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1geneg
This is going to sound a little retarded, but here goes: I am beginning to see the reflection of Ayn Rand's Atlas Shrugged in the ideology of the Republican Party. Now, I know the response to this admission by any thinking person is, “Duh.” but for me this is a real revelation. I know that newly minted Republican staffers and such on both the Hill and the White House, as part of their indoctrination is to receive, read, and become more than passingly familiar with the themes and concepts presented in the book. As a result, presented here in no particular order, are some thoughts about the relevance of Atlas Shrugged to American Republican politics today.
1) Sarah Palin - Sarah Palin is the Dagney Taggart of the Republican Party. She's a cute, spunky woman fighting against the waves of Lilliputian minds who seek to drive her from office for their own reasons of petty jealousy and fear of her dazzling brilliance. She is the consummate individual, bound to go her own way. Anyone who opposes her has impure motives and is prima facie destroying one of the good people. Palin, just like Dagney, doesn't have to be smart, she doesn't need to know a lot of stuff, she just needs to be independent and opposed to government getting in her way. Given the opportunity, she, and by implication the rest of us, if only given a chance could make the trains run on time through sheer force of will, except for all the little people, tugging at her, trying to pull her down to their level. It doesn't matter that her childhood friend and best friend in adult life is a thief, stealing the patrimony of another land, or that one of her heroes is a pirate. These are people who do whatever is necessary to extend their will into the world as far as possible, the rest of us be damned.
2)Industrialism – Most of the heroes in Atlas Shrugged are industrialists of one sort or another. They are proud rapers of the land, as I said above, pirates, or just dropouts from society. About a quarter of the book is spent tracking down a guy who invented a perpetual motion machine, for God's sake. No wonder the Republicans love this book, it's about transcendent people who transcend even the laws of nature. They create steel that never wears, never shows the results of stress and strain, that never contributes to any problems. The story of what it took to invent and then sell Riordan Steel in the face of roadblocks and problems put up by an array of bad guys from government and unions is a truly inspiring story of will in the face of concerted denial.
3) Environmentalism – Unfortunately, this was not a problem for Rand. In 1957 evironmentalism was the province of small bands of kooks with no real footprint in society. I say this is unfortunate because Atlas Shrugged contains little if any direction for Republicans to take on the subject. They don't know what to do. Taking several other themes of the book, private property rights and extreme individualism into account Republicans can cobble together environmental positions based on how the issue limits ownership and individual rights. The idea of government owning property is, of course, abhorent. Only individuals have the right to own property. I suspect this comes out of Rand's youth under Stalin. She is very much opposed to any form of communal action, except of course when her prized individuals band together to withdraw their expertise from society, forming a smallish community with a very strong governing principle that all who participate must contribute. Sounds a lot like communism to me, from each according to his ability to the community according to it's need, but then what do I know. And of course this leads me to the next topic:
4) Unions – There are two kinds of workers in Atlas Shrugged, those who follow the vision of one of the great individuals, the good guys, and those who form and join unions. The good employee, as far as the fact that he neither owns nor directs the company will allow, follows the lead of those who do. They are appropriately sycophantic and relentlessly push the bosses agenda. They are content to be like puppies in the shadow of greatness, their contributions recognized as those of loyal servants. They have little or no sense of accomplishment in themselves, their singular purpose is to support the boss. Of course the bad guys are the unions. They collude with government and the financiers (a class Rand seems to have little respect for) in organizing the business legal structure to their own advantage. Of course this is the source of myriad roadblocks, theft, corruption, and just plain stupidity. From this Republicans conclude government can not work. They've read Ayn Rand and she told them so. The polemic on unions (while Dagney is hunting for the inventor of the perpetual motion machine) is classic. The union forms, apparently only for the purpose of destroying the business. Sponging off the profits reaped by ownership, demanding such things as a fair wage for a fair days work, health care, daycare, vacation, etc. all those things workers who are no longer just thankful they have a job, but demand some say in what their labor has wrought drives the owners out leaving the company to the union which immediately runs it into the ground, the same way Republicans when given the controls of a community drive that community into the ground, and the same reason they demand things like unitary presidents because the collective (that's you and me, folks) is not individually wilful to do what has to be done. Better we are led by a single individual with a vision thingy than an arguing, chattering, oppositional government. You know, Like Stalin. One strong individual with a will is better than fifty congresses.
5) Capitalism - The underlying theme of this entire book is the economy of will. Part of that economy is the free ability of the strong willed to make any deal they see fit, to use capital as a weapon as well as a force for good and, since government is bad, must be completely free to operate as the god of Republicanism, all knowing, all seeing, all encompassing, a neutral arbiter of success. Of course the fact this ends up in depression and the destruction of the middle class (the enemy of the good) is just what the doctor ordered. Society needs to be shaken out every now and again to keep the cream rising to the top. the fact that this shake up can have life and death ramifications for the rest of us is immaterial.
6) Going Galt – The strong willed individual, when thwarted does what all good Republicans do: they whine and run away, demanding that their narcissistic demands be met before they return to save the rest of us from ourselves. Oh, my! What a bunch of Heroes.When Achilleus did this at Troy it didn't work out so well for the Achaians, and made Achilleus look childish and eventually cost him the life of his dearest friend. Apparently, for a brief period, the threat of going Galt was, I guess supposed to terrify us, but since most Americans, including, apparently, themselves have never read The Illiad, it just sounded kind of dumb. Of course the fact that they kidnapped most of those who went Galt, including Dagney, is immaterial. Once again, they are the strong in a time when strength is needed, they must do what they must do to survive and thrive. If that means spying on people for no good reason, torturing people for no good reason, starting wars for no good reason, lying to us and to themselves to create the world they need in which to be relevant, then by God, that's what it takes. Trust me, says Dick Cheney, and a hundred million or more eyeballs click too in a straight ahead blank stare, like a zombie, shouting feed me, oh master, feed me, lurching around, trying to turn the rest of us into zombies as well.
So, to recap, everything the Republican Party stands for is exemplified in this one book Atlas Shrugged. Of course the world created in this book is an impossible, idealized world, (did Rand ever write a book about what her ideal world would really look like? Or did she just whine about how things were?) so the Republican vision is equally impossible and idealized (have the Republicans ever presented a vision of what the world they want to make would really look like?). Aside from problems attendant to living in Neverland this is a false vision, one centered on the individual not the community, but just as equally flawed. As the communist world dictates a strong hand on the nascent individualism within each person of the community, so does this world require a strong hand to keep the community from demanding a say in how they live, too. Unlike Galt's little community where everyone does what they are told, no?
The central conceit of this book, the only ones who count are those who command their fates, is a phony conceit. How many of you out there who celebrate this dream are named Bill Gates, or Steve Jobs, or Edison, or Ford, or Rockefeller? My guess not a damn one. In fact Bill Gates is reviled, along with Warren Buffet and George Soros, titans all, for using their money for social purposes rather than like Scrooge McDuck who has it all slopped into great mounds of coin doing nothing except feeding his own ego. How many who follow this philosophy are actually in a position to enjoy its benefits.
As with most about this book issues that require some level of thought, like how to actually, you know, like help one another, as we are, by the way, commanded to do by Jesus, another star in the firmament of the right wing, a man and God whose whole philosophy of life is completely antithetical to the themes of this book (one of the reasons right wing Christianism makes no sense when examined in the light of what Jesus actually said) are ignored altogether, or given some sort of facile treatment that doesn't amount to much. In other words, if you are a nine-to-five kind of guy then you don't count in terms of the clash of worlds taking place over your heads. You just have to live with the results. Let your betters determine what that should be.
I'm sure there is much more in this book about how the truly great are shat upon by us small minded folks, those who resent being used like pawns in a power game that can only end badly for them.
No matter what you may be told, Atlas Shrugged is the true bible of Republicanism. The purpose of said book is to lull us into thinking a handful of narcissists has our own best interest at heart. The existence of the Republican party demonstrates the success of this philosophy.
1) Sarah Palin - Sarah Palin is the Dagney Taggart of the Republican Party. She's a cute, spunky woman fighting against the waves of Lilliputian minds who seek to drive her from office for their own reasons of petty jealousy and fear of her dazzling brilliance. She is the consummate individual, bound to go her own way. Anyone who opposes her has impure motives and is prima facie destroying one of the good people. Palin, just like Dagney, doesn't have to be smart, she doesn't need to know a lot of stuff, she just needs to be independent and opposed to government getting in her way. Given the opportunity, she, and by implication the rest of us, if only given a chance could make the trains run on time through sheer force of will, except for all the little people, tugging at her, trying to pull her down to their level. It doesn't matter that her childhood friend and best friend in adult life is a thief, stealing the patrimony of another land, or that one of her heroes is a pirate. These are people who do whatever is necessary to extend their will into the world as far as possible, the rest of us be damned.
2)Industrialism – Most of the heroes in Atlas Shrugged are industrialists of one sort or another. They are proud rapers of the land, as I said above, pirates, or just dropouts from society. About a quarter of the book is spent tracking down a guy who invented a perpetual motion machine, for God's sake. No wonder the Republicans love this book, it's about transcendent people who transcend even the laws of nature. They create steel that never wears, never shows the results of stress and strain, that never contributes to any problems. The story of what it took to invent and then sell Riordan Steel in the face of roadblocks and problems put up by an array of bad guys from government and unions is a truly inspiring story of will in the face of concerted denial.
