Things I like about Atlas Shrugged

[Barney]

Quotations I like and agree with

Money is only a tool. It will take you wherever you wish, but it will not replace you as the driver. It will give you the means for the satisfaction of your desires, but it will not provide you with desires. Money is the scourge of the men who attempt to reverse the law of causality—the men who seek to replace the mind by seizing the products of the mind. Money will not purchase happiness for the man who has no concept of what he wants: money will not give him a code of values, if he's evaded the knowledge of what to value, and it will not provide him with a purpose, if he's evaded the choice of what to seek. Money will not buy intelligence for the fool, or admiration for the coward, or respect for the incompetent.
...
Money will always remain an effect and refuse to replace you as the cause. Money is the product of virtue, but it will not give you virtue and it will not redeem your vices. Money will not give you the unearned, neither in matter nor in spirit. (p. 382)

“The purpose of morality is to teach you, not to suffer and die, but to enjoy yourself and live” (p. 928).

Indeed! Morality is the instruction manual for the human soul. Ignore it and you do your soul damage, to a greater or lesser degree. Follow it and you will find flourishing. This is what the book of Proverbs in the Bible is all about.

“Accept the fact that in the realm of morality nothing less than perfection will do” (p. 969)

This is almost a quote of Jesus: "Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect" (Matthew 5:48)

Things I appreciate / have learned from the book

• The book drives home to me the fact that people want to receive a benefit for the work that they do. If you deprive people of a direct correlation between their work and their reward, you deprive them of the main incentive to do the best work they can.

• I appreciate the strong correlation drawn between money and production. Money is not a magic wand that can create what you want out of nowhere. It is a symbol for the amount of work that people have done. Someone must always have worked to produce what you are paying for, so if you are not working, you are taking from the economy without giving back to it, no matter how much money you have.

• I appreciate Rand's depiction of a human being as a mind/body composite, and her strong refusal to divide the mind and the body into separate categories, or to call one 'the real you' at the expense of the other. This seems to me to be what Christianity also teaches.

[Ondrej]

Now that we are discussing Atlas Shrugged I realize I have read it with a different sort of lens. I had no preconceived notions about what was in it or how I “ought” to think about what was going to be presented. She starts out quite clearly critical of Christianity. I paid little mind to that. It is typical to rail against Christianity when in reality one is railing against injustice and how Christianity is used in the service of immorality. I also did not read it with close examination of every word in every sentence to pick things apart. I just read it straightforwardly, as one would any novel.

Having done so, I have probably ignored many things which she has written which might not be sound and instead only retained in my mind the principles and themes I found correct and right. For example, I didn’t even read all of Galt’s speech because I wanted to know what happened next and not the minutia of Rand’s philosophy.

So, what are the injustices that Rand grapples with? The main one that I got from it was that under the auspices of charity (which we know and agree to be a good thing) we sanction theft and moral bullying. Rand seem to swipe charity off the table with some of the things she says but that is not exactly how her characters behave in my estimation. Or I need to think more about charity and examine her wording more closely about some things.

Another strong theme that I got was her absolute repugnance for cowardice and avoidance of responsibility. She uses phrases like “it was beyond our control”, “it couldn’t be helped”, “no one could blame us”. Ah, yes, I recognize this in myself! Make excuses for things, pretend it couldn’t be helped, when really I probably could have done something differently. I won’t be blamed, sure, but whatever it is will still not get done. I couldn’t be relied upon. The heroes do not make these excuses, they open themselves up to failure and blame on the gamble that the payout for the risk is worth it. Yes, this is correct and good! Don’t aim not to be blamed for anything, that is a low and paralyzing bar. It requires the bare minimum. Aim up, man, and aim high! Don’t make excuses for yourself.

Another theme is profit is good not evil.

Another theme (ironically the only major theme our society has taken seriously is the one that is trash) is the relationship between the sexes and the rejection of marriage. It is somewhat amusing to see the female slant on the story. Dagny bests all the men in a traditionally male endeavor and then Rand gives her a few options from the absolute richest, most capable men in the world (of course). Naturally, there is not another woman in existence who even comes close to matching her in the eyes of all three of her men. Then, in the same libertarian vein that runs through the rest of the story her characters can chose to pair up however they prefer. Dagny can take her pick and everyone will accept this cordially and civilly. Rand does not quite go all the way through with it though. Is it not clear that Dagny wants all three? Let her have all three then. Surely, if Rearden cannot have exclusive access to the best woman in the world it will be acceptable to have access some of the time. Surely, Dagny is free to “have a different flavor” when she likes or all three at once.

[Barney]

I keep meaning to add to this and forgetting - now I have remembered!

Another strong theme that I got was her absolute repugnance for cowardice and avoidance of responsibility. She uses phrases like “it was beyond our control”, “it couldn’t be helped”, “no one could blame us”.

Yes, I liked this too. I liked the way Rand made it clear: it doesn't matter who blames you or who doesn't, what matters is what you will do about it, whether you will take responsibility or not.

Something else I forgot to add, but which I think is important, is that Rand's characters have no disdain for menial jobs. They work as track walkers, sandwich-makers, signalmen, and that is fine and good. They are making honest money doing something that is valuable, and there is no shame in that. I love that.

Another theme (ironically the only major theme our society has taken seriously is the one that is trash) is the relationship between the sexes and the rejection of marriage. It is somewhat amusing to see the female slant on the story. Dagny bests all the men in a traditionally male endeavor and then Rand gives her a few options from the absolute richest, most capable men in the world (of course). Naturally, there is not another woman in existence who even comes close to matching her in the eyes of all three of her men. Then, in the same libertarian vein that runs through the rest of the story her characters can chose to pair up however they prefer. Dagny can take her pick and everyone will accept this cordially and civilly. Rand does not quite go all the way through with it though. Is it not clear that Dagny wants all three? Let her have all three then. Surely, if Rearden cannot have exclusive access to the best woman in the world it will be acceptable to have access some of the time. Surely, Dagny is free to “have a different flavor” when she likes or all three at once.

Yes this occurred to me as well. She ends up arbitrarily drawing the line between a conservative and a liberal sexual ethic. It's okay to switch sexual partners based on your personal preference without any commitment, but it's not okay (apparently) to have more than one sexual partner at the same time. Why not? No reason given. She hasn't taken this to her logical conclusion.