Talk:Atlas Shrugged

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Talk:Technology in Atlas Shrugged: Archive of talk page of an article that was merged with this article Archive 1: May 2006 and earlier Archive 2: May 2006 – Jul 2006

Contents 1 That so-called "Rebuttal" 2 Jenkins review 3 Huffington and Bloom 4 This was not Rand's position 5 Jewish 6 South Park 7 Modern Library paragraph censored 8 News on the movie 9 Rethinking the Huffington quote 10 Neutrality of Criticism Section 11 philosopher 12 Ongoing Problems 13 "How long was it?" 14 Literary elements going completely undiscussed in article on work of literature 15 Not a criticism... 16 Definition of philosopher 17 Galt Motor Really a Perpetual Motion Machine? 18 Rand's Theory of Sex 19 More Problems with the Technology Section 20 "Gault" Telluride Tombstone 21 Fictitious inventions? 22 Who owns 'Galt's Motor'? 23 Harlock Link 24 Userbox? 25 Wikipedia is not a link directory 26 Spoiler warning 27 The quotes do not belong here 28 Critical reception section 29 In popular culture 30 Roll call 31 Publication Date 32 Actual Railroad 33 Shale Oil Drilling 34 Things

[edit] That so-called "Rebuttal"

[[1]]

The "rebuttal" to the old Whittaker Chambers critique of this novel is a shallow hit piece that consists solely of shrill insults and strawman arguments (kinda like the novel, actually). I know that accusing critics of being evil demons who didn't even read the book is a standard tactic of Randroids, but surely there is a genuine positive review of the book that can be linked to, instead..

Here's my summary of the so-called "rebuttal" article (strangly called a "review"):
Paragraph 1: "NRO publishes some authors that I like. Also, they publish authors I don't like."
Paragraph 2: "They published an old article I don't like. That makes them kinda evil."
Paragraph 3: "Chambers misspelled some of the crazy unpronouncible names of characters in the novel."
Paragraph 4: "That means that he didn't read it."
Paragraph 5: "Chambers probably disagrees with Rand's philosophies."
Paragraph 6: "Therefore, he is stupid. Just like Osama bin Laden."
Paragraph 7: "Like bin Laden, Chambers is a fundy who wants to make America a theocracy."
Paragraph 8: "Since Chambers didn't like this book, he obviously hates freedom."

Seriously, guys. This link is bad, even by Wikipedia standards. I'd remove it, but I don't have an account and everything by IPs gets auto-reverted, these days. Anyways, peace out.

74.195.66.147 (talk)

[edit] Jenkins review

I've eliminated the Jenkins review piece, as it contains several factual errors, such as repeating the rumor that Rand got her name from her typewriter. LaszloWalrus 10:34, 23 June 2006 (UTC)

There were no errors in the parts cited, and you have no proof there were errors to begin with. This is just a POV deletion as usual, which I am reverting. Try coming up with a strong argument for once. -- LGagnon 13:41, 23 June 2006 (UTC)

If he stated that there are facutal errors, you can not respond with "This is just a POV deletion as usual". If LaszloWalrus can come up with more than just the typewriter error, then I say we take a hard look at letting the review stay. -- Emperorcezar

[edit] Huffington and Bloom

I have eliminated the Huffington's criticism; it is a passing comment on a relatively minor aspect of the novel. CEO's don't act like the characters in Atlas Shrugged? Peers of England don't act like Gwynplaine in The Man Who Laughs either. The elimination of the Harold Bloom comment seems to be a concerted effort to eliminate anything at all flattering to Atlas Shrugged. Bloom is probably the most respected literary critic today, so this seems strange. LaszloWalrus 11:47, 24 June 2006 (UTC)

Bloom's statement was not cited. An we've been over Huffington's argument already, and it stays. You argument against her is nothing new, so it is not going to change things. -- LGagnon 00:03, 25 June 2006 (UTC)

We went over the Huffington article and you were unable to provide any good reason why it should stay. —Centrx→talk • 01:07, 25 June 2006 (UTC)

I gave plenty of good reasons. -- LGagnon 02:59, 25 June 2006 (UTC)

I'd like to point out to Neverborn that the source was not there when I deleted the Bloom line. If a source was given, it wouldn't have been deleted. -- LGagnon 03:01, 25 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] This was not Rand's position

This line is not correct: "Rand herself wrote that the separation of fiction and serious philosophical ideas is absurd, because art is the representation of philosophical judgments." This was simply not Rand's position. Art according to Rand, did have SOME philosophical conetent, but not necessarily "serious philosophical ideas." LaszloWalrus 03:18, 26 June 2006 (UTC)

Rand stated that art was "- a selective recreation of reality according to the artist's metaphysical value judgements." I believe this means that art was a representation of the artist's philosophy and his/her view on the issue depicted.75.121.36.237 (talk) 17:39, 28 March 2008 (UTC)Arbiter099

[edit] Jewish

The last time I added the fact she was Jewish to this article, a user reverted with this statement, "{she didn't identify as Jewish and even swiched to a non-"Jewish-sounding" name)"

I changed it back, indicating that she was, in fact, a Jew. The way the article read before (Russian-born writer) one might be under the impression that she was of Russian blood. But clearly, any researcher on this subject knows that she was Jewish and many of her friends were Jewish as well. I added the 'jew factor' in because I did not want any misunderstandings in the article, and I think we should celebrate her diversity.

• This user's only other edit today was an anti-semitic personal attack on the Userpage of User:Khoikhoi which has been reverted. I am reverting this edit as well. --Doc Tropics 03:32, 30 June 2006 (UTC)

actually, she may have been jewish born (she was) but she was an athiest. And to this comment: "and I think we should celebrate her diversity." would have offended her. I think anyone that has read any of her work, like her or not would agree with that.

In various articles throughout wiki, there are insertions of who is a jew, as though it's of some note-worthy importance. Perhaps we should be outlining some other imprtant factors, like who is a white person of french ancestry and agnostic in beliefs. we should also note his/her shoe sizes and bady fat percentages. What a rediculous addition to an article. (Mythos721 18:32, 13 March 2007 (UTC))

[edit] South Park

Centrix recently deleted a line about a South Park episode that mentions AS. If we can add a bit more info about it, I think it would be ok to have it in the article. -- LGagnon 22:39, 1 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Modern Library paragraph censored

I'm not entirely against the changes made to the Modern Library section, but one line didn't need to be removed. The line in which Ray Jenkins claims that "Rand's unwillingness to cut the size of the book was a sign of megalomania" was sourced, yet it deleted without explaination. -- LGagnon 23:26, 1 July 2006 (UTC)

That quote is more about Ayn Rand than about Atlas Shrugged. The poll is directly relevant and Jenkins gives one possible explanation of it ("great American cult")—though even that is a little attenuated—and the other commentary about her works being deplored by critics and the length of the speech is directly related to the book. Directly relevant information would be that the book is long and that she refused to cut it down, with critics saying it is loose and could have been refined. The criticism is already too loosely connected as it is; it is turning into a list of every newspaper article, etc. that has ever been published about the book. —Centrx→talk • 23:55, 1 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] News on the movie

Here's some info for the movie section: [2]

With this much info, is it already time to to grant it its own article? - Stormwatch 02:37, 23 July 2006 (UTC)

I don't know if that counts as a reliable source; we'd be able to find more sources with this info if it was right. -- LGagnon 03:31, 23 July 2006 (UTC)

Here's more info: [3], [4] - Stormwatch 18:00, 29 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Rethinking the Huffington quote

I read the above discussion about Huffington's criticism, and I'm having a hard time understanding why it's the anti-Rand people who want to keep it in. The Huffington quote basically reveals she didn't actually read past about chapter two. Therefore, even with the caveat that she's wrong in that statement, it basically gives the impression that critics of Atlas Shrugged have to resort to uninformed, and erroneous statements in order to find something wrong with it. When that is listed as a prominent criticism, it makes the reader wonder if there even is a non-clueless criticism of the book. If I were trying to put Rand in the best light possible, I would probably want to include only the most ridiculous criticisms, and this one qualifies. So, if your goal is perhaps to make sure the anti-Rand views are best expressed, I really have to question if that goal is achieved by inclusion of Huffington's criticism. MrVoluntarist 14:45, 25 July 2006 (UTC)

Why is it that every time a Randist criticizes their critics they always claim that the critic is stupid or didn't read the book? Can't you actually refute the argument instead of resorting to illogical ad hominem attacks? If Randism is logical, please try to give an actual logical rebuttal. -- LGagnon 15:05, 25 July 2006 (UTC)

Assuming you're being serious, the rebuttal is given in the article: Atlas Shrugged has numerous CEO's who demanded government intervention in their favor, so it makes no sense to claim that AS portrays CEO's in general as anti-government intervention. It portrays anti-intervention CEO's as good, and pro-intervention CEO's as bad. Again, if I were trying to promote Rand, I would *love* to include the Huffington to quote in order or portray all criticism as stemming merely from being misinformed. What I don't understand is why you want critics to look stupid. If you're okay with that, so am I. MrVoluntarist 16:04, 25 July 2006 (UTC)

