More to come as I have many thoughts on this reading experience. For now, I am announcing that I have finished the book. I didn’t realize that training to be an industrialist including flying and commando skills. Dagny’s a cold-blooded bitch popping a cap in that security guard.
And does anyone else notice the homo-erotic overtones between Galt, Akston, Ragnar, and Francisco?
So I’ve read a TON more of this, uh, story. For experienced readers, I am past Dagny’s crash landing in Galt’s Gulch (think Lake Woebegone for you newbies) and her return to New York. D’Anconia copper is being nationalized as we speak, or what’s left of it, and James Taggart has driven his poor wife to suicide. For the uninitiated, James Taggart is a fuckwad extraordinaire.
Rand sure does like to kill people off dramatically, too. I nearly quit reading after the Winston Tunnel event. It wasn’t that the train was destroyed. It was the way she listed off all these innocent people who, by her ideology, were essentially getting what they deserved. It’s not explicit, but the feeling is “look at all you fuckers, I’m killing you in my book, and I fucking like it.”
Other notable plot events are the nationalization of everything, laws passed that prevent people from quitting their jobs, other laws that require people to spend the same amount of money they spent last year – no more or no less. I don’t think Russia sliding into Communism was THIS fucked up.
The government is slowly being taken over by moochers and looters. Well, in this book, it should be Moochers and Looters. They are formal, abstract concepts in Atlas Shrugged, not just people.
I continue to sympathize with the “heroes” of this book. The villains Rand has created are so insidious and so vile that you’d root for Voldemort to defeat them. They come complete with a sound-wave weapon that can destroy things at nearly any range with precision. No problems with crowd control for these dictators. Honestly, if the world were really like this, I’d say fuck it and leave too.
And let’s not forget about the sex. First, the entirety of the prose is written like bad soft-core porn. Even when there’s not sex happening, it reads like really bad erotica. I can’t overstate the hideousness of the writing. Dagny is a lucky woman. She gets to have sex with (so far) 2 of the world’s greatest men in Francisco and Hank. And, it’s pretty obvious she’s going to get John Galt too. And it’s apparently very good sex. No mention of birth control, but then again there are nearly no children in the book. It’s probably better for the kids that they’re not.
What’s bizarre, however, is the way when Hank realizes that Dagny has fallen in love with someone else, he just says “ok, off you go.” Pretty amazing.
I’ll put together some more exhaustive posts later. Provided I don’t junk the book.
Alright, so I have finished the first part of Atlas Shrugged. For the blissfully ignorant, there are a total of three parts.
From the storytelling perspective, it’s an interesting read. Rand does weave together a very interesting cast with a fair amount of development of the main characters. Unfortunately, if you’re not a main character in the book, you are automatically a pitiful pile of poo, with a couple of exceptions. Really, I’ve never seen so many characters in a story that caused me to feel physical revulsion.
Dagny is, I admit, a very sympathetic character. I am even willing to say at this point that I like her. She’s tough, takes no shit, and stays completely true to herself. She’s also smart and can seriously get things done. She makes her brother look like a complete stooge. Although, he doesn’t really need any help there. What bothers me is that I feel like Rand thinks all women should be just like Dagny.
Hank is also an interesting and sympathetic character. I can’t help but feel sorry for him as his world crumbles around him. He’s hopelessly honest with everyone, including himself. And I like parties about as much as he does. His family is horrible, it’s no surprise he spends as little time with them as possible. Probably shouldn’t have gotten married, but I will confess I like him too.
Ellis Wyatt strikes me as a bit of a psycho. Also, oil shale doesn’t work. Sorry.
I maintain my initial observation that if Dagny were to die, Eddie Willers would kill himself too. Talk about idol worship.
Francisco is interesting, clearly playing a role on Galt’s behalf.
Since I’m just listing now, let’s switch to bullets:
Switching gears, however, I find the politics of the book disturbing. I say this because so many people seem to equate liberals and progressives with the complete fucking morons in this book. Is that *really* what people think progressives are like???? Have you ever *talked* to one? I mean, really? What the fuck? No liberal expects a business to intentionally ignore profitability to sacrifice its existence to the greater good. No liberal is going to pass laws specifically to limit, say, how many trains can run in Colorado relative to the surrounding states.
So many strawmen, so little time to blog them all.
So I’m torn now. I started this blog for the express purpose of reading Atlas Shrugged and blogging about it. Recently with very salty language I announced I was done. It’s not like anyone complained, because that would require someone reading the blog. However, I feel like I’m cheating, uh, someone?
Anyway, I expect that I’ll actually continue to read it, but at a slower pace. For perspective, here’s a summary of my thoughts so far:
So I’ll probably read the damn book. After all, I did buy it. But I’m pretty sure I’m going to be pissed off.
This is a focused mental exercise intended to be part of a larger argument for some form of public, universal healthcare. It is based on the story of Henrietta Lacks which has been so well told by author Rebecca Skloot. If you haven’t read her book, The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, you should do so. It’s a very compelling and fascinating history.
Of specific interest to me in this post is the concept of people owning, or not owning, their own body tissue. Skloot delves into some very interesting side stories of people having very strange interactions with their doctors over how their illness and treatment are used in research. It’s very interesting reading. The bottom line is that once your tissue leaves your body, it is essentially the full property of the medical research community. You do not have rights to any credit or gain from what happens after that. Most people probably don’t even realize that every visit to a hospital involves signing a form to this effect.
