Atlas Shrugged - Ayn Rand Psychopath?

[Kel]

While I'm not a proponent of Ayn Rand's political views, Atlas Shrugged has been on my mind lately. The current situation on the BBM reminds me so much of what she described in her book. Namely the conniving, ponerized unproductive TAKING from the productive to give themselves more power and money only to find that they've shot themselve in the foot. The house they built "on the take" comes tumbling down.

And now we even see major piracy happening on the high seas.

_http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/africa/article5192674.ece

I have a feeling many of you have read Atlas Shrugged. Any other insights?

 

[Laura]

Re: Atlas Shrugged - somewhat prophetic?

You also might want to read Taylor Caldwell's "Ceremony of the Innocent". Chilling.

 

[Jeremy F Kreuz]

Re: Atlas Shrugged - somewhat prophetic?

Hi all,

Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand has been ever since its publication a very controversial book. In the seventies John Todd, a known Illuminati whistleblower said about it that it was ordered written and produced by Philip Rothschild, the leader of the Illuminati in his day and age. Ayn Rand was rumoured, at that time, one of Philip Rothschild's mistresses. John Todd claims it is a codebook, a step by step plan to take over the whole world.

Quote from John Todd:

"The idea of taking over is to bankrupt the whole world where nothing is of any value and the currency does not exist anywhere and then come back and solve all the problems. The book Atlas Shrugged ends with the hero, John Galt, which is really Philip Rothschild, lifting his hand up in the air and drawing the symbol of his organization, never says Illuminati in the book, in the air and he says, "We shall follow this symbol back." The symbol that he draws is the dollar sign. Now the $ sign is only used in America, by the way. Nowhere else to represent money. It's almost 8,000 years old or probably older, goes back in time to the pyramids and it means to scourge or to punish and through punishment to purify and make right."

Note on John Todd:

quote by Steve from the thread: Sorcha Faal/David Booth: COINTELPRO « Reply #38 on: March 03, 2006, 07:40:05 AM »

I recall a man named John Todd who defected from the Illuminati years ago and did all he could to expose them. Like crafty chess-players, the satanic network planned out their moves until they framed him and had him railroaded into prison on false rape charges. Fritz was in contact with Todd and wrote about him and his frame up in his book The Top Thirteen Illuminati Bloodlines in an effort to show the American people what lengths the 'Network' will go to in order to demonize you and shut you up.

note: Fritz: Fritz Springmeier.


In the last part of the book Ayn Rand uses specific dates to open different chapters and with this techniques indicates a time table, or so it seems. The following list is taken from a analysis done on another forum.

September 2nd: Copper wire breaks in California.
September 7th: Copper wire breaks in Montana.
September 11th: Copper wire breaks in Minnesota.
October 15th: Copper wire breaks in New York.
October 20th - October 31st - Riots break out at Hank Reardans Steel mill. It is later revealed that the Government are paying people to riot to try to nationalise the steel company.

note: H Rearden is one of the major characters in the novel: the industrialist who by his believe in a corrupt system that does not value work creates his own destruction.

November 4th: The government plans to have Hank Readen announce to the country that he is on their side.
November 22nd: Mr Thompson's (the president) is to 'report on the World crisis' is to be broadcast on the radio to America, but John Galt (the hero of the story and apparently based on Phillip Rosthchild) hijacks the station to give his speech on his philosophy. (I cannot avoid to compare with how V in V is for Vendetta hijacks a broadcasting station to deliver his message)
November 23rd to December 5th: Crowds turning violent. Others events involve people getting on with work despite no one to manage them.
December 15th: The government is trying to reach an agreement with John Galt, but none comes. The country goes further downhill.
Jan 22nd: All the steel mills have been nationalised.
Jan 26: Guatemala (now a socialist country - the entire world is socialist now) asks the US for a loan of 1000 tons of steel.
Feb 3rd: The government kidnaps John Galt and begs him to be the sole economic ruler of the US. He refuses. The world generally descends into anarchy and starvation.

