Ayn Rand and the Prophecy of Atlas Shrugged

[Mike Renzulli]

http://atlasshruggeddocumentary.com/

[Selene]

http://atlasshruggeddocumentary.com/

Mike:

Did you know this was being produced?

Adam

[syrakusos]

The website has a 4:53 video summary, under the tab "Buzz" find "Video."

The Store is not yet ready but you can pre-order a DVD.

Scheduled for October 11, 2011 release.

Cast and Crew

CHRIS MORTENSEN – PRODUCER, WRITER & DIRECTOR

Writer/Director Chris Mortensen is a television producer and documentary filmmaker whose many programs have appeared worldwide. In the U.S. his documentary subjects have ranged from Field Marshall Bernard Montgomery, Hermann Goering and John Paul Jones to American Gangsters, the HIV crisis and the Iraq War. From Professional Wrestling to Halle Berry to the Suez Canal, his programs have appeared on Discovery, A&E, History Channel, ESPN, Fox Sports, BET, TV One, et al.

[anthony]

Sigh...

...saw the word "documentary" and got all excited.

Docu-drama, movie trailer, promo video - it does very nicely as these. And good for AS.

But as impartial and sober documentary, too much razzmatazz and flashy effects, here. Objectivism merits more.

Why oh why is the viewer treated as a child with short attention span by film-makers today?

I want doccies to be boringly factual again, as they once were.

Tony

[BaalChatzaf]

-Atlas Shrugged- might become the new Book of Revelations.

Ba'al Chatzaf

[Reidy]

The preview makes it look like a sales pitch for the book. Fine with me, and it looks like a good pitch. I don't see why anybody who's read the book it would want to pay to see the documentary, though. I also wonder why anybody who hasn't read it would want to pay.

[Xray]

-Atlas Shrugged- might become the new Book of Revelations.

Ba'al Chatzaf

Murray N. Rothbard commenting on the Biblical nature of AS for many Randians:

http://www.lewrockwell.com/rothbard/rothbard23.html

[Murray N. Rothbard]: "The Biblical nature of Atlas for many Randians is illustrated by the wedding of a Randian couple that took place in New York. At the ceremony, the couple pledged their joint devotion and fealty to Ayn Rand, and then supplemented it by opening Atlas – perhaps at random – to read aloud a passage from the sacred text."

But as impartial and sober documentary, too much razzmatazz and flashy effects, here.

The term "prophecy" used in combination with that picture of Ayn Rand could make people think that she had 'psychic' powers ... ;)

Edited August 10, 2011 by Xray

[Brant Gaede]

-Atlas Shrugged- might become the new Book of Revelations.

Ba'al Chatzaf

Murray N. Rothbard commenting on the Biblical nature of AS for many Randians:

http://www.lewrockwe...rothbard23.html

[Murray N. Rothbard]: "The Biblical nature of Atlas for many Randians is illustrated by the wedding of a Randian couple that took place in New York. At the ceremony, the couple pledged their joint devotion and fealty to Ayn Rand, and then supplemented it by opening Atlas – perhaps at random – to read aloud a passage from the sacred text."

But as impartial and sober documentary, too much razzmatazz and flashy effects, here.

The term "prophecy" used in combination with that picture of Ayn Rand could make people think that she had 'psychic' powers ... ;)

You cannot trust Rothbard's NBI cultural stories, except he made them interesting. He hated Nathaniel Branden and despised what some think of as the Ayn Rand cult.

--Brant

[Greybird]

[...] You cannot trust Rothbard's NBI cultural stories, except he made them interesting. He hated Nathaniel Branden and despised what some think of as the Ayn Rand cult.

Why can one not? Are you, more simply, saying Rothbard was a liar, or perhaps just a "tall-tale" teller? And what's your evidence, or is this coming from despising Rothbard on your part?

With having heard Joey Rothbard (Murray's widow) confirm, in a taped speech, the tale of how the Brandens and the inner circle were hostile to her — and corroborating what was told by Jerome Tuccille in It Usually Begins With Ayn Rand, which was written for explicit satirical effect — I'm much less inclined to doubt Murray's veracity.

(Including about the frequent, and to me spurious, charge that Rothbard plagiarized a thesis on natural rights by Barbara Branden. The insights put forward by Rand and her inner circle weren't anywhere near being as historically de novo as they liked to believe. And Murray was an indefatigable researcher.)

