Atlas Shrugged Producer John Aglialoro on Ayn Rand's Enduring Impact

[Jonathan]

I don't think that having Dagny shoot James would be a culmination of the throughstory Michael is talking about. James has been cast as negative character from the first chapter of the book, before Dagny appears in person. And as opposite to Dagny from her and his childhood on. She never had any cause for concern about James Taggart.

I disagree. Dagny always had cause for concern about Jim, but she blew it off, underestimated his destructive potential, etc. Jim personified the "who are we to think for ourselves" mindset. He was a leader of that mindset.

I'd like to make clear that it isn't the moral issue with the shooting of the guard that bothers me. It's the logistics (and the grade-C movie quality) of the way the whole sequence is handled. The logistics become stupider, and less plausible, each time I think of them.

For instance, a point Brant brought up with his misremembering. Why isn't there a fence?

Wasn't it a science institute, and maybe even something of an educational facility? I think that such buildings or complexes sometimes have fences and sometimes don't. Perhaps the building wasn't originally designed for any purpose that would require strong security, and was hastily taken over by Galt's torturers? I'd have to reread it again to see if the lack of a fence stands out to me as it does to you.

And the absurdity of only one door to a building that has unused laboratories and the kind of equipment needed for running the torture device. Did Rand never visit a science facility? All such places I've ever been to (multiple of them) have at least one loading entrance.

Yeah, that sounds really weird. I've known of buildings which have only one small publicly visible/accessible entrance (with additional hidden entrances), but those building were sort of fortresses, and had very advanced and aggressive security systems, including perimeter walls rather than mere fences.

J

[Wolf DeVoon]

Seems archetypal characters in Atlas never get pregnant.

The archetypes of the Good Guys in AS are the Spirit/Idea children of The Mistress who chose to be biologically barren.

Chose to be barren? -- you know that for a fact?

It's odd and misleading to talk about the protagonists of Atlas (Dagny, Owen Kellogg, Hank, Francisco, Richard Halley, Ellis Wyatt, Ken Danagger, Ragnar, Midas, John Galt, etc) as "good guys." They enabled the looters and supported moochers until, one after another, they deserted and let the entire economy collapse. Millions starved, tens of thousands died. That's why most readers reject Atlas and vote for welfare state "benevolence" as loyal team players.

[Conor Friedersdorf, The Atlantic, 2012] -- I've read Ayn Rand's book. I know her protagonists. And Congressman Ryan, you're no John Galt... "The reason I got involved in public service, by and large, if I had to credit one thinker, one person, it would be Ayn Rand," he said. There is a term for characters in Rand novels that proclaim a desire to spend their lives serving the public. They are villains. What line from Ayn Rand's work did Rep. Ryan return to before voting for the prescription drug benefit? As Dave Weigel notes, Rep. Ryan has explained many of these votes to fellow conservatives by insisting that he hated casting them but felt the need to be a team player during the Bush Administration. But that isn't an explanation that helps him in the moral universe of Atlas Shrugged. Characters who act contrary to what they know is right in the name of loyalty to others are considered moral monsters. All the worse if their immoral acts involve redistribution of wealth. If Rep. Ryan existed in Ayn Rand's world he'd get chewed out by Ragnar Danneskjöld after he hijacked shipments of subsidized drugs and dumped them into the ocean. http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2012/08/if-paul-ryan-were-an-atlas-shrugged-character-hed-be-a-villain/261036/

[Selene]

POST # 223 SUPRA

Brant:

I carried condoms in my wallet since I was twelve [12] hoping to use them.

No, I do not want to "knock" anyone "up" [where did that phrase originate lol*].

Bareback riding works well with horses.

The two (2) children that we had were both planned.

I also am strict when I coach, or, mentor teenagers, or, young men. I insist on their oath to

control their own sperm and not leave children around.

I back up the oath with comparing an unwanted child with any woman is tantamount to a twenty-two [22] year sentence, with no time off for good behavior, no probation, no parole.