The last paragraph of the book is set in Galt's Gulch - the hiding place John Galt and his companions. They decide on their plan to return to the World. A specific date is not mentioned.

This timetable could indeed reflect what is going on these days. This suspicion can be further accentuated when looking at the major philosophical themes in The book
- Capitalism as the only good and possible moral social system.
- the sanction of the victim... to accept and live in this capitalistic system

From the official website of Ayn Rand:

The morality of capitalism is a major theme in Atlas Shrugged, which for the first time in history offered a full defense of capitalism, not just as a practical system of economics, but as the only moral social system.

What is Capitalism?

Capitalism is a social system based on the recognition of individual rights, including property rights, in which all property is privately owned.

The recognition of individual rights entails the banishment of physical force from human relationships: basically, rights can be violated only by means of force. In a capitalist society, no man or group may initiate the use of physical force against others. The only function of the government, in such a society, is the task of protecting Man's rights, i.e., the task of protecting him from physical force; the government acts as the agent of Man's right of self-defense, and may use force only in retaliation and only against those who initiate its use; thus the government is the means of placing the retaliatory use of force under objective control.

—Ayn Rand, “What Is Capitalism?” Capitalism: The Unknown Ideal

Why Is Capitalism Moral?

The moral justification of capitalism does not lie in the altruist claim that it represents the best way to achieve “the common good.” It is true that capitalism does—if that catchphrase has any meaning—but this is merely a secondary consequence. The moral justification of capitalism lies in the fact that it is the only system consonant with Man's rational nature, that it protects Man's survival qua man, and that its ruling principle is: justice.

—Ayn Rand, “What Is Capitalism?” Capitalism: The Unknown Ideal

The Sanction of the victim is defined as "the willingness of the good to suffer at the hands of the evil, to accept the role of sacrificial victim for the 'sin' of creating values."

The entire story of Atlas Shrugged can be seen as an answer to the question, what would happen if this sanction were revoked? When Atlas shrugs, relieving himself of the burden of carrying the world, he is revoking his sanction.

The concept may be original in the thinking of Ayn Rand and is foundational to her moral theory. She holds that evil is a parasite on the good and can only exist if the good tolerates it. To quote from Galt's Speech, as presented in the novel: "Evil is impotent and has no power but that which we let it extort from us," and, "I saw that evil was impotent...and the only weapon of its triumph was the willingness of the good to serve it."

 

[Buddy]

Re: Atlas Shrugged - somewhat prophetic?

I have a feeling many of you have read Atlas Shrugged. Any other insights?

I haven't read Atlas Shrugged, but I studied 'Objectivism' many years ago.

I had always thought that Atlas Shrugged was simply a novel that demonstrated life being lived according to all the objectivist principles. Further, I thought it was written as a way of 'drawing a picture' for the cult-like following that surrounded her work. In other words, people just wanted to sit around and talk about objectivism instead of using it to change their lives and change the world. Since I haven't read it, I could be wrong.

The 'text book' itself, is what fascinated me. The first crack in my 'God concept' came from the idea that "a consciousness, without something to be conscious of, is a contradiction in terms" - and a contradiction cannot exist in reality.
Whew! Pretty heady stuff for my young mind, but it lit a fire that has never been extinguished to this day.

 

[nicklebleu]

Re: Atlas Shrugged - somewhat prophetic?

I read Atlas Shrugged many years ago - I quite liked it at the time, because it shows a refreshing take on virtue in a world where anything goes and where key persons start to take their destiny into their hands and step out of the "system". I sometime had a bit of a problem with the pathos, but found, that otherwise it was quite well written.