3) Environmentalism – Unfortunately, this was not a problem for Rand. In 1957 evironmentalism was the province of small bands of kooks with no real footprint in society. I say this is unfortunate because Atlas Shrugged contains little if any direction for Republicans to take on the subject. They don't know what to do. Taking several other themes of the book, private property rights and extreme individualism into account Republicans can cobble together environmental positions based on how the issue limits ownership and individual rights. The idea of government owning property is, of course, abhorent. Only individuals have the right to own property. I suspect this comes out of Rand's youth under Stalin. She is very much opposed to any form of communal action, except of course when her prized individuals band together to withdraw their expertise from society, forming a smallish community with a very strong governing principle that all who participate must contribute. Sounds a lot like communism to me, from each according to his ability to the community according to it's need, but then what do I know. And of course this leads me to the next topic:
4) Unions – There are two kinds of workers in Atlas Shrugged, those who follow the vision of one of the great individuals, the good guys, and those who form and join unions. The good employee, as far as the fact that he neither owns nor directs the company will allow, follows the lead of those who do. They are appropriately sycophantic and relentlessly push the bosses agenda. They are content to be like puppies in the shadow of greatness, their contributions recognized as those of loyal servants. They have little or no sense of accomplishment in themselves, their singular purpose is to support the boss. Of course the bad guys are the unions. They collude with government and the financiers (a class Rand seems to have little respect for) in organizing the business legal structure to their own advantage. Of course this is the source of myriad roadblocks, theft, corruption, and just plain stupidity. From this Republicans conclude government can not work. They've read Ayn Rand and she told them so. The polemic on unions (while Dagney is hunting for the inventor of the perpetual motion machine) is classic. The union forms, apparently only for the purpose of destroying the business. Sponging off the profits reaped by ownership, demanding such things as a fair wage for a fair days work, health care, daycare, vacation, etc. all those things workers who are no longer just thankful they have a job, but demand some say in what their labor has wrought drives the owners out leaving the company to the union which immediately runs it into the ground, the same way Republicans when given the controls of a community drive that community into the ground, and the same reason they demand things like unitary presidents because the collective (that's you and me, folks) is not individually wilful to do what has to be done. Better we are led by a single individual with a vision thingy than an arguing, chattering, oppositional government. You know, Like Stalin. One strong individual with a will is better than fifty congresses.
5) Capitalism - The underlying theme of this entire book is the economy of will. Part of that economy is the free ability of the strong willed to make any deal they see fit, to use capital as a weapon as well as a force for good and, since government is bad, must be completely free to operate as the god of Republicanism, all knowing, all seeing, all encompassing, a neutral arbiter of success. Of course the fact this ends up in depression and the destruction of the middle class (the enemy of the good) is just what the doctor ordered. Society needs to be shaken out every now and again to keep the cream rising to the top. the fact that this shake up can have life and death ramifications for the rest of us is immaterial.
6) Going Galt – The strong willed individual, when thwarted does what all good Republicans do: they whine and run away, demanding that their narcissistic demands be met before they return to save the rest of us from ourselves. Oh, my! What a bunch of Heroes.When Achilleus did this at Troy it didn't work out so well for the Achaians, and made Achilleus look childish and eventually cost him the life of his dearest friend. Apparently, for a brief period, the threat of going Galt was, I guess supposed to terrify us, but since most Americans, including, apparently, themselves have never read The Illiad, it just sounded kind of dumb. Of course the fact that they kidnapped most of those who went Galt, including Dagney, is immaterial. Once again, they are the strong in a time when strength is needed, they must do what they must do to survive and thrive. If that means spying on people for no good reason, torturing people for no good reason, starting wars for no good reason, lying to us and to themselves to create the world they need in which to be relevant, then by God, that's what it takes. Trust me, says Dick Cheney, and a hundred million or more eyeballs click too in a straight ahead blank stare, like a zombie, shouting feed me, oh master, feed me, lurching around, trying to turn the rest of us into zombies as well.
So, to recap, everything the Republican Party stands for is exemplified in this one book Atlas Shrugged. Of course the world created in this book is an impossible, idealized world, (did Rand ever write a book about what her ideal world would really look like? Or did she just whine about how things were?) so the Republican vision is equally impossible and idealized (have the Republicans ever presented a vision of what the world they want to make would really look like?). Aside from problems attendant to living in Neverland this is a false vision, one centered on the individual not the community, but just as equally flawed. As the communist world dictates a strong hand on the nascent individualism within each person of the community, so does this world require a strong hand to keep the community from demanding a say in how they live, too. Unlike Galt's little community where everyone does what they are told, no?
The central conceit of this book, the only ones who count are those who command their fates, is a phony conceit. How many of you out there who celebrate this dream are named Bill Gates, or Steve Jobs, or Edison, or Ford, or Rockefeller? My guess not a damn one. In fact Bill Gates is reviled, along with Warren Buffet and George Soros, titans all, for using their money for social purposes rather than like Scrooge McDuck who has it all slopped into great mounds of coin doing nothing except feeding his own ego. How many who follow this philosophy are actually in a position to enjoy its benefits.
As with most about this book issues that require some level of thought, like how to actually, you know, like help one another, as we are, by the way, commanded to do by Jesus, another star in the firmament of the right wing, a man and God whose whole philosophy of life is completely antithetical to the themes of this book (one of the reasons right wing Christianism makes no sense when examined in the light of what Jesus actually said) are ignored altogether, or given some sort of facile treatment that doesn't amount to much. In other words, if you are a nine-to-five kind of guy then you don't count in terms of the clash of worlds taking place over your heads. You just have to live with the results. Let your betters determine what that should be.
I'm sure there is much more in this book about how the truly great are shat upon by us small minded folks, those who resent being used like pawns in a power game that can only end badly for them.
No matter what you may be told, Atlas Shrugged is the true bible of Republicanism. The purpose of said book is to lull us into thinking a handful of narcissists has our own best interest at heart. The existence of the Republican party demonstrates the success of this philosophy.
2jahn
It is selling well at the moment it seems: http://www.cato-at-liberty.org/2009/05/18/what-caused-atlas-shrugged-sales-to-so... Sorry to say I haven’t finished more than 200 pages of my recently bought copy. The pictures I see in it are like a filmed comic book, something like "Batman," with all the characters a bit comic-book-like, not so much real people as some sort of symbols. This goes for the baddies as for the heroes. But the negativity Dagny encounters, the frustration that lies in trying to get a job done with the people you are dealing with not showing responsibility - that is at times quite real to me.
3Lunar
Poor Gene. Is this an attempt to convince yourself that Republicans are anything but Democrats with flags on their lapels?
4geneg
No, it's an attempt to understand Republican political philosophy and I think I'm beginning to get it. They are an entire party of political folks who are enamored of a moral philosophy that says we are all alone in this big bad world and we, alone, can make of it what we will and the hindmost be damned. The definition of social Darwinism.
That would be great if the simplistic view of equality of any number of things were true, but they aren't and as such, Ms. Rand's philosophy is just a mishmash of various forms of authoritarianism with authority to those who seize it, rather than those who earn it. It's obvious that, while she fled Stalin as a girl, she must have admired him no end. Given how popular Sarah Palin is there are plenty of people who will follow after anyone who says you are less than the success you want to be not because you aren't worthy, but because of all these impediments the elites throw in your way. Of course the elites to whom she appeals are the same elites who are pushing Rand's brand of oligarchy, but when you are a Frightened Old White Man (and those young white men who want more than anything else to be old white men) who grew up entitled only to see that entitlement given to other, less desirable people, people who don't deserve it because they are not one of your people, you know, the people who founded this country, you know those old white men, you will begin to accept even the most irrational of ideas.
Atlas Shrugged is all about how people would be supermen if those mental midgets out there weren't picking you to pieces like vultures. Just another way to escape responsibility for yourself and the life you live. It's someone else's fault. It's the government, it's the dummies, it's the people who resent being stolen from, it's the unions, it's all those lowlife creeps who are moving shadows on the sidewalk, it's everyone except me.
Doesn't the Republican platform echo that thinking? Aren't Republicans the party of personal responsibility (except me, I only do/did what has to be done and if that means breaking a few eggs, well maybe you shouldn't have your eggs in that basket). It's a prescription for constant victimhood.
I'm sorry, Democrats have their own problems, but the Republicans have the corner on victimhood and whining about responsibility while shirking as much responsibility as they can.
By reading Atlas Shrugged one can figure out what position the Republicans will take on an issue even before the issue has been adequately defined. The Republican playbook is a fifty plus year old poorly written (some might even say, semi-literate) tract written by an escapee from Communist Russia arguing against a situation that has not, does not, and will not be relevant to this country, unless we take her too seriously in which case we will get a strong man form of government. Rand despises democracy. She proposes an oligarchy, son of a gun, just like Russia has now. Too bad she can't go home to Putin, obviously someone she would have admired tremendously.
This book argues rather heavily for an oligarchy, rather than a messy democracy, one in which those who know best, get the say. The Republicans would love nothing more than to be that oligarchy.
That would be great if the simplistic view of equality of any number of things were true, but they aren't and as such, Ms. Rand's philosophy is just a mishmash of various forms of authoritarianism with authority to those who seize it, rather than those who earn it. It's obvious that, while she fled Stalin as a girl, she must have admired him no end. Given how popular Sarah Palin is there are plenty of people who will follow after anyone who says you are less than the success you want to be not because you aren't worthy, but because of all these impediments the elites throw in your way. Of course the elites to whom she appeals are the same elites who are pushing Rand's brand of oligarchy, but when you are a Frightened Old White Man (and those young white men who want more than anything else to be old white men) who grew up entitled only to see that entitlement given to other, less desirable people, people who don't deserve it because they are not one of your people, you know, the people who founded this country, you know those old white men, you will begin to accept even the most irrational of ideas.