Additionally, let's say you are making $800.00 a week as a construction worker, imagine having $140.00

of that salary automatically taken out for child support which is $7,280 per year.

If you never got an increase in salary [which is virtually impossible] that would mean, minimally,

that you would be without $176,600. You could buy some nice "stuff" with that money.

Oh, dude, if you lose your job, no one will give a shit. You earned "x," therefore, we will impute

that income to you[A lot like some directives in Atlas!] and you will have to get three (3) jobs if

necessary to make that "nut."

Condoms are a lot cheaper.

A...

*

Pregnant or “knocked up”?

October 4th, 2006

Q: Here’s a question that’s been on my mind ever since my wife took a pregnancy test this morning. What’s the origin of the phrase “knocked-up”?

A: According to the Random House Historical Dictionary of American Slang, the phrase “knocked up,” meaning pregnant, first appeared in print in 1830! An 1860 slang dictionary defined the term this way: “Knocked up. … In the United States, amongst females, the phrase is equivalent to being enceinte.”

The Oxford English Dictionary traces the expression back as far as 1813 and says it’s of American origin. An OED citation from 1836 refers to slave women who are “knocked down by the auctioneer, and knocked up by the purchaser.”

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

I'm not comparing the fictional world of AS to reality. The standard of judgment is not a novel's consistency with reality, but with itself. The novel creates a world of its own, with its own metaphysically given facts, rules and standards. The scene of Dagny's judging and shooting the guard is not internally consistent with the given facts, rules and standards of the imaginary world that Rand created. That inconsistency is what makes that scene "not top-notch [romantic] realism."

Jonathan,

I think we are near the same position. But my lens is from an inner throughline and you are talking from the lens of the outer lines.

After Ellen's assurance that Rand's Journals suffered some tampering, but not nearly as much as I feared, I dug the book out and am now reading it. I don't know if Rand ever made a distinction between inner plotline (usually called "character arc") and outer plotline, but this is standard in the fiction and screenwriting teaching stuff out there. I don't recall anything super-clear by Rand on this from The Romantic Manifesto or The Art of Fiction Writing, but I wasn't looking for this distinction when I read them--several times each in fact. Sometimes she talked about the psychological necessities of the characters... Hmmmm... Well... I'm going to reread them again anyway for a project I am doing on fiction-writing in a Randian style.

(As an aside, I really wish I could get ahold of the original recording of her fiction writing workshop.)

I strongly suspect I will find a concern with inner/outer throughlines (or plotlines or whatever you want to call them) in Rand's Journals, but not in the wording I use. I have already seen a hint in Peikoff's "Introduction":

We see her continually restructure events so as to achieve an inexorable rise to a necessary but unpredictable climax. We see how several different lines of events (personal/emotional, economic, political, philosophical) are made to rise and climax at once, and how each of these lines helps reshape the others.

I easily see what I am looking at in this quote (and I hope it is just as clear in the book): i.e., Dagny's inner throughline ("personal/emotional") developing in a manner to do what it is supposed to do (i.e., change her view of people) and leading to a "necessary but unpredictable climax." Grilling and shooting the guard is perfect for that purpose. For the external stuff, I agree it is far from perfect. I don't find as much imperfection as you do (several details), but I do find imperfection along your general lines.

Michael

[Ellen Stuttle]

I agree with you that Romanticism versus Naturalism sets up an artificial division, principally since it is so hard to classify works that way. This confused me a lot back in college because the courses I took talked about Romantic music (Berlioz, Schumann, Chopin, etc.), but nobody talked about Naturalism. And, for as hard as I looked and studied, I couldn't find Rand's notion of volition in the music as a fundamental characteristic as opposed to, say Baroque music or more modern music, say, Hindemith.

I think that her classification is quite impossible applied to music. And to the visual arts. The latter issue is an ongoing subject on the "Romanticist Art..." thread, one which was interrupted by recent events.