Huffington is speaking about CEOs in general and the Enron executives in particular and comparing them to Rand's ideal businessman; that's not to say Huffington is unaware that not every businessman in AS meets Rand's ideal. What sounds ignorant in that paragraph is the attempted refutation, "However, Rand does show examples of businessmen who act in such a manner i.e. Orren Boyle, Jim Taggart", since Huffington never claimed Rand didn't show such examples. It's clear Boyle and Taggart aren't Rand's ideal businessman, so they're irrelevant to Huffington's comments. That said, however, I don't know how appropriate a discussion of Huffington's article is in the "Critical reception" section, since she isn't actually criticizing AS in it, she's criticizing American businessmen for not living up to the Randian ideal. At worst, she's indirectly criticizing the Randian ideal for being unrealistic, but she doesn't come out and say that. I'm also not convinced the South Park reference belongs in "Critical reception", since it's really just a throw-away joke that is almost certainly more about the length and "heavy slogging" of the book than its philosophical content: South Park Republicanism is, after all, very close to Randian Objectivism, with perhaps a little less misanthropy. User:Angr 17:39, 8 August 2006 (UTC)

Then shouldn't we remove the Huffington bit? I don't see how it's notable as criticism of the AS. I read the whole piece and I still don't see it. It's not that I want to suppress criticism. I'm worried about the soft bias of putting in only the weakest or most tangential criticisms so as to make it appear no one has serious arguments against it. MrVoluntarist 20:07, 8 August 2006 (UTC)

You do know that you could add more criticisms to the section yourself. I know they are hard to find (Rand, being merely a romance novelist with a implicitly fascist attitude, doesn't get that many reviews from respectable reviewers), but you could put the effort into it yourself rather than tell the rest of us to look up more content for you. -- LGagnon 05:03, 9 August 2006 (UTC)

Good thing I didn't, that would have sucked. MrVoluntarist 16:21, 9 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Neutrality of Criticism Section

All of the entries here are cited and fairly reported, reasonable readers are aware that criticism is pov by definition. --Son of Somebody 23:22, 25 July 2006 (UTC)

If they are cited and fairly reported, then their placement is probably, but not necessarily, consistent with WP:NPOV. The issue isn't about whether the criticism itself violates WP:NPOV, but whether its placement does. And good criticism, by the way, is not necessarily in violation of WP:NPOV. One can fairly and objectively criticize a movie, Hitler, Nixon, a philosophy... anything. Anyway, I reverted the tag because the comment only cited the "criticism" card - as if a criticism section is not subject to the rules of WP:NPOV. That's false. At the same time, anyone who puts the tag in there, should explain the reasons for doing so. --Serge 00:01, 26 July 2006 (UTC)

Many works of art on Wikipedia have sections dealing with critical reception, surely this work of literature is important enough that it also merits such a section. Or perhaps none of the others merit a section, as even the best of them violates WP:NPOV. This section is not presented in a manner that implies that the Wiki authors are inserting their personal views. In any event, this tag was not explained and this is the first discussion about it. If criticism sections are subject to WP:NPOV, someone has a lot of deleting to do.--Son of Somebody 01:17, 26 July 2006 (UTC)

Why is the Modern Library poll said to be "notorious"?Agent Cooper 16:16, 9 August 2006 (UTC)

I've removed some of the content in the criticism section. Having contextless opinions like "people read the novel for the fornicating bits" or the novel reads like "a novelization of Mein Kampf by Barbara Cartland" is pointless. It is akin to saying "in the opinion of {some reviewer} Atlas Shrugged sucks." I have left the more substansive reviews, positive or negative, that actually say something about the novel (right or wrong). Similarly, the South Park anecdote belongs at most to a trivia section, not a criticism section. LaszloWalrus 08:05, 14 August 2006 (UTC)

You don't get to choose who reviews the book. Once again, you've made a POV edit, serving no purpose other than to censor Rand's critics. It would help a lot more if you could make some form of edit that wasn't based in bias. Try adding something constructive, something that doesn't violating any policy; for once we might not have to revert you. -- LGagnon 15:31, 14 August 2006 (UTC)

LGagnon, I'm not sure you understand how the criticism section looks to an outsider. Let's say I'm neutral. Let's say I just read the book. Then I come to Wikipedia to look for the criticisms. Then I see:

Reviewer X said it's like Mein Kampf.

Reviewer Y said people like to read the dirty parts.

Reviewer Z said a South Park episode joked about the length.

Reviewer Z1 said that a lot of people are like the jerks in the book.

What conclusion would I draw? Most people, seeing those criticisms dominate the criticism section, would think, "Hey, no one can offer a really substantial criticism. Maybe no one has any substantive objection to the book's theme. Maybe Rand is on to something." That's why I have a hard time understanding why people who don't like AS want those criticisms in. It's like they want to prod people into having a high opinion of it. Understand where I'm coming from? MrVoluntarist 17:13, 14 August 2006 (UTC)

That's an utterly illogical conclusion. Rand might be on to something if you don't agree with the critics? There are a lot of bad criticisms of the nazis, but they aren't on to something, and nobody is going to make that assumption about them. Sorry, but I don't understand where you're coming from, because you aren't using logic to explain your opinion.

If you have a problem with the criticisms, that's tough. We're supposed to represent all major opinions, not just those that are Randist-approved. I'll admit we don't have enough reviews, but then again even the person who complains loudest about this (you) hasn't added more. I'm sorry but you are not going to change the article around just by throwing around weak illogical rhetoric for the sake of deleting criticisms of Rand's work. -- LGagnon 18:12, 14 August 2006 (UTC)

Anyone with a serious response? MrVoluntarist 19:50, 14 August 2006 (UTC)

You are not going to get a serious response if you don't have a serious argument. You'll get one as soon as you start using logic in your arguments. -- LGagnon 20:02, 14 August 2006 (UTC)

I did. Again, anyone with a serious response, who wants to post in good faith? MrVoluntarist 23:35, 14 August 2006 (UTC)

I don't think you understand me. I'm not making a bad faith claim; I'm simply stating the fact that your "argument" lacks logic, and thus does not warrant a response until you can create a logical argument. There will be no point in anyone answering your "argument" until you can present a real argument. Just come up with something that follows actual logic and then you can have your response. -- LGagnon 00:32, 15 August 2006 (UTC)

No, I'll give a serious response. Reading these talk pages, it's becoming difficult to assume good faith when it comes to LGagnon, and I do think some real criticisms (surely they exist?) need to replace the hodge-podge of amatuerish research that is in the article now. I don't have the time to hunt them down now, and may not ever, so in the meantime they should probably stay (after all, Wikipolicy is to use verified sources, not simply subjectively "high quality" sources). 161.225.129.111 20:38, 31 August 2006 (UTC)

Alright, you win. I'll play your game. In response to what you said (your statements in italics):

Rand might be on to something if you don't agree with the critics?

No. Had you read what I posted, you would have noticed that the claim was that the article induces the reader to think "if the best criticisms of the book only cover superficial issues, maybe no one has a substantive objection, and thus, Rand's at least right about something".

If you have a problem with the criticisms, that's tough. We're supposed to represent all major opinions, not just those that are Randist-approved.

Had you read what I posted, you would have noticed that a criticism not being "Randist-approved" was not the basis for my questioning its presence in the article. You would have instead noticed that my point was that, far from showing reasons to doubt the arguments advanced by the book, it would reinforce people's support of it -- make them more supportive of Rand's beliefs -- by making it look like critics are only capable of superficial responses that dodge the main point. You would have noticed my warning you that Rand would have gladly approved of these "criticisms" dominating article, and you would have realized how foolish it would sound to act like I was trying to get only Rand-approved criticisms.

I'll admit we don't have enough reviews, but then again even the person who complains loudest about this (you) hasn't added more.

Yes, because I admit that the scholarly debates over the merit of AS is not my area of expertise and my time would be better spent working on articles on topics I'm already familiar with.

I'm sorry but you are not going to change the article around just by throwing around weak illogical rhetoric for the sake of deleting criticisms of Rand's work.

See above on the "illogical rhetoric" bit. I would also like to introduce you to the fact that a problem can only be solved by first identifying that it exists, and that my input was indeed a vital step in remedying a deficiency in this article.
Now that I have carefully explained my position for a third time, I'm sure that you won't accidentally misinterpret it in the future in a way that appears to be trolling but I can't assume is trolling because I am assuming good faith in all Wikipedians, against all evidence ot the contrary. MrVoluntarist 05:16, 15 August 2006 (UTC)

I won't debate that literature isn't your area of expertise, but that shouldn't hold you off from simple research. Even if all you did was post a few links to reviews on this talk page, you'd still have put more effort into improving the criticism section than you have done with simply complaining about it. It doesn't take a college degree to look up reviews.