Let’s consider what a world might look like if this were not the case. If you have your appendix removed in the current system, the tissue goes off for research. But it’s your appendix. What if your appendix turns out to be the one that somehow holds the secret of curing cancer? In a world of raw capitalism you should have a piece of what happens. Granted, not a big piece perhaps, because without the surgery you may have died from a ruptured appendix. Also, your brain isn’t the one who made the discovery. However, that discovery is still impossible without you. Why don’t you get something for this? Because if you’re poor, there’s a good chance the treatment will be financially inaccessible to you.
There are good reasons why you don’t directly get anything for it, of course. Medical research would grind to a halt if every piece of the tons and tons of tissue had to have a name tag attached to it. Endless legal squabbles would ensue over which person’s appendix really cured cancer first. It would be chaos.
So I’m ok with my tissue being carried off and prodded without my knowing anything more about my specific set of tonsils. I’m content with the idea that researchers will make money, potentially a lot of money, using my body tissue. Where I am not ok is then taking the results of their scientific success and only making it available to people who can afford it.
This to me a is a perfect example of a collective effort. Nobody begrudges doctors and researchers the ability to benefit financially from their efforts. However, as a society, we should all also realize that none of those advances are possible with all of us contributing something. Namely we’re contributing our body parts. The very least we can do as a society then is maintain a healthcare system that recognizes this basic fact of collective effort and ensures that the fruits of these endeavors are available to everyone.
I’m still working on the best way to articulate this argument, so comments are highly encouraged.
I’m not sure yet on the Jedi claim, but reading about his push back on Eric Cantor I’m convinced he’s not a wuss. Presidents don’t usually throw around phrases like “this may bring down my presidency.” I’m impressed with that. I still don’t like everything he’s offering up, but he is sincere in his attempts to do the right thing and not back to down to what is basically extortion.
I have to admit I am enjoying the frenzy around Mitch McConnell’s, uh, interesting backup plan for raising the debt ceiling. I guess he got in touch with his inner Democrat? Anyway, he’s even gotten the support of John Boehner. I am picturing Eric Cantor hiding in his padded room at the moment, shaking like Mr. Angry in Mystery Men.
But the biggest question mark for me in all this is the president. He had apparently put on the table a wide range of compromises in Democratic “sacred cows” as he called them. Medicare to 67? Sure. Means testing? Sure. Massive cuts, up to 4,000,000,000,000$, you got it. But you have to raise taxes by a few hundred billion. So, the trillion dollar question for me is did he know that they would balk at the revenues, even with all of those capitulations??
If he knew, and he was strategically trying to show just how bat-shit crazy the GOP has become, then he is a Jedi. And David Plouffe once said (on the Daily Show I believe), Obama knows when to pull out the light saber.
Or did he really intend to offer up all of those cuts just to coax a minor revenue increase out of the Republicans? If he did, then what do I think of him now? Not much.
In my mind a lot hinges on the question of how serious he was about these offers. Is he a stooge/wuss/tool of a negotiator? Or is he a jedi? Anyone? Just who the hell is this guy we elected??? I can’t tell these days if I like him or not.
I’m struck by the similarities in these two books that I’m reading. In Smolin, I’m learning that physics is basically ignoring one of Einstein’s greatest realizations – background independence. It was a radical shift, so radical that practitioners today don’t know what to do with it, so it appears to me they’re ignoring it. Granted, this is just my opinion thus far based on one book.
In the Keynes book, it’s a strange parallel. Advanced economists worked as had as they could to kick his ideas out the door as soon as possible, despite the decades of economic growth after WWII. His insight was that perfect information doesn’t exist and that markets are inherently unstable. Without public spending to fill in for private spending when appropriate, we’re going to have nasy ups and downs like this. But aside from Krugman and a few others, nobody’s paying any attention to this.
This is a simplified view by me, a layman in economics and a token physicist. More on this later, my zero readers!
Interesting insight from reading about Keynes: Apparently both the New Classical and New Keynesian economists have an identical assumption that everyone behaves rationally at all times. At least on average. They’re just arguing over lag time of responses. It’s no wonder our economy sucks if both prevailing schools of economic thought are smoking crack when it comes to human behavior.
Really? Have they not heard the physics/engineering joke about assuming a spherical chicken??? This is very unsettling to me.
It’s a common metaphor that “the rising tide lifts all ships.” This was recently floated to me as a quality of the conservative movement, that they really believe this.
But I don’t think so. What they’re REALLY doing is hi-jacking government to build a Hoover Dam. Then, all the rich people get estates on Lake Mead. Everyone else gets to live downstream from the dam, pleading that the rich will let out a little water now and then. You know, a trickle, as in trickle-down economics.
A real “rising tide” is public investment. That will ACTUALLY raise all ships, instead of concentrating all the water in one place.
Think of that next time a conservative tries to tell you that we need to give the rich a bigger dam (tax cuts), so that everyone downstream can get more water??? What???
UPDATE: And to further the point let’s say the dam disappeared. The rich wouldn’t be hogging all the water, but there would still be some pretty spanking beautiful places for them to live…