So I looked at literature. I read some of the Naturalist authors she said she admired for their writing technique, like John O'Hara, and saw the characters exercising volition all over the place. Nobody acted with the underlying self-pitying "I couldn't help it!" image that I got from her rhetoric.

John O'Hara used to be generally classified as "realist" - see, e.g., but some literature specialists argue that there are enough naturalist aspects to his work to classify him as naturalist, and some call him "realist-naturalist." You can find material Googling - John O'Hara naturalist - if you're interested. (I tried linking search results, but that doesn't work because of the apostrophe in the name.) In any case he wasn't a Naturalist in the sense in which Rand herself started out using the term in 1961-62. At that time she used "Naturalist" in its original meaning referring to a particular set of late-19th- through early-20th-century writers. (See "The Esthetic Vacuum of Our Age.")

It took me years to get out of that tangled confusion.

I can imagine. See, the reason I draw attention to the issue is because I think that Rand was basically bonkers in her definition of "Romanticism" generically and in what she then did with the definition. I think her writings on the subject get followers who take her views on art seriously confused about classifying art works, as you describe happened in your own case.

I'm not so sure Naturalism meant the opposite of the presence of plot to her. It might have at the end, but I still don't see it. I think it meant more that the plots were so loosely structured it was difficult to find causality between the events--that the selectivity of the plots were based on journalism standards of reporting things as they happened rather than choosing only those aspects that would lead logically to a climax. I see the fundamental division more in these terms: Rand's purpose of writing fiction was to present the ideal man and the purpose of the Naturalists was to present man as he existed at a specific moment in time in a specific environment. I know I can find quotes to this effect.

Your description in the last sentence does reflect things Rand said, but here's what she wrote in 1969 in her article "What Is Romanticism?" (I'll eventually get around to posting excerpts on the research resources "Metaphysical Values..." thread. I wish I hadn't named the thread that but instead by a general title, but when I started it I was just wanting a separate place to park Rand's quotes about m v-j's.)

Romantic Manifesto

Signet Second Revised Edition, 1975

pp. 91-92

[bold emphasis added]

Romanticism is a category of art based on the recognition of the principle that man possess the faculty of volition.

[....] In forming a view of man's nature, a fundamental question one must answer is whether man possesses the faculty of volition [...].

Their opposite answers to this question constitute the respective basic principles of two broad categories of art: Romsnticism, which recognizes the existence of man's volition - and Naturalism, which denies it.

In the field of literature, the logical consequences of these basic premises (whether held consciously or subconsciously) determine the form of the key elements of a literary work.

1. If man possesses volition, then [...]. The literary form expressing the essence of such action is the plot. (A plot is a purposeful progression of logically connected events leading to the resolution of a climax.) [....]

2. If man does not possess volition, then [...]. The literary form expressing the essence of this view is plotlessness (since there can be no purposeful progression of events, no logical continuity, no resolution, no climax).

[....]

These basic premises of Romanticism and Naturalism (the volition or anti-volition premise) affect all the other aspects of a literary work, such as the choice of theme and the quality of the style, but it is the nature of the story structure - the attribute of plot or plotlessness - that represents the most important difference between them and serves as the main distinguishing characteristic for classifying a given work in one category or the other.

~~

Specifically regarding the point you were making to Jonathan, I agree with you that there's lots of loose fit with reality in Atlas. She was describing a "mythical America," as you say. The whole set-up with the rescue operation bothers me all the same because of the stupidity on both sides. One might counter that the bad guys could realistically (within the mythical America) act stupidly, but the good guys? That's a problem, I think. Re-reading the scene the other day, I discovered that it's even worse than I'd remembered. I'd remembered it as Dagny wandering off and encountering a stray guard at a small back door. Uh-uh. Front entrance. Only door, and Dagny is specifically assigned to try to get in while the other rescuers are busy mopping up other guards. Blech. I don't buy it.

