I considered Atlas Shrugged to be a page turner until I got to John Galt’s speech. I got about a third of the way through and put the book down for almost a year. I then forced my way through the rest of the book.
I still think it is a great book but the preachyness and the culmination of her godless pure capitalism creed could not be taken seriously.
Capitalism only works in a Judeo-Christian culture. In an atheistic culture it would be the most evil thing the planet ever saw, and maybe why liberals who know their own soul hate it so.
“I still think it is a great book but the preachyness and the culmination of her godless pure capitalism creed could not be taken seriously.”
I am not a Rand apologist, but I think I would suggest the speechifying was part Rand and part the character Galt. Like a lot of the people in that time, communism was scaring the crap out of people and disgusting to others...I think reading it now, because of the softening of the fear (or the gradual creep of socialism) makes the rhetoric harsher...it is dated, that’s for sure...but hard to ignore the call to make men fishermen instead of people who need to be given fish...which, in her opinion, I think, was the capitalist version of christian giving by extending help in a more meaningful manner than chronic simple charity...
With all the "love thy neighbor as thyself", and "render unto Ceasar", "eye of a needle" stuff in there? Are you sure about that?
Singapore, Taiwan, S-Korea, Japan, India, the Arab Gulf States all don't strike me as particulary Judeo-Christian. A correct assesment would be that Capitalism only works in a Western oriented society. Of course Western civilization owes a large part to Judeo-Christianity, but modern Capitalism is not dependant on a particular religion.
His speech inadvertently, demonstrates the problem with pure Objectivism. The human being is not a purely rational creature and never will be. Conservatives instinctively know this. We understand that humans are not perfect. However, rationality still must be the underpinning upon which a society is built. The problem with the Left is they ignore the rational consequences of their actions.