FReeper Book Club: Atlas Shrugged, The Chain

A Publius Essay | 24 January 2009 | Publius

[Publius]

Ping to Chapter 2.

[Rusty0604]

I just rec’d my “who is John Galt? tee shirt in the mail yesterday, can’t wait to see what conversations may develop when I wear it out.

[Publius]

There was no mention of George Westinghouse, so I assume he was dead by then.

[ScaniaBoy]

To me that is the great enduring value of this great book...to remind us that true heroes can still exist.....but only strong men and women can make it so.

Governor Palin's State of the State Address 2009 (full video)

[Publius]

Phillip and Hank's mother seem resentful possibly because they live in a society that is conflicted about success and wealth. They may have to do a lot of fund-raising and support for the *oppressed* in order to justify their existence among the elite of their society. They get to live well, but they have to make it clear that they didn't engage in selfish money-grubbing to get to their position.

Now that prompts a bit of thinking. Even today in British society, a gentleman is not a man who engages in trade -- that's so middle class, not upper class -- but a man who doesn't work for a living due to inherited wealth.

We haven't gotten that decadent yet, but in Rearden's family the British viewpoint seems dominant.

[panaxanax]

You are doing a great thing here, thank you! Please add me to your ping list.

I am the proud owner of a First Edition (1957 8th printing) hardback of “Atlas Shrugged”, excellent condition, no jacket. I paid a whole dollar for it at the SPCA second hand shop. What a find!

[hoosier hick]

Please add me to the ping list. I first read a borrowed copy in 1975. Since buying my own copy in 1980, I’ve re-read it 3 more times (although, I confess, I skimmed the 90-page John Galt monologue on two of those occasions...)

Thanks,

hh

[AlligatorEyes]

Yes, Please add me to your ping list.

Thank you for taking the time to share all of this with us. I have read the book but it was many years ago. I’m sure that I didn’t understand all the ramifications of the work. It is great to be able to read the viewpoints of other Freepers.

[SuperLuminal]

I’d prefer once a week.

[Explorer89]

Once a week for me, too. I only have time for this on weekends.

[Radix]

"I just rec’d my “who is John Galt? tee shirt in the mail yesterday,..."

Where do you get those?

I could use one if it has 3 pockets.

[wintertime]

please add me to your ping list.

[mick]

I only listed the first ten in the Table of Contents....but I just checked the book and sure enough Westinghouse is not listed....so you are probably correct that he was dead by 1917 in as much as Forbes says in the Intro. “....leaders of the present day...” But Westinghouse surely deserves to be ranked in any group of “Men who built America”

Thank you for the excellent work you are doing!

[mick]

Thanks for the link....I’m on the Palin ping list but didn’t get this one.....F U B A R

[RJR_fan]

When I was a lad, the skies over the Ohio Valley were filled with multi=colored plumes of smoke. We enjoyed spectacular sunsets. On one night of insomnia, I ascended the hill behind our house, and saw the red glow where the steel mill dumped slag into the river to cool.

"The air is as pure as the air above the Arctic. But you don't know how much longer you'll want to go on breathing it," Ayn Rand wrote in The Anti-Industrial Revolution, a collection of essays. The blue-collar industrial milieu had a vigor, a joy, a hopefulness. Immigrants were welcomed, and assimiliated through the medium of "Polock jokes." (My maternal grandparents were immigrants from Easter Europe.) That world is gone, and progress has been a mixed blessing.

[Publius]

We have gone from a nation that made money by "making things" to a nation that makes money by shuffling paper assets from one pile to another.

That can't be good.

[Joya]

Thanks. Will try to get to the library Monday and get a copy. Is it online anywhere?

[Publius]

I don’t know, but I tend to doubt it.

[r-q-tek86]

Phillip and Hank's mother seem resentful possibly because they live in a society that is conflicted about success and wealth

The people who have not earned it and know that they have not earned it are the ones who are conflicted about their wealth. It's that way in the book, too.

[r-q-tek86]

Thanks again for setting this up.

I gave Atlas to my 91 year old, yellow dog democrat grandfather for Christmas. We’ve just started trading letters discussing the themes of the book. I will share anything good that comes up and will steal anything good off these threads to share with him.