And again, you are simply giving your opinion that these reviews are superficial. There are some very well detailed ones (Huffington, for instance, gave an analysis quite similar to academic papers I've read) which you are calling superficial without giving any real analysis of their work to prove your point. Instead, you set up a strawman by minimizing their claims to something poorly thought out (i.e. reducing Huffington's analysis to "a lot of people are like the jerks in the book" rather than taking on her actual analysis). Your claims have simply come off as fallicious opinion, not logical fact, and thus I still don't see a need to remove these criticisms. -- LGagnon 16:46, 15 August 2006 (UTC)

What academic papers are Huffington's similar to? Come on, state it. Give me some links, some cites. Don't just gripe here, that's not productive. It doesn't take a college degree to look this stuff up, let's stop being lazy and do some serious work to improve the article. There's no moaning on Wikipedia, you have the power to edit. I don't want to hear unsubstantiated claims about imaginary academic papers with no real meat behind your analysis. You're just making strawman attacks, we don't have time for it. Let's do some real work, let's see some genuine input. You haven't done anything at all to improve the article except allude to some mysterious unnamed articles out there with some unnamed similarity to Huffington. Why? MrVoluntarist 17:00, 15 August 2006 (UTC)

You've resorted to personal attacks now? This does nothing to improve your argument. I shouldn't have to cite academic papers for your sake; if you've seen an academic literary analysis before, you'd recognize what I'm talking about. You can look that up yourself. -- LGagnon 17:20, 15 August 2006 (UTC)

I did not make any personal attacks unless you consider carbon copies of your statements to be personal attacks. I do not tolerate "it's out there somewhere". I do not like your insinuation that I haven't seen academic literary criticism. That is a personal attack and it is not tolerated on Wikipedia. I will not look anything up for you. You made the claim. Let's see the proof. We don't "do" unsubstantiated claims here. MrVoluntarist 17:29, 15 August 2006 (UTC)

You made mocking variants of my statements which were changed into personal attacks to make another strawman against me. And I did not say you haven't seen academic criticism; I said if you've seen it (that is, I don't know if you have or not) you would recognize it. And if you have seen it before, then I shouldn't have to show you what it looks like; you would recognize it by now without asking me to prove it.

My claim is substantiated; you, on the other hand, haven't given a substantial claim to argue your point, as you simply assume that your strawmen prove that the criticisms are wrong. You haven't even begun to give a logical argument, so I don't see why I need to further prove you wrong. -- LGagnon 17:50, 15 August 2006 (UTC)

I see no substantiation for any of your claims whatsoever. All I see is hand-waving about some mythical literary criticism (whic for some reason references modern business practices unlike any other literary criticism) that you haven't once substantiated despite being asked again and again. That's not how we roll here. Time's running out, and I'm going to need to see your sources soon.

Btw, I'm sorry if you don't like being treated how you treat others. MrVoluntarist 18:06, 15 August 2006 (UTC)

I mean literary criticism in general. It's pretty standard for one to compare a piece of literature to contemporary events, as the literature often reflects them in one way or another. I shouldn't have to give you an example of standard criticism if you claim to have seen it already.

And again, you haven't even given a logical argument. All you do is use a strawman to back your opinion, rather than giving a real argument. It doesn't matter whether I give a source or not; you don't even have an argument to argue against yet, and until you create an argument that is not based in logical fallacy you won't have an argument. I've already won this debate by default because your only argument is a strawman. -- LGagnon 19:23, 15 August 2006 (UTC)

And there we have it. All along, you're thinking in terms of "how do I out-debate this guy? How do I win?" You should be thinking in terms of "how do I discover what belongs in this article?" This is concrete proof I shouldn't regard your input as serious. I'll continue this with other respondants whom I can engage in serious discussion. MrVoluntarist 20:02, 15 August 2006 (UTC)

One more thing, in case anyone's wondering: I have made zero logical fallacies. Every time you have responded to me, you have misquoted my argument, like when I said the criticisms make AS look good, and then you took that as a claim that they weren't randist-approved. Ironic you should complain about strawmen. Also, you claimed I trivialized Huffington's piece without saying what relevant point I left out. (Oops.) We're well beyond the point where I can take you seriously, given your behavior on the objectivism page and here. At the very least, I want a second opinion from someone who won't browbeat me. MrVoluntarist 20:07, 15 August 2006 (UTC)

I expect I'll be stepping on some toes by jumping in on this issue but hopefully I can offer a fresh perspective on a couple of issues. I'm going to leave the more difficult parts for you guys to continue to fight over, but two of the disputed pieces seem very simple to me. First, the quote by Russell Kirk is a complaint about the readers of atlas shrugged and not the book itself. It seems to me that even if we assume it's true, Ayn Rand herself might notice it and make the same complaint, that doesn't mean she'd be complaining about her own novel. Secondly about the southpark reference; I have no qualms with it being in the article, but to consider it a critical commentary seems strange. Southpark is rife with nonsequitors, sarcasm and absurdities. Even if it weren't the writers of southpark are hardly a reliable source of literary insight. And as mentioned above, it's not even clear that the writers were trying to comment on it's content; it seems possible if not likely that a person just overcoming illiteracy would simply be afraid to reread a book with large words and small text.Vicarious 06:02, 16 August 2006 (UTC)

At the risk of muddying the waters, I would think that those friendly to Objectivism would want to have all these silly quotes in, because they are almost all by people with a political agenda and come off as ideological. It would be far more damaging if someone could find a reputable literary critic who has something negative to say about the work as literature. Of course you can't, because you can barely find a reputable literary critic who has anything to say about it at all. In fact, the only literary analysis I've been able to find at all in a normal venue without a political agenda classifies Rand's fiction as adolescent-interest cult fiction, and puts it in the not too shabby company of such writers as Hermann Hesse. BTW, I think that there should be a category tag "Cult Fiction" but I'm too newbie to know how to do it. Lastly, I think I speak for all sane people everywhere in asking that the edit warring just stop. Where does it get anyone? Will it degenerate into a discussion of who started it? Feh!Agent Cooper 22:38, 16 August 2006 (UTC)

"At the risk of muddying the waters, I would think that those friendly to Objectivism would want to have all these silly quotes in, because they are almost all by people with a political agenda and come off as ideological. " THANK YOU! That's (almost) what I've been saying ALL ALONG! By packing the criticism section with criticisms of trivial matters or which appear to be irrelevant to the boo, you get people to wonder whether there are any serious criticisms at all. LGagnon, take note. Or is Cooper a "Randist" now? MrVoluntarist 23:45, 16 August 2006 (UTC)

The quote by Russell Kirk was famous by itself, and he wasn't a lightweight web critic.--Son of Somebody 12:55, 18 August 2006 (UTC)

If the president said "I have child pornography hidden underneath my copy of atlas shrugged" the comment would be famous, but it wouldn't be a "critical review". If this quote is in fact famous then I have no complaints about it being in the article, but when the quote makes no reference to the quality of the book (only its readers), it doesn't make sense put it in the 'critical reception' section. Vicarious 23:40, 18 August 2006 (UTC)

If the president said "I read Atlas Shrugged for the fornicating bits", do you think it would be worthy of inclusion?--Son of Somebody 07:19, 19 August 2006 (UTC)

Absolutely yes. However, it would still not belong in "critical reception" section, that section is what critics think of the book. Vicarious 20:42, 19 August 2006 (UTC)

OK, then what if an influential conservative intellectual's opinion was that the book lacked literary merit, its philosophical ideas were poorly developed, and that the "romantic" portions of the book were the only parts worth reading? And what if he used a one-liner to summarize that opinion? The goal of quoting this opinion in a section clearly labelled "Critical reception" is the exposition of notable critiques. The goal of removing it is the repression of ideas found offensive. If one believes the section weighs against the book, he or she should spend some energy finding positive reviews and opinions of the book to counter, rather than censoring sourced quotes by notable experts.--Son of Somebody 22:53, 19 August 2006 (UTC)

I would certainly agree that the criticism section seems tilted towards Rand, but for a critic to say 'I just read it for the naughty bits' would be rather childish and unhelpful, and not the kind of comment I'd expect to see in an encyclopedia. Saying 'the book lacked literary merit, its philosophical ideas were poorly developed, and that the "romantic" portions of the book were the only parts worth reading', on the other hand, at least provides some reasoning for their criticism and could be perfectly legitimate. One of the problems as I see it is that many of the people who strongly criticise the book are actually responding to Rand's politics, and not to the book as a book: though obviously with such a politicised book it's somewhat hard to seperate the two. Mark Grant 23:19, 19 August 2006 (UTC)

It is impossible to separate the two. The reason the "naughty bits" quote is important is because it says something about the critic's agenda and the prevailing morals of the time of the book's release. Any reasonable reader will distinguish for themselves whether the quote should be taken seriously. Why not give them that chance?--Son of Somebody 02:02, 20 August 2006 (UTC)

I'm sorry, but to me it seems unencyclopedic and, frankly, quite childish. As far as I can see the quote does nothing to further a critical discussion of the book and, in my experience, is also plainly wrong: I've never met anyone who read Rand's books for the 'naughty bits'. I would agree, though, that the article should be primarily about 'Atlas Shrugged' as a book, not as a political philosophy: the problem, as I mentioned below, is that it's a lousy book once you take out the philosophy. I also noticed that someone renamed 'Critical reception' to 'Reception' apparently to justify including that quote, which seems equally childish to me. I'm sure there are much better ways to improve the article than with silly quotes and word games. Mark Grant 02:12, 20 August 2006 (UTC)

Fine. Let's restore "Critical" and delete all the content. There was no critical reception. Agent Cooper 00:45, 25 August 2006 (UTC)

If we did so, we'd have no criticism of a very controversial novel, and thus be in violation of WP:NPOV. That content stays because it's needed; otherwise, this article fails to uphold Wikipedia's top policy. -- LGagnon 02:52, 25 August 2006 (UTC)

Entre nous--I was being facetious. Agent Cooper 04:54, 27 August 2006 (UTC)

I thought so, but I wanted to make sure the Randists didn't go ahead and act on it. -- LGagnon 18:25, 27 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] philosopher

LGagnon may disagree strongly with Objectivism, but for him to make ridiculous POV edits that eliminate any mention of Ayn Rand as a philosopher is simply outrageous. Perhaps he should check sources such as Britannica that explicitly refer to her as a philosopher. I hate the music of modern bands, but I'm not going to go to their articles and eliminate any statement referring to them as "music bands." Adam T.