Atlas Shrugged is all about how people would be supermen if those mental midgets out there weren't picking you to pieces like vultures. Just another way to escape responsibility for yourself and the life you live. It's someone else's fault. It's the government, it's the dummies, it's the people who resent being stolen from, it's the unions, it's all those lowlife creeps who are moving shadows on the sidewalk, it's everyone except me.
Doesn't the Republican platform echo that thinking? Aren't Republicans the party of personal responsibility (except me, I only do/did what has to be done and if that means breaking a few eggs, well maybe you shouldn't have your eggs in that basket). It's a prescription for constant victimhood.
I'm sorry, Democrats have their own problems, but the Republicans have the corner on victimhood and whining about responsibility while shirking as much responsibility as they can.
By reading Atlas Shrugged one can figure out what position the Republicans will take on an issue even before the issue has been adequately defined. The Republican playbook is a fifty plus year old poorly written (some might even say, semi-literate) tract written by an escapee from Communist Russia arguing against a situation that has not, does not, and will not be relevant to this country, unless we take her too seriously in which case we will get a strong man form of government. Rand despises democracy. She proposes an oligarchy, son of a gun, just like Russia has now. Too bad she can't go home to Putin, obviously someone she would have admired tremendously.
This book argues rather heavily for an oligarchy, rather than a messy democracy, one in which those who know best, get the say. The Republicans would love nothing more than to be that oligarchy.
5Lunar
Aren't Republicans the party of personal responsibility
No they're not. You've just been drinking their Kool-Aid. Someday you will learn that when a Republican politician is moving their mouth, they are lying to you. They're just trying to perpetuate a myth about what they supposedly stand for. I'm not here to defend Rand, but Republicans like to pretend to be libertarian as much as Democrats like to pretend to be anti-war. At the end of the day, Republicans still have a history of growing government more than Democrats have. That's just the reality of it. There is no actual substance for you to read behind the propaganda they feed their right-wing followers.
No they're not. You've just been drinking their Kool-Aid. Someday you will learn that when a Republican politician is moving their mouth, they are lying to you. They're just trying to perpetuate a myth about what they supposedly stand for. I'm not here to defend Rand, but Republicans like to pretend to be libertarian as much as Democrats like to pretend to be anti-war. At the end of the day, Republicans still have a history of growing government more than Democrats have. That's just the reality of it. There is no actual substance for you to read behind the propaganda they feed their right-wing followers.
8jmcgarve
Atlas Shrugged represents part of the ideology of the Republican Party -- although it is absolutely true, as Lunar points out, neither party governs in accordance with their public ideology -- but this "objectivist" strain doesn't capture all of Republicanism. Many Republicans also believe that US military domination of the world is critical to freedom. Also, the Republican Party is home to more than a few nativists and no-nothings (Buchanan, Sessions, etc.). Finally, the Republican Party is home to quite a number of Christian fundamentalists as we know. Then too, Republicans (and all too many Democrats) are big defenders of crop subsidies.
There is a lot of overlap in these groups, but neither militarism nor nativism nor religious fundamentalism nor crop subsidies would be consistent with objectivism. (Of course, people's belief systems are rarely consistent anyway.)
There is a lot of overlap in these groups, but neither militarism nor nativism nor religious fundamentalism nor crop subsidies would be consistent with objectivism. (Of course, people's belief systems are rarely consistent anyway.)
9Doug1943
Perhaps the most-quoted book review ever written in the conservative flagship journal National Review was Whittaker Chambers' assessment of Atlas Shrugged. Read it here.
10jahn
An ex communist, best known for turning in his comrades, comparing Rand to a Marx inspired by Nietzsche and suggesting that: “From almost any page of Atlas Shrugged, a voice can be heard, from painful necessity, commanding: "To a gas chamber — go!"’’
- I find that suitingly outlandish (as do I find Mickey Spillane being a big fan) to go with the book I am now reading as I would a yellowed old copy of “Captain America.”
But I disagree with any absolute denunciation; the book is as simplistic in its base story as the Dreigroschenoper of Brecht - which to me is somewhat comparable, and I find it offensive to suggest that the general reader would view the reality of it much differently. If reality had been attempted, instead of the obviously intended cardboard black and white, it would have been a literary fiasco.
(Mind you, I'm only on page 232, Dagny finding the office full of volunteers to drive the first train over the Rearden-steel bridge - which I can see as illustrated by Jack Kirby:-)
- I find that suitingly outlandish (as do I find Mickey Spillane being a big fan) to go with the book I am now reading as I would a yellowed old copy of “Captain America.”
But I disagree with any absolute denunciation; the book is as simplistic in its base story as the Dreigroschenoper of Brecht - which to me is somewhat comparable, and I find it offensive to suggest that the general reader would view the reality of it much differently. If reality had been attempted, instead of the obviously intended cardboard black and white, it would have been a literary fiasco.
(Mind you, I'm only on page 232, Dagny finding the office full of volunteers to drive the first train over the Rearden-steel bridge - which I can see as illustrated by Jack Kirby:-)
11Carnophile
>9 Doug1943:
I'm halfway through that review and must pause to take issue with this:
"...the author deals wholly in the blackest blacks and the whitest whites. In this fiction everything, everybody, is either all good or all bad, without any of those intermediate shades..."
This is simply not true. Reardon's "Wet Nurse" minder from Washington is someone who makes the trip from bad to good, and through much of the novel is in between. The scientist who is Galt's mentor makes the journey in the other direction. These are just off the top of my head; there are probably more.
And the famous "gas chamber" remark, applied to someone who wanted government to be limited to a point just sort of anarchy, is absurd. Its only virtue is that it's so over the top that no one can take it seriously.
I'm halfway through that review and must pause to take issue with this:
"...the author deals wholly in the blackest blacks and the whitest whites. In this fiction everything, everybody, is either all good or all bad, without any of those intermediate shades..."
This is simply not true. Reardon's "Wet Nurse" minder from Washington is someone who makes the trip from bad to good, and through much of the novel is in between. The scientist who is Galt's mentor makes the journey in the other direction. These are just off the top of my head; there are probably more.
And the famous "gas chamber" remark, applied to someone who wanted government to be limited to a point just sort of anarchy, is absurd. Its only virtue is that it's so over the top that no one can take it seriously.
12myshelves
It has been decades since I read the book, but as I recall, the "characters in the white hats" didn't want --- flat refused to accept --- political power. Sure doesn't sound much like Repubs or Dems to me.
15jahn
I’ll hand you the admittance of a few grey tones in the blacks and whites, as even with it, any demand that that Dagny and Antonio should represent real people still sound pretty ridiculous. Me, I think it is a readable book - as entertainment and argumentation - not in spite of being unrealistic, but because of it, in the form of a sustained artistic mannerism that brings idealisation and vilification to the level of caricature.
As for ratting on your former friends being acceptable (...Chambers was a true hero. Let's hear it for "turning in (one's) comrades," especially as some of them were Soviet spies.),
that depends to a degree on how close you are to seeing humans in the friends I guess. Is one allowed to ask under what circumstances Oakes Spalding would hail the betrayal of his own current friends?
I remember Frank Sinatra having absolute contempt for mafia members who could not stay silent, and I have gotten the idea that he was quite close to the American ground with that attitude – was he?
But it is an interesting question: when is betrayal demanding applause? I mean, when it comes down to it, all betrayal is a betrayal of contract of some kind, and the very point of having contracts is that you do not change your mind about sticking to them merely by changing your mind about the reason for accepting them in the first place.
(Are perhaps communists out of consideration as humans by being communists? I ask, as Pinochet murdering and torturing without Hayek bothering to take notice, is something that really does bother me (and would do so even with the absolute assurance that Allende would eventually have acted in the same way). - Is the libertarianism I subscribe to by necessity lacking in empathy?)
Communism does differ from Nazism as I see it by having a much more humanitarian entrance, and thereby the possibility of entering with laudable intentions - even though staying a member long past the inevitable results of its attempted application may exclude the possibility of the same. (Depends on how stupidly stubborn you are?)
And I had not studied the Alger Hiss case, I knew the name Whittaker Chambers only through that though, and did suppose I was typical in this, which is what I primarily meant to indicate. I am accepting a difference of opinion here, but it is in greys: I think Atlas Shrugged is worth reading, and that some criminals you should turn in, even if they are former friends.
As for ratting on your former friends being acceptable (...Chambers was a true hero. Let's hear it for "turning in (one's) comrades," especially as some of them were Soviet spies.),
that depends to a degree on how close you are to seeing humans in the friends I guess. Is one allowed to ask under what circumstances Oakes Spalding would hail the betrayal of his own current friends?
I remember Frank Sinatra having absolute contempt for mafia members who could not stay silent, and I have gotten the idea that he was quite close to the American ground with that attitude – was he?
But it is an interesting question: when is betrayal demanding applause? I mean, when it comes down to it, all betrayal is a betrayal of contract of some kind, and the very point of having contracts is that you do not change your mind about sticking to them merely by changing your mind about the reason for accepting them in the first place.