One has to see Ayn Rand as someone opposed to Communism and Socialism, which she escaped aged 19 to America. One can understand that the relative freedom that America granted her must have felt like paradise. One of her best books IMO is her pseudo-autographic novel "We the Living", which is quite chilling to read. It is the story of three friends that participated in the October Revolution and how two of these three finally are caught up in the political cleansing after the revolution. What impressed me most was the inevitability of life in the early years of the former Soviet Union, when most of the in ital revolutionaries were killed in turn for antisoviet conspiracy - pathocracy at full bore. AR was well acquainted with the political elite, so I don't know today what to make of her ... whether she is genuine or cointelpro. I personally tend to find her genuine ... but let me know what you guys think!

 

[dant]

Re: Atlas Shrugged - somewhat prophetic?

I wonder what AR would have (re)thought had she read SOTT.

Imo, I think her views on capitalism was a little off because I
am not sure she understood about psychopaths walking amongst
us, although one wonders if she barely touched on the subject?

FWIW,
Dan

[Edit:
I have finished reading Atlas Shrugged, 1069 pages!
There is a lot of drama in it. (But of course, it is a novel!?)

Overall, the book is well written. There are a lot of insights.

It is interesting, that AR gives us several concepts to ponder:
the tools of the pathocrats with cunning/intelligence/tricks in utilizing
"human frailties" for their own gain (by obtaining "unearned values"
by draining/suppressing/controlling their victims of "earned values"),
ultimately leading to general destruction (chaos), contrasted against
those who, removed themselves from the control of the pathocrats by
forming their own (idealist) systems of self-governance ("Atlantis")
[Capitalism, and the return to the Gold standard?].

She also seems to identify the psychopaths, through certain characters
by letting us observe their words and actions (they don't match) and
it is interesting to note how different psychopaths retaliate when exposed
by utilizing words (psycho-babble) and their actions (threats and violence).

There is much more, but I will refrain from further observation, so as
to allow those to read the book, and to draw their own conclusions.

FWIW,
Dan
]

 

[Be Like Water]

Re: Atlas Shrugged - somewhat prophetic?

yes, I have read a number of rand's works.

I had run across the idea that it was an illuminism text, but do not think this is the case. It is possible that illuminism was attempting to use her. IMO, it is more the crystallization of the lower intellectual center into a self-consistant ideology. I often wondered what Ayn would have become if she saw a UFO, or had a genuine spiritual experience.

She had an amazing ability to uncover the premise of a situation, but in the end, absolute faith in her own mind was not enough to SEE.

Here is also something interesting, from _http://www.aynrand.org/site/PageServer?pagename=media_america_at_war_israeli_arab_conflict

Ayn Rand on Israel (Ford Hall Forum lecture, 1974)

Q: What should the United Sates do about the [1973] Arab-Israeli War?

AR: Give all the help possible to Israel. Consider what is at stake. It is not the moral duty of any country to send men to die helping another country. The help Israel needs is technology and military weapons—and they need them desperately. Why should we help Israel? Israel is fighting not just the Arabs but Soviet Russia, who is sending the Arabs armaments. Russia is after control of the Mediterranean and oil.

Further, why are the Arabs against Israel? (This is the main reason I support Israel.) The Arabs are one of the least developed cultures. They are typically nomads. Their culture is primitive, and they resent Israel because it's the sole beachhead of modern science and civilization on their continent. When you have civilized men fighting savages, you support the civilized men, no matter who they are. Israel is a mixed economy inclined toward socialism. But when it comes to the power of the mind—the development of industry in that wasted desert continent—versus savages who don't want to use their minds, then if one cares about the future of civilization, don't wait for the government to do something. Give whatever you can. This is the first time I've contributed to a public cause: helping Israel in an emergency.

MeWonder, what information was she feed to reach this conclusion??

 

[Kel]

Re: Atlas Shrugged - somewhat prophetic?

I read somewhere that she was very close to Alan Greenspan

 

[Be Like Water]

Re: Atlas Shrugged - somewhat prophetic?

