It have to be nearly 50 years since I final learn Ayn Rand’s basic, libertarian, “objectivist” novel, Atlas Shrugged, the central theme of which is mirrored within the title. Revealed in 1957, it was her last and longest fictional work, what she thought-about her masterpiece.
Atlas in Greek mythology was condemned by Zeus to bear the load of the heavens, or universe, on his shoulders for his insolence to the gods. (A really transient, lighthearted, account of Atlas’ infraction and punishment will be discovered on my web site.)
Whereas I’ve by no means totally subscribed to libertarianism and fewer so to Rand’s philosophy of “Objectivism,” I’ve at all times admired her thesis in Atlas that the world relies on the clever, succesful do-ers, the makers and shakers who constructed and maintain the world in contradistinction to the takers and moochers of the world, oblivious to the reality that ought to the makers disappear the takers’ world would collapse.
That’s exactly what occurs within the novel. In impact, Atlas shrugs, says he is had sufficient of the crippling results of punishing the do-ers and takes off, leaving the moochers to handle issues. With the world devoid of the makers and shakers, they do not do very effectively.
Ayn Rand outlined her beliefs within the thirty fifth anniversary version of Atlas Shrugged: “My philosophy, in essence, is the idea of man as a heroic being, together with his personal happiness because the ethical objective of his life, with productive achievement as his noblest exercise, and cause as his solely absolute.”
Her novel is extra related than ever right now for America and the remainder of the Western World as creeping socialism is changing into galloping socialism. The one query isn’t the repetitive catchphrase of the novel, “Who’s [the protagonist] John Galt?” however reasonably, “Can and can Atlas shrug as soon as once more and dump the takers from his again?”
It is wishful considering however we will all want, proper? So, I want that mythological Titan, the deity of crushing burdens, offers just a bit shrug after which let’s have a look at how effectively society’s leeches and hangers-on subsist.
My guess is that, as in Atlas Shrugged, they would not do very effectively.
Source by Gene Lalor