(Are perhaps communists out of consideration as humans by being communists? I ask, as Pinochet murdering and torturing without Hayek bothering to take notice, is something that really does bother me (and would do so even with the absolute assurance that Allende would eventually have acted in the same way). - Is the libertarianism I subscribe to by necessity lacking in empathy?)
Communism does differ from Nazism as I see it by having a much more humanitarian entrance, and thereby the possibility of entering with laudable intentions - even though staying a member long past the inevitable results of its attempted application may exclude the possibility of the same. (Depends on how stupidly stubborn you are?)
And I had not studied the Alger Hiss case, I knew the name Whittaker Chambers only through that though, and did suppose I was typical in this, which is what I primarily meant to indicate. I am accepting a difference of opinion here, but it is in greys: I think Atlas Shrugged is worth reading, and that some criminals you should turn in, even if they are former friends.
16Carnophile
There is much to respond to in that post, but here's a brief reply:
US Communist spies betrayed their country, so can't play the "no betrayal" card.
US Communist spies betrayed their country, so can't play the "no betrayal" card.
17jjwilson61
Betraying your country by giving away its secrets seems to me to be a good enough reason for betraying a friendship without their political beliefs being a factor.
18jahn
US Communist spies betrayed their country, so can't play the "no betrayal" card
Did the members of the “White Rose Movement” in Germany betray Germany, or were they the ones that did not betray Germany? I’ll say that depends on which side you were fighting, as probably would Alger Hiss and other possible communist spies.
But, let us hang all the spies is presented in the news; getting hanged is an occupational hazard that must have been considered as accepted when they started out in that line of work, so there is no need for mercy. When we’ve hanged them all, let us for a moment consider life as it is experienced instead of read about. In wars of less than global consequence-
In real life you may be forced to refrain from supporting one person who had counted on your support in choosing an opposing side as having the larger demand upon it. And you may come to regret this “betrayal” nearly every day of your life, and even though all the time finding your decision then more than 50% right, you still might find it damnable near 50% wrong. Reality is not like an Ayn Rand novel, it is not peopled with heroes and villains. It is not that bloody easy as in having one sole superior loyalty in white contrasted with different shades of dark grey.
I'll defend communists, inasmuch as they're humans, I will not at all defend communism.
And that is an attitude I’m willing to defend, not what Oakes Spalding managed to construct of communist support in me from a flippant sentence. I’ve been an individualist all my life and loathe all group identity, not only that which exists in Communism but even that of the Nationalism and Religiosity which flourishes here - which you all probably managed to read accurately as meant.
Did the members of the “White Rose Movement” in Germany betray Germany, or were they the ones that did not betray Germany? I’ll say that depends on which side you were fighting, as probably would Alger Hiss and other possible communist spies.
But, let us hang all the spies is presented in the news; getting hanged is an occupational hazard that must have been considered as accepted when they started out in that line of work, so there is no need for mercy. When we’ve hanged them all, let us for a moment consider life as it is experienced instead of read about. In wars of less than global consequence-
In real life you may be forced to refrain from supporting one person who had counted on your support in choosing an opposing side as having the larger demand upon it. And you may come to regret this “betrayal” nearly every day of your life, and even though all the time finding your decision then more than 50% right, you still might find it damnable near 50% wrong. Reality is not like an Ayn Rand novel, it is not peopled with heroes and villains. It is not that bloody easy as in having one sole superior loyalty in white contrasted with different shades of dark grey.
I'll defend communists, inasmuch as they're humans, I will not at all defend communism.
And that is an attitude I’m willing to defend, not what Oakes Spalding managed to construct of communist support in me from a flippant sentence. I’ve been an individualist all my life and loathe all group identity, not only that which exists in Communism but even that of the Nationalism and Religiosity which flourishes here - which you all probably managed to read accurately as meant.
19Carnophile
Did the members of the “White Rose Movement” in Germany betray Germany, or were they the ones that did not betray Germany?
Sorry, I'm not familiar with that historical episode.
At any rate, I stand by my remarks re: Commies. There is some insufferable chutzpah in betraying your country and then branding those who blow the whistle on you as traitors. It calls to mind the apocryphal boy who murders his parents and then begs the court for leniency on the grounds that he's an orphan.
Sorry, I'm not familiar with that historical episode.
At any rate, I stand by my remarks re: Commies. There is some insufferable chutzpah in betraying your country and then branding those who blow the whistle on you as traitors. It calls to mind the apocryphal boy who murders his parents and then begs the court for leniency on the grounds that he's an orphan.
20jahn
The White Rose was a German resistance group. The might not have seen the Nazis as legitimate rulers. Some of the American Communist spies may have seen the Communist as the true representatives of the American people.
I read Malcolm Muggeridge, a devout Christian and former member of the British Secret Service, saying of Kim Philby that now that he had gotten to know that he was a serious Communist all the time, all his old respect for him had returned. I see what he meant I think: let us win the war, let us hang the enemy spies who reveals who our spies are – but let us respect those who fought for a cause they believed in, insofar as they were not traitors to the degree that those who merely wanted money, or revenge, or were as weak as to be blackmailed into working for the enemy were.
I had no idea that Alger Hiss had branded Whittaker Chambers as a traitor, in fact I am largely ignorant of the particulars of that case as well as others that may be deemed comparable. As in an earlier thread I am trying here to indicate that your enemy might have the same moral standards as you regarding betrayal, even though his loyalty might be with the enemy leadership.
But “my country – right or wrong,” “ours are not to question why,” etc I think is a cowardly attitude. I think everyone should stand up alone and consider what is right or wrong in the policy being made by ones leaders, and in so doing to a degree respect others, how wrong they may be in their ideas, who have dared to think instead of merely following the flag carrier. Be that flag Old Glory or something seen as the very opposite.
Once more: I have no qualms about hanging enemy spies – that is a necessity in wars that needs to be fought. Joseph Stalin's Soviet Union was an enemy it was necessary to fight by the Western powers, and maybe Whittaker Chambers was a "hero" in that fight. My knowledge of it was and is superficial, that is: Chambers was an ex Communist who (put in your own word) his former comrades. On top of that I was, when prompted by reactions to my words, willing to ask a few questions regarding the definition of betrayal.
Back to those who have something to say on Republicans and Atlas Shrugged.
I read Malcolm Muggeridge, a devout Christian and former member of the British Secret Service, saying of Kim Philby that now that he had gotten to know that he was a serious Communist all the time, all his old respect for him had returned. I see what he meant I think: let us win the war, let us hang the enemy spies who reveals who our spies are – but let us respect those who fought for a cause they believed in, insofar as they were not traitors to the degree that those who merely wanted money, or revenge, or were as weak as to be blackmailed into working for the enemy were.
I had no idea that Alger Hiss had branded Whittaker Chambers as a traitor, in fact I am largely ignorant of the particulars of that case as well as others that may be deemed comparable. As in an earlier thread I am trying here to indicate that your enemy might have the same moral standards as you regarding betrayal, even though his loyalty might be with the enemy leadership.
But “my country – right or wrong,” “ours are not to question why,” etc I think is a cowardly attitude. I think everyone should stand up alone and consider what is right or wrong in the policy being made by ones leaders, and in so doing to a degree respect others, how wrong they may be in their ideas, who have dared to think instead of merely following the flag carrier. Be that flag Old Glory or something seen as the very opposite.
Once more: I have no qualms about hanging enemy spies – that is a necessity in wars that needs to be fought. Joseph Stalin's Soviet Union was an enemy it was necessary to fight by the Western powers, and maybe Whittaker Chambers was a "hero" in that fight. My knowledge of it was and is superficial, that is: Chambers was an ex Communist who (put in your own word) his former comrades. On top of that I was, when prompted by reactions to my words, willing to ask a few questions regarding the definition of betrayal.
Back to those who have something to say on Republicans and Atlas Shrugged.
21Doug1943
Jahn: Chambers' book Witness is well worth reading, as is Sam Tannenjaus's biography of Chambers.
Those who don't know much about Chambers and Hiss should at least look at the Wiki article on the subject.
Note that Chambers first simply identified Hiss as a Communist sympathyzer working in the government, but denied that Hiss had engaged in espionage. The espionage charges were made later (when the statute of limitations made it impossible to prosecute Hiss), and backed up with evidence, after Hiss sued Chambers for libel.
Unwavering loyalty to the state, regardless of what kind of state it is and what it is doing, is no virtue at all, in my opinion. The White Rose people worked against a totalitarian state, and Hiss worked for one. That's the real difference.
Of course, people became Communists for decent motives -- Chambers' explanation for his own conversion to Communism (in the first chapters of Witness gives a good insight into the process. Hiss didn't do it for money, he did it because he saw the Soviet state as the embodiment of a better world, and the American state as a reactionary defender of an evil world. He no doubt believed that not to spy for the Soviets would have been a betrayal. Life is complicated.
Those who don't know much about Chambers and Hiss should at least look at the Wiki article on the subject.
Note that Chambers first simply identified Hiss as a Communist sympathyzer working in the government, but denied that Hiss had engaged in espionage. The espionage charges were made later (when the statute of limitations made it impossible to prosecute Hiss), and backed up with evidence, after Hiss sued Chambers for libel.
Unwavering loyalty to the state, regardless of what kind of state it is and what it is doing, is no virtue at all, in my opinion. The White Rose people worked against a totalitarian state, and Hiss worked for one. That's the real difference.
Of course, people became Communists for decent motives -- Chambers' explanation for his own conversion to Communism (in the first chapters of Witness gives a good insight into the process. Hiss didn't do it for money, he did it because he saw the Soviet state as the embodiment of a better world, and the American state as a reactionary defender of an evil world. He no doubt believed that not to spy for the Soviets would have been a betrayal. Life is complicated.