I read somewhere that she was very close to Alan Greenspan

hi,

Yes, there is an association.
In Rand's "Capitalism: the unkown ideal", he writes a few articles.
According to wikipedia, _http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alan_greenspan, the two were close until rand's death.
I did not realise how close the relationship was until today.
One of them is titled "Gold and economic freedom", in which he argues the merits of a gold standard.
I had previously thought he had disassosiated with rand, after becoming the fed's chair.

 

[Hildegarda]

Re: Atlas Shrugged - somewhat prophetic?

There is a couple of new books on Ayn Rand that are out now. Here is an essay about her and her influence on the conservative right:

http://www.sott.net/articles/show/193346-Wealthcare-the-Cult-of-Ayn-Rand

Like you said, it is coming to the fore now, more than ever -- but not so much because she had predicted it, she had CREATED it by the influence of her fiction works and associations with some key people.

I found the following two paragraphs form the essay particularly attention-grabbing:

Rand's early life mirrored the experience of her most devoted readers. A bright but socially awkward woman, she harbored the suspicion early on that her intellectual gifts caused classmates to shun her. She was born Alissa Rosenbaum in 1905 in St. Petersburg. Her Russian-Jewish family faced severe state discrimination, first for being Jewish under the czars, and then for being wealthy merchants under the Bolsheviks, who stole her family's home and business for the alleged benefit of the people.

Anne C. Heller, in her skillful life of Rand, traces the roots of Rand's philosophy to an even earlier age. (Heller paints a more detailed and engaging portrait of Rand's interior life, while Burns more thoroughly analyzes her ideas.) Around the age of five, Alissa Rosenbaum's mother instructed her to put away some of her toys for a year. She offered up her favorite possessions, thinking of the joy that she would feel when she got them back after a long wait. When the year had passed, she asked her mother for the toys, only to be told she had given them away to an orphanage. Heller remarks that "this may have been Rand's first encounter with injustice masquerading as what she would later acidly call 'altruism.' " (The anti-government activist Grover Norquist has told a similar story from childhood, in which his father would steal bites of his ice cream cone, labelling each bite "sales tax" or "income tax." The psychological link between a certain form of childhood deprivation and extreme libertarianism awaits serious study.)

I
am not sure she understood about psychopaths walking amongst
us, although one wonders if she barely touched on the subject

I think she must have understood it pretty well, because she herself seems to be a sociopath, either due to her childhood trauma or innate temperamental predisposition.

He philosophy is that the person's value is only in what he produces, or what income he pulls. It places no value on human emotion and feeling whatsoever (in practice, of course, it was that she was perfectly entitled to experienced anything and act upon it, but others in her circle were required to totally subjugate themselves to her in this respect). And here is what she says about one of her characters:

She wrote of one of the protagonists of her stories that "he does not understand, because he has no organ for understanding, the necessity, meaning, or importance of other people"; and she meant this as praise.

It should be mentioned that this character was inspired by a convicted killer William Edward Hickman -- a forger and a robber who have kidnapped and murdered a young girl, and also committed other multiple murders. He was the first one ever to use insanity plea in his legal defense. In short the guy was a total sociopath and a psychopath, and to her he was an ideal man:

In her journal circa 1928 Rand quoted the statement, "What is good for me is right," a credo attributed to a prominent figure of the day, William Edward Hickman. Her response was enthusiastic. "The best and strongest expression of a real man's psychology I have heard," she exulted. (Quoted in Ryan, citing Journals of Ayn Rand, pp. 21-22.)

here is more on Hickman and Rand's infatuation with him:

http://michaelprescott.net/hickman.htm


The author's conclusions speak for themselves:

By the appraisal of any normal mind, there can be little doubt that William Edward Hickman was a vicious psychopath of the worst order. That Ayn Rand saw something heroic, brilliant, and romantic in this despicable creature is perhaps the single worst indictment of her that I have come across. It is enough to make me question not only her judgment, but her sanity.

