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How Do You Show Your Objectivist Flair?

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If someone seems okay with my being atheist, or are not okay with it and want to discuss it, I try to tell them about Objectivism.

Also, I smoke American Spirit cigarettes. That always seemed somehow Objectivist to me.

I used to have that "My philosophy, in essence..." quote on the refrigerator when I was living with my parents, but it disappeared one day. I think my mom threw it away.

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I'm pretty sure he meant the "American Spirit" part seemed Objectivist to him.

Right, plus I'm not addicted. I smoke one or two a day at the most, and when I run out I don't buy more right away. I usually buy them when I go out drinking, which is very rare at this point in my life. A pack could last me a month or more. I like the immediate sensation a smoke gives me, and studies have shown that nicotine does enhance concentration. Except for a brief period in college (more than 10 years ago), I have never felt like I needed a cigarette. I think of it the same way as eating fatty foods, which I also rarely do. It's a risk I'm willing to take for the temporary pleasure.

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  • 2 months later...

My truck has a "My Next Ride is the John Galt Line" sticker on the back window.

I get reactions every time I take a Rand book with me outside. At my work, I've had people pick my copy of the Fountainhead up and open conversation with me spontaneously if I leave it in sight. I once had an old man come up to me on my lunch break while I was rereading it (for the ARI contest). He started talking about how his son was a big Ayn Rand fan.

I get comments in line at Walmart and from teachers at my school. As pathetic as it sounds, every time they give me a second look and their eyes wander to the cover of the book, or to the sticker on my truck, there's a part of me that wants to tell them not to walk away.

Most will make a passing reference and then leave. It's nice to know there are intellectuals around me, but it would be so much nicer if they stuck around.

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That gives away too much! When I first read the book, I wasn't sure if John Galt was a character or just a phrase.

I wore the shirt today and, at a 2 year olds birthday party, was asked roughly 8 times who John Galt was.

Answer to kids: A hero in a book.

Answer to adults -per your comment: "(spoiler alert) He's the hero in Atlas Shrugged". (Speaking in parenthetical is tricky btw).

I actually don't think it spoils it for anyone to say that. You read the first line and you'll be like 700 pages into the book thinking, "hero"!??! yeah right, when do we meet him!?

I think I'll change my standard response to: "It is the first sentence in the book Atlas Shrugged, read the book for more detail."

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I thought I was rather conservative in my approach....

Multiple t-shirts I wear while working (Rearden Steel, Taggart Transcontinential, d'Anconia Copper, Richard Halley School of Music).

A few glasses at home.

My business checks are made to Rearden Steel (I get asked if I'm Rearden or Steel). (My EIN is Readen Steel)

I had read a number of posts regarding talking to people about it. One had said he just says "read Atlas Shrugged". Try premise-challenging questions instead. The ones where you see the other look off to the side and say "huh?" The look of an evasion that's finally dealt with is quite rewarding if they go that far.

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I had read a number of posts regarding talking to people about it. One had said he just says "read Atlas Shrugged". Try premise-challenging questions instead. The ones where you see the other look off to the side and say "huh?" The look of an evasion that's finally dealt with is quite rewarding if they go that far.

From my experience, I don't think you're going to get folks to think deeply with simple, short quotations. Could you give some examples?

One possibility might be the opening lines to Francisco's Money Speech, e.g. on a t-shirt - first question on the front, second question on the back.

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Perhaps I didn't convey my target audience. Golfing friends, clients I've known for a while, some of my suppliers. I didn't mean to say that I try and explain reality to a woman in the produce isle complaining of the prices, or to a man in passing complaining that his job doesn't pay enough, and so forth. I must say though, with the exception of an Ethiopian minister who asked if I was Iraqi or Iranian, people of faith always come in and talk for awhile.

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  • 2 months later...

I am a Restaurant General Manager for Taco Bell. I have a "dummy" employee stored in my drive thru register. So it appears on the kitchen monitors and every drive-thru receipt. His name? John Galt. Every single employee has asked me, "Who is John Galt?" and I have explained it to them. No customer comments yet though.

