Atlas Shrugged: The Film?

I'm no objectivist and Ayn Rand's anti-Christian sentiments actually offend me quite a bit, but if the deal goes through for the Randall Wallace-helmed and written Atlas Shrugged film treatment, then I'll be there on opening day.

Comments

[Michael]

The Fountainhead would make a better film...and offer a film the culture actually needs: who cares who John Gault is when you have Tyler Durden and weird conspiracies in every movie? How 'bout a strong central character who believes what he believes and acts accordingly (albeit with no concept of situational nuance)?

[Hunter Baker]

Atlas Shrugged has a more compelling plot with all the great industrial geniuses disappearing one by one.

[Respectabiggle]

Rand's arguments for atheism were easily the weakest part of her philosophy. She said that she refused to believe in God because (and this is close to an exact quote), "I don't want to believe in anything that would be greater than I am." While this is refreshingly honest, it shows the idolatry of self that is at the heart of all atheism, and is wholly unsupportable by logic.

[Hunter Baker]

Respectabiggle, I agree. My recollection is that she was "against" the idea of God for exactly the reason you say. Her philosophy is incomplete because she insists on this incredible dignity of the individual without much ground for it.

Then again, Atlas Shrugged explains the very pragmatic ground. The elite will refuse to do great things.

[Michael D. Harmon]

The echoes of Nietzsche are strong in individualist philosophies, esp. including Objectivism. The consciousness faces the void at the center of existence and finds its own justification in acts flowing from the center of the self. Human dignity is self-created -- and that is not a bug, it's a feature, as the geeks say. If you got your dignity from some outside entity, it would not be YOURS, would it?

Satan, crouching in the ice at the center of Hell, could not espouse his worldview better.

I think we find it appealing because we confuse it with genuine human dignity, which can at times (often?) result in the same actions defending individual rights, even though they spring in Christians from a religious, God-centered point of view. But they are radically different (different at the root) because one is self-centered (the Randian Virtue of Selfishness) and the other is Other-centered. I am no statist, and I would rather live in an society ruled by Objectivists than the current Marxist/Fascist trend, but let's not ignore the flaws that underly Rand's Weltanshauung.

Who is John Galt? Lucifer.

[Hunter Baker]

No question about that, Michael. I just prefer Atlas Shrugged to 1984 or Brave New World.

[Michael]

I think Atlas Shrugged is in a different vein than 1984 and Brave New World. The latter two are socialist and materialist utopias respectively--both of which are, of course, dystopian to the properly adjusted human spirit--whereas Atlas Shrugged is ultimately about the establishment of a "free" state apart from the mixed economy moving towards true statism. It is a fascinating thing to see the bureaucrats reject absolute nationalization of Rearden's steel business while slowly regulating how he runs it through laws. Atlas Shrugged is about fleeing before the brave new world is born...

And this might be why I actually dislike it so much relative to The Fountainhead. Galt and the industrialists ought to have resisted the governmental encroachment, not surrendered their industries to found Galt's Gulch. The problem with Objectivism is a complete lack of duty to fellow man: it isn't human dignity; it's egocentrism. Compelling plot with a grand conspiracy and the rejection of governmental authority are resonant themes to the masses (who so happily embrace the governmental regimes anyway...), but the rejection of the bureaucrats passing regulations isn't accompanied with resistance or born of a duty to society, which is why it is considered "heroic" to run off to Galt's Gulch.

Galt isn't Lucifer. Lucifer resisted the Authority in war. Galt merely went on his merry way from one Hell to another voluntarily. I might have liked him more if he were a Miltonian Lucifer replacing the Kingdom with a Republic of Heaven, but he couldn't even manage that.

[Michael D. Harmon]

Um. Perhaps it would have been clearer to say that Galt is Luciferian in his self-centeredness and pride. I did not mean to say that his fictional actions as protrayed by Rand in her book were parallel to Lucifer's very real, prehistoric rebellion against God. Galt seeks like-minded associates -- it probably is too much to even call them allies -- while Lucifer wants only to dominate. But Galt and the Adversary are alike in their rejection of any morality outside the desires and wishes of the self.

Adam Smith's Invisible Hand works, but it works only on the large scale, with groups and nations. Love is individual-to-individual. Which is why socialism doesn't work at any level. No bureaucrat loves the people he "helps," and his help does not free them, it enslaves them. After all, is not the success of a government program how many enrollees it has? How many it can send away empowered to run their own lives only results in smaller allocations the next fiscal year.