22jahn
The White Rose people worked against a totalitarian state, and Hiss worked for one. That's the real difference.
Got a point there, I'll accept it is an important difference. - Good posting altogether from where I sit. Yes I should have read a bit about the case inasmuch as I brought it up.
Got a point there, I'll accept it is an important difference. - Good posting altogether from where I sit. Yes I should have read a bit about the case inasmuch as I brought it up.
23Arctic-Stranger
I don't want to critique Rand from a political point of view, but the statement about the flatness of her characters by Chambers is dead on.
I loved The Fountainhead when I first read it, but I also loved Frank Miller's Sin City and the characterization in both is similar. (Or you could chose any superhero comic book.)
As much as I loved The Fountainhead, I just could not get through Atlas, mostly because I was bored silly. The plot is predictable, the characters are flat, the political intent kills any literary value in might have.
Story telling is a good propaganda tool, and AS probably works well that way for people who are already attuned to her philosophy, or who are doing some seeking.
I read Fountainhead when I was 24, and was profoundly moved. I tried to read AS when I was 31, and was profoundly bored.
I loved The Fountainhead when I first read it, but I also loved Frank Miller's Sin City and the characterization in both is similar. (Or you could chose any superhero comic book.)
As much as I loved The Fountainhead, I just could not get through Atlas, mostly because I was bored silly. The plot is predictable, the characters are flat, the political intent kills any literary value in might have.
Story telling is a good propaganda tool, and AS probably works well that way for people who are already attuned to her philosophy, or who are doing some seeking.
I read Fountainhead when I was 24, and was profoundly moved. I tried to read AS when I was 31, and was profoundly bored.
24Carnophile
But “my country – right or wrong,” “ours are not to question why,” etc I think is a cowardly attitude.
So is, "my friends, right or wrong."
So is, "my friends, right or wrong."
25Carnophile
people became Communists for decent motives...
Perhaps in, say, 1917. Not after 1935. By then, the truth was available to anyone who examined the issue with open eyes.
Somewhere in between those two times there must be a grey area, I suppose.
Edit:Drat, I just realized I might have inadvertently insulted Doug, whom I don't want to insult. Not sure about the timing of your personal journey from Trotskyism to conservatism, Doug, though I'm glad you made it and the fact that you did make it, instead of clinging to the illusion, counts for everything. I don't want to edit what I wrote, though, because it came from the heart.
Perhaps in, say, 1917. Not after 1935. By then, the truth was available to anyone who examined the issue with open eyes.
Somewhere in between those two times there must be a grey area, I suppose.
Edit:Drat, I just realized I might have inadvertently insulted Doug, whom I don't want to insult. Not sure about the timing of your personal journey from Trotskyism to conservatism, Doug, though I'm glad you made it and the fact that you did make it, instead of clinging to the illusion, counts for everything. I don't want to edit what I wrote, though, because it came from the heart.
26Doug1943
I was always some sort of Trotskyist, and never enamored of the idea of a single-party state. My particular Trotskyist sect made the concept of "workers' democracy" a point of honour. After the revolution, all socialist tendencies would be tolerated -- of course you people (now me) would be sent to re-education camps, but at least, in theory, someone could criticize the Leader.
But... your 1935 cut-off point cuts us types way too much slack.
It really did begin with Lenin. I've just been reading Richard Pipes' book on the Russian Revolution, and it's a real eye-opener. It's an area of history I know something about, but only from the Marxist side. Too long to go into here and of no interest to anyone but me, but ... there is a straight line from Lenin to Stalin.
What is more interesting is the mental gymnastics that one goes through to justify it.
So let me be Hiss' lawyer.
"Comrade Carnophile ... -- just between us, and speaking frankly, where the reactionary bourgeois propagandists cannot hear, and just this once, here is the truth: we know that the regime in the world's first socialist state is very far from the free and open socialist society that, someday, we will have built.
Marx envisaged the Revolution occurring in advanced, cultured, wealthy societies, like England and France and Germany, where universal literacy had already been achieved, where the working class had a history of self-organization and self-government, where the population was used to political compromise and tolerance.
Thru a historical accident, we took power in .... RUSSIA!!! A land of illiterate surfs, backwardness beyond measure, where brutality in daily life was the norm, where the working class was small, uncultured, the muzhik at the factory bench.
We took power after years of devasting war, amidst near anarchy and starvation, surrounded by enemies.
Invaded, together or in turn, by the armies of fourteen capitalist states, aiding our own unspeakably reactionary anti-Semitic, cruel White Guards. Here some stories of how the Whites dealt with the Jews, Communists, Socialists, liberals, people who wore eyeglasses -- latest National Review has a review of a book about one of these types, THE BLOODY WHITE BARON -- these people made simple beheadings look humane -- try impalement, try boiling alive ...
We didn't intend to try to build socialism in a backward country, an absurdity as any Marxist schoolboy would know. We expected our victory to spark a revolution in the West, to which the banner of socialist leadership would pass, and we could then be taken in train by the victorious socialist proletariat of England, France and Germany.
It didn't happen. The German Revolution was derailed. And we were alone.
What were we to do? Give up? Put our heads in nooses and hand the rope to whatever client of Anglo-French capital managed to win the scramble to fill the power vacuum left by our departure?
No ... we decided to build socialism in one country... a country which had barely begun to experience the capitalist stage.
Is it harsh? Did we make mistakes, commit crimes? Yes. Show me a revolution where this has not happened. Cromwell, Robespierre ... even your Abraham Lincoln understood that half-measures are suicide, in the face of an implacable enemy, with centuries of experience as the ruling power, who will do anything to avoid leaving the historical stage.
We will admit errors, even crimes ... but not to those who hold whole continents in subjection, who burn alive their own Negro citizens, who killed twenty million in their "Great War" to decide who was going to be able to rob Africa and Asia. Winston Churchill can praise Mussolini, the French Republicans can hang Vietnamese patriots, Franklin Roosevelt can send the Marines to impose debt-slavery on Nicaragua ... but let the Russian masses overthrow their masters, and suddenly all of these gentlemen become the most refined, delicate connisseurs of absolute civil liberties. Please don't make us laugh.
And look at the other side: the capitalist West lets 25% of its workforce stand on pavements outside idle factories, except where those factories are now turning out arms for the next war. Even the thin pretense of bourgeois democracy has been thrown aside in half of Europe, where the new dark ages have come again.
But here, in workers Russia -- there is just opposite of unemployment. All around you you will see rising the proofs of the superiority of socialism, even socialism carried out in a backward land: houses, factories, dams, railways ... socialist industrialization on a scale and at a pace never before seen. Mass literacy campaigns, the emancipation of women, the end of anti-Semitism, bringing literacy in their own languages to the submerged national minorities ...
So, comrade... think of the long term. As socialism gets a firm base in Russia, as new generations are raised up, not knowing the selfishness and irrationalism of Tzarism and capitalism, as the socialist example inspires other countries to take the socialist path ... then, some day, on this firm material base, we will be able to afford to relax emergency measures, to tolerate more and more dissent, to have the luxury of a loyal opposition ... but not now!
So ... return to your duty comrade. Future generations, living in communist freedom, will honor your memory."
But... your 1935 cut-off point cuts us types way too much slack.
It really did begin with Lenin. I've just been reading Richard Pipes' book on the Russian Revolution, and it's a real eye-opener. It's an area of history I know something about, but only from the Marxist side. Too long to go into here and of no interest to anyone but me, but ... there is a straight line from Lenin to Stalin.
What is more interesting is the mental gymnastics that one goes through to justify it.
So let me be Hiss' lawyer.
"Comrade Carnophile ... -- just between us, and speaking frankly, where the reactionary bourgeois propagandists cannot hear, and just this once, here is the truth: we know that the regime in the world's first socialist state is very far from the free and open socialist society that, someday, we will have built.
Marx envisaged the Revolution occurring in advanced, cultured, wealthy societies, like England and France and Germany, where universal literacy had already been achieved, where the working class had a history of self-organization and self-government, where the population was used to political compromise and tolerance.
Thru a historical accident, we took power in .... RUSSIA!!! A land of illiterate surfs, backwardness beyond measure, where brutality in daily life was the norm, where the working class was small, uncultured, the muzhik at the factory bench.
We took power after years of devasting war, amidst near anarchy and starvation, surrounded by enemies.
Invaded, together or in turn, by the armies of fourteen capitalist states, aiding our own unspeakably reactionary anti-Semitic, cruel White Guards. Here some stories of how the Whites dealt with the Jews, Communists, Socialists, liberals, people who wore eyeglasses -- latest National Review has a review of a book about one of these types, THE BLOODY WHITE BARON -- these people made simple beheadings look humane -- try impalement, try boiling alive ...
We didn't intend to try to build socialism in a backward country, an absurdity as any Marxist schoolboy would know. We expected our victory to spark a revolution in the West, to which the banner of socialist leadership would pass, and we could then be taken in train by the victorious socialist proletariat of England, France and Germany.
It didn't happen. The German Revolution was derailed. And we were alone.
What were we to do? Give up? Put our heads in nooses and hand the rope to whatever client of Anglo-French capital managed to win the scramble to fill the power vacuum left by our departure?
No ... we decided to build socialism in one country... a country which had barely begun to experience the capitalist stage.
