Les Mis, On The Road, & Atlas Shrugged

These three stories seem to situate an essential individualism and truth about the life of a human being.

[msmarymillspaulos]

Atlas Shrugged Cover Illustration

The Balbusso Twins

[dontmeantobepoliticalbut]

[dontmeantobepoliticalbut]

[readingismywholelife]

This is part 1 of a few on dystopia that I’ll be publishing every Monday because I find it incredibly interesting that we are so fascinated by societies that are going horribly wrong.

[prince-academia]

when hozier said “it’s not the waking, it’s the rising”

[biingiiu]

Lots of people say that Ayn Rand's two famous novels Atlas Shrugged and The Fountainhead are awful books because of the ideology of Objectivism behind them. I think thats what makes them so brilliant. I dont agree with parts of Objectivism, but each time i read these books i cannot help but to actually think.

Take for instance: one of the major themes in The Fountainhead is Ethics over Religion. I personally am not a religious person, but i have friends, who are very religious, whohave also read this books and even they agree with this. While some others don't. And thats brilliant to me, i love when literature makes people disagree and have discussions.

Moral of the story: literature should challenge your world view, if you agree with what the author says: Are you sure you're reading the right books?

[margieargie]

For years, you have been asking:  “Who’s on first?”  This is On First speaking.

[amphorographia]

Man, picking up Atlas Shrugged in these times was a bad fucking idea

[sing-backwards-and-weep]

atlas shrugged is a bombshell tbh it all depends on how you read it

if you read it like a sponge and just absorb everything you read? it’s going to make you a cruel, heartless, unfeeling lil bastard

if, working off of that premise, you pay mind exclusively to the philosophy discussed therein? it’ll send you down the slippery slope of solipsism. dangerous.

if you attend with critical thinking skills, however, it’s a wonderful self-help guideline for how to keep your own reality consistent and uniquely your own, and how to diffuse manipulation of all scales, shapes, and forms.

characters like danneskjöld, who rand wrote to (presumably) characterize a moral extremity, literally say shit like “i’m here to murder the ghost of robin hood! let’s steal from the poor and give to the productive rich” which is obviously just heinous on so many levels, ‘productive integrity’ or no

anybody who reads atlas shrugged for an understanding of economic principles or an endorsement of laissez-faire capitalism to fall back on is morally bankrupt to begin with and was corrupt from the beginning.

it is incredibly easy to villify this book. it’s basically the open source code of self-righteousness presented through a psychological lens. it may very well teach you how to think, if you’re not careful. this is, once again, however, exclusively if you read with anything but a critical mind and fundamental humility.

read the book like you’re in english class again. what parts do you agree with? what parts do you disagree with? why?

this is the cutting edge. it should polarize you. it will give you content that provokes you into forming opinions. make sure these opinions are genuinely yours, first and foremost.

[solarpunkvegan]

The ironic thing about Atlas Shrugged is that it's actually all the exploited, underpaid workers who hold up the world, the janitors, service industry, food workers, child care, plumbers, electricians, factory workers, garbage collectors, farmers, from nurses to teachers to fireman and EMTs. it's not the elite that hold up the world, ordinary everyday people do and the elite just profit off of their labor while making the world a worse place. So we should ask: What would happen if WE all shrugged? What would happen if every working person decided to stop working? What if every person decided to strike at once? Our one demand: billionaires stop existing and give that money back to society instead of hording it.

Our entire society would break down, the trash would pile up, fires would rage on, children couldn't go to school, the sick would die, our food supply would dwindle. Obviously, it'd be horrible. But what could the billionaires do but comply? They NEED us, we don't need them. We make the world turn, they make it a worse place. We may feel powerless, but what's more powerful than that?

[isaacsapphire]

I've been trying to drag myself through listening to Atlas Shrugged as an audiobook after failing to read it as a physical book, and managed to get through The Fountainhead as an audiobook and didn't hate the whole thing. (I read Anthem ages ago, found it "fanficy" in a not entirely good way.)

Last time I tried to read it, I got as far as Reardon's shitty family and his wife who doesn't appreciate his token of his special interest. Now I'm into the retrospective of Dagney and Francisco's childhood and youthful afair and the whole thing 1. Reminds me of The Room in that the author clearly has no understanding of the motivations of the villains and has a deep interest in relitigating their personal relationships in fiction and 2. Would be much better as full hog science fiction, because if you aren't going to understand anything about the technology you are writing about, it would be better to have it actually be made-up so it's easier to suspend disbelief, especially since things like laws, governments, and the seasons in South America are changed anyways.

