So we here at the Creature from Jekyll Island are trying to find more ways to get more fan interaction so we decided to go back to the year 2002 when blogs were all the rage and we've started a dumb little blog. We figure this is probably a better route to go when we want to share more than a paragraph or two about random shenanigans.
So as some of you may have noticed, Jacob Thorup of Thor media had recently finished our music video for Atlas Shrugged. Please check it out if you have not yet, or if you have then go check it out again: Atlas Shrugged Music Video
In the world of literature few authors are as controversial as Ayn Rand. Some view her as a vociferous thunder-cunt who indoctrinated all of the politicians that we love to hate. Others view her as some kind of prophetess who foretold of economic hardship due to the increasing burden of regulation and government bureaucracy.Typically, neither have actually read her works.
Weighing in at nearly 1200 pages, Atlas Shrugged is a formidable tome that throws subtlety out the window and slaps you about the face with Ayn Rands world of absolutes. The joke we commonly use is that I was inspired to both read the book and then write a song based off the book thanks in part to an English professor that declared the book the single most irresponsibly socially damaging piece of shit ever written. Of course I had to read it at that point.
To me, the characters in the book were comic book characters. The book should have been a graphic novel but was written in a time when graphic novels had not yet been invented. There is also a certain dryness and bluntness about the characters that you do not see in real life but would have been typical of a Bogie and Bacall movie. The good were 100% good and the bad were 100% arrogantly stupid. So as far as more believable characters and flawed protagonists go, I would say the Fountainhead did a much better job but apparently Ayn Rand was not happy that most people lost the subtleties of her philosophy in that novel. So Atlas Shrugged was written very much in a condescending tone with everything being black and white with as little gray area in-between. Being very much black and white with as little gray area in-between just so happened to be Rand's biggest character flaw.
Case in point: The film adaptation of The Fountainhead was released in 1949 and starred Gary Cooper, it has a rotten tomatoes score of 83%...not too shabby. Rand wanted more creative control over a film adaptation of Atlas Shrugged however and despite the fact that Robert Evans (the producer of the Godfather) was originally slated to produce the film adaptation, the project eventually fell to ruin as Rand refused to allow Hollywood to pollute her magnum opus and wanted the film made exactly to her standards. The films were eventually made decades after her death in a 3 part trilogy with each one being more of a commercial failure than the other. The final film was only completed due to (ironically) a kickstarter campaign. They scored 11%, 4%, and then 0% on rotten tomatoes. Now if she would have been willing to compromise a little bit we may have had another 80% plus film adaptation.
Rand's world of absolutes is a complete fable and more often than not, those who try to live by her objectivist creed end up alienating themselves and generally coming across as borderline sociopathic douchebags. This is often due to many of the paradoxes of her ideology which she inevitably refused to see. She believed that one's own happiness was the utmost ideal and that charity and compassion were distractions that we are better off to avoid. This of course raises the question of just how truly happy one can be if everyone else around them are poor and miserable?
There are many lessons from Rand's ideology that do have merit, much of which was already summed up by the philosopher David Hume when he said "Reason in the slave of the passions." Or essentially, all creatures are inherently selfish, our base needs drive everything we do and the least trustworthy person is the one who will try to sell you on their virtue and selflessness. The basic themes of Rand's works are needed in a society that tries to marginalize the individual, rob them of their passions and try to convince them that the most noble thing they can do with their life is to die in the name of God or Country.
“Do not let your fire go out, spark by irreplaceable spark in the hopeless swamps of the not-quite, the not-yet, and the not-at-all. Do not let the hero in your soul perish in lonely frustration for the life you deserved and have never been able to reach. The world you desire can be won. It exists.. it is real.. it is possible.. it's yours.”
Rand's themes are not entirely new, nor are they that old either. This is why it's quite interesting that there are many that are fond of philosophers like Frederic Nietzsche or dare I say, Anton Lavey, but tend to despise Rand. I think one of the main reasons for this is that aside from a certain religious text, there probably is no other book that people have pointed to for inspiration without actually understanding the writing or having actually read the book at all.
The greatest irony is that many of the 1% and supporters of the 1% all claim to have been inspired by the writings of Ayn Rand, but the villains of Atlas Shrugged were in fact the 1% that we love to hate so much. Sure the heroes are rich by most standards with millions upon millions at their disposal with their work being the heart and soul of their being. The villains of the novel have billions upon billions at their disposal and make their living not by producing anything of real value but via manipulation, corruption, and stepping on the backs of those who do all of the real work of course while trying to sell the mantra of "It's all for the greater good."
Rand has been viewed as one of the patron saints of the modern republican party when she was a devoted atheist who viewed religion as nothing more than a means used by evil men to control the feeble minded, and stated in her essays that she hated the republican party more than the democratic party as the democrats were at least open an honest about being against capitalism and free markets while the republicans state they support these ideals but completely misrepresent and pervert these ideals and have actually been at the head of regulations that have hurt free trade more than the democrats.
Don't get me wrong, Rand was a cold-hearted cutthroat but do people really hate her so much or hate her by proxy via the buffoons who claim her as their inspiration?
I'd be interested in our fans opinions, though we all already know she collected social security and that Lord of the Rings presents a more accurate viewpoint of the world so you may want to find a new canned argument if that's what you plan on going with. -Jeff
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