elsseworth toohey!

[Tom]

hooray for Mr. Toohey! just thought I'd start a thread in appreciation of Ayn Rand's 'fountainhead', but I haven't finished it yet, so if anyone has any opinions on the author, title, other titles, or objectivism *snicker* I'd Love to hear it, and I'll chip in as I finish each book.

to start though, she's an amazing writer, it's hard to put a finger on why her story (so far) is so captivating but it most certainly is. and she's got the timeless classic thing down pat, you can hardly tell this book was written in the late forties, sheeit, before the end of WWII even. bravo and encore

oh and did anyone else notice that objectivism seems to have a lot in common with satanism?
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dissidence is Love

[Tom]

Atlas Shrugged is the story of warring moral philosophies; that of those who wish to exist, with all that that entails, and that of those who wish only to exist upon the efforts of others. Much of the story is devoted to convincing readers that the latter philosophy is actually a denial of ones own existence, in effect, a wish to die while being too afraid to do so.

Atlas shrugged is the story of producers versus looters, passion versus apathy, good versus evil. Producers are portrayed as those who realize and accept that their existence relies on their thoughts, guiding their motions to extract sustenance from the world around them. They Love life and believe that their thoughts and action can be bent only towards eternal tribute to that life, in the cause of sustaining that life and enjoying it.

The looters are those victims who claim that it is their right to live while denying the physical principles involved in sustaining that life. Without acknowledgment of the apathetic nature of the universe around them, which cares nothing for their survival or what processes of thought and action will sustain it, they insist that they have a right of claim to sustenance, despite having never lifted a finger or allowed a thought towards producing it, and seek to appropriate that sustenance from the only possible source, its producers, with their only possible weapons, their fundamental irrationality and ignorance of the nature of existence.

The weapons of the looters take many forms; need, guns, rights, common decency, pity, generosity, among any other possible concept that can be disguised to look like something other than that which it is; the pleading of a beggar, as opposed to the obvious and logical weapon of existence; the will and ability to create ones own sustenance, or to create something of value to trade for that sustenance; which is the only weapon deemed necessary by the producers. The weapons of the producers create, while the weapons of the looters can only acquire. 'Weapons' is the term I use, in tribute to the unending battle of humanity for survival, against the cold apathy of humanity's universe. The producer's weapons are effective against the universe, the looter's weapons are effective only against the producers.

Moral philosophy can be thought of as a mirror that reflects ones inner values into the physical world. The moral philosophy of the looters is the prevailing philosophy, and so it is not surprising that the physical world looks like a garbage dump with occasional spires of awe, wonder, and admiration, rising up from a sea of murky refuse. It fails to amaze, under such a moral philosophy, that authority is feared and hated, hope is scarce, and intelligence and capability are sacrificed to blind, destructive ambition, an ambition that seeks not to tame the universe and its perils, but to harness and enslave men, in blind hope that from these slaves the capability to combat nature's destruction can be squeezed like orange juice.

Under the status-quo, achievement is defined as one man's power over other men. This so-called achievement is responsible for the cyclic nature of human history, where true achievement is only glimpsed briefly in the rising and lowering tides of mediocrity and chaos, where processes of survival are erected only to be seized, fought over, and eventually torn down, where humanity's knowledge of survival continues to grow, despite its ruthless pruning, but humanity's physical existence is forever in danger, and his own physical achievement allowed to him only at the whim of madmen whose faces are forever changing but whose minds are always equally mad.

Atlas shrugged is a story about what is wrong with what is so glibly called 'the human condition'. It is a story about how men were able to change that condition. It is not a story, in that it was written for the purpose of real men, and women, changing real life and conditions. It has, as yet, failed to do so, but, like the half glimpsed truth buried in the minds of those fools and cowards that refuse to let themselves see reality without filter of delusion, this story has lived on and on, over fifty years, providing inspiration and hope for that solemn victory of the mind over the gun, of logic over irrationality.
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dissidence is Love