Besides, Murray knew enough to distinguish between what he, himself, called "the Ayn Rand cult" and his own such satirical or poking riffs upon it, such as "Mozart Was a Red."

[Brant Gaede]

[...] You cannot trust Rothbard's NBI cultural stories, except he made them interesting. He hated Nathaniel Branden and despised what some think of as the Ayn Rand cult.

Why can one not? Are you, more simply, saying Rothbard was a liar, or perhaps just a "tall-tale" teller? And what's your evidence, or is this coming from despising Rothbard on your part?

With having heard Joey Rothbard (Murray's widow) confirm, in a taped speech, the tale of how the Brandens and the inner circle were hostile to her — and corroborating what was told by Jerome Tuccille in It Usually Begins With Ayn Rand, which was written for explicit satirical effect — I'm much less inclined to doubt Murray's veracity.

(Including about the frequent, and to me spurious, charge that Rothbard plagiarized a thesis on natural rights by Barbara Branden. The insights put forward by Rand and her inner circle weren't anywhere near being as historically de novo as they liked to believe. And Murray was an indefatigable researcher.)

Besides, Murray knew enough to distinguish between what he, himself, called "the Ayn Rand cult" and his own such satirical or poking riffs upon it, such as "Mozart Was a Red."

As far as I know he tended to get the essence right. Some people have disputed the veracity of some of his stories over the years. "Liar" is much too strong a word. I can have no opinion at all about Barbara Branden's master's thesis and that contretemps that blew him out of the Rand orbit, in-so-far as he was ever in it, but it was the classic archetypal libertarian-Objectivist divide to the detriment of both. Tuccille wrote a book of garbage--his first one, I never read the others. I despised Rothbard calling Nathaniel Branden "Hitler" and celebrating the fall of South Vietnam to the communists. I've never given the man enough thought to despise him as a person.

--Brant

[syrakusos]

What did Detroit Tigers manager Jim Leyland think of Ken Burns' Baseball?

By that, I mean, that insiders seldom give time to popular treatments of their craft, trade, or profession. So, too, with this. If you have 40 years of Ayn Rand in your life, you may or may not care what someone else thinks of her work. Myself, I have the Sense of Life book and watched the movie. I read Passion and Judgment Day, but not the works of James Valiant or Neil Parnille. But those are my choices. The producer, Chris Mortensen, seems to have a pretty good track record and probably knows his business. I would not criticize until I viewed the work, though the trailer presented on the site was compelling.

I have watched classic television from the 50s and 60s, the stuff of my childhood and youth, and I found it painfully slow. Obvious site gags are given long spans, punch lines and "takes" are repeated. Action stops while audience tracks spill noise. I imagine that fastforwarded to the end of this century, you might find any common medium hard to follow and understand.

As for Murray Rothbard, A History of Money and Banking in the United States contains long passages taken from The Suffolk System without citation. He does cite the work, but he does not identify how much of it he has copied and rewritten. It is obscure. I found one poor micro-fiche at the Michigan State University Library. I then found it catalogued by the Adam Smith Institute and paid them to put it up on their website as a PDF for me. Rothbard also misstates the events of the National Bank system in order to support his own libertarianism. What he says is not true. We all like what he said; we want to believe it; no one checked his work. Furthermore, there is much to the "wildcat banking" era that is known to numismatists - and was known back in the 1950s and 60s when Rothbard was writing - that he simply did not know. Like the narratives of Hayek and Mises, Rothbard's history of money came from his own imagination.

Edited August 11, 2011 by Michael E. Marotta

[Greybird]

[...] I despised Rothbard [...] celebrating the fall of South Vietnam to the communists.

Yet another calumny about Rothbard, this one perpetuated by (among others) Peter Schwartz, that you've bought into.

Rothbard wrote, and believed, no such thing. His column on "The Death of a State" in April 1975 (printed in both Reason and his own Libertarian Forum) found the event morally deserved on the part of the South Vietnamese despots, who were no paragons (to say the least) of either libertarian or republican virtue.

