Who is John Galt?
Submitted by Merlin on Mon, 04/23/2007 - 03:49
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- I have been planning to make this list for a long time. Without doubt Atlas Shrugged is the most challenging book I've ever read. It is exhausting. It is demanding. It is defining. Needless to say, it is intriguing in many of the wide concepts it presents. I am scribbling down my random thoughts as I read and re-read the book. It helps me sort out.
- Atlas shrugged is a work of fiction. Rand herself has stated that categorically. It creates a world in which she would love to live. I agree, it is certainly a work of fiction, because rarely in reality you come across the evil so well defined and rarely do you come across the good, the best of the men so well defined. I would love to live in her world too, just to see the 2. In reality, men are mixed. Some are more good than others and others are more evil than others.
- The very act of publishing of the book is contradictory to the philosophy presented in it. If one HAS to be so 'selfish' then why did she share her book with others, especially with those who dont understand and respect it? In a way shes being like Hank Rearden.
- She says that she writes "Primarily for myself, my own enjoyment and as a secondary consequence, for others to enjoy." Then why publish at all? Write as you would write a journal. And if you're writing for "the few men who will grasp the entire meaning of the book (The Fountainhead)" why tom tom that you're writing for yourself only?
- In the book Rand gives a concept of an 'intellectual' hierarchy that in effect states that some men are superior than others, even if thats only intellectually. I agree. This kind of hierarchy is the only acceptable line of division. Some men ARE superior than others. And one does not have to be apologetic or modest about that.
Work in progress.