I don't know how long you've been at Wikipedia, but it's been proven that Britannica is not a completely reliable source, even failing to be as reliable as Wikipedia itself. Likewise, Britannica is not a more reliable source than academia (especially given the fact that Wikipedia can outdo them), and few sources are more reliable than academia. Thus, I don't see how Britannica's opinion beats out the collective opinion of the most important source of knowledge in the world. -- LGagnon 19:13, 16 August 2006 (UTC)

"Britannica being unreliable" is a gross oversimplification, and I have a hard time knowing how you could make that statement without knowing it. Ditto for it being "more reliable" than "academia" (from whence it draws, whatever that means). Adam, don't feel obligated to give credence to what LGagnon says here. He's had a long, troubled history of antagonizing people, esp. admins. MrVoluntarist 19:30, 16 August 2006 (UTC)

Do you have proof for this argument? There have been studies that show that even Wikipedia is more reliable than Britannica, and we all know Wikipedia is still a work in progress. That's a fact that you have yet to disprove.

And cut the personal attacks. You may be allowed to do whatever you want by the nuisance-coddling admins, but at the very least you should try to show some civility. -- LGagnon 19:46, 16 August 2006 (UTC)

That study was erroneous (but try to tell a meme that) and even if it wasn't, it would be completely beside the point, because it didn't compare Britannica's accuracy to any other respected encyclopedias. Are we to discount all encyclopedias as respected authorities because they might (and do) contain some small amount of factual or typographical errors? I was unaware that omniscience was humanly attainable. Unigolyn 09:38, 7 September 2006 (UTC)

I don't much like any of this discussion on either side. One can characterize any novel that has ideas in it as "philosophical" or "ideological" depending upon one's biases, and certain perfectly respectable literary figures will inspire these kinds of reactions (Dostoevski, for example, whose ideas strike an awful lot of people as both nasty in content and poorly argued but beautifully presented). This should not be a pro-Objectivist/anti-Objectivist issue. I would urge you all to regard whatever authority "academia" has in this context, in this article, to be regarding how to approach AS as literature, not as philosophy. I've already suggested that there is so little discussion of that sort that there's not much one can say; one literary critic (as opposed to political columnist/activist) characterized it as "adolescent reader cult fiction" which seems much more apt to me than "dangerous right-wing ideologue" or "profound philosophical thinker" if we're talking about the fiction. If a Comp Lit department had a class on Dostoevski, no one would get terribly agitated if Bros K was referred to as "a philosophical novel" and I really doubt that Saul Kripke would pick up the phone and complain about trademark infringment. This is just the wrong way to think about this whole issue. I wish both sides would climb down and listen to reason.Agent Cooper 22:48, 16 August 2006 (UTC)

The problem is that Rand is a horribly bad writer: I don't think anyone would sit through a thousand-page Rand novel were it not for the philosophy. Personally I'd say 'Atlas Shrugged' deserves a place in the hundred most important novels of the 20th century, but as a novel, rather than fictionalised philosophy, it's just awful... and I think that discrepancy is where a large part of the problem with the article stems from. Mark Grant 00:38, 20 August 2006 (UTC)

Ok two more copperheads. I don't mean to pick on you LGannon but here you're claiming that Britanica is less accurate than Wiki (yes that little study was a real boost for wiki, whatever) and not two bits later you are complaining that wiki does'nt have a single unbiased artical on Rand or any of her works. The thing with Brittanica is that if they get something wrong and remove it it stays removed. I find it unlikely that in the course of Brittanica having been out there and peer reveiwed by people a lot more scholarly than you or I they could have maintained such an error for half a century.

[edit] Ongoing Problems

I'm getting testy...

"Atlas Shrugged is a novel by Russian-born writer and philosopher Ayn Rand,"

This is fine. She called herself a philosopher for twenty years, and there have been 2-3 books by academic philosophers about her as a philosopher (Chris Sciabarra, Tara Smith and the collection of essays for Univ. Illinois Press). Introduction to the Objectivist Epistemology may be wrong, it may even be crap, but if so, it is philosophical crap. Philosopher is not necessarily a term of endearment.

"It was Rand's last work of fiction before concentrating her writings exclusively on philosophy."

I think this should read "exclusively on philosophy, politics and cultural criticism." Essays on patent and copyright law would ordinarily be characterized as politics. Essays on Apollo 11 and Marilyn Monroe would ordinarily be classified as cultural criticism.

"It is a highly philosophical"

as opposed to lowly philosophical? This is just junk writing. It's so-o-o-o-o philosophical. Let it go.

"and allegorical story"

Strictly speaking, no, it’s not really allegory at all. An allegory is where the lion stands for courage, the scarecrow stands for intelligence, etc. It is not an allegory when the corrupt business man stands for corrupt businessmen. It's about what it's about, not something else. That not only tallies with Rand's self-understanding, but standard literary nomenclature. So we can let the whole sentence go, since it says nothing, and says it badly.

"that deals with themes of Rand's own Objectivism"

This is anachronistic. Rand did not announce herself as a philosopher nor use the expression "Objectivism" until after the novel was published. One could more accurately describe "Objectivism" as the distillation and extension of ideas explored in Atlas Shrugged. According to her journals, this began as a literary scenario. Her one attempt at a philosophical essay ("Moral Basis of Individualism") that predates it went unpublished.

"though she was not yet known as a philosopher when it was written."

Nor did she refer to herself in those terms publicly at that time or previously. The whole sentence has to be revised. See above.

"Atlas Shrugged is an extremely political book."

Extremely? This is junk writing. It's like totally not cool to like totally refer to her like politics as like extremely political. Apart from being just awful writing, it also has unconscious connotations, by causing the mind to glide the term "extremism." Something like "laden with political content" or even "heavily politicized" is better, though the latter is probably POV-problematic.

"In rejecting the traditional Christian altruistic moral code, Rand also rejects the sexual code that, in her view, is a logical implication of altruism."

Doesn’t she deliberately characterize this as broader than Christianity, and deliberately avoid naming Christianity explicitly? In fact, my recollection is that the only characters who are meant to be associated with anything specifically religious are linked to unnamed generic Asian thought. And isn't it merely Rand's opinion that real-world Christianity is as she characterizes this unlabeled code (in a spirit of 'if the shoe fits')? If you think it through, this is subtle POV. Norman O. Brown said that Christianity is all about ecstatic body affirmation. He was a loon of course, but are we supposed to take sides here?

I'm reluctant to just start fixing things in light of the edit-warring going on, since I don't want to waste my time sending data into the void, but if there are no objections to my comments above, after a week or so, I'll make changes reflecting them. Agent Cooper 23:21, 16 August 2006 (UTC)

BE BOLD, edit these things. It takes more time complaining and putting up warning banners than actually fixing the article. You obviously know what needs to be done... Somerset219 04:29, 17 August 2006 (UTC)

I don't think you've been at this article long enough. Being bold here gets you harassment from pro-Rand editors who are never stopped by the admins. Being bold causes admins to blame you when another editor harasses you. Being bold gets nothing done when biased editors outnumber you and are able to de facto nullify the NPOV rule.

Welcome to the Ayn Rand section of Wikipedia, Wikipedia's Bizarro World. -- LGagnon 04:51, 17 August 2006 (UTC)

YIPES! I'm just giving the advice I use, fuck the admins! Somerset219 05:02, 17 August 2006 (UTC)

Don't take that the wrong way; I don't mean any offense to you. It's just that the Rand-related articles are Wikipedia's biggest embarassment. The admins don't - and won't - come here to stop the bias from going on, and when you complain about it they blame you. This has all got me to suspect that Jimbo is keeping the admins from balancing this article out to help promote the ideology he belongs to. Honestly, how many articles on Wikipedia have been biased and stayed biased throughout the entire existence of Wikipedia? -- LGagnon 05:40, 17 August 2006 (UTC)

This is about tag cleanup. As all of the tags are more than a year old, there is no current discussion relating to them, and there is a great deal of editing done since the tags were placed, or in some cases it's clear there is a consensus, they will be removed. This is not a judgement of content. If there is cause to re-tag, then that of course may be done, with the necessary posting of a discussion as to why, and what improvements could be made. This is only an effort to clean out old tags, and permit them to be updated with current issues if warranted.Jjdon (talk) 22:25, 28 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] "How long was it?"