Ellen

[Ellen Stuttle]

"...the wrench of a switching perspective"

significant passage re Dagny's through-line

Atlas Shrugged

original hardcover edition

pp. 1133-1135

[bold emphasis added]

[Galt has said, "Get the hell out of my way" on television, stepping aside to show the gun pointed at him.]

Dagny had laughed exultantly, in the ballroom of the Wayne-Falkland, when she had heard him say it; she had laughed, her hand pressed to her mouth, so that the laughter was only in her eyes - and in his, when he had looked straight at her and she had known that he had heard it. They had looked at each other for the span of a second, above the heads of the gasping, screaming crowd -above the microphones being shattered, though all stations had been instantly cut off - above the bursts of breaking glass on falling tables, as some people went stampeding to the doors.

Then she had heard Mr. Thompson cry, waving his arm at Galt, "Take him back to his room, but guard him with your lives!" - and the crowd had parted as three men led him out. [....] She cut through the crowd and followed the clique. No one tried to stop her.

She found them huddled in a small, private study: Mr. Thompson was slumped in an armchair, clutching his head with both hands, Wesley Mouch was moaning, Eugene Lawson was sobbing with the sound of a nasty child's rage, Jim was watching the others with an oddly expectant intensity. "I told you so!" Dr. Ferris was shouting. "I told you so, didn't I? That's where you get with your 'peaceful persuasion'!"

She remained standing by the door. They seemed to notice her presence, but they did not seem to care.

[....]

"Now," said Ferris, suddenly dropping his voice, "do you see what a valuable establishment the State Science Institute really is?"

Mouch did not answer him, but she observed that they all seemed to know what he meant.

"You objected to that private research project of mine as 'impractical,'" said Ferris softly. "But what did I tell you?"

[....]

"It's too late for any scruples or any principles," said Ferris. "Only direct action can work now."

No one answered; they were acting as if they wished that their pauses, not their words, would state what they were discussing.

[....]

"It seems to me...that we have no other choice..." said Mouch; it was almost a whisper.

They remained silent; Mr. Thompson was struggling not to see that they were all looking at him. Then he cried suddenly, "Oh, do anything you want! I couldn't help it! Do anything you want!"

[....]

She knew. She knew what they intended doing and what it was within them that made it possible. They did not think that this would succeed. They did not think that Galt would give in; they did to want him to give in. They did not think that anything could save them now; they did not want to be saved. Moved by the panic of their nameless emotions, they had fought against reality all their lives - and now they had reached a moment when at last they felt at home. They did not have to know why they felt it, they who had chosen never to know what they felt - they merely experienced a sense of recognition, since this was what they had been seeking, this was the kind of reality that had been implied in all of their feelings, their actions, their desires, their choices, their dreams. This was the nature and the method of the rebellion against existence and of the undefined quest for an unnamed Nirvana. They did not want to live; they wanted him to die.

The horror she felt was only a brief stab, like the wrench of a switching perspective: she grasped that the objects she had thought to be human were not. She was left with a sense of clarity, of a final answer and of the need to act. He was in danger; there was no time and no room in her consciousness to waste emotion on the actions of the subhuman

Ellen

[Ellen Stuttle]

I don't think that having Dagny shoot James would be a culmination of the throughstory Michael is talking about. James has been cast as negative character from the first chapter of the book, before Dagny appears in person. And as opposite to Dagny from her and his childhood on. She never had any cause for concern about James Taggart.

I disagree. Dagny always had cause for concern about Jim, but she blew it off, underestimated his destructive potential, etc. Jim personified the "who are we to think for ourselves" mindset. He was a leader of that mindset.

Miscommunication. By "concern" I meant caring, concern for a person's well-being, not "concern" in the sense of worry at a threat.

Ellen

Edit: I changed the sentence to "She never had any cause to feel concern for James Taggart" and explained that the original wording was misleading as to what I meant.

