BBC Discussion of Atlas


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I just saw this discussion on another forum. It is a clip of the BBC show "Newsnight Review" with Kirsty Wark, aired on March 27, 2009.

Andrew Roberts - Ayn Rand (1/2)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YSE1PehPgi0

It's good to see Rand's book discussed, but I wonder about how these people can get so much wrong—just simple facts. Disagreeing is one thing, but getting the facts all wrong is quite another.

A real clunker was when the guy mentioned that Rand was thrown out of every political movement she ever joined, even the one she founded.

Does anyone have any idea what he was talking about? I never heard of any such thing.

One of the good things I liked about this discussion is that even though they trashed Rand, they did not totally trash her objection to government control. When faced with the actual current issues, these folks seem scared. It's almost as if they were saying, "It looks bad, but it can't really be what it seems. But maybe..."

When people usually trash Rand, they speak with certainty. This go around the doubts in the air were as thick as molasses. And this was in England!

Intellectually, I call this progress.

Michael

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I just saw this discussion on another forum. It is a clip of the BBC show "Newsnight Review" with Kirsty Wark, aired on March 27, 2009.

Andrew Roberts - Ayn Rand (1/2)

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It's good to see Rand's book discussed, but I wonder about how these people can get so much wrong—just simple facts. Disagreeing is one thing, but getting the facts all wrong is quite another.

A real clunker was when the guy mentioned that Rand was thrown out of every political movement she ever joined, even the one she founded.

Does anyone have any idea what he was talking about? I never heard of any such thing.

One of the good things I liked about this discussion is that even though they trashed Rand, they did not totally trash her objection to government control. When faced with the actual current issues, these folks seem scared. It's almost as if they were saying, "It looks bad, but it can't really be what it seems. But maybe..."

When people usually trash Rand, they speak with certainty. This go around the doubts in the air were as thick as molasses. And this was in England!

Intellectually, I call this progress.

Michael

Michael,

One can only hope that any listener might decide to read Atlas Shrugged themselves.

I didn't read it until I was in my mid twenties. I have read it about eight times over the course of the last forty years and I have never experienced any of the things which the people on the panel found to criticize. I found the heroine and the heroes to be human and humane.

I recall the scene where Hank gently carries the young man who is wounded in the attack on his factory.

There is the scene in which Dagny decides not to throw the old bum from the train because he had a starched collar! A close call! A scene not discussed much if at all here.

The ignorance of the commentators of how the free market operates is profound. They make it sound like only perfect, Aryan blue eyed blonds can succeed. What nonsense.

The argument from intimidation abounds in their comments. That the book appeals to fourteen year olds who find the meanness tolerable but if they grow up will reject the free market as thoughtful adults.

It is curious to discover how these commentators react so differently than we do to the book and the philosophy dramatized in it. For one thing they appear to be oblivious to the harm that government interventions cause and the injustice of taxation and regulations.

As Rand also observed there is a distinction between blindness and the refusal to see.

gulch

P.S. www.campaignforliberty.com 2Apr 7AM 132779

Edited by galtgulch
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  • 3 months later...

Youtube took this down.

Here's a link to the video in full on the BBC News website: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/programmes/newsnight/review/7965394.stm

The anti-conceptual mindset is in full force here with these people.

Edited by Michelle R
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