To shrug.
That is the exchange from the novel Atlas Shrugged. A recent post by /u/Whisper made me realize that we can draw some very real parallels between that book and the state of malehood in the West. Forget about Ayn Rand's politics/philosophy and just look at the story.
In the book, the upper class of self-made millionaires who build companies that allow the infrastructure of America to grow -steel, rail, coal, copper- are all being progressively squeezed during the Great Depression by government policy. Since they are well off in one aspect -finance- everyone is looking to extract more from them. By this one dimension of their existences, they are labeled "privileged' and therefore not allowed any complaints. And since they are capable people, they take on progressively heavier burdens and progressively dwindling incentives to do what they do efficiently.
Eventually the incentives get so low and the burdens so high, that things start to break down. A genius engineer named John Galt, who never got rich because he saw how things were developing very early and instead went into exile, he begins convincing these prime movers of industry to go off the grid, one by one. And they do. And society begins to crumble slowly.
The prime movers all end up in a utopia, where the world works as they understand it, where privilege is not a dirty word so long as it is leveraged with responsibility. And leveraged it is, for these people crave responsibility. But they want to be rewarded instead of exploited for it.
Is this not similar to what's been happening with men? The progressive squeeze from society, the removal of incentives to marry and start a family, the disregard of any and all complaints if you don't belong to a minority group? And now with the "sexodus" we are seeing more leave the traditional roles they are assigned to. Men are shrugging the responsibility that no longer has the same rewards.
The book ends with the lights going out in New York City because no competent business owner is there to produce the coal to keep the electricity flowing. It's implied that society will ask the prime movers to come back, on their own terms, to help them out of the mess they've created. If this is our fate, expect it to take a generation. For now, shrug away.
[deleted]
abcd_z 9y ago
"I had a hard time with Ayn Rand because I found myself enthusiastically agreeing with the first 90% of every sentence, but getting lost at 'therefore, be a huge asshole to everyone.'"
[deleted] 9y ago
You're really drawing improper conclusions from her work, from my own understanding. Obviously interpretations can be different.
I feel that the point Rand is trying to make isn't that we should be dicks to the less fortunate, but that we should be committed to our own excellence and not be compelled to give something for nothing. The captains of industry in Atlas Shrugged were already giving the people so much: that is, a working infrastructure and economy.
One of the greatest issues with our culture today (and it's bleeding out to the whole world) is the sense of entitlement in the general populace.
The world does not owe you a damn thing. Your life is what you make it. When you do make it, it's yours, not your neighbors, to do with what you see fit.
rife_omeqa 9y ago
What do you mean by "be a huge a asshole to everyone?"
If I meet a woman who's fucked 30 guys I don't treat her like a virgin or a demure, conservative woman. Does that make me an asshole?
psycho-logical 9y ago
Oh how great libertarianism is if you're a sociopath.
[deleted] 9y ago
You're not a sociopath just because you don't care about other people's well-being.
[deleted] 9y ago
you're not a sociopath just because you are unwilling to be a doormat
JihadDerp 9y ago
When a plane is going down, you're supposed to put on your own oxygen mask before helping anyone else. Is that being an asshole sociopath?
Senorbubbz 9y ago
It's helping yourself so you can then help others. Most people just stop at the "helping yourself" part.
JihadDerp 9y ago
So if you don't give to charity... what does that make you?
Senorbubbz 9y ago
Nothing, because that's indirect and ineffectual. Charities will just use your money to pay off their highest employees. TRP constantly stressed that time is more