Edited September 19, 2014 by Ellen Stuttle

[Ellen Stuttle]

In any case, I'm trying to answer Brant's suggestion that perhaps Rand was "rushed" to complete the manuscript, and therefore bungled Dangy shooting the guard, which sophomores question as an ethical lapse, somehow oblivious to the fact that war is war, which Rand understood better than any of her overfed, pampered, latter-day suburban American admirers. Miss Rand wasn't rushed or flustered into a half-baked finish. It was carefully engineered, like Hugo's beautiful, innocent Esmeralda swinging at the end of a noose and Quasimodo's murder of Frollo at the end of Notre Dame, to cap the premise he started with: fatality.

No one is objecting to Dagny's shooting the guard, not even Jonathan.

~~

Brant,

I think you're onto something re the "rushed." And maybe tired, too, having spent two years on the grueling task of writing Galt's Speech.

Ellen

[Wolf DeVoon]

I'd like to pick up on the question of realism. No one has been more critical than I have about certain aspects of Atlas that seem goofy, but not the idea that a handful of key players could bring a society to its knees (with government worsening each setback). Subtract Ellison, Page, Brin, Jobs, Wozniak, Allen, Shugart, Harris, Rosen, Kilby, and Noyce -- poof -- no Silicon Valley. Same thing in finance. Fewer than two dozen deserters could have left everything in the hands of glad-handing looters like Keating, Rubin, Prince, Lay, Corzine, and Mozilo.

It demonstrates to my satisfaction that, if the premise is valid, it's realism.

Only 36 percent of Americans can name the three branches of government

and CNN can't count

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

Romantic Manifesto

Signet Second Revised Edition, 1975

pp. 91-92

[....]

These basic premises of Romanticism and Naturalism (the volition or anti-volition premise) affect all the other aspects of a literary work, such as the choice of theme and the quality of the style, but it is the nature of the story structure - the attribute of plot or plotlessness - that represents the most important difference between them and serves as the main distinguishing characteristic for classifying a given work in one category or the other.

Ellen,

Well, there it is in all its glory.

Can't argue with that.

Michael

[Brant Gaede]

I'd like to pick up on the question of realism. No one has been more critical than I have about certain aspects of Atlas that seem goofy, but not the idea that a handful of key players could bring a society to its knees (with government worsening each setback). Subtract Ellison, Page, Brin, Jobs, Wozniak, Allen, Shugart, Harris, Rosen, Kilby, and Noyce -- poof -- no Silicon Valley. Same thing in finance. Fewer than two dozen deserters could have left everything in the hands of glad-handing looters like Keating, Rubin, Prince, Lay, Corzine, and Mozilo.

It demonstrates to my satisfaction that, if the premise is valid, it's realism.

Only 36 percent of Americans can name the three branches of government

and CNN can't count

The government has branches?

--Brant

[Backlighting]

POST # 223 SUPRA

Brant:

I carried condoms in my wallet since I was twelve [12] hoping to use them.

No, I do not want to "knock" anyone "up" [where did that phrase originate lol*].

Bareback riding works well with horses.

The two (2) children that we had were both planned.

I also am strict when I coach, or, mentor teenagers, or, young men. I insist on their oath to

control their own sperm and not leave children around.

I back up the oath with comparing an unwanted child with any woman is tantamount to a twenty-two [22] year sentence, with no time off for good behavior, no probation, no parole.

Additionally, let's say you are making $800.00 a week as a construction worker, imagine having $140.00

of that salary automatically taken out for child support which is $7,280 per year.

If you never got an increase in salary [which is virtually impossible] that would mean, minimally,

that you would be without $176,600. You could buy some nice "stuff" with that money.

Oh, dude, if you lose your job, no one will give a shit. You earned "x," therefore, we will impute

that income to you[A lot like some directives in Atlas!] and you will have to get three (3) jobs if

necessary to make that "nut."

Condoms are a lot cheaper.

A...

*

Pregnant or “knocked up”?

