Why was Atlas Shrugged so good? This book really makes you take a good hard look at yourself and your behavior, which is why I think a lot of people don't like this book. It's a lecture and most people don't like to get lectured. I loved it. It gave me a good swift kick in the ass. While I've never been a "looter," I have made several irrational decisions in my life, which this 1000+ page lecture has helped me to stop doing. It teaches you to think with your mind, rather than your heart.
Fountainhead was better
>>8000792
This. Howard Roark is fucking badass.
>>8000841
he's just a half-ass autistic who can't express his concern like a professional.
>>8000713
Man, I read the book and apply just a bit of it on my life, then I got myself fucked real hard in the ass. Extremists show us that there is another way, another posssibility, but that's not always the best way. I'm not talking about money or power, I'm talking about the true state of mind. They only true path of thinking is logic and rationality.
It's bad.
>>8000713
I think Rand's philosophy is limited, smug, and ultimately wrong, but her basic message (maybe better expressed in The Fountainhead) is one I agree with: you have to live for yourself first, you can't live for other people. That it's not what you value or how you pose or what you say, it's your actions and hard work that are the true measure of you.
I think Atlas Shrugged (except for, oh God, the speech) is fun to read because of the plot. The mysteries, frustrations, challenges etc. Dagny's drive to keep the railroad running despite it all and being doomed to fail. The delicious inserted details of projects that end in disaster, schadenfreude a big pleasure of this book. The utopian, SF, and dystopian elements. Also the "Going Galt" storyline probably has some immature emotional kick to it, the kick of like imagining if you ran away from home and everyone who previously treated you so badly was now SOOO sad and heartbroken...
>>8001138
Bruh the plot is the least important thing about the book. But i dont think see hoe her philosophy is ultimately wrong. Its basically operating according to reality.
>>8001155
Plot is what makes me turn pages is all.
Claiming Randism is "basically operating according to reality" isn't really an argument. A devout Christian believes they are operating according to reality also, their understanding of reality is just extremely different from yours. So is an atheist materialist socialist's understanding of reality, for that matter. In each case a different conclusion is "self-evident" from that reality and as a result argument becomes impossible. And if someone rejects your ideas, you get to react like "lol, you're attacking the grounds of logic, thought, and reality itself, unlike me."
Like I was saying.... smug.
One critique I have of Randism -- by which how I don't think it *does*, in the end, accurately map to reality -- is that the binary economic-like model of creaters/moochers, geniuses/dumbasses, titans/looters, doesn't fully account for how real people interact in society. Take a simple thing, why do we make friends with the people we do? Because we see in them some sort of reflection of an absolute ideal? Hardly, it's a much fuzzier process where we are drawn to certain people for reasons like common hobbies and reference points, their sense of humor and general temper, whether they are good at cheering you up when you're down, what kind of stuff you like to communicate about, whether you look up to them and want to emulate them or whether you want them to look up to you, etc.
Like, haven't you ever wanted to do something nice for a friend for no particular reason? In a Randian context this move is a mistake, in fact, by giving someone something without them "earning it" in a transaction you are devaluing the currency involved and blah blah blah.... except that if you think about human relationships in a purely transactional sense, you're kind of missing the point of having relationships in the first place. Remember the Calvin and Hobbes strip where Calvin asks Hobbes to sign a friendship contract? In the Randian world such a move makes total sense (why not? free contract freely entered into!) but in the real world it's misunderstanding what friendship is. Hobbes the tiger was right to decline.
>>8000713
>rationality
Well spooked.
>>8001222
honestly, one of the best statements of understanding re: AS and Rand I've ever read. very nice.
>>8001222
>"in the real world"
Only shitty teachers and shitty parents use this argument. Rand's ideas are based in logic and they are just and extension of Aristotelian logic. To argue with Rand you must first dismiss Aristotle.
>we are drawn to certain people for reasons like common hobbies and reference points
Rand says to choose friends based on a respect for their virtues. This is not a bad base for a friendship.
The chapter where the train blows up is one of the greatest chapters written in any book. The way the tension builds, and how we see the cause-and-effect chain, is just impeccable.
>>8001222
thanks for posting this anon.
To any reasonable man, Rand's path is the one of truth. Leftist subjectivists are too cucked to see it. With reason to guide me, and logic to defend me, I fear not their attacks.
>>8002291
This. Rand has some very good moments and some very bad ones. Francisco's speeches where stellar.
>>8000713
>Why was Atlas Shrugged so good?
Ahh, more namefags for my filter
>>8000713
It wasn't.
>>8002291
Spoiler
>>8002279
and do you have any friends? or are you waiting on one who is virtuous enough to come along
>>8003759
i actually do this shit, best friends ever.
