saintjadee

I'm not sure how some one with the demeanor of Elsworth M Toohey became a moderator, but I really enjoyed Mead's contribution. By the way it's all a moot point and I think both sides knew it from the start.

I have to agree with Stephens rant, this was a statement on his opinion not on objectivism. Personally I don't care if he calls himself one or not. Objectivism is a philosophy not a religion and as Rand herself said unless one is going to accept all the tenets of her definition do not use the term Objectivist to describe yourself. I do. I have yet to find any part of the philosophy that is not consistent. What amuses me most about Obectivist infighting and Libertarian quackery is that those who practice this type of behaviour are no better than the religious factions who argue and divide over biblical interpetations or what color robe jesus wiped his nose with at the last supper. If Mr. Greenspan is an Objectivist only he knows for sure. Once we start evaluating and chastising for a percieved lack of adherence the you can kiss the idea of any unified thought on the subject. Of course being individuals thats not suprising, but it does show a considered lack of rational. Besides didn't this thread start out asking if he was an athiest?

As much as I think Jackson met the task of presenting Middle Earth in the way Tolkien meant it to be envisioned, they still hacked the story to both fit the time and give a wider audience access. Combining characters is just another way to dilute the message (which is the point) as would be changing or cutting down Galts speech. In todays cable age the best format would be a "Band of Brothers" type format delivered over weeks if not months. But Atlas really deserves a big screen treatment. I doubt even a trilogy would do it justice. Would audiences attend 3-4 hour installments year after year? This isn't Star Trek but I really wonder how obscure Rand is in the scheme of things? Would there be lines around the block of people wearing classic 40's and 50's contemporary clothing (I always thought Bogart in a business suit would have made a great Hank Reardon ) wait hours for tickets? carrying signs thet read "I'm John Galt" I think not. The goal of the studio would be to make a profit, the cost to make the film would be preventative and the last installments may never materialize if the success of the first were to be counted on. We have to face the reality that any screen version will be a cut rate production. Actually from the infighting I see among objectivist it would probably suffer from time over runs and still look like a piecemeal documentary. Of course I am a purist in these matters (I was the guy in the LOTR audience muttering "thats not the way the books were" at every little compression or elaboration of the story) I would object to any change especially if Rands ideals were compromised. Then again I'm selfish enough to wanna see this come to the big screen in my lifetime so I would still buy a ticket. Of course even if a halfway decent film version gets made that doesn't nix the idea of a cable mini series. Of course the dialog would take years in itself to translate to a valid screen play. The best way to present Galts speech though would be with a back drop of mans greatest achievements and horrors streaming by as a parade accentuating his points. The speeches length would seem less if dramatized rather than just having him stand there.

Every sense of duty is unjustified. See Rands essay "Causality vs Duty" 1970. I don't think Eddie succumbed to anything, I do not think he was ever fully aware. Which is it? Did he want to go or not? I am not sure of your meaning in stating in one sentance that he didn't go in spite of wanting to and then the next saying he did not want to. Not being directly critical I am either missing the point or your statement isn't what you meant to say. "He did not stay IN SPITE of wanting to go. He DIDN'T WANT to go, because-" I doubt his rational was that death was preferable, even Rand says there were possibilities based on the winner of the struggle so in her mind he was never suicidal. We are not aware of the outcome but we desire it to be in favor of the strikers in which case Eddie would live. This of course changes the "kind" of world and so his outlook and your premise is basically ok. He may not have wanted to live in a world you describe but that does not mean he would have taken the ultimate way out. I think we agree about his worldview and TT's place in it. The problem and the point of his dillema is that he has more identity with TT than with himself. At some point he should have realized that trying to maintain a counterfit image of what TT used to be was less important than his own self interest. This is where we see what a trap being iconclastic can be. Eddie was defending an image not working for an ideal. He goes back basically because of a "somebody has to do it" attitude and the belief he was obligated to be the one. In reality no one really had to do anything but Eddie could not make the leap to self determination. Tagart was already in ruin but the collective still needed trains to run and they did not care to know how or why so Eddie falls back into the age old trap of shouldering the responsibility and willingly working for the collective.

After reading this entire thread I was surprised to see it peter out when getting very interesting. I was interested enough to register so as to add my own opinion. I read AS for the first time in the mid 70's at 16. It was my first exposure to Rand and only because I was one of the few students in my high school to realize that all the "good" books were stored in the back room of the library. This was the collection of non conformist literature that was not typically used in the approved curriculum or was considered too intellectual or out there for mere high school students to understand or even want to read. Things such as AS, the Fountainhead, Horatio Hornblower and National Lampoons "Bored of the Rings" and Waiting for Godot. As a result this treasure trove, stuffed in a back store room became an enabling center for those of us who were of a more intellectual bent to discover new concepts as well as each other. I came to find I was a natural objectivist as the concepts did not so much open my eyes as confirm that reality was indeed real. I was taken back to that first reading by the content this thread. I never questioned the fate of Eddie Willers. It seemed the acceptable appropriate and reasonable, even obvious outcome. Consider that Eddies fate was predicted by Rand in his introduction. Eddies family had been working for Taggart for generations, this would no doubt have some affect in his psychology. The reason he could not join them and the reason Dagny understood was not that he was less competent, or more common or even a lack of goals. Eddie held all the attributes a member would require to go to the gulch. The world needs competent able people, they are indispensable, but not all people can be outward prime movers, that is those who make and create world moving advances such as Galts engine. In concordance with this Prime Movers require the competent and able to enable their goals as well. Howard Roark could do construction but could not design, plan, implement and complete a project without a crew of competent workers to meet the agreed project goals. Galt might have been able to smelt the iron for his engine, mill the parts and assemble it, but he could not meet a production schedule that way. This symbiosis is rational and acceptable when we also accept that the self same competent and able persons needed to complete goals must also be inward prime movers of themselves. It is not necessary for Gwen to create or "produce" anything like Galts engine to realize self actualization through her understanding and goals in a supporting role. The truck driver and Gwen belong because they provide competence and more importantly they understand the difference between servitude and support. Eddie on the other hand was crippled by his heritage he had a sense of duty. He felt a sense of duty to Taggart due to his families ties and it was stronger than his obligation to himself. Eddie was tied by the bonds of duty from which he could not break free. Had he understood obligation he would have realized that his obligation to himself was greater than his assumed duty to Taggart or the false ideal Taggart represented. The misconception of duty is what makes a soldier run headlong into a machine gun nest sacrificing him self to eliminate the threat. The rational soldier who considers his obligation will take a few steps to one side or another accomplish the same goal and live to fight on. In the case of the former he will be honored as a hero for his sacrifice and duty, where the latter will be ignored for having just done his job. Patton (being paraphrased by GC Scott in the film) exhorts his troops that it's not the goal of a soldier to die for his country but to make the other counties soldiers die for it. Yet we reward (through recognition) those who fail at this task and heap the additional work on those who get the job done in greater measure, blaming them in effect for their survival. Eddie felt compelled to charge the machine gun or at the least order someone else to, as a result he sealed his doom in a collective world.