October 4th, 2006

Q: Here’s a question that’s been on my mind ever since my wife took a pregnancy test this morning. What’s the origin of the phrase “knocked-up”?

A: According to the Random House Historical Dictionary of American Slang, the phrase “knocked up,” meaning pregnant, first appeared in print in 1830! An 1860 slang dictionary defined the term this way: “Knocked up. … In the United States, amongst females, the phrase is equivalent to being enceinte.”

The Oxford English Dictionary traces the expression back as far as 1813 and says it’s of American origin. An OED citation from 1836 refers to slave women who are “knocked down by the auctioneer, and knocked up by the purchaser.”

lol. Recently a friend's granddaughter gave birth to twins. She was 18. When asked by some in her family why she would want children with no substantial earnings her reply was "we didn't plan it that way" Duh. Sounds like no planning to me. My ex wanted at least 4-5 kids, starting immediately after we got married. I was 25 then. My reply was, in a tone much angrier than Arnold's, "Hasta la vista, baby" Throughout my entire life I've always believed I could be happy with children (assuming I could afford them) or without them. I've never had any children...I'm happy.

-J

[Wolf DeVoon]

Throughout my entire life I've always believed I could be happy with children or without them...

I've never had any children...I'm happy.

1. Thank you for starting this thread and returning at an auspicious turn. Seems like an endless pipe of golden ore.

2. Happiness "is not mass-produced. It does not arise safely and securely, the cheery product of prudence. Your best interests, individual or collective, most certainly lay elsewhere in the lap of luxury, of certainty and shame. No happy man bows his head or knows what tomorrow may bring. Tomorrow is irrelevant."

3. "Procreation is our most important progress. In the relation between private mentor and student, it is possible to coach, challenge, guide and inspire a new man, based on wisdom acquired by an elder who had fewer choices and less luck." [Laissez Faire Law, p.112]

Age two, she became a computer hacker. I am not making this up. Whenever Mom left the room to pee, or to make lunch, little Fishy raced to Mom's swivel chair at the computer desk, and she developed and ran some very impressive macros.

Typical journal entry from that year:

Yesterday, I told her with exasperation for the billionth time: "Fishy - get - down - off - Mommy's - rolly chair!" and took her place to assess the carnage. This time the screen had an error message complaining about punctuation in a file name. It took a while to figure out what this referred to. There was a new icon on the desktop, a Lotus 123 spreadsheet, with a file name that was the text of an email message that my wife received, about 30 words with periods and commas. I swear to you faithfully that there is no desktop shortcut to launch Lotus. All of our email is handled via webmail, zero security problems, and no way to access stored messages unless you log on to a password-protected host. My toddler had maybe three minutes, tops, at the keyboard and mouse. The only thing I can conjecture is that she used Program Start and went from there, found a temp file of the webmail page, selected some text, copied it, and launched Lotus...

Attempting to compromise, we gave her a dead laptop when she was 15 months old. She disassembled it, without tools and without breaking anything, so next I tried entertaining her with a little kid toy telephone that made beeps and boops. A week later, I found the grown-up adult handset in the middle of my desk, picked it up, said Hello? and had a brief conversation with someone in Cuba who I did not call, but apparently Fishy did.

[Selene]

Throughout my entire life I've always believed I could be happy with children (assuming I could afford them) or without them. I've never had any children...I'm happy.

-J

J.

Understood.

I always wanted children because they are wonderful little entities that you can enjoy and grow with.

I also have tremendous patience.

Just do not want to have objectivists go the way of the Shakers. Nice furniture is too little to show

for a movement.

A...

[Backlighting]

Throughout my entire life I've always believed I could be happy with children (assuming I could afford them) or without them. I've never had any children...I'm happy.

-J

J.

Understood.

I always wanted children because they are wonderful little entities that you can enjoy and grow with.

I also have tremendous patience.

Just do not want to have objectivists go the way of the Shakers. Nice furniture is too little to show

for a movement.