Is it harsh? Did we make mistakes, commit crimes? Yes. Show me a revolution where this has not happened. Cromwell, Robespierre ... even your Abraham Lincoln understood that half-measures are suicide, in the face of an implacable enemy, with centuries of experience as the ruling power, who will do anything to avoid leaving the historical stage.
We will admit errors, even crimes ... but not to those who hold whole continents in subjection, who burn alive their own Negro citizens, who killed twenty million in their "Great War" to decide who was going to be able to rob Africa and Asia. Winston Churchill can praise Mussolini, the French Republicans can hang Vietnamese patriots, Franklin Roosevelt can send the Marines to impose debt-slavery on Nicaragua ... but let the Russian masses overthrow their masters, and suddenly all of these gentlemen become the most refined, delicate connisseurs of absolute civil liberties. Please don't make us laugh.
And look at the other side: the capitalist West lets 25% of its workforce stand on pavements outside idle factories, except where those factories are now turning out arms for the next war. Even the thin pretense of bourgeois democracy has been thrown aside in half of Europe, where the new dark ages have come again.
But here, in workers Russia -- there is just opposite of unemployment. All around you you will see rising the proofs of the superiority of socialism, even socialism carried out in a backward land: houses, factories, dams, railways ... socialist industrialization on a scale and at a pace never before seen. Mass literacy campaigns, the emancipation of women, the end of anti-Semitism, bringing literacy in their own languages to the submerged national minorities ...
So, comrade... think of the long term. As socialism gets a firm base in Russia, as new generations are raised up, not knowing the selfishness and irrationalism of Tzarism and capitalism, as the socialist example inspires other countries to take the socialist path ... then, some day, on this firm material base, we will be able to afford to relax emergency measures, to tolerate more and more dissent, to have the luxury of a loyal opposition ... but not now!
So ... return to your duty comrade. Future generations, living in communist freedom, will honor your memory."
27Carnophile
Good post. Reading it, I felt myself being sucked into the worldview of a socialist circa mid-20th century.
28jahn
#24: Carnophile
But “my country – right or wrong,” “ours are not to question why,” etc I think is a cowardly attitude.
So is, "my friends, right or wrong."
I’m glad to read your unreserved support for my repeated demand for individualistic thinking, nothing else deserves the word thinking really.
“The dogs bark even against those they have not come to know,” said Heraclitus (Diels #97). Unlike individualistic cats they got pack and domain membership identity and thereby enemies merely in contrast to that membership. They react in their bellicosity towards strangers like someone saying: “That is not our uniform,” or, “He’s on the other side of the barricade!” Which is not thinking at all but rather something like Pavlov’s reflexes, and therefore what follows upon it can not be called heroism with any sense either.
But “my country – right or wrong,” “ours are not to question why,” etc I think is a cowardly attitude.
So is, "my friends, right or wrong."
I’m glad to read your unreserved support for my repeated demand for individualistic thinking, nothing else deserves the word thinking really.
“The dogs bark even against those they have not come to know,” said Heraclitus (Diels #97). Unlike individualistic cats they got pack and domain membership identity and thereby enemies merely in contrast to that membership. They react in their bellicosity towards strangers like someone saying: “That is not our uniform,” or, “He’s on the other side of the barricade!” Which is not thinking at all but rather something like Pavlov’s reflexes, and therefore what follows upon it can not be called heroism with any sense either.
29jahn
#26: Doug1943
Impressive! The member of the AKP (“The workers’ Communist party of Norway: Marxist Leninists,” not to be confused with the NKP!) that I went to school with was far from that convincing, nor were his friends, but admittedly they were all Maoists at the time.
I’ve only read the short "Communism" by Richard Pipes, and that was no real "eye opener" to me, but 170 pages is perhaps too short to come across with much of anything?
Impressive! The member of the AKP (“The workers’ Communist party of Norway: Marxist Leninists,” not to be confused with the NKP!) that I went to school with was far from that convincing, nor were his friends, but admittedly they were all Maoists at the time.
I’ve only read the short "Communism" by Richard Pipes, and that was no real "eye opener" to me, but 170 pages is perhaps too short to come across with much of anything?
31jahn
#30: oakesspalding
A curve ball is of course not a metaphor much known in Norway so I tried to get help from the web: “Slang. Something that is unexpected or designed to trick or deceive”
But what was it that Lee Marvin could not hit in “Ship of Fools:” a curve ball on the inside? There was something more about it than being just a curve ball, and one really could sympathize with him, the fool.
But not really seeing the attempted deception, I’ll have to answer it as something thrown straight.
1: Agree.
2: I will have to take your word for it. You got Doug1943 endorsing the book Witness too, and I therefore hold it likely that for anyone with a great interest in the Cold War it is worth reading. The quotation marks I think you refer to were meant as such: “Oakes Spalding has used the word hero of Whittaker Chambers earlier here.”
3. Yes, loads of oaths of silence around. Newspaper reporters and their anonymous sources are often in the news. Lawyers might know their clients are guilty.
4. Right, that must be considered. I accept the difference demanded observed by Doug1943 between legitimate and illegitimate governments. Even if elected democratically, when not staying democratic they are not legitimate. Although there are grey tones, aren’t there? I’ve just read a comparison between Hitler, Mussolini and Roosevelt - early on they had a few policies in common.
5. I do not get the question if there is one in there. Maybe my original words were a bit sloppy. I meant to say to Carnophile that betrayal it is not as easy as being merely a question of what country you are a citizen of. As Doug1943 pointed out, the choice of the White Rose to compare with Alger Hiss was unfortunate; problem was I could think of nothing better at that moment. I stand by the general idea, although regretting my chosen example due to the difference in legality of the two relevant regimes. I mean: a Christian is loyally a Christian far ahead of being loyal to his government is he not - the betrayal of the first would be clearly the biggest?
The perfect loyalty would be to represent no more than your own self and no fewer than all people existing – but your wife, and even your sister and mother would probably dislike that? Wasn’t that a problem for Jesus somewhere? (Not the wife part, I know.)
A curve ball is of course not a metaphor much known in Norway so I tried to get help from the web: “Slang. Something that is unexpected or designed to trick or deceive”
But what was it that Lee Marvin could not hit in “Ship of Fools:” a curve ball on the inside? There was something more about it than being just a curve ball, and one really could sympathize with him, the fool.
But not really seeing the attempted deception, I’ll have to answer it as something thrown straight.
1: Agree.
2: I will have to take your word for it. You got Doug1943 endorsing the book Witness too, and I therefore hold it likely that for anyone with a great interest in the Cold War it is worth reading. The quotation marks I think you refer to were meant as such: “Oakes Spalding has used the word hero of Whittaker Chambers earlier here.”
3. Yes, loads of oaths of silence around. Newspaper reporters and their anonymous sources are often in the news. Lawyers might know their clients are guilty.
4. Right, that must be considered. I accept the difference demanded observed by Doug1943 between legitimate and illegitimate governments. Even if elected democratically, when not staying democratic they are not legitimate. Although there are grey tones, aren’t there? I’ve just read a comparison between Hitler, Mussolini and Roosevelt - early on they had a few policies in common.
5. I do not get the question if there is one in there. Maybe my original words were a bit sloppy. I meant to say to Carnophile that betrayal it is not as easy as being merely a question of what country you are a citizen of. As Doug1943 pointed out, the choice of the White Rose to compare with Alger Hiss was unfortunate; problem was I could think of nothing better at that moment. I stand by the general idea, although regretting my chosen example due to the difference in legality of the two relevant regimes. I mean: a Christian is loyally a Christian far ahead of being loyal to his government is he not - the betrayal of the first would be clearly the biggest?
The perfect loyalty would be to represent no more than your own self and no fewer than all people existing – but your wife, and even your sister and mother would probably dislike that? Wasn’t that a problem for Jesus somewhere? (Not the wife part, I know.)
32Doug1943
The basic problem is that in politics, we almost always have to choose the lesser evil.
If we are lucky -- living in an advanced, civilized country which is relatively prosperous, with a long history of the rule of law, not undergoing some sort of major crisis -- then the two "evils" we have to choose from are not really all that different. We can live with either outcome.
I don't worry that liberals or social democrats are going to impose a totalitarian state on me when they win elections, and they don't worry that I will do the same when my side wins. (Of course, there are always hysterics on either side who do claim to believe just that, but the very fact that they make such a public fuss shows that they don't really expect to be persecuted by their opponents: "Bush/Obama is bringing fascism/communism!!!""" -- then you're pretty stupid to be posting on the internet -- you'd better be getting your passport and preparing to flee to Canada.)
But in a lot of the world, our choice of evils is beween evils which are a lot further apart.
And the problem is compounded because we usually know very little about the actual day-to-day lived reality in those parts of the world. (I thought I knew a bit more than average about Iran, and I'm still trying to figure out what the hell is going on there --- which reactionary mullah do I want to win in the power struggle?)
Conservatives who want to try to understand how perfectly decent people could end up being apologists for Lenin or Stalin, could try this mental experiment:
Chile, 1973. The Socialist Allende got about 35% of the popular vote a few years earlier -- under the usual rules of the game, his center-right opponents would have been united and a centrist President (of the kind the Americans had wanted to see in power) would have been chosen, but the Right split and so a radical Socialist got Presidential power.
He was personally a decent man, but definitely a left-wing Socialist, and like almost all of his Party, sympathetic to Communism. He ruled with the support of Chile's large Communist Party, and the support of its not-insubstantial Fidelista Left, who were impatient to begin the armed struggle as soon as possible.
