Which Atlas Shrugged character are YOU ???

Here is a CliffNotes link for those of you that have not read the book.
I have already pinpointed DeOrc, Moen and TomCorona. The others here not so easy.
Are you a character you can identify with? If not, have some fun and guess who's who

This is a 1300 page book, I just finished it. Best selling fiction novel in the world , ever. Written in 1957 by Ayn Rand, it holds so true today ( like 1984 by George Orwell ) and is VERY political, thus the post here in the politics section.

Have fun !!

Atlas Shrugged: Book Summary - CliffsNotes

 

I am sure I would be a 'looter' of some kind in the book as I have worked for 2 departments of the government over the last 20 plus years.

 

Stuart, I think you just helped me nail you to a character......and I was thinking that was not going to be easy. It was after reading you post.

 

I figured out a long time ago why the Right is so fixated with Ayn Rand and her writings. It's all about the "Me" and selfishness and greed. If you've ever listen to Rand and what she believes, it is without passionate and completely atheistic. You simply can't believe in the philosophy of Ayn Rand and Jesus' teachings. I've read her books and have found her characters to be so idealized and unreal that they could only exist in fiction. The coldest, uncaring, self-serving, ideologues use this fictional nonsense to justify their basest instincts that has them seeing everything around them in the most narcissistic view possible. Listen to her in her own words:

[video]http://youtu.be/7ukJiBZ8_4k[/video]

 

That was a perfect description of Ayn Rand and the fiction novel I just read.

I am not any more fixated on her than I am John Grisham or James Patterson, but it was a good book. End got kinda wierd tho.

 

Actually, I found the Fountain Head a much better read. I can only sit and read through so many self-aggrandizing diatribes.

 

I read the summary and don't really see myself anywhere. I am somewhat of a philosopher, like the cook (Hugh Akston), but in no way do I consider myself to be the "best in the World" (as he is supposed to be)... and I really don't like cooking lol

"In the workers' cafeteria, where he has befriended a nameless worker." might apply to me, though even being mentioned is unlikely.

I think it's more likely that I'd be a non-unionized worker somewhere, maybe in the mines... the kind that eventually dies from exposure to all those hazardous waste byproducts of the mining industry. Nameless and unmentioned. (laughs) Yeah, that be me

 

I am reading War and Peace next.....I am on a roll, and after AS, that should be easy.

Her diatribes, oh gawd !!! The John Galt speech was a mere 80 pages in itself.

You do know I have you pegged as one of the thinkers, right?

 

I am not sure I understand your point. Are you trying to understand how the right which typically embraces Christianity can also like Ayn Rand's philosophy? I agree that there is a conflict, but I don't think that most even understand her philosophy and that clip would do very little to clear it up. She does not explain it very well which I think is deliberate. If she did, everyone would have recognized her philosophy for what it is, existentialism. In that regard, it would have made here something of a fraud.

 

Moen, in ref to your sig line, I wonder if Ron Paul was talking about this:

Ron Paul: “‘…when Fascism comes to this country, it will be wrapped in the flag, carrying a cross.”

View attachment 180 View attachment 181

Just wonderin'.....

 

To be honest, I don't think either party embraces anything that won't either bring them money or votes. With that approach, diametrically opposed positions held by the same party are all but assured. Even Ayn Rand was a contradiction in that she espoused self-sufficiency but took public assistance at the end of her life due to the consequences of a choice she made to smoke cigarettes and developed lung cancer. I didn't make her smoke but my tax dollars paid for her medical care in complete opposition to her philosophies. There is no such thing as a pure philosophy because we are full of human faults and a perfect world does not exist. Certainly her philosophies borrowed heavily from existentialism but in practice they are pure Social Darwinism.

 

The Great Depression was a profound influence for the writing of Atlas Shrugged for Rand. After immigrating from the nightmare that was Russia in the early 20th century, in my opinion Rand felt that America was heaven on earth until it was plunged into economic ruin and she used her novel to blame those that she saw as the people responsible for America's downfall. She had only lived in this country less than 4 years before The Great Depression. Given her background, she looked for anything that was the polar opposite of Socialism. Socialism had already taken so much from her and her family by then. Her perspective was out of balance and highly biased by the traumas of her childhood. She just wasn't the best writer to be the biographer of the era she lived in.
I'd almost like to see someone write another novel of the current economic situation. I bet that we wouldn't see a hardworking, self-sufficient builder of industries as the hero this time around.

 

Make up your mind! Socialism or Fascism? Which one is it?

 

I never said Socialists weren't also Fascists...

 

Mr Moen
I have only recently read this book, my 1st by Rand.

In the book, government regulations destroy private industry. Thats what I mean by " so current ". The recent NLRB attack on Boeing, and how mny planes they can build in what states is a perfect example.

As far as her rigid utopian ideas, I find them unpractical at best. The last part of the book is a total fantasy and completely unrealistic, BUT, it was a good FICTION novel.

And yes, she died a complete contradiction of what she wrote. I have been studying her on the net , just a cpl pages, but I disagree with her on religion totally.

For the rest of you, I say you are characters, but nobody here is pinpoointed, I should rephrase that and say some of you remind me of those in the story.

I have no desire to read any more Rand.

 

Francisco. At least thats who I related to when I read the book over 30 years ago. Now I think the cab driver.

 

Fookin A, thats lofty Craig, but pretty cool

 

And Communists are also Capitalists....Right?

 

What Boeing actually did was break decades old labor relations laws. It is illegal to retaliate against your employees for belonging to a union. Seems like a simple enough law not to break but Boeing telegraphed the fact that they were doing exactly that. It's hardly government destroying businesses when Boeing exempts itself from labor relations rules that every other company has to abide by and does.

Do you know that Paul Ryan makes everyone who works for him read Atlas Shrugged? How twisted is that?

 

That is one person's opinion