At this point in my life, I did not think it was possible to significantly lower my estimate of Ayn Rand, or to regard her as even more of a psychological and moral mess than I had already taken her to be.

I stand corrected.

I had previously thought he had disassosiated with rand, after becoming the fed's chair.

Most of the conservative right appear to have done a careful job at dissociating with her in public, since she was very much against Christianity, and of course they do not want to alienate their religious base. But her influence on their thinking cannot be denied.

 

[dant]

Re: Atlas Shrugged - somewhat prophetic?

Wow!

Thank you for the additional information about A. Rand!
These are certainly, at least for me, real eye-openers.

Dan

 

[Be Like Water]

Re: Atlas Shrugged - somewhat prophetic?



Very interesting, Hildegarda.

I had no idea about this. In retrospect, I remember noting in Atlas Shrugged or the Fountainhead a particular "health" that her perfect characters possess, a kind of resistance to disease and discomfort, that only the pure egoist has. Also, her idea's of sexuality show a definite s&m angle, the first scene in the Fountainhead where two main characters finally "get it on" is basically a rape/dominance roleplay.

I always read into her work her idea of "individual rights" as specifically being to stop exactly these kind of crimes (murder, rape ect), and thought there were some dissonances in her life Vs writing, but nothing like this!!! But the truth is, in retrospect, the signs are there.

At one time in my life, her ideas had a large influence on my life. That influence has been diminishing for quite a while now, and I found this thread looking to see what was known about her in this network. Thank you for this, it has most definitively smashed a sacred cow into a million peices. I feel physically sick thinking that such a perverted psychology could have such an effect on my life.

 

[Hildegarda]

Re: Atlas Shrugged - somewhat prophetic?

I always read into her work her idea of "individual rights" as specifically being to stop exactly these kind of crimes (murder, rape ect), and thought there were some dissonances in her life Vs writing, but nothing like this!!! But the truth is, in retrospect, the signs are there.

I totally hear you, mechanimated. I too at first saw in her 1) my compatriot, 2) an intellectually precocious female from the "intelligentsia" backgrounds -- quite enough to identify myself with her and think we are the same. Her purely intellectual judgment on some key issues (like, her take on pro-lifers) is also very keen. Easy not to see the big picture.

I suspect the this line of our thinking follows the process described in the "Mask of Sanity" article:

Part of the answer is that the oddities are subtle so that our general listening mode will not normally pick them up. But my own experience is that some of the "skipped" or oddly arranged words, or misused words are automatically reinterpreted by OUR brains in the same way we automatically "fill in the blank" space on a neon sign when one of the letters has gone out. We can be driving down the road at night, and ahead we see M_tel, and we mentally put the "o" in place and read "Motel." Something like this happens between the psychopath and the victim. We fill in the "missing humanness" by filling in the blanks with our own assumptions, based on what WE think and feel and mean. And, in this way, because there are these "blank" spots, we fill them in with what is inside us, and thus we are easily convinced that the psychopath is a great guy - because he is just like us! We have been conditioned to operate on trust, and we always try to give the "benefit of the doubt." So, there are blanks, we "give the benefit of the doubt," and we are thereby hoisted on our own petard.

 

[go2]

Re: Atlas Shrugged - somewhat prophetic?

More evidence for Atlas Shrugged-somewhat pathological.......

I think she must have understood it pretty well, because she herself seems to be a sociopath, either due to her childhood trauma or innate temperamental predisposition.

He philosophy is that the person's value is only in what he produces, or what income he pulls. It places no value on human emotion and feeling whatsoever (in practice, of course, it was that she was perfectly entitled to experienced anything and act upon it, but others in her circle were required to totally subjugate themselves to her in this respect).

Most of the conservative right appear to have done a careful job at dissociating with her in public, since she was very much against Christianity, and of course they do not want to alienate their religious base. But her influence on their thinking cannot be denied.

