758
Well it's explored pretty well in the novel "We", I think, which is why it was banned even though the author was a Bolshevik since before the revolution.

>> No.4580763

>>4580762
I'll check it out, thanks.

>> No.4580764
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4580764

>>4578919

I love it. Probably my favorite novel or at least in the top 3. Fuck all the haters.

>>4579615
>>4579696

That's hilarious. That dude is pure shit.

>> No.4580766

>>4580680

Yeah. The Fountainhead is like I don't know, reading an Iron Man book and Atlas Shrugged is like an Avengers Book.

One focus on the individuals life and plot and the other is more big picture and has more characters and a larger plot scope,

>> No.4580767

>>4580763
You should also check out The Birth of Biopolitics.

You can read it online here: http://asounder.org/resources/foucault_biopolitics.pdf

Very good stuff.

>> No.4582358

>>4579018
>Also, /lit/ is generally fond of Rand.

So tell me, anon, how goes your first day?