Join me (or don’t, if it’s not in your self-interest) for a romp thru part one of Ayn Rand’s garden of selfish delights. It’s the heartwarming tale of two star-crossed corporate executives and their quest to figure out why the heck they can’t get the steel and train engines they need and who this guy John Galt is. I explain who the heck Ayn Rand is and why she is so woefully wrong about economics, politics, and industry. And I compare the movie to 2-Headed Shark Attack and soap operas.
I generally praise the sets and effects and acting, unlike the communists who write most of the reviews, but I admit that it’s about as dull as people talking can be when your villain is wrongheaded government economic policies. But I have fun with it and keep it light. For example, I propose that Packers and Vikings fans would be the first to break down and resort cannibalism.
Notes:
- Ayn Rand (I note that she was purged from the university she attended, but she was in fact later allowed to finish and graduate)
- the Orwellianly named Clear Skies Act
- Marx’s hilariously wrong labor theory of value
I’m watching on Netflix. Start the commentary after the production logo, on the countdown.
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Are you going to do Part II?
Can you a Paul commentary?
I don’t think I’ll do part 2. I’m not sure I’d get much more out of it, but I’ll see if they manage to do part 3 first, so I at least know there’s an ending.
I like Paul, but I’m not sure I have much of anything to say about it.
Ayn Rand would have hated this movie. You may want to read some of Rand’s writings. What you said about rich people using money to keep score is actually something I learned from Rand. Its unfair to use this movie to comment on her philosophy via this movie. Her philosophy of rational egoism is not just a reflex attack on communism.
A small sample:
“What is the moral code of altruism? The basic principle of altruism is that man has no right to exist for his own sake, that service to others is the only justification of his existence, and that self-sacrifice is his highest moral duty, virtue and value.
Do not confuse altruism with kindness, good will or respect for the rights of others. These are not primaries, but consequences, which, in fact, altruism makes impossible. The irreducible primary of altruism, the basic absolute, is self-sacrifice—which means; self-immolation, self-abnegation, self-denial, self-destruction—which means: the self as a standard of evil, the selfless as a standard of the good.”
Of course this will bring up many questions. As all fundamental philosophical ideas do.
Great comment! You mean Republicans have twisted Rand’s meaning to their own selfish ends? *shakes fist at sky* REPUBLOCANS!!!