The Sociology of the Ayn Rand Cult by Murray N. Rothbard provides a remarkable
insiders view of the ponerized Randian cult and its sacred text, Atlas Shrugged. The
essay was written in 1972 and appeared on LewRockwell.com.

Rothbard’s essay studies the dynamics of a cult organized around a pathological core. Ayn Rand’s cult specialized in creating and/or selecting pathologicals to spread her soulless ideology to America. Alan Greenspan is an example of the fruits of the Randian cult. Here are a few paragraphs from the essay.

Every religious cult has two sets of differing and distinctive creeds: the exoteric and the esoteric. The exoteric creed is the official, public doctrine, the creed which attracts the acolyte in the first place and brings him into the movement as a rank-and-file member. The quite different creed is the unknown, hidden agenda, a creed which is only known to its full extent by the top leadership, the "high priests" of the cult. The latter are the keepers of the Mysteries of the cult.

But cults become particularly fascinating when the esoteric and exoteric creeds are not only different, but totally and glaringly in mutual contradiction. The havoc that this fundamental contradiction plays in the minds and lives of the disciples may readily be imagined. Thus, the various Marxist-Leninists cults officially and publicly extol Reason and Science, and denounce all religion, and yet the members are mystically attracted to the cult and its alleged infallibility.
......

But the most important sanction for the enforcement of loyalty and obedience, the most important instrument for psychological control of the members, was the development and practice of Objectivist Psychotherapy. In effect, this psychological theory held that since emotion always stems from incorrect ideas, that therefore all neurosis did so as well; and hence, the cure for that neurosis is to discover and purge oneself of those incorrect ideas and values. And since Randian ideas were all correct and all deviation therefore incorrect, Objectivist Psychotherapy consisted of (a) inculcating everyone with Randian theory – except now in a supposedly psycho-therapeutic setting; and (b) searching for the hidden deviation from Randian theory responsible for the neurosis and purging it by correcting the deviation.

It is clear that, considering the emotional and psychological power of the psychotherapeutic experience, the Rand cult had in its hands a powerful weapon for reinforcing and sanctioning the moulding of the New Randian Man. Philosophy and psychology, explicit doctrine, social pressure, and therapeutic pressure, all reinforced each other to generate obedient and loyal acolytes of Ayn Rand.
........

We conclude our analysis of the Rand cult with the observation that here was an extreme example of contradiction between the exoteric and the esoteric creed. That in the name of individuality, reason, and liberty, the Rand cult in effect preached something totally different. The Rand cult was concerned not with every man’s individuality, but only with Rand’s individuality, not with everyone’s right reason but only with Rand’s reason. The only individuality that flowered to the extent of blotting out all others, was Ayn Rand’s herself; everyone else was to become a cipher subject to Rand’s mind and will.

 

[Azur]

Re: Atlas Shrugged - somewhat prophetic?

More evidence for Atlas Shrugged-somewhat pathological.......

[...]
In effect, this psychological theory held that since emotion always stems from incorrect ideas, that therefore all neurosis did so as well; and hence, the cure for that neurosis is to discover and purge oneself of those incorrect ideas and values.

[...]

It is astonishing how far this very "principle" has been injected into systems that govern our day-to-day lives. It is so far reaching that it boggles the mind. The statement above explains EXACTLY what psychopaths fear and why: they do not have a clue where/why/and the what for of emotions, and have waged a suppression campaign for a long time. They sense that this blind spot of theirs, this uncontrollable and non-understandable variable in others will be their undoing because it cannot be completely foreseen or managed (on MANY levels).

I suspect (actually, KNOW) that many are bristling to come out from underneath their societal masks assumed because of the above-mentioned fake and contrived competitive, and false resource scarcity systems.

Other false systems like socialism or communism are equally useless to those sovereign individuals who would naturally want to share and help any and all, no matter the circumstance.