Jayson Funke posted: November 1, 2009 > Ayn Rand’s Revenge > By ADAM KIRSCH > http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/01/books/review/Kirsch-t.html?_r=1&hp > > A specter is haunting the Republican Party — the specter of John Galt. In > Ayn Rand’s libertarian epic “Atlas Shrugged,” Galt, an inventor disgusted by > creeping American collectivism, leads the country’s capitalists on a > retributive strike. “We have granted you everything you demanded of us, we > who had always been the givers, but have only now understood it,” Galt > lectures the “looters” and “moochers” who make up the populace. “We ...
1. I never read John Galt's speech in "Atlas Shrugged." By the time I got to it, I had figured out that if you skip the speeches, it's a fun pot-boiler novel, complete with the "hard" names for the Heroes (Galt, Roark, etc.) and "soft" names for the looters and moochers. 2. Nietzsche was different from Rand. His elitism was more that of the landed aristocracy and those who wished they were landed aristocracy, while hers is more petty bourgeois. 3. I don't know that Rand's book had much influence. Mostly, people who wanted to hear their message heard that message. For example, they are very appealing to teenage boys (and to a lesser extent girls) who want to be independent of their parents and to prove their individuality (partly by hanging out with a bunch that dresses alike and thinks alike). -- Jim Devine / "Segui il tuo corso, e lascia dir le genti." (Go your own way and let people talk.) -- Karl, paraphrasing Dante. _______________________________________________ pen-l mailing list [email protected] https://lists.csuchico.edu/mailman/listinfo/pen-l