His crazy economic measures alone would have thrown the country into chaos, even without the help of the Americans. But they saw Chile becoming the next Cuba -- at a time when Communism seemed to be on the offensive in the Third World. So the Americans did what they could to make the Chilean economy scream -- but no one should think that, absent American actions, Chile's economy would have prospered.
The country polarized -- Allende probably had about 50% of the country behind him, and the other 50% violently against him. The military finally moved in and overthrew him. (Although the American government approved of this, it was not directly involved in it, unlike the overthrow of Arbenz in Guatemala or Mossadegh in Iran. But morally, the Americans must accept responsibility for what happened.)
The triumphant military took bloody reprisals against the whole Left -- some 3000 people were murdered, many others tortured, women were raped. This was not Honduras. Very ugly.
So .. two questions:
What was the conservative response to this at the time? And how have conservatives judged the subsequent developments in Chile? (A return to democracy -- with the Americans helping to restrain the more ferocious Chilean rightists who opposed this -- and serious economic progress, based at least in part on the free-market reforms carried out under Pinochet -- or at least so we would argue.)
There was a choice of evils. Allende and the Chilean Left still retain the moral high ground, because the evils they presided over were not mass murder -- the firing squads that accompany the victory of the revolutionary Left were only future possibilities, and it's possible that patience on the part of the Chilean Right would eventually have seen a peaceful transfer of power to a Center-Right government.
But the actual reality went in another direction. The hypocritical Left screamed bloody murder at Right wing repression, while cheering on Communist repression wherever the Communists could get power.
Conservatives had no desire to join that chorus, even if they were uneasy, even revolted, as any decent person should have been, at the actions of the triumphant Chilean mlitary.
You had a choice of evils. With regard to Stalin, Ho, Mao, Leftists reasoned the same way, but in reverse.
You may, if you are a decent person, privately deplore the excesses of "your" side, minimize them, not think about them, but you don't want to join the people who are protesting them but who would do the same or worse if they got power.
By the way, not every apologist for Stalin/Mao/Ho/Castro, or Franco/Pinochet, was a decent person, by any means.
There is a certain personality type who must see the world in black-and-white tones, and another personality type who actually gets pleasure at the idea of total power over helpless victims and who identifies with the worst aspects of the regimes he is supporting.
I have no idea what personality type Alger Hiss was, having only encountered him personally for a minute or two in the elevator of the building where he lived. But he didn't seem like an evil sort.
If we are lucky -- living in an advanced, civilized country which is relatively prosperous, with a long history of the rule of law, not undergoing some sort of major crisis -- then the two "evils" we have to choose from are not really all that different. We can live with either outcome.
I don't worry that liberals or social democrats are going to impose a totalitarian state on me when they win elections, and they don't worry that I will do the same when my side wins. (Of course, there are always hysterics on either side who do claim to believe just that, but the very fact that they make such a public fuss shows that they don't really expect to be persecuted by their opponents: "Bush/Obama is bringing fascism/communism!!!""" -- then you're pretty stupid to be posting on the internet -- you'd better be getting your passport and preparing to flee to Canada.)
But in a lot of the world, our choice of evils is beween evils which are a lot further apart.
And the problem is compounded because we usually know very little about the actual day-to-day lived reality in those parts of the world. (I thought I knew a bit more than average about Iran, and I'm still trying to figure out what the hell is going on there --- which reactionary mullah do I want to win in the power struggle?)
Conservatives who want to try to understand how perfectly decent people could end up being apologists for Lenin or Stalin, could try this mental experiment:
Chile, 1973. The Socialist Allende got about 35% of the popular vote a few years earlier -- under the usual rules of the game, his center-right opponents would have been united and a centrist President (of the kind the Americans had wanted to see in power) would have been chosen, but the Right split and so a radical Socialist got Presidential power.
He was personally a decent man, but definitely a left-wing Socialist, and like almost all of his Party, sympathetic to Communism. He ruled with the support of Chile's large Communist Party, and the support of its not-insubstantial Fidelista Left, who were impatient to begin the armed struggle as soon as possible.
His crazy economic measures alone would have thrown the country into chaos, even without the help of the Americans. But they saw Chile becoming the next Cuba -- at a time when Communism seemed to be on the offensive in the Third World. So the Americans did what they could to make the Chilean economy scream -- but no one should think that, absent American actions, Chile's economy would have prospered.
The country polarized -- Allende probably had about 50% of the country behind him, and the other 50% violently against him. The military finally moved in and overthrew him. (Although the American government approved of this, it was not directly involved in it, unlike the overthrow of Arbenz in Guatemala or Mossadegh in Iran. But morally, the Americans must accept responsibility for what happened.)
The triumphant military took bloody reprisals against the whole Left -- some 3000 people were murdered, many others tortured, women were raped. This was not Honduras. Very ugly.
So .. two questions:
What was the conservative response to this at the time? And how have conservatives judged the subsequent developments in Chile? (A return to democracy -- with the Americans helping to restrain the more ferocious Chilean rightists who opposed this -- and serious economic progress, based at least in part on the free-market reforms carried out under Pinochet -- or at least so we would argue.)
There was a choice of evils. Allende and the Chilean Left still retain the moral high ground, because the evils they presided over were not mass murder -- the firing squads that accompany the victory of the revolutionary Left were only future possibilities, and it's possible that patience on the part of the Chilean Right would eventually have seen a peaceful transfer of power to a Center-Right government.
But the actual reality went in another direction. The hypocritical Left screamed bloody murder at Right wing repression, while cheering on Communist repression wherever the Communists could get power.
Conservatives had no desire to join that chorus, even if they were uneasy, even revolted, as any decent person should have been, at the actions of the triumphant Chilean mlitary.
You had a choice of evils. With regard to Stalin, Ho, Mao, Leftists reasoned the same way, but in reverse.
You may, if you are a decent person, privately deplore the excesses of "your" side, minimize them, not think about them, but you don't want to join the people who are protesting them but who would do the same or worse if they got power.
By the way, not every apologist for Stalin/Mao/Ho/Castro, or Franco/Pinochet, was a decent person, by any means.
There is a certain personality type who must see the world in black-and-white tones, and another personality type who actually gets pleasure at the idea of total power over helpless victims and who identifies with the worst aspects of the regimes he is supporting.
I have no idea what personality type Alger Hiss was, having only encountered him personally for a minute or two in the elevator of the building where he lived. But he didn't seem like an evil sort.
33jahn
We have wandered far off from the thread initiation to discuss betrayal, and have gotten to Chile. If allowed I’ll put a sidetrack to that sidetrack.
When speaking of Chile I have a personal problem, a question of whether a betrayal of principles has, or has not taken place. Doug1943 might have given considerations to this above as expressed in an earlier posting of mine. I would be interested in Oakes Spalding’s reaction.
Allende was not wholly legitimate, might eventually have gotten much worse, but Pinochet was clearly a great criminal. And this was obvious very early after the coup to everyone who possessed a TV set or a newspaper subscription: the murdering was daily news and we received escapees in droves in my country.
Into this walks a man, Friedrich A. Hayek, well known for having compared Communism with Nazism and supposed to be the high priest of freedom. And the horror does not seem to bother him; he lets his Mt. Pelerin Society convene in Chile, he gives an interview where he points out that a dictator can allow a free market, while a democracy may not.
Now, of course he does nothing criminal, he does not give any direct support for the murdering - and he is not a politician, a leader that should be followed on promises. But why does it never bother him? Is that fully explained by the neutrality of economic science, or professorial absent-mindedness – or is there something in Hayek’s writing that explains it? According to Murray N. Rothbard in Making Economic Sense: "…Hayek, instead of analyzing man as a rational, conscious, and purposive being, considered man to be irrational, acting virtually unconsciously and unknowingly.” (Unlike Ludwig von Mises that is.) And if man is not rational… why let him have his own say in important decisions?
I do not suggest that Hayek should have found Allende in any way acceptable, and that he not should have found the possibility of influencing a different economic policy enticing, but hey: there were humans getting killed out there! It might be the sure way to get another sentence taken out of context, but I’ll risk it and mention that Adolph Mengele, described as history’s most evil man, is said to have been close to a genius in his medical studies, meaning perhaps that the evil in him was putting science and ambition above everything else?
Anyone here that has got a good answer to the accusations of people like Naomi Klein, which do not attack the theories of Hayek but find them explained in the grisly details of Auguste Pinochet’s bloody reign? I have seen such argumentation find much applause, and I have not seen them effectively rebuffed. Was Hayek consistent, rightfully neutral – or did he actually betray himself, his writings, and us?
When speaking of Chile I have a personal problem, a question of whether a betrayal of principles has, or has not taken place. Doug1943 might have given considerations to this above as expressed in an earlier posting of mine. I would be interested in Oakes Spalding’s reaction.
Allende was not wholly legitimate, might eventually have gotten much worse, but Pinochet was clearly a great criminal. And this was obvious very early after the coup to everyone who possessed a TV set or a newspaper subscription: the murdering was daily news and we received escapees in droves in my country.
Into this walks a man, Friedrich A. Hayek, well known for having compared Communism with Nazism and supposed to be the high priest of freedom. And the horror does not seem to bother him; he lets his Mt. Pelerin Society convene in Chile, he gives an interview where he points out that a dictator can allow a free market, while a democracy may not.