[For those who are under 50, that's an allusion to Johnny Carson]. Well, I see that others started the process and I dived in too. It looks better. I was wondering what people thought about the "longest book" thing. First of all, I think the long books page is a really silly idea; books that run tens of thousands of pages are noteworthy, but I really don't think that novels in the thousand page range are that unusual--if we could drum them all up and it turned out there were hundreds of them, would that mean that there were hundreds of "among the longest book ever written"? There is a factual dimension to this: most people who read or try to read the book are struck by its length, and some find it just too long. But I'm not sure what the point of this comment is. I think that it is meaningful to mention its page count (1168 in the hardcover first edition) so that people can respond to that, but this sentence almost makes it sound like it's an achievement or a crime, and it's really neither here nor there (without more--it is a very common private reponse that it is way too long, but there's no way to articulate that here). Agent Cooper 13:50, 17 August 2006 (UTC)

It's both useful and arbitrary. It's arbitrary in that it doesn't really have a unique size; my copy of Don DeLillo's "Underworld" is just as big, and plenty of books by Neal Stephenson and Stephen King fit in that size range as well. On the other hand, AS's size is something that it is often criticized for, as even diehard fans find it to be bloated. I think the "longest books" statement should go, as it's both poorly researched and potently a peacock statement. However, the article should mention something about the problem people have with its size (which I think it does already). -- LGagnon 16:15, 17 August 2006 (UTC)

Check my attempt and tell me if this is better--I thought a reference to the length made more sense in the "magnum opus" sentence. Agent Cooper 17:34, 17 August 2006 (UTC)

I am reminded of the apocryphal Frost note, "Please excuse the length of this letter...I didn't have time to write a short one...." BuenSabor 20:15, 9 April 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Literary elements going completely undiscussed in article on work of literature

For an article on a piece of fiction, there's a near complete absence of any discussion of imagery, symbolism or style. Is this because any material, since it wouldn't be sourceable beyond AS itself, would constitute "original research"? Or is it because no one has the odd combination of knowledge and skill to pull it off? I was thinking about this in connection with the recurring "Atlantis" trope (which was inspired by Isabel Paterson's characterization of America as Atlantis in God of the Machine--about 95% of Rand's thought is the natural outgrowth of a three-way collision between Nietzsche, Dostoevski and Isabel Paterson--though Anthem also owes a huge debt to Zamyatin). Can anything be done about this, or is it off-limits? It wouldn't seem to be, since discussion of plot and character seems to be in a sense original research as well. Also, Rand wrote quite a bit about her artistic intentions (in Romantic Manifesto), which is relevant here as well (she talks about her attempt to recreate certain elements of Dostoevski's technique, for example, which would seem very relevant to discussing the novel as novel, why it has the peculiar qualities it does, given her Russian background and conscious intentions--in a sense, AS is meant to be a sort of American The Possessed, and would seem a lot less odd if it had a Russian sounding author's name and a Russian setting). Since I am pushing the line that AS is just another book with recognizable features if one classifies it as adolescent-interest cult fiction, written by a Russian-American author influenced by the 19th century Russian novel, it would be nice if there was some trace of understanding of how this peculiar confection works, rather than just paean and denunciation. A big part of the problematic reception of this work is that there was no reception community in place for any sort of 19th century Russian novel about what's wrong with the New Deal! How could there be? The very idea is bizarre. [Note: before anyone jumps all over me about the tag "cult fiction" I should stress that this term has no relationship to the "cult accusation" issue--it means a literary work that plays a disproportionate role in its reader's literary experience, a "beloved" book, like Dune or Lord of the Rings. That characterization seems to me exactly right.] Agent Cooper 17:34, 17 August 2006 (UTC)

This is a pretty hard thing to get done. While the article should contain literary analysis, academia doesn't really care enough about Rand to analyze her work. Thus, we don't really have anything to work with. I'd assume it'd be the same way with L Ron Hubbard or any other author who scared away academia with cult psychobabble and lawsuit threats.

As someone who does a lot of work with an academic literary department, I don't really see any chance that Rand would get serious coverage by academia in the future. Honestly, her work reads like pulp romance novels and leans very heavily into Mein Kampf/The Turner Diaries territory. Stuff like that will at the very least slow academia's acceptance of her down, if not stop it from ever happening.

Still, we could use info from reviews and whatever Rand had to say about her work. I'm reluctant to let her have the final say on it, though. -- LGagnon 00:26, 18 August 2006 (UTC)

But of what use would it be to merely reference the literary sources and techniques without actually discussing them? Certainly the book can be a compelling read, but the archetypes, despite the philosophical bandages, are cut from another's cloth, i.e., the plot itself, of the hero removing the good from society, and society collapsing under the weight of its own evil, is a direct plagiarism of Darby's heretical Christian concept of "The Rapture of the Saints," which predates the other literary attributions by 50 years, and is the basis for the recent series of the "Left Behind" stories. And Galt's professed philosophy, rather than contradicting that of Yeshua ha Notzri, shadows it fairly closely. (Don't DARE me to give you a line-by-line scriptural justification of everything that "Galt Speaks".) Talk about "stolen concepts"! BuenSabor 21:24, 9 April 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Not a criticism...

Since I'm not contributing to the article I have no room to criticize, so consider the following mere observation:

---

I've been intently following this article now for a year or so, trying to make out just exactly what forces are at work. There's obviously two opposing camps. Every so often, one camp or the other will come in and shift things around so that the article slants more this way or that. Then there's wailing and gnashing of teeth. Then someone else comes in and the whole process starts over again. I guess this is how it's all designed to work—Wikipedia, I mean—but it's really not...working, that is. The article on Atlas Shrugged has become for me the test case for Wikipedia. I'm waiting to see happen what I can only assume is supposed to happen: the appearance of an insightful, unbiased and coherent article. Brevity would a plus too.

Ultimately I think that Wikipedia is not for the self-gratification of those writing the articles. These articles are—again I'm assuming—for a person seeking out information. (Let's imagine a young person just becoming interested in literature, curious about a book that their friend recommended.) If I were that young person, which I was, I would want to know a few key pieces of information and I would want this information presented in as organized and proficient a manner as possible. They would include:

• 1) What it is. (A novel.) When it was written and by whom. _{(Who? I never get that right.)}

• 2) What those who like it like about it, preferably in a short paragraph or two.

• 3) What those who don't like it don't like about it...again, keeping it short.

...and...

• 4) Where, if I'm interested, I could seek out further (still insightful, unbiased and coherent) information.

This for me would be the bare minimum I would expect to see in an authoritative source. Lacking these few items, I just wouldn't trust it.

MDMullins

_{(Lost my login, along with my wide-eyed innocence, long ago.)}

I'm not in either "camp" and I've been trying to make incremental improvements that are acceptable to a consensus since I've been here. Almost everything I've written has stayed in. So it can be done. Agent Cooper 05:03, 5 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Definition of philosopher

My two cents here would be that the attempt to label Rand as a pseudophilosopher for purposes of NPOV should win the Contrivance of the Year award. Since when is "philosopher" the only calling which excludes autodidacts? While it's obvious that mere self-proclamation doesn't make you one according to general consensus, merely lacking a formal degree in philosophy and/or being a "bad" philosopher doesn't make one a pseudo-anything. The word "philosopher" isn't limited to academic philosophers, anymore than the word "pianist" demands attendance of a conservatory. While every academic philosopher I've met considers Rand's philosophical work deeply flawed, the body of her work in the field is expansive and well-known enough. Heck, if I decided to become a brain surgeon with no formal education in the field, and actually managed to perform brain surgery on a reasonable amount of people without being thrown in jail or killing every one of them, I think I'd warrant being called a brain surgeon. Unigolyn 09:59, 7 September 2006 (UTC)

I agree. You don't get to disqualify someone from being a "philosopher" because they're not academia endorsed. ESPECIALLY if that non-endorsement is self-serving. Fair warning though: despite your well-reasoned post, LGagnon will label you as a "Randist" and if you deny that long enough, you will be interrogated about whether you are a libertarian. MrVoluntarist 15:46, 7 September 2006 (UTC)

Thanks for the personal attack. Don't you just love Jimbopedia, the encyclopedia where anyone can get away with violating policy so long as they're pro-Rand? You're just lucky that king Jimbo's admins aren't willing to go against their master's beliefs and stop the harassment that goes on here and allow the article to become NPOV. It's a wonder that Jimbo's royal guard hasn't yet come here and banned me for heresy against the goddess. -- LGagnon 19:48, 7 September 2006 (UTC)

That wasn't a personal attack. It was a fact, and you just confirmed it. Someone's irony-meter is broken. MrVoluntarist 20:37, 7 September 2006 (UTC)

LGagnon... It is important to keep a cool head, especially when responding to comments against you or your edits. Personal attacks and disruptive comments only escalate a situation; please keep calm and remember that action can be taken against other parties if necessary. Attacking another user back can only satisfy trolls or anger contributors and leads to general bad feeling. Please try to remain civil with your comments. Thanks! --Neverborn 17:57, 8 September 2006 (UTC)

Unigolyn, you miss my point. It's not just the fact that she's outside of academia; it's also that she simply never developed the talent to be acceptable by anyone with a decent education. Honestly, look at her citations for her anti-Kant argument; in most cases, she uses strawmen against some guy who she trhinks is pro-Kant, and in the one case where she tries to cite Kant it's "see the works of Hegel and Kant". You can't honestly tell me someone with an education worthy of note wrote that utterly stupid line. It's not even a real citation, and if you don't believe me, I'm citing the location of that line as "see the works of Ayn Rand". She doesn't do philosophy; see does weasely arguments for what she thinks is right without real research into the topic (something she apparently didn't believe in). -- LGagnon 19:57, 7 September 2006 (UTC)

Someone being "stupid" in your eyes is not a disqualification for being a philospher. Neither is being wrong. Neither is being sloppy. People say these things about all kinds of "true" philosophers. Just give it up dude. No one's going to "convert" to objectivism because Wikipedia follows the encyclopedic practice of calling her a philosopher. I just don't see what your problem is. MrVoluntarist 20:39, 7 September 2006 (UTC)

First of all, part of her appeal is that she is supposedly smart and superior to other philosophers because she is a great-and-talented ubermensch. One of the reasons why so many people grow out of the Rand phase is that they learn what logical fallacies and proper citations are when they get to college, and thus are able to identify them in her arguments. She needs the term "philosopher" to trick undereducated young minds, otherwise she's just another untalented pulp romance novelist. By pushing this, we are feeding the cult like we would if we called dianetics an alternative to psychiatry, or intelligent design as science. Wikipedia, as usual, is being dishonest with this article and only further justifying the accusation of "obsessed Ayn Rand fan" that the media has given to Jimbo.