He found the event both instructive and illuminating of how popular consent can be withdrawn in a very short historical timeframe. And, yes, it was "exhil[a]rating" to see one such corrupt institution go so rapidly into dissolution, given how slowly such events have tended to happen. But that is distinct from "celebration":

Of course, the process does not now usher in any sort of libertarian Nirvana, since another bloody State is in the process of taking over. [emphasis added] But the disintegration remains, and offers us many instructive lessons.

One lesson is an illustration of the profound truth set forth by David Hume and Ludwig von Mises: that no matter how bloody or despotic any State may be, it rests for its existence in the long run (and not-so-long run) on the consent of the majority of its subjects, on the "voluntary servitude" (as La Boetie first phrased it) of the bulk of its victims.

This mass acceptance need not be active enthusiasm; it can be passive resignation; but the important thing is that it rests on the willingness of the masses to obey the orders and commands of the State apparatus — to accept the dictates of the oligarchy, to pay its taxes, to fight in its wars.

What happened in South Vietnam, in particular, was what often happens after a long, harrowing period of losing war: a sudden and infectious decision of the masses to say: Enough! We've had it; we quit. The supposedly mighty million-man South Vietnamese (ARVN) army, trained for decades by American commanders, armed to the teeth by the United States, praised as "little tigers" by the U.S. military, just quit and ran, leaving behind over $1 billion in U.S. taxpayer-financed arms. [...]

The only matters he noted as even remotely worth any celebration (Rothbard does not use that word) were that public opinion and U.S. law were both firmly against any re-involvement of the U.S. government and its unwilling taxpayers in any more of that murderous morass, legally, fiscally, or militarily. And that the Ford/Nixon/Rockefeller domestic "oligarchy" was likely to get an electoral drubbing the following year, which they indeed ended up receiving.

But "celebrating" savagery? Nothing of the kind. Do what Objectivists tend not to do: Read Rothbard's words for yourself.

[Brant Gaede]

[...] I despised Rothbard [...] celebrating the fall of South Vietnam to the communists.

Yet another calumny about Rothbard, this one perpetuated by (among others) Peter Schwartz, that you've bought into.

Rothbard wrote, and believed, no such thing. His column on "The Death of a State" in April 1975 (printed in both Reason and his own Libertarian Forum) found the event morally deserved on the part of the South Vietnamese despots, who were no paragons (to say the least) of either libertarian or republican virtue.

He found the event both instructive and illuminating of how popular consent can be withdrawn in a very short historical timeframe. And, yes, it was "exhil[a]rating" to see one such corrupt institution go so rapidly into dissolution, given how slowly such events have tended to happen. But that is distinct from "celebration":

Of course, the process does not now usher in any sort of libertarian Nirvana, since another bloody State is in the process of taking over. [emphasis added] But the disintegration remains, and offers us many instructive lessons.

One lesson is an illustration of the profound truth set forth by David Hume and Ludwig von Mises: that no matter how bloody or despotic any State may be, it rests for its existence in the long run (and not-so-long run) on the consent of the majority of its subjects, on the "voluntary servitude" (as La Boetie first phrased it) of the bulk of its victims.

This mass acceptance need not be active enthusiasm; it can be passive resignation; but the important thing is that it rests on the willingness of the masses to obey the orders and commands of the State apparatus — to accept the dictates of the oligarchy, to pay its taxes, to fight in its wars.

What happened in South Vietnam, in particular, was what often happens after a long, harrowing period of losing war: a sudden and infectious decision of the masses to say: Enough! We've had it; we quit. The supposedly mighty million-man South Vietnamese (ARVN) army, trained for decades by American commanders, armed to the teeth by the United States, praised as "little tigers" by the U.S. military, just quit and ran, leaving behind over $1 billion in U.S. taxpayer-financed arms. [...]

The only matters he noted as even remotely worth any celebration (Rothbard does not use that word) were that public opinion and U.S. law were both firmly against any re-involvement of the U.S. government and its unwilling taxpayers in any more of that murderous morass, legally, fiscally, or militarily. And that the Ford/Nixon/Rockefeller domestic "oligarchy" was likely to get an electoral drubbing the following year, which they indeed ended up receiving.

But "celebrating" savagery? Nothing of the kind. Do what Objectivists tend not to do: Read Rothbard's words for yourself.

Thank you for supporting my contention.