Dagney's experience of gender and all the good guys' quasi autism are enjoyable for me as story elements, and Rand has an amazing ear for bad passive aggressive family dynamics, so there's that on the plus side, in addition to whatever enjoyment I can derive from the sex scenes.

I gotta say, I got distracted hard by Francisco's alma mater being Patrick Henry (and apparently several other characters as well).

For those of you who weren't homeschooled and raised far right, the real life Patrick Henry college was founded in 1998, essentially by the Homeschool Legal Defense Association, as a conservative Christian Republican feeder institution with goals of rivaling the Ivys. I took a distance class as a high school student, so I suppose technically on some level I can claim to be a student therof, although they rejected my application to study on campus, presumably because I was honest about my doubts with the Christian faith in my admissions essay, which iirc was basically begging them to help me with my doubts.

Aaanyways, I was fly on the walling the entire creation of Patrick Henry College from as close a perspective as anyone who wasn't actually involved had, and nobody ever mentioned that the name was inspired by an Ayn Rand novel, even though it's blindingly obvious that it was. Which is suspicious as fuck in it's own way.

[irreverentradio]

~** dagny taggart moodboard **~

“My dear sister does not happen to be a human being, but just an internal combustion engine.”

[toopunktofuck]

ayn rand failing to understand that sesame street is for young children

[threegoatsinatrenchcoat-deactiv]

god this is missing the best part JIM HENSON I think Ms. Rand and my character Oscar the Grouch would have a lot to talk about actually. I am laughing out loud at this idea. AYN RAND Why would I want to talk to him. What has he achieved or trying to achieve. JIM HENSON He has achieved what I think is the ultimate goal of your way of thinking.

[irreverentradio]

An Archive of Our Own, a project of the Organization for Transformative Works

Chapters: 1/? Fandom: Atlas Shrugged - Ayn Rand Rating: Not Rated Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply Relationships: John Galt/Dagny Taggart, Francisco d'Anconia/Hank Rearden, past Dagny Taggart/Francisco d'Anconia Characters: Dagny Taggart, John Galt, Francisco d'Anconia, Eddie Willers, Original Male Characters Additional Tags: Disappointment, Angst, Apocalypse, enemy fic Summary:

Dagny is losing faith in John Galt’s whole “Atlantis” thing.

[irreverentradio]

Supplemental Readings for Season 1: Ayn Rand on Brand

Since we don’t recommend reading Atlas Shrugged, we’ve compiled a list of some of the other works referenced in season 1 (or relevant to the material, regardless) that are more worthy of your time.

First, we’d recommend our podcast, Irreverent Radio. Please listen and justify our reading (or rereading) Atlas Shrugged thank you.

Keep reading

[irreverentradio]

Ayn Rand on Brand, part I: [Non]Contradiction by Irreverent Radio • A podcast on Anchor

In which Meghan and Clancy enjoy some champagne while diving into the world of podcasting with the infamous book Atlas Shrugged. We speculate about John Galt's identity and discuss what it means to be a "looter," talk contradictions and themes, deal with feminism and politics. Pop open a bottle or put on some tea and join our cursed book club. Follow us on Tumblr at irreverentradio.tumblr.com where we've created a reading list for the series (none of the suggested readings are Atlas Shrugged because we've got that side of things covered for you).

Our podcast’s first episode is up. Check it out!

[irreverentradio]

Our favorite things about the Atlas Shrugged Films

The complete change in cast from film to film. In film 2, all the characters are aged up. In film 3, they are all aged back down except for Francisco, leading more creepiness

Hank Rearden is not in the third movie. The glimpses we get of him, however, make him look like discount Tony Stark

The aesthetic of the third movie is completely different from the other two. Suddenly, we are in Hallmark land

This is the end card for the last movie:

Somehow they make it worse than the book

They erase the killing spree and the annihilation of the continent, basically recognizing that the book is fundamentally fucked up

Cowboy Ellis Wyatt

Cheryl dying off screen, taking away any impact she had on the plot

Serial killer John Galt. "It's up to you" in reference to whether or not dagny is his prisoner. "Will you be watching me?" "More so."

?????

In the first movie, dagny taggart is played by Piper Chapman