Now, of course he does nothing criminal, he does not give any direct support for the murdering - and he is not a politician, a leader that should be followed on promises. But why does it never bother him? Is that fully explained by the neutrality of economic science, or professorial absent-mindedness – or is there something in Hayek’s writing that explains it? According to Murray N. Rothbard in Making Economic Sense: "…Hayek, instead of analyzing man as a rational, conscious, and purposive being, considered man to be irrational, acting virtually unconsciously and unknowingly.” (Unlike Ludwig von Mises that is.) And if man is not rational… why let him have his own say in important decisions?
I do not suggest that Hayek should have found Allende in any way acceptable, and that he not should have found the possibility of influencing a different economic policy enticing, but hey: there were humans getting killed out there! It might be the sure way to get another sentence taken out of context, but I’ll risk it and mention that Adolph Mengele, described as history’s most evil man, is said to have been close to a genius in his medical studies, meaning perhaps that the evil in him was putting science and ambition above everything else?
Anyone here that has got a good answer to the accusations of people like Naomi Klein, which do not attack the theories of Hayek but find them explained in the grisly details of Auguste Pinochet’s bloody reign? I have seen such argumentation find much applause, and I have not seen them effectively rebuffed. Was Hayek consistent, rightfully neutral – or did he actually betray himself, his writings, and us?
34Carnophile
>31 jahn: I meant to say to Carnophile that betrayal it is not as easy as being merely a question of what country you are a citizen of.
Well, of course. Sometimes one should be with one's country and sometimes one should be against it. It depends on whether one's country is right or wrong.
My earlier point was merely this: A person who betrays his country cannot appeal to an unqualified "loyalty" standard to prevent his comrades from blowing the whistle on him.
Well, of course. Sometimes one should be with one's country and sometimes one should be against it. It depends on whether one's country is right or wrong.
My earlier point was merely this: A person who betrays his country cannot appeal to an unqualified "loyalty" standard to prevent his comrades from blowing the whistle on him.
35Carnophile
Anyone here that has got a good answer to the accusations of people like Naomi Klein, which do not attack the theories of Hayek but find them explained in the grisly details of Auguste Pinochet’s bloody reign?
The CATO Institute on Naomi Klein’s Shock Doctrine can be read here.
Apparently, much of Klein’s case is based on a small number quotes by Milton Friedman (I don't know how much she discusses Hayek). One is
By the way, The New York Times quotes Rahm Emanuel, Obama’s White House chief of staff, saying, “You don’t ever want to let a crisis go to waste: it’s an opportunity to do important things that you would otherwise avoid.”
No word yet on what Klein has to say about that quote.
The CATO Institute on Naomi Klein’s Shock Doctrine can be read here.
Apparently, much of Klein’s case is based on a small number quotes by Milton Friedman (I don't know how much she discusses Hayek). One is
Only a crisis--actual or perceived--produces real change. When that crisis occurs, the actions that are taken depend on the ideas that are lying around. That, I believe, is our basic function: to develop alternatives to existing policies, to keep them alive and available until the politically impossible becomes politically inevitable.From this innocent quote, and one or two more like it, Klein draws the following conclusion: Milton Friedman advocated the deliberate creation of economic catastrophes in order to ram his policy prescriptions down people’s throats.
By the way, The New York Times quotes Rahm Emanuel, Obama’s White House chief of staff, saying, “You don’t ever want to let a crisis go to waste: it’s an opportunity to do important things that you would otherwise avoid.”
No word yet on what Klein has to say about that quote.
36geneg
#25, "your (Doug's) personal journey from Trotskyism to conservatism".
Doug just decided to exchange totalitarianism for authoritarianism. Both curtail personal liberty for the sake of an ideology. Communism did not fail due to its inherent faults, but because it was not adhered to as thoroughly as is obviously required for success. I hear that same argument made by Republicans all the time. They didn't lose because Americans rejected their message, but because they weren't authoritarian enough. From where I sit, the roads to Communism and Authoritarianism end in the same place. The ideologues will tell you differently, but that's because they can't see the forest for the trees.
I haven't seen much from Doug lately, but toward the end of the last administration I believe he was coming around to the idea that they and their minions wouldn't know a Conservative if he walked up and hit them in the face. I don't know if his political journey is taking him to a more classical conservatism or not, but I don't think he'll allow himself to be burned by this bunch of Republicans again.
Doug just decided to exchange totalitarianism for authoritarianism. Both curtail personal liberty for the sake of an ideology. Communism did not fail due to its inherent faults, but because it was not adhered to as thoroughly as is obviously required for success. I hear that same argument made by Republicans all the time. They didn't lose because Americans rejected their message, but because they weren't authoritarian enough. From where I sit, the roads to Communism and Authoritarianism end in the same place. The ideologues will tell you differently, but that's because they can't see the forest for the trees.
I haven't seen much from Doug lately, but toward the end of the last administration I believe he was coming around to the idea that they and their minions wouldn't know a Conservative if he walked up and hit them in the face. I don't know if his political journey is taking him to a more classical conservatism or not, but I don't think he'll allow himself to be burned by this bunch of Republicans again.
37jahn
#35: Carnophile
I agree with you in the criticism of Klein’s book that the book’s main argument: right wingers using crises to implement right wing politics, works as well for left wing politics.
Here’s Greg Grandin on Hayek and Pinochet: http://bloodandtreasure.typepad.com/blood_treasure/2006/11/hayekian_dictat.html
It is regrettably typical, there is a great number of similar postings on the net. I'd like to find words in Hayek's works that clearly disproves that Pinochet could be OK to Hayek. Hayek beeing old and feeble at the time is somewhat feeble as an argument, and if true then there should be something unfeeble on bloody repression from earlier on to be found.
I agree with you in the criticism of Klein’s book that the book’s main argument: right wingers using crises to implement right wing politics, works as well for left wing politics.
Here’s Greg Grandin on Hayek and Pinochet: http://bloodandtreasure.typepad.com/blood_treasure/2006/11/hayekian_dictat.html
It is regrettably typical, there is a great number of similar postings on the net. I'd like to find words in Hayek's works that clearly disproves that Pinochet could be OK to Hayek. Hayek beeing old and feeble at the time is somewhat feeble as an argument, and if true then there should be something unfeeble on bloody repression from earlier on to be found.
38Doug1943
Just as the seemingly unstoppable advance of fascism in the 20s and 30s made a lot of liberals, who were not Communists, lower their political standards -- "no enemies to the Left" was the way it was put -- so did the seemingly unstoppable advance of Communism from the late 40s onwards encourage a lot of conservatives, who were not friends of arbitrary government, to lower their political standards -- "no enemies to the right" was never uttered, to my knowledge, but it could have been.
The United States, under both Democratic and Republican presidents, pursued a more or less traditional foreign policy -- "realism" -- and supported any government deemed anti-Communist. From time to time it advanced some measures which aimed to promote prosperity and social reform in countries under threat from Communism -- the Marshall plan, support to democratic trade unions and leftist parties in Europe, land reform in Korea and Taiwan, support to center-left parties in Latin America -- but this was never wholehearted and systematic.
And it fact it could not be, because supporting democratic revolution in these countries is a gamble. You might end up with your real enemies in power. So there is always a strong argument for supporting the devil we know, so long as he is friendly to us.
Leftists who see in this the very essence of evil are invited to express their opinon of Mr Chavez' courting of the murderous Iranian theocracy, denounced by Iranian leftists here.
This realist foreign policy worked, in the sense that Communism finally collapsed. (Gene's idea that it collapsed because it was not really adhered to deserves a discussion on its own.) A bit more willingness to gamble, to have "faith in the masses," would have served us well, in my opinion.
In particular, by overthrowing Mossadeqh we threw away in Iran the chance to become THE champions of the newly-awakened nations of the Middle East, one of those Tallyrandian blunders for which we have paid and will continue to pay a heavy price.
The United States, under both Democratic and Republican presidents, pursued a more or less traditional foreign policy -- "realism" -- and supported any government deemed anti-Communist. From time to time it advanced some measures which aimed to promote prosperity and social reform in countries under threat from Communism -- the Marshall plan, support to democratic trade unions and leftist parties in Europe, land reform in Korea and Taiwan, support to center-left parties in Latin America -- but this was never wholehearted and systematic.
And it fact it could not be, because supporting democratic revolution in these countries is a gamble. You might end up with your real enemies in power. So there is always a strong argument for supporting the devil we know, so long as he is friendly to us.
Leftists who see in this the very essence of evil are invited to express their opinon of Mr Chavez' courting of the murderous Iranian theocracy, denounced by Iranian leftists here.
This realist foreign policy worked, in the sense that Communism finally collapsed. (Gene's idea that it collapsed because it was not really adhered to deserves a discussion on its own.) A bit more willingness to gamble, to have "faith in the masses," would have served us well, in my opinion.
In particular, by overthrowing Mossadeqh we threw away in Iran the chance to become THE champions of the newly-awakened nations of the Middle East, one of those Tallyrandian blunders for which we have paid and will continue to pay a heavy price.
39Lunar
#32: The basic problem is that in politics, we almost always have to choose the lesser evil.
Even in relatively stable and prosperous countries, the above would be properly amended to say that politics is about having to choose the lesser increase in evil. The quick and dirty increases in evil around the world might seem like easy choices to discern, but the slow and steady increase will still get you in the end. We are not immune to it.
Even in relatively stable and prosperous countries, the above would be properly amended to say that politics is about having to choose the lesser increase in evil. The quick and dirty increases in evil around the world might seem like easy choices to discern, but the slow and steady increase will still get you in the end. We are not immune to it.
