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Atlas Shrugged: Why is this so bad?
Posts
Even the workers you mention are only mentioned positivly because they have a glimmer of übermensch talent of the strikers. They are not complete fuckups, like the rest of the proles Their mental abilites is what she lauds, not their physical ones. In the end she lets them share the fate of the rest.
Remember the Tagart line employee that refuses to strike and tries to keep things going(forget his name)? He has part of the talents that Dagny has, but lacks enough to become a true ubermensch. He did nothing wrong other then try to keep things together. He is shown in a positive light, right up until he is left to die in the desert.
It was clearly this. Otherwise, why the hardon for the busdriver?
This definitely isn't true if you bring The Fountainhead into your analysis. Roark often did a lot of the work himself, and I'm pretty sure Rand was suggesting this as one of his character strengths.
but more importantly, you seem to be moving the goalposts.
Because he's in a BUS. Big machine = sexy.
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Its to show while master craftsment can be expert in one field, Roark is an expert in many. Which means he is better then them and therefore more suited to be the architect of the buildings. Its not the physical labour, but the mastery of several fields of engineering.
In fact you could argue that while normal people can barely master one field, a Randian superman can master several without difficulty. Its the ultimate proof of the superiority of mind workers.
Edit: I am not changing the goalpost. Its my position that Rand believed that mental work(creative,etc,etc) was superior to physical work and that this is borne out by her writings. Where she describes a good man dying in the desert.
rand's answer is "they will do prole work and will still be moral for it"
i think there are enough obvious avenues of attack to criticize her ridiculous philosophy. no need to invent others that are simply not reflected by her views or work
You said "mind work good, physical work bad" on the last page. It sounds like you're taking that statement back? Because what you're saying now contradicts that statement. As does Roark, as I pointed out.
I don't think you are correct here.
Well you think that we should ignore Rand totally when discussing her writings so.....
And No, the ability to master many fields of work is a display of mental skill. The fact that they have physical components are less important then showing that Roark masters all of them. Or are you saying that understanding a job requires no mental effort? Or that mastering several is requires more then just mastering one?
Because then I think you are wrong.
Rand always places mental skill higher then physical skill. its her value system. It doesn't mean physical work is pointless, it means its useless unless guided by sufficent intellect. Which creates a society with intellectual supermen on top, with proles at the bottom.
But I do think you can take Rand's writings into account when discussing Objectivism.
Also, I'm bored with the whole "death of the author" angle. It's cute that you want to dismiss me for that, but it doesn't make your statements any less contradictory. I'm trying to communicate with you in the framework that you guys want to discuss the topic in. And within that framework, you are wrong.
Is this just a long-winded way of saying "sorry, I shouldn't have said 'mind work good; physical work bad'"? Because you are still contradicting that comment. Either physical work is bad or it isn't. Either Roark actually performing physical work was bad or it wasn't. We're not talking about the fact that he knows how to perform the manual labor, we're talking about the fact that he actually DOES the manual labor. Multiple times. In fact, a lot of his contractors complain about it, if memory serves.
In fact, the first time Dominique Falcon sets eyes on him - and let's totally dispense with "death of the author" now and assume that Dominque Falcon is something of a doppelganger for Rand, since that fits in with your interpretative framework - Roark is working. With a jackhammer or something if memory serves. I believe one of the contractors points him out to Dominique. Dominique starts to go all a-quiver. She was previously ready to be mean to him or something and then she starts coming back every day just to watch him glisten and ripple in the sun, hoping maybe she can be the rock he forcibly jackhammers into.
Doesn't sound to me like Ayn Rand - in your interpretative framework - looks down on manual labor or laborers. It's not his mind that Ms. Falcon wants at that point. And she certainly doesn't look down on him too poorly for his manual labor. She may have made a comment or two about it, but Roark shoots that down as well. And remember, Roark is the superman of that novel.
I don't have to find proof of that in anything. You're making a positive claim. I'm shooting it down. I don't have to pander to your false dichotomies.
The Bob the Angry Flower comic isn't silly, in that if Rand really thought her ubermenschen would do everything, there wouldn't be a need for magical perpetual motion or food machines.
I don't think you get much more Mary Sue than a character who is good at everything.
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I think people are more pointing out that that answer is silly. Killing motherfuckers because they thought their jobs were important, then admitting that they were important is ridiculous.