Secondly, philosophy should use logic. Randism is built on strawmen, one of the most basic of logical fallacies. You can say greed is good because some guy that some guy probably likes is wrong about something he probably said, but there's nothing there that makes enough sense to call it philosophy. -- LGagnon 02:44, 9 September 2006 (UTC)

I'd like to point out that the first sentence of the post above is a straw-man argument, and that much of the rest amounts to a giant ad hominem. Neither me, nor most Rand fans I know, believe she's some kind of ubermensch or special breed of human being, and we certainly aren't undereducated.kdogg36 22:29, 28 September 2006 (UTC)

So, because you deem a philosopher's arguments to be "bad", they're not a philosopher anymore? But wait -- Rand thought that about mainstream philosophers! What to do!

Btw, most of the "good" philosophers, if you didn't know this already, made at one point or another truly apalling arguments. Nevertheless, they tend to be judged by their best works, not their worst. Something to consider.

Rand is referenced as a philosopher because that characterization is true. If that fails to optimally quash her ideas, that's just too bad. Even having Rand on Wikipedia expands her audience and makes people likely to believe her "deception". That's not a reason to leave her out. MrVoluntarist 05:54, 9 September 2006 (UTC)

It's not about bad or good philosophy; it's a matter of is or isn't. Philosophy should be built on logic; Randism is not.

I said "logical fallacies", not "appalling mistakes". Big difference. And I have yet to hear of a philosopher who's whole philosophy was built on a strawman and contained such a bad citation; even if they only made the former mistake, they'd be rejected by anyone with a decent education.

Please argue against my statements, not what you'd prefer to argue against. A strawman from you will not make Rand's strawman any more philosophic. -- LGagnon 19:39, 9 September 2006 (UTC)

If you want to be taken seriously, LGagnon, you should probably drop the ad hominems yourself ("...rejected by anyone wiht a decent education.") You can't expect people to argue reasonably with you if you announce up front that you believe they're obviously stupid just for disagreeing with you. Your approach guarantees that no reasonable, logical people will engage you in debate, because you declare in advance that it would be a waste of their time. kdogg36 22:35, 28 September 2006 (UTC)

A decent education should include basic logic. I know high school doesn't teach it, but a good college (the place where philosophy is usually taught) should include it in one of its required writing courses.

And I didn't mean to insult anyone here; those comments were directed at Rand herself. It's not an insult that she's poorly educated for a supposed philosopher, it's a fact; she really didn't come off as someone who knew what she was talking about (where's the direct arguments against Kant?), and she really didn't understand a simple concept of logic. -- LGagnon 13:03, 29 September 2006 (UTC)

I think my problem with this line of thought is that you could say the same things about almost all "Continental" philosophers; the only real difference is that they have canon status and she doesn't. I don't think you appreciate just how bad a lot of "respectable" figures are. So what do we do with that? Does the label simply come with canonization? I still feel like you're using a descriptive label as a value judgment, as when a traditionalist says "Andy Warhol isn't really art." I don't have a problem with "most academics do not regard her as a real philosopher" properly cited, but something else is going on in this discussion, methinks. Why can't we just say (in the spirit of eschewing original research) that some say she is and some say she isn't? I mean, doesn't your appealing to your own classification intuitions also involve "original research"? Agent Cooper 02:12, 10 September 2006 (UTC)

Actually, we had a source not long ago making the same exact argument I'm making now. Unfortunately, it was deleted and/or lost, and I am not assuming good faith on this. We've lost too many sources to rabid pro-Rand deletion, and this is another one. I keep on hearing this Orwellian argument that no source has been presented because none are still here, yet in truth nobody remembers them and someone is removing them. Until we get an admin to come here and mediate this so it doesn't fall to mob rule, there's no way anything can be done to improve this article. -- LGagnon 12:40, 10 September 2006 (UTC)

This is the most ridiculous argument I've ever seen in my life. To claim that one is not a philosopher because of lack of formal education or research? This is a joke, right? By that definition, Aristotle or Socrates aren't philosophers. Get real! --someone just passing through —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 24.18.201.182 (talk • contribs).

Just passing through. Some of the best critiques I've found of Rand (I am actually working on one myself so I've been knee deep in them) are written by philosophers attacking her philosophy. I consider this to class her as a philosopher. It doesn't make her right, actually, there are some really good arguments against her written by philosophers. But when a political thinker is debated by politicians it affirms them as a politician and I think that the same applies here. She additionally wrote a couple of books of philosophy (that are generally better argued than her fiction).

BTW looking up some of these arguments might help in your criticism section. Especially as 90% of the non-scholarly refutations of Rand come down to people saying:

1. Yeah but she cheated on her husband.

2. She was an extremely long winded author.

3. Business men cheat too.

All of which, while true statements, are poor arguments against the position held in the book. My two pennies. Query 15:34, 27 April 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Galt Motor Really a Perpetual Motion Machine?

Having just read Atlas Shrugged, I believe this section on "Fictional technology" about Galt's Motor (Atlas_shrugged#Galt.27s_Motor) is incorrect:

"This motor generates energy from static electricity; since it is designed to provide its own power as long as it is activated, it is a type of perpetual motion machine."

I disagree. The notion was that the motor took static electricity out of the air. This makes Galt's motor as much a perpetual motion machine as one driven by a solar panel, or, perhaps more clearly, a motor that ran using lightning as a source of energy. Although I doubt the principle described has any physical reality, the notion was not that it created power out of nothing the way a perpetual motion machine would.

Before I remove the part about the perpetual motion, does anybody see something I'm missing?

Whoops... I forgot to sign this. The above was at around 22:33, 20 October 2006 (UTC). I have not made myself an account yet, but I will.

I actually was thinking about this earlier today (for some reason), and I agree: While there is no scientific basis in the real world for the possibility of drawing energy that way, the Galt Motor does not provide its own energy, and so can't count as a PPM. MrVoluntarist 20:53, 21 October 2006 (UTC)

While we are editing this subsection, I think the following sentence is also incorrect:

 "Galt shows Dagny the motor and describes it in Part 3, Chapter 1."

I assume that this is referring to the part that starts at the bottom of page 669. Galt never actually shows Dagny the motor here. Galt shows her the building where it is housed, but he does not allow Dagny in because she is still a scab. There is the whole discussion about how the door will only let somebody who speaks Galt's oath pass, and Dagny does not speak the oath. Galt never describes the motor. In Part 3, Chapter 2, we find out Galt is giving lectures on physics (starting on page 709), and it seems clear that the physics of the motor is one of the topics, but neither Dagny nor the reader get to hear any of these lectures. This is too much detail for an encyclopedia article, though. The motor is mentioned; we explain what it is and where Dagny first finds it. I think it makes sense to get in the fact that a working version eventually shows up. I could change this part to read something like:

 "In Part 3, Chapter 1, Dagny learns that Galt is using a working version of the motor to generate electricity for Atlantis."

Perhaps somebody else has a better way to phrase it? It is a bit awkward to just throw Atlantis in at the end like that, but it is not so bad. After all, the section referred to is called "Atlantis." 207.171.180.101 22:09, 21 October 2006 (UTC)

Okay, I have an account now: Statistical Mechanic 22:54, 21 October 2006 (UTC)

Not too big a deal here, but the technology isn't fictional.BuenSabor 19:35, 9 April 2007 (UTC)

She does see the motor though, in Galt's apartment. What section is that?75.121.36.237 (talk) 17:48, 28 March 2008 (UTC)Arbiter099

[edit] Rand's Theory of Sex

Shouldn't some mention be made of the emphasis she still does put on physical beauty? The section currently makes it sound like the only thing that makes a person sexual are the values one may share with another. Rand very clearly sees sexual attraction and the sexual act as more that just a response to shared values. She spends much detail describing the attractiveness of her main characters. They're always beautiful people (this is the case also in Anthem and in the Fountainhead) and her ideal sexual ethic celebrates that beauty in conjunction with the beauty of what she considers to be pure beliefs. The immaterial and material are thus unseparated. TyDeaton 04:14, 24 October 2006 (UTC)