--Eric

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  • 2 months later...
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  • 3 months later...

On my last car I had a "Who is John Galt?" sticker as well as the "Enjoy Capitalism" (looks like the Coca-Cola logo) sticker. I also had a "Capitalist Inside" shirt but it doesn't fit me anymore.

When I was a server, I would ring in a blank drink order that would print on the bar's ticket printer and I would type in "This is John Galt speaking..."

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Most will make a passing reference and then leave.

When I was reading AS a long while ago at work, the one with the cover art of Nick Gaetano, someone thought it was Gay LIt.

In the many years that I have had the Objectivist related stickers on my car, they received only 2 comments:

1. from a visitor at the hospital I work, she said she liked all of them

2. from one of the two officers that surrounded my vehicle at night a few years ago, the one asked me who John Galt is.

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Not to put a wrinkle in this thread, but what is the explanation for wanting to use objectivist "flair" material, isn't a fundemental idea of objectivism to not need to 'advertise', but rather to lead by example? I'm unable to point to the exact page or quote it, but didn't Roark once strongly deny the idea given to him to advertise his skills in The Fountainhead, stating that his only form of advertising would 'be the products of his labor', that only the people who see his skill in his architecture are the kind of customers he would want?

I'm new to the forum, but have been a strong reader for four years (ever since I found Atlas Shrugged in the head on a Navy ship), and the above arguement is one that has given me trouble in trying to figure out ever since then.

Of course, I realize I'm also probably just taking to the text too strictly.

...that...and I really want those "Who is John Galt?" license plate covers and pin, hilarious

Sorry to resurrect a comment from a while back, but it made me think about something that's been bothering me for a while. "What would Roark do?"

I find myself fundamentally disagreeing with Roark on occasion.

If you are a large, successful business, you will advertise. A logo is advertising. Reardon plonks his name on everything: branding = advertising. If you do not, you will fail. No modern, successful company refrained from advertising. If they did - how did you find out? I assume you read something somewh... ah... she where I'm going with this?

If you still disagree, and decry advertising as an evil, then consider that to follow this through you would have to refrain from mentioning your business in any context. Indeed - if someone asked you: "Do you make buildings?" you would have to remain silent. This is a reductio ad absurdum, but you understand my meaning.

Roark isn't always right. When he visits Mallory he smashes one of the artist's soullessly commercial statuettes in a fit of pique. Force + another's property = not cool, Howard.

Overall, I don't think one should say: "What would Roark do?" any more than "What would Jesus do?" If everyone here were to do so, there'd be no Objectivists - Roark would no more follow or study Rand's views than anyone else's.

So go ahead and show your pride - and try not to smash anyone's stuff up while you're doing it.

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  • 5 years later...
  • 3 weeks later...
On 5/27/2006 at 7:51 AM, softwareNerd said:

That's funny. Makes sense though -- kinda like a Masonic handshake? :D

 

Co-worker: I saw a file here yesterday, and nobody has been here, yet it's gone now. Could you help me search for it, please?

Me: Sure, gotta trust the evidence of one's senses. It must be here someplace.

Co-worker: I'm absolutely sure it was here, and I'm absolutely sure this room was locked.

Me: Well, contradictions don't exist, so let's examine the first premise by searching your room.

Co-worker: Unless it just disappeared, somehow.

Me: (smiling) No reason to think that could happen. That would be arbitrary. Ah! there it is, it fell behind the desk.

Co-worker: Thanks!

Me: (leaving) You're welcome.

Co-worker: Er... one more thing....

Me: (turning back)... ?

Co-worker: Why're you talking funny?

Me: Why are you talking sloppy?

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On 5/27/2006 at 4:33 PM, Sherry said:

I do need more synonyms for irrational and thugs hahah.

"Biped" has always served me well. You specify that they walk on two legs - and omit absolutely everything else, leaving it all up to your audience's imagination. The end result fully conveys your precise meaning to any layman whatsoever without any further explanation.