In my unpublished book (1971) I predicted precisely what would happen to South Vietnam and why. I didn't know how long it would take. Knowing a lot more about the South Vietnamese, South Vietnam, the Vietnam War, the South Vietnamese government than Rothbard ever did, I can state without equivocation that from a - z he was full of horseshit about the matter we are discussing and most of what you have quoted.

--Brant

[Reidy]

For a case in point of the tendency to judge what one hasn't read, so regretted in #12, see #2 here.

On rereading Rothbard's 1975 piece I find Brant's characterization accurate.

Nathaniel Branden and Edith Efron have both called Rothbard a liar in the public prints. This doesn't mean that they're right, but it suggests that skepticism is in order. Who were the bride and groom at the wedding in question? Who else was there? Was Rothbard? Finally, why does he get so worked up about it? Readings of literary excerpts by the bride and groom or their attendants are a fairly common practice at weddings nowadays.

Edited August 11, 2011 by Reidy

[Xray]

For a case in point of the tendency to judge what one hasn't read, so regretted in #12, see #2 here.

On rereading Rothbard's 1975 piece I find Brant's characterization accurate.

Nathaniel Branden and Edith Efron have both called Rothbard a liar in the public prints. This doesn't mean that they're right, but it suggests that skepticism is in order. Who were the bride and groom at the wedding in question? Who else was there? Was Rothbard? Finally, why does he get so worked up about it? Readings of literary excerpts by the bride and groom or their attendants are a fairly common practice at weddings nowadays.

If I interpret your post correctly, NB and EE calling Rothbard a liar did not refer specifically to what Rothbard said about the wedding couple.

As for Rothbard getting worked up about it (assuming that what he said really happened), the reading of literary excerpts at a wedding is not the same as pledging joint devotion and fealty to a guru, and then supplementing it by opening the guru's magnum opus and read aloud passages from it.

Edited August 12, 2011 by Xray

[Brant Gaede]

For a case in point of the tendency to judge what one hasn't read, so regretted in #12, see #2 here.

On rereading Rothbard's 1975 piece I find Brant's characterization accurate.

Nathaniel Branden and Edith Efron have both called Rothbard a liar in the public prints. This doesn't mean that they're right, but it suggests that skepticism is in order. Who were the bride and groom at the wedding in question? Who else was there? Was Rothbard? Finally, why does he get so worked up about it? Readings of literary excerpts by the bride and groom or their attendants are a fairly common practice at weddings nowadays.

If I interpret your post correctly, NB and EE calling Rothbard a liar did not refer specifically to what Rothbard said about the wedding couple.

As for Rothbard getting worked up about it (assuming that what he said really happened), the reading of literary excerpts at a wedding is not the same as pledging joint devotion and fealty to a guru, and then supplementing it by opening the guru's magnum opus and read aloud passages from it.

If I get married we'll read excerpts from the first run of The John Galt Line culminating in the . . .

--Brant

Edited August 13, 2011 by Brant Gaede

[Xray]

If I get married we'll read excerpts from the first run of The John Galt Line culminating in the . . .

--Brant

What if your future wife should reject AS? ;)

But reading the first run of the John Galt line would certainly be a lot better than choosing the scene where Galt and the heroine 'unite' in that awful dark abandoned railroad tunnel.

Yuck, imagine all the dirt, the stench and the critters crawling around there ...!

Edited August 13, 2011 by Xray

[Selene]

If I get married we'll read excerpts from the first run of The John Galt Line culminating in the . . .

--Brant

What if your future wife should reject AS? ;)

But reading the first run of the John Galt line would certainly be a lot better than choosing the scnene where Galt and the heroine 'unite' in that awful dark abandoned railroad tunnel.

Yuck, imagine all the dirt, the stench and the critters crawling around there ...!

In unity there is strength!

[Brant Gaede]

If I get married we'll read excerpts from the first run of The John Galt Line culminating in the . . .

--Brant

What if your future wife should reject AS? ;)

But reading the first run of the John Galt line would certainly be a lot better than choosing the scnene where Galt and the heroine 'unite' in that awful dark abandoned railroad tunnel.

Yuck, imagine all the dirt, the stench and the critters crawling around there ...!

In unity there is strength!

I'm sure Galt cleaned things up first--and installed appropriate lighting if not a mattress, etc., but the author ignored these non-essentials.

--Brant

did I just make things worse?

[Xray]

If I get married we'll read excerpts from the first run of The John Galt Line culminating in the . . .