I do not agree. If you were to read the fountainhead, the main character, Howard Roark, is often described as unattractive with an unruly mane of garish red hair whose appearance makes many people uncomfortable throughout the novel. Rand takes great care to explain that Dominique is deeply attracted to him because of his talent and capability as a person, and thus, finds him beautiful as a result. I also find, through her literature, that she tends to frown upon those who form sexual alliances solely based on physical attractiveness..think of how she portrays Gail Wynands dalliances before he meets Dominique...or the speech in Atlas Shrugged where she says that a man can be analyzed through his sexual choices. I don't think those are the sentiments of a person who weighes physical beauty very heavily into the equation —Preceding unsigned comment added by Jedit5 (talk • contribs) 10:16, 3 March 2008 (UTC)

I am not sure I agree, but I have read only The Fountainhead and Atlas Shrugged, so my larger context on Ayn Rand is going to be weak. It seems to me that while the characters are described as physically attractive in both books, the description tends to center on either what the person was feeling or what they were doing. For example, my impression was that Dagny was probably not particularly beautiful by purely physical standards (though I did not feel she was supposed to be ugly either.) She is certainly not thought by Rearden's wife to be particularly attractive. We usually see Dagny through the eyes of people who admire her, and she often appears beautiful in situations that one would not be. For example, the chain of Rearden metal is flattering on her wrist. She looks beautiful when she is disheveled and passed out from working all night. Alternatively, we are shown how beautiful she is in her happiness at the completion of the John Galt line, a place where we would expect her to look her best, but the ephasis is on her joy. Thinking of Galt, Galt's face is "a face without guilt," which does not seem to imply he would necessarily be handsome otherwise. On the flip side, Rearden's wife is downright ugly when she hooks up with Jim Taggart, even though it seems clear to me that she is a physically beautiful woman.

Rand focuses a lot on the emotions that are revealed by appearance. The bad guys all have faces that project fear and guilt. I see beauty as more metaphorical than literal in the same way that characters with bad teeth are often corrupt. There is usually no real connect implied between corruption and bad teeth; it's just a literary device. That's my feeling anyway. Statistical Mechanic 16:00, 24 October 2006 (UTC)

I think that her concept of beauty is the 'eye of the beholder' type. That is her writing assumes that the protagonists will find each other attractive but not necissarilly any other characters. Reardon. Galt, D'Anconia, and Willers all find Dagny attractrive but no one else makes referance to it. Floyd Ferris calls her 'an odd sort of conquest' when blackmailing Reardon. Lillian and her own mother refer to her as 'manish' and 'un-feminine' This is held up in her other writings for instance when Dominique declares that Roark is attractive the first time they meet (after the rock quarry that is. Lets say the first time they meet and catch each other's names.) the others present take it as a very odd remark. Query 15:20, 27 April 2007 (UTC)

[edit] More Problems with the Technology Section

The technology section refers to "a nerve-induction torture machine." The device described in the book does not use nerve induction; it uses plain old electricity. When I think of Nerve_induction, I think of the pain box used in Dune (film). (See also Gom_Jabbar.) Nerve induction implies that the device stimulates the nerves without actually injuring the person. It is made very clear in Atlas Shrugged that one of the technical innovations of the Ferris persuader is that it carefully applied enough voltage to hurt you, but dials it back before it injures you. This makes it a fairly standard electric shock torture device much like we have today with some automated features. I have never heard of contemporary electric shock torture being referred to as nerve induction before. I think it is good to mention the device as I think that it is important to the theme of the book. I am not sure of the best phrasing. Perhaps "a sophisticated electrical torture device" would be better. I'll leave this talk here for a little while to see if anybody wants to comment. Statistical Mechanic 16:05, 25 October 2006 (UTC)

I made the change. Sorry the change is not properly signed in the history. I didn't realize I was not signed in. Statistical Mechanic 01:46, 29 October 2006 (UTC)

LaszloWalrus, WTF? "banned vandals are not allowed to edit, even if they have Tor." I am not a banned vandal. I have never been banned. I did not realize I was not logged in when I made the change, but I noted it was me on the talk page afterwards. Also, look at the diff of my edit: (cur) (last) 18:44, October 28, 2006 207.171.180.101 (Talk) (→Fictional technology - As suggested in talk, modifying description of torture device.). (You can use the history.) How can you call that vandalism? If you disagree with my description of the torture device, then please engage me here on the talk page. I think I have made a reasonably clear argument for my change above, but if you have a different view, say something. Or were you trying to revert the change before mine and just got mine with it? Statistical Mechanic 19:48, 1 November 2006 (UTC)

Okay, after offline discussion with LaszloWalrus, this was a misunderstanding. (The comment was not directed at me.) No harm done. Statistical Mechanic 19:19, 3 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] "Gault" Telluride Tombstone

I just saw a Tombstone for John Gault [sic] in the Telluride Cemetery.

Coincidence? I think not.

Grye 11:04, 2 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Fictitious inventions?

"In addition to normal technologies, she introduces several fictional inventions, including(...)" "voice activated door locks"

A friend of mine actually has those, so they're not fictional. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 83.252.12.159 (talk) 13:27, 24 December 2006 (UTC).

uh... they were fictitious in 1957...;-)Grye 05:51, 2 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Who owns 'Galt's Motor'?

He developes it as an employee of a motor company that is turning into a cooperative. He abandons the prototype, saying that it is not his property. But what about the idea itself??

I've a strong feeling that anything you invent on company time and with company materials belongs to the company rather than the inventor. Can anyone confirm this? Is US law different from British law?

--GwydionM 17:58, 18 January 2007 (UTC)

The eminent 20th-century Russian-American philosopher Ayn Rand held that the rightful ownership of property was independent of and metaphysically prior to criminal law. Because of this, the jurisdiction would have been irrelevant to a discussion of who was the rightful owner of the idea and object; it would simply be dependent on the particular individual agreement between employee and employer. 216.135.28.40 21:51, 16 February 2007 (UTC)

Usually a major company, or a company of whom it might be a concern, will have a stipulation of copyright etc ownership transferring to said company. I have seen it in contract that an employee retains ownership of their inventions etc but that's probably pretty rare. As to ownership if there is no stipulation, It's my feeling that'd probably depend on who has the better lawyer... Grye 05:55, 2 March 2007 (UTC)

When working models of the motor were actually developed in the '60's, the company that developed them maintained its ownership "rights". But the bean counters there decided, "hey why keep one expensive engineer, when for the same money you can get two cheap ones?" Neither the company patent lawyers nor the cheaper help could understand what they had, and the motor ended up as it did in the book...a loose collection of useless parts. The company wasn't even able to sustain a claim for prior art when the japanese "acquired" the design patents. So it is now in the realm of "withheld" technology, and I probably will not see it again in my lifetime, nor will anyone else here.BuenSabor 19:46, 9 April 2007 (UTC)

p.s. Ms. Rand's concept of ownership of intellectual property (like that of Victor Hugo's), is so compelling that it is now considered the basis of our copyright law, as well as that of the Berne Convention[5], the international copyright agreement subscribed to by 162 countries (as of June 2006).BuenSabor 20:05, 9 April 2007 (UTC)

Well, of course, since it's a piece of ficticious crap, the answer is nobody. On a more serious note, designs can be patented, texts and images can be copyrighted, but ideas and concepts cannot be owned. Once sombody came up with the idea of creating conductors for electricity (e.g., wires), they could copyright the design of a machine for making wire, but couldn't claim ownership of the entire concept of a conductor made of a strand of metal. the book seems to take the position that this is wrong. The "motor" couldn't be owned by anybody if it simply relied on physical properties that a certain design took advantage of. This is one of the major failings of the novel, IMO: it relies on a fantasy of perpetual motion. -- DavidH (talk) 00:57, 9 December 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Harlock Link

What is the Captain Harlock link doing in the see also section. Unless someone can explain why it belongs there I will probably take it out. V2-Gundam 03:38, 13 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Userbox?

Is there an Atlas Shrugged userbox? Who is John Galt?, A is A, Check your premises, This user is a Man of the mind, Something with a big gold dollar symbol... Perhaps I'll create one.. anyone interested? Suggestions? On a side note - What would Ann Rand think of Wikipedia? I wonder if I'm violating such principles or morals by participating in this production of free information. Oh well - who is John Galt. Morphh ^(talk) 2:19, 31 May 2007 (UTC)

Not if you're doing so voluntarily. If you're contributing to Wikipedia because the Government is holding a gun to your head and telling you to contribute, or if your mother or religion or whatever shames you that you "should", even though you don't believe in the program, then those who are coercing you are immoral. Incidentally, the novel makes it clear that assisting others in concert with your own values is moral. If your values include sharing some of your knowledge with the world, please feel free to contribute :) Unimaginative Username 03:16, 7 November 2007 (UTC)

If you are able to answer the question of Who is John Galt? then you are one who acts for your own happiness and towards your own goals. If contributing to Wikipedia is for your own happiness then it is not a violation of Objectivist morals.75.121.36.237 (talk) 17:53, 28 March 2008 (UTC)Arbiter099

[edit] Wikipedia is not a link directory

ThAtSo: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:External_links#Links_to_be_considered LaszloWalrus 08:36, 7 June 2007 (UTC)

ThatSo, See also the section "Links normally to be avoided", which I think includes many that you have posted (though I did not review them all). Morphh ^(talk) 12:30, 07 June 2007 (UTC)