A...

I hear you & appreciate the reply.

It wasn't until my 30's that I believed I could afford the little ones. But I never found "the one" to have them with and, as you know, the years fly by. I did, however, open a nursery school while married. Had 3,4 & 5 yr olds from some 80 families. They were a joy. Sold it after the break with my other half and headed West. No regrets & never looked back.

[Backlighting]

Adam, do you have any "little entities"?

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

"...the wrench of a switching perspective"

significant passage re Dagny's through-line

Atlas Shrugged
original hardcover edition
pp. 1133-1135

[bold emphasis added]


[....]

She knew. She knew what they intended doing and what it was within them that made it possible. They did not think that this would succeed. They did not think that Galt would give in; they did to want him to give in. They did not think that anything could save them now; they did not want to be saved. Moved by the panic of their nameless emotions, they had fought against reality all their lives - and now they had reached a moment when at last they felt at home. They did not have to know why they felt it, they who had chosen never to know what they felt - they merely experienced a sense of recognition, since this was what they had been seeking, this was the kind of reality that had been implied in all of their feelings, their actions, their desires, their choices, their dreams. This was the nature and the method of the rebellion against existence and of the undefined quest for an unnamed Nirvana. They did not want to live; they wanted him to die.

The horror she felt was only a brief stab, like the wrench of a switching perspective: she grasped that the objects she had thought to be human were not. She was left with a sense of clarity, of a final answer and of the need to act. He was in danger; there was no time and no room in her consciousness to waste emotion on the actions of the subhuman

Ellen,

This is exactly what I was talking about with Dagny's inner throughline. Rand being Rand, though, would not be content to leave this as an abstract value judgment. She had to make it concrete.

How about, without a smidgen of guilt or remorse, shooting one of these subhumans dead in cold blood, one who is apparently innocent of anything that directly attacked her values just to make it extra-hard? That's pretty concrete.



Later I'm going to run James Taggarts's throughline, too. His would be a throughline toward the awareness that he really wanted death. However, I never found his nervous breakdown on understanding his own awfulness convincing on a psychological level.

I knew a man once who snapped like that, but it was because he was rejected by the woman he favored after he spent all of his retirement money her (he bought her a house) and forgiven by the wife he betrayed. The shame made him snap. He sat down on the couch and never got back up. He died in bed a couple of years later. (He was the father of one of my exes.)

I have lived with very dark emotions in my soul and around people who were immersed in them. James Taggart's breakdown is just not credible to me. Maybe some day I'll see it, or maybe after running his throughline, but the way he broke seems more like wishful thinking by Rand regarding the power of evasion than any actual psychological reality.

It reminds me of L. Ron Hubbard, who used to write if you learn about this or that before it's time, or if you do this or that, you will get pneumonia or whatever. Or you will go insane. Proven fact.

I don't see Taggart's end in such shameless shallow melodramatic terms as Hubbard's stuff, but I can't get rid of the feeling that it is (partially at least) a trumped-up caution against evasion much like what Hubbard did for things he warned about.

Like when she said money would punish those who got it illicitly in Franciso's money speech:

Did you get your money by fraud? By pandering to men’s vices or men’s stupidity? By catering to fools, in the hope of getting more than your ability deserves? By lowering your standards? By doing work you despise for purchasers you scorn? If so, then your money will not give you a moment’s or a penny’s worth of joy. Then all the things you buy will become, not a tribute to you, but a reproach; not an achievement, but a reminder of shame.

When I think of some of the people I knew during my bad time, this has no correspondence at all. It is pure wishful thinking.

It would be nice if money worked that way in the minds of crooks and punished them and maybe it does for some of them. But it doesn't for all, not even most. It just doesn't.

Sure, the people I knew and observed were scumbags, but they constantly had a hell of a lot of fun for folks who are not supposed to get "a moment’s or a penny’s worth of joy." (Man, do I have stories...)