--Brant

What if your future wife should reject AS? ;)

But reading the first run of the John Galt line would certainly be a lot better than choosing the scnene where Galt and the heroine 'unite' in that awful dark abandoned railroad tunnel.

Yuck, imagine all the dirt, the stench and the critters crawling around there ...!

In unity there is strength!

I'm sure Galt cleaned things up first--and installed appropriate lighting if not a mattress, etc., but the author ignored these non-essentials.

--Brant

did I just make things worse?

Don't worry - one cannot make that tunnel scene worse.

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

This looks like it is going to be a very good documentary. Did anyone see the list of people being interviewed in it? Here it is from the Cast and Crew page:

John Allison

Clifford Asness

Mike Berliner

Andrew Bernstein

Harry Binswanger

Yaron Brook

Northrup Buechner

Jennifer Burns

Corey Bustamante

Rep. John Campbell

Christopher Cerf

Corey Clark

Dan Cloer

Reut Cohen

James Ellias

Charlene Fowler

Erin Fowler

Nicole Gelinas

Richard Graham

Matthew Harrison

Anne C. Heller

James M. Kilts

John W. McIntyre

Michael Mignogna

Kendall Murfas

Kevin O’Connor

Amy Peikoff

Elliot Persico

Richard E. Ralston

Al Ruddy

Ed Snider

Michael Walsh

Lisa Wolf

This thing definitely smells like ARI, but look at the difference now!

Jennifer Burns, Anne Heller, Al Ruddy and Ed Snider, etc., all beside Mike Berliner, Andrew Bernstein, Harry Binswanger and Yaron Brook, etc.

Whodda thunk it coming from over yonder?

I'm impressed.

It's about friggen time, too.

Michael

[Selene]

Amen, maybe now we can kick off the dead rotting Peikoff skin and step into the light.

[Brant Gaede]

If I get married we'll read excerpts from the first run of The John Galt Line culminating in the . . .

--Brant

What if your future wife should reject AS? ;)

But reading the first run of the John Galt line would certainly be a lot better than choosing the scnene where Galt and the heroine 'unite' in that awful dark abandoned railroad tunnel.

Yuck, imagine all the dirt, the stench and the critters crawling around there ...!

In unity there is strength!

I'm sure Galt cleaned things up first--and installed appropriate lighting if not a mattress, etc., but the author ignored these non-essentials.

--Brant

did I just make things worse?

Don't worry - one cannot make that tunnel scene worse.

Well, let's add a stereo, a wine cooler and sommelier, cheese, and candlelight.

--Brant

[Xray]

Don't worry - one cannot make that tunnel scene worse.

Well, let's add a stereo, a wine cooler and sommelier, cheese, and candlelight.

I'm afraid that cheese will attract some unwanted meal guests - the tunnel rats and mice will love it! And flickering candlelight will only illuminate all the vermin on the walls and floor: roaches, spiders, slaters, earwigs ...

That tunnel might be suitable for a Goth party, but as a mating location for two heroic prime movers?

It would interest me whether Rand was consciously aware of the sexual symbolism of 'tunnel' when choosing this as a location for the encounter.

But even if this was what guided her choice, she could have looked for a more 'elegant' alternative. How about a luxury compartment of the John Galt train while it is running through a tunnel? That's where the wine, cheese, and candlelight would fit in a lot better! ;)

Edited August 15, 2011 by Xray

[Brant Gaede]

Don't worry - one cannot make that tunnel scene worse.

Well, let's add a stereo, a wine cooler and sommelier, cheese, and candlelight.

I'm afraid that cheese will attract some unwanted meal guests - the tunnel rats and mice will love it! And flickering candlelight will only illuminate all the vermin on the walls and floor: roaches, spiders, slaters, earwigs ...

That tunnel might be suitable for a Goth party, but as a mating location for two heroic prime movers?

It would interest me whether Rand was consciously aware of the sexual symbolism of 'tunnel' when choosing this as a location for the encounter.

But even if this was what guided her choice, she could have looked for a more 'elegant' alternative. How about a luxury compartment of the John Galt train while it is running through a tunnel? That's where the wine, cheese, and candlelight would fit in a lot better! ;)

All the rats and other vermin in Atlas Shrugged were people.

--Brant

dropping the sommelier, adding crackers