Not "men" but "bipeds". :thumbsup:

 

On 6/18/2006 at 10:22 PM, KendallJ said:

4. I have a firebird tattoo'ed on my ankle, from the period where I finally decided I had studied Objectivism enough to call myself one.

What's the symbolism? I don't remember that as an element of any of her nonfiction that I've read but it sounds like it has some specific connection, for you. Would you please fill me in on it?

 

On 6/18/2006 at 10:22 PM, KendallJ said:

I collect fountain pens. A while back I had one custom made in Japan with the kanji for "capitalist" inscribed on the barrel. Of course, most people dont' know what it means.

Nakaya3.jpg

 

Badass!!!!!

 

On 6/23/2006 at 1:46 AM, pvtmorriscsa said:

When ever I find someone that I think might actually benefit from, and understand “Atlas Shrugged.”, I will recommend it too them and, depending on the person I will allow them to borrow my copy.

I wouldn't recommend that. I've done the same thing a dozen or so times and they've all ended up moldering in someone's neglected storage space.

On 6/23/2006 at 1:46 AM, pvtmorriscsa said:

As far as my daily life goes, I like to think of myself as the street preacher for Objectivist ideas, and no matter how many times I recommend Rand’s work, I will never claim to be an Objectivist.

Why not?

 

I've been known to preach, from time to time (although I try very hard not to). In my experience preaching for Objectivism truly sucks. You'd probably get less hatred and vitriol dumped on you for declaring that Tuesday ought to be a national baby-eating day than for quietly mentioning that contradictions cannot exist.

If it's a matter of personal honor I think you've probably earned the title, free and clear, just from what your post mentioned. If it's not that (and if you understand and agree with the basic tenets of the philosophy) then what else could it be?

 

It just sounds like self-torture, to me, and if it were it'd be of a particularly tragic form. So I'd be interested in any elaboration you'd care to provide.

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On 6/26/2006 at 0:06 AM, dedre said:

Not to put a wrinkle in this thread, but what is the explanation for wanting to use objectivist "flair" material, isn't a fundemental idea of objectivism to not need to 'advertise', but rather to lead by example?

How many of the people we usually deal with, in reality and on a daily basis, are both interested in and receptive to these ideas? When you approach people about it the reactions usually range from blind hostility to apathy to mockery. So any device that allows us to identify each other, without having to even mention the subject, is of value to me.

I'd give my left hand to have some drinking buddies that I could actually talk to about anything remotely interesting. I'd give both my hands to have one that was a woman.

 

There's a perfectly valid principle there, about telling versus showing, but I don't think it's entirely applicable.

 

Cheers! B)

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On 6/14/2010 at 1:32 PM, rebelconservative said:

I fail to see how an addiction to tobacco could possibly be in one's rational self-interest.

'I like cigarettes, Miss Taggart. I like to think of fire, a dangerous force, tamed in a man's hand. When a man thinks, there's a point of fire alive in his mind, and it's proper that he should hold the fire of a cigarette in his hand.'

-Cheeky paraphrasing which is almost certainly mangled. :zorro:

 

More seriously, though, it's a personal value judgement which you can't prescribe.

 

On 9/18/2010 at 7:06 AM, brian0918 said:

From my experience, I don't think you're going to get folks to think deeply with simple, short quotations. Could you give some examples?

 

"I don't like people who talk too much about [their own selflessness]. I don't think it's true and I don't think it'd be right if it ever were true."

-Mr. Ward

 

"When men are starving to death around you, your feelings won't be of any Earthly use to them."

-Francisco d'Anconia

 

"Yours is the Morality of Death."

-John Galt

 

You'd be amazed at the sort of reactions you get when you simply point out that altruism and collectivism demand your own suicide (tempered only by your own hypocrisy and consequent self-loathing), the very concept of a God is logically impossible and there simply is no afterlife.

I'm not recommending that anyone tries this at home (or anywhere else, under any circumstances). I'm only saying that the results might surprise you.

 

On 6/14/2011 at 4:26 AM, Madrayken said:

No modern, successful company refrained from advertising. If they did - how did you find out?

 

Tesla. YouTube. You're welcome.

 

B)

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