Between what Rand said and my own eyes and experience, I will go with my mind, not hers.

But both line up on so much, it's all good for me.

Michael

[Backlighting]

Hello Wolf.

Re:

1. You're welcome.

2. Certainly my happiness has not been reached without dealing with the numerous bumps in the road I've encountered.

As the little Russian lady with the heavy accent said "Reality, to be commanded, must be obeyed".

3. Couldn't agree more & I would add procreation is obviously necessary for the species to survive and hopefully thrive.

-Joe

[Brant Gaede]

Maybe it's betraying your own story that breaks you with self-awareness.

--Brant

[Wolf DeVoon]

Maybe it's betraying your own story that breaks you with self-awareness.

--Brant

Can you spell that out for me? Went over my head.

[Brant Gaede]

Maybe it's betraying your own story that breaks you with self-awareness.

--Brant

Can you spell that out for me? Went over my head.

If you think of yourself as a courageous and moral person and find out that it's a lie--you've been bullshitting yourself, for decades.

--Brant

it doesn't matter that the example here isn't particularly realistic, but think of Mother Teresa questioning her faith--she should also* have been questioning her supposed good works wherein lay the real, living fraud--so I see that as one deflecting the other

*but would have killed her in her old age

[Wolf DeVoon]

Maybe it's betraying your own story that breaks you with self-awareness.

--Brant

Can you spell that out for me? Went over my head.

If you think of yourself as a courageous and moral person and find out that it's a lie--you've been bullshitting yourself, for decades.

Fortunately, I've never been threatened with that dilemma.

[Jerry Biggers]

"If only...." Usually, but not always, the product of rumination, particularly about oneself, but also about others. Often leads to personal regret, self-condemnation, depression. In most cases, useless, because it is "water over the dam," etc.

In the case of reviewing past accomplishments, failures of others, particularly an author, i.e., Ayn Rand:

If only she had, taking the wisdom and hindsight that I now have over 50 years later), .....

If only she had Roark doing this,.....If only she had Dominique doing that..... Then there's that building blow-up, the interesting ways that the courtroom scene could have been written,.If only ........

There there's Atlas, full of mistakes, literary errors (the critics told us so), the speeches, so awkward and unrealistic,.......... If only she had........

then there's the tunnel scene......, If only..... and the torture scene!,....the book's ending, so silly! But, if only,......

And then there's the antics of Peikoff and Kelley!

And, Aglialoro! Ohmygawd!!! ...... the mistakes, the if onlys are,....well........endless.

Damn! If only Rand had consulted with me before making all these errors!! I should have been a novelist!

No, wait! A movie producer! If only Aglalloro.had done this!...Or done that....!! If only he has the wisdom that I could have given him!

I wonder why anyone even reads these books?

Rear seat driving.

Monday morning quarterbacking.

[Brant Gaede]

Ha, ha!

Very, very funny, Jerry!

--Brant

[Jonathan]

Damn! If only Rand had consulted with me before making all these errors!! I should have been a novelist!

No, wait! A movie producer! If only Aglalloro.had done this!...Or done that....!! If only he has the wisdom that I could have given him!

I wonder why anyone even reads these books?

Rear seat driving.

Monday morning quarterbacking.

Yeah, and if only all of the world renowned artists had consulted with Rand before making all of the "errors" that she griped about without ever having studied or created in their fields!

Rand and her art are getting very gentle criticism here in comparison to that which she dished out. Our criticisms are quite respectful and objective, where hers were really not very respectful at all, and mostly subjective: she complained about what she personally didn't like, where we are addressing internal inconsistency. We are not judging her and her entire artistic career based on our interpretations of one scene, we're not calling her work "trash," or asserting that she had "inner conflicts" or "bleak metaphysics" or anything like that.

We're not looking down our noses or making irrational, prejudicial judgments.

Well, by "we" I mean everyone other than Pup BaBoon. He hasn't seen any of the films that he's having hissy fits about.

J