Comments on: Considering Atlas Shrugged on Film

By: Truth Unites... and Divides

Truth Unites... and Divides — Mon, 02 May 2011 22:17:45 +0000

“Hers is a twisted world, and what truth there is in Rand is probably better taken from truer voices who deserve the spotlight.”

What Albert said.

By: Albert

Albert — Mon, 02 May 2011 16:14:45 +0000

Well, I sympathize with the desire to reach for the literary nuke in the face of the creeping statism of liberal polities. There are bits of truth in Rand, though I think it true they are so mixed with horrid and indefensible ideas that a comparison to Satan's use of Scripture might be warranted. But Rand's message is not what Whittaker Chambers has in view when describing Atlas Shrugged with "To the gas chambers, go" in hisreview. It was the tone of the novel, which for Chambers (in Burkean fashion) was as important as the implicit or explicit message. The tone was one of total arrogance, "dogmatism without appeal." The voice commanded earnest genuflection before raw power, and the rawer the power, the deeper the bow. Dissent could only be met with the force reserved for irrational beasts. All this was not explicitly articulated in a message, but communicated in the voice, and thereby no less real. I've read her work, and I know what Chambers means, and he is right, though the vulgar tone is so commonplace today that it ceases to be noted. Hers is a twisted world, and what truth there is in Rand is probably better taken from truer voices who deserve the spotlight.

By: Hunter Baker

Hunter Baker — Sun, 01 May 2011 19:45:36 +0000

I wouldn’t subvert the Gospel message for anyone. And yes, I still think ambivalence is the right way to put it. See John Piper’s thoughts on Rand for further consideration:

http://www.desiringgod.org/resource-library/articles/the-ethics-of-ayn-rand

By: Ed Fisher

Ed Fisher — Sun, 01 May 2011 17:56:07 +0000

Ambivalent about Ayn Rand? Someone who hated God and whose philosophy is the very antithesis of the Christian worldview. I cannot imagine a Christian feeling anything but disgust and aversion toward her and her message. In an article for the National Review, Peter Wehner described Objectivism as “deeply problematic and morally indefensible” and Rand as “a nut.” Further, her views have “very little to do with authentic conservatism” but were “pernicious, the antithesis of a humane and proper worldview.” This piece by Baker embodies the thinking of those who would subvert the Gospel message to the advancement of a conservative political agenda, fitting perfectly the caricature of politicized evangelicals with their Faustian deals.

By: Stephen

Stephen — Fri, 29 Apr 2011 22:53:14 +0000

“In a particular direction” embodied in rapidly rising tax rates, especially for the high income people who allegedly “move the world?” That is the consequence of our “age or statism,” isn’t it?

Wait, they’re paying income taxes at a lower rate than they have in decades upon decades? Maybe we should skip the chemotherapy, then.