I didn't post any of them, I just undeleted them. Maybe some of them don't belong, but nobody's said why. It's not enough to give a general link, you need to spell out what's wrong with each one so we don't have to guess. ThAtSo 15:10, 7 June 2007 (UTC)

Links themselves must be notable. Hence, the Chambers criticism should stay (since Chambers was a prominent intellectual and his review of the novel is relatively famous). The various parodies of Atlas Shrugged and associated humor do not belong because none of them are notable, nor do they add anything siginificant to anyone's understanding of the novel. Many of the links were to personal websites or blogs, both of which are frowned upon at Wikipedia. 70.181.155.101 06:47, 8 June 2007 (UTC)

The above by the anon IP is mine. I forgot to log in before writing it. LaszloWalrus 06:49, 8 June 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Spoiler warning

There is no spoiler warning anywhere on the page. I would just fix it, but I'm reading the book and I don't want to spoil it for myself :-D --Orgullomoore 06:18, 28 June 2007 (UTC)

Well, it will be redundant to put a spoiler warning on the plot section because it will obiously have spoilers in it. Marlith 15:45, 20 July 2007 (UTC)

[edit] The quotes do not belong here

I don't really think that quotes would belong on an encycloepdeia article. Perhaps a link to Wikiquote would be more appropiate. What do you think? Marlith ^T/C 16:32, 21 August 2007 (UTC)

I second that. No objections have been raised in the past moth or so since you brought this up. I take that as a green light to transwiki the section to Wikiquote. Sbacle 16:36, 1 October 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Critical reception section

I think the way the Critical Reception section reads now is a little confusing. For example in the second paragraph it reads as if the website Capitalism Magazine is directly responding to Whittaker Chambers' review, when in reality the two articles were separated by decades. I was reading the section to see what Rand's contemporaries were saying about her work, but I found mentions of original reviews mixed in with quotes from bloggers. I suggest the section is shaped to make it follow a more chronological order. KHorberg 13:32, 1 October 2007 (UTC)

I would really like to see some sense of the prevailing literary criticisms of the book. There should be some information to the effect that, no matter how many copies it has sold, as a piece of literature, many, many, scholars and learned writers think (and have said in print) that this book is excrement -- as literature. Can't we find some quotes? Nearly anyone who appreciates literature has a hard time swallowing this brick of pedantic, tugid, dogmatic writing as an artful example of a novel. I would hate to think of impressionable young minds, drawn to the selfish philosphy of the book, reading the article and not getting a balanced view of just how many people think its literary merits are nil. DavidH (talk) 01:05, 9 December 2007 (UTC)

[edit] In popular culture

Could someone please enlighten me as to why a scholarly article about a great work of literature requires a trivia section? I'm not a big fan of edit warring, be it fast-paced or slow-motion. Is it actually relevant to an academic understanding of the work to know about every time the book is mentioned on Family Guy, South Park, or in a comic book? ➪HiDrNick! 20:21, 9 October 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for the comment, HiDrNick. I undid your deletion of the trivia section, so I'll respond. First of all, I'll just say that, in my opinion, this article is merely striving to be a scholarly article. As of now, it contains mostly original research and has almost no citations from scholarly works. Of the 24 citations in the article, only 2 are from the "scholarly"/"analytical" part of the article. And only 1 of those 2 is a real citation. The other one simply cites Atlas Shrugged itself, to confirm the page length of John Galt's speech (such a citation is not required under any citation system - Chicago, MLA, etc.). Of the remaining 24 citations, 17 are from the section, "Critical Reception"; 4 are from the section, "Film Adaptation"; and 1 is from the section, "In Popular Culture." Since there are almost no citations in the "analytical" part of the article, that work is original research as far as readers are concerned. It doesn't matter if you and me know that the analysis is accurate, it must be cited from verifiable, reliable sources.

Second of all, Atlas Shrugged has, by Rand's design, become a part of popular culture -- and that's worth noting. Perhaps a list is not the best way of doing so, but I think it is important to include that fact and the nature of its popular dissemination nonetheless. Just because you think the novel is a "great work of literature" doesn't mean that this fact or its details should be excluded entirely. It is certainly an important book, though, and the article should be treated seriously. If you have ideas of how to reform its structure, please do offer them. Personally, I haven't been particularly invested in this article and, therefore, haven't really made an effort myself.

Third of all, regarding your decision to remove the entire "In Popular Culture" section, I think you're misinterpreting WP:TRIV as condoning the deletion of trivia sections. WP:TRIV states:

• This guideline does not suggest removing trivia sections, or moving them to the talk page. - If information is otherwise suitable, it is better that it be poorly presented than not presented at all.
• This guideline does not suggest always avoiding lists in favor of prose. - Some information is better presented in a list format.

So, I think rather than excising such list sections entirely, those sections should be modified appropriately by editors working together in good faith and operating on consensus. As for the best presentation of that information, I do not favor list or prose. Either seems fine.

Hope that answers your question. Cheers, ₪ ask123 {t} 16:32, 10 October 2007 (UTC)

Thank you for your thoughtful response. I am unconcerned with the trivia guideline, being just that, a guideline. I suppose it seems so glaringly obvious to me that a list of assorted mentions of the book in other works of art and entertainment is inappropriate here that any guideline suggesting otherwise will come around in due time. I agree that the current state of the article is poor, and that sufficient academic and news sources exist to make the article a good one. Going forward, I think it may be worthwhile to just stub the article and start over, with an emphasis on sources and analysis. Of course, I wouldn't be so bold without checking in with the other interested editors first. ➪HiDrNick! 06:28, 11 October 2007 (UTC)

Any other thoughts about the appropriateness or necessity of a trivia section in this article? ➪HiDrNick! 06:28, 11 October 2007 (UTC)

I think that it might be valid to touch on "Atlas Shrugged in Popular Culture" if it helps to understand more about Atlas Shrugged, or popular culture, or if it places the novel in an interesting / thought-provoking /suggestive context. As it stands, the Popular Culture section does none of these things. It is immaterial that Atlas Shrugged was name-checked in episodes of The Simpsons or South Park. As usual, these pop culture trivia sections are useless. It is the "Pokemon phenomenon" of Wikipedia. In a way, it's a good thing - it clearly marks the articles as of dubious scholarly merit. It shows up Wikipedia's pretense of being an encyclopedia. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 75.111.197.14 (talk) 06:40, 12 October 2007 (UTC)

I dont think you can genuinly charaterise the appearances in south park or futurama as 'name checking' they are clear criticism of the book, like wise Bioshock is not just a refferance, but builds on the themes of the book. Chopping it down the virtually nothing, then cramming the info into the refferances section is NOT the right way to present this section, it may as well be flushed completly as it is totally meaningless like it is. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 87.194.30.174 (talk) 16:56, 12 January 2008 (UTC)

The "In Popular Culture" section contains an error. Atlas Shrugged is not the book referenced in A Scanner Darkly. The Fountainhead is the correct novel that appears in both the movie and the book by Philip K. Dick. 130.160.192.115 07:54, 4 December 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Roll call

Calling all interested and watchlisted editors: who is interested in a sourced rewrite of this article? From scratch. or in pieces? Who likes it just fine the way it is? Any takers? Cheers, ➪HiDrNick! 06:28, 11 October 2007 (UTC)

Present--Keerllston 15:33, 28 November 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Publication Date

I keep seeing October 12 mentioned by many as the publication date of Atlas Shrugged. I see only October 10 in items from ARI.

http://www.aynrand.org/site/PageServer?pagename=about_ayn_rand_aynrand_timeline

http://www.aynrand.org/site/PageServer?pagename=index

http://www.aynrand.org/site/News2?page=NewsArticle&id=15751&news_iv_ctrl=1221

I changed the article to reflect this. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 74.140.225.34 (talk) 17:53, 11 October 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Actual Railroad

The article currently states that no railroad like the one in the book existed, this source disagrees.

“

One drawback of Rand's literary method to present her ideas, although it follows in the great Russian tradition of philosophical novels, is the manner in which it sometimes obscures historical realities that would reinforce her argument. Thus the Taggart Railroad of Atlas Shrugged may strike someone with an average knowledge of American history as the kind of thing that never existed. Most people know that the transcontinental railroads were built with federal subsidies and federal land grants. They may also know that such railroads were tangled up in hopelessly corrupt, politicized financial schemes and in the end were so badly run and managed that they all (Union Pacific, Southern Pacific, & Northern Pacific) went bankrupt in the Panic of 1893. It takes somewhat better knowledge to know about James J. Hill (1838-1916), who built his own transcontinental railroad, the Great Northern, without public subsidies or land grants and often with the political opposition and obstructionism of the rival Northern Pacific and its political backers.

”

from "Ayn Rand, Anti Communism and the Left" which is rather politically POV--Keerllston 00:18, 28 November 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Shale Oil Drilling

This is a minor edit compared to others listed; but the shale oil drilling described in the book is not possible. It is listed in the article as being invented after the book. While it is possible to get oil from shale today, the shale must be mined, and subsequently heated to release the oil. Ellis Wyatt's method described by Rand simply has oil pouring from the ground, this is not possible. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Dankrouse (talk • contribs) 06:06, 10 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Things

Characters in Atlas Shrugged has several links that go to here, for things like the 'equalization of opportunities bill', but they're never mentioned here. Can someone who's read it add them please? Larklight (talk) 16:42, 25 May 2008 (UTC)