Of course Rand neatly avoids a lot of problems by making almost the whole cast ubermenschen. Imagine Galt just saying "hey guys, I also know everything about farming and no other farmer in existence is as good as me so don't worry about the food".
Flaws are for humans. Being a grandchild of both Harry Potter and Goku means the rules bend to my will.
they were merely plot devices- just more opportunities for her to flex her muscles and go "look at what my ideal man can do"
it doesn't really matter whether there exists a perpetual energy machine or a transfiguring wizard who creates food from farts
of course the answer is silly, but it's not the answer that other people are claiming it is
If you spend a 1000 pages praising your heroes for their intellectual brilliance and then have them end up as fry cooks for the rest of their life. You do kind of undercut your own arguments. Even if they are happy, competent and moral in their new jobs.
only if you pretend they're dichotomous. rand does not.
If the book is a polemic promoting a specific philosophy - which it is - then it does matter, because she is solving a problem with the philosophy by waving a magic wand.
If the book is merely literature with no ulterior motive, then it's just lame-ass writing.
Rand does not ask the question "given a society of magical ubermenschen and perpetual motion, what would be the result?" She's parading around cardboard characters and improbable plot-rigging in order to promote a specific worldview as right because, see, it works for John Galt!
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you're arguing on a separate wavelength.
i agree that it's a stupid plot device, because it undermines the efficacy of what she argues- that talented men can prosper, no matter what, and that they have no need for cooperation or mutual reliance. all very good, you're right on that point.
where it is not relevant is her view on the morality of certain types of work.
people are claiming that she- and her characters- had no taste for menial work, and no willingness to do it. that if they struck off into the wild to start their utopia, they'd starve to death, and they'd turn up their noses at the work they'd so long ignored was done by 'regular' people.
while i agree with the conclusion being reached (re: efficacy, and why in a real world with people not from the planet krypton, a man can't be a great philosopher and great pirate and great engineer and great cook and great brakeman and great lawnmower...) but i disagree that it's because of the characters being 'unwilling' to do that work. that is where i think these characterizations are false.
the eventual conclusion is the same (that they'd be fucked, in their tiny, insular community with real men and women who can't do everything), but the mechanism by which we get there is not what is being claimed. they wouldn't starve or drown or die of the cold because of their effete reliance on the proletariat.
This means it doesn't matter how great the people living there are, they can't do everything at once.
Small communities are more interdependent then large ones too.
specialization and collective action are important.
but this tangent initially started along the lines of 'if the menial workers went on strike, the giants of industry would be out on their asses!', to which i responded that some of rand's strikers were menial workers.
The bolded part has been shown to be true on more then one occasion. Lots of companies have learned collective action power up close and personal(GM, Ford and Chrysler).
Even Rand's übermensch could not be captains of industry without people to captain. Even if they could survive as menials, they wouldn't be captains of industry anymore.
What Rand claims is that its also true the other way around. That without People like Galt or Rearden the menials would starve. Thats where reality starts to set in.
nothing in the book really sounded like a rallying cry, no
the hypothetical interpretation is probably on the mark
i agree with you on this matter, and always have
Ahem.
Rand wasn't wet over the bus driver. She was wet over the bus. She had a sexual fetish for mechanical & industrial objects (...This would be why it is important to understand the author if you want to understand their writing. The book didn't fucking write itself).
Honestly, this isn't something that I think is fair to level at Rand as a criticism at any rate.
Now, let's ignore Rand's horrible writing, creepy rape fetish, racism, and that her assumptions ignore our world's basic laws. At the core of her "philosophy" is the idea that the rich will eventually rise up against the evil poor people who have been holding them back, and after killing them, create a utopia. This sounds familiar.
Nah, there's someone at the Gulch who is awesome at maintenance and absolutely loves doing it. And disasters and accidents don't happen because everyone is perfect.
Cancer is when cells stop letting the body mooch off their hard work - clearly a community of like-minded cells should isolate themselves and do the best job each can do, even if the rest of the body collapses!
Ahem...
There's no God to punish moochers in the Atlasverse. Galt would just modify his creation to cause cancer in moochers.
Also on PSN: twobadcats
This makes my <3 sing.
:^::^:
#FreeScheck
#FreeSKFM
Damn, I never realized how angry Ryan looked in that statue.
This post is truly a thing of beauty.
It is actually a wonderful analogy. Like actually a pretty good way to describe the realization of Randian philosophy in society.
Damn you!
Yeah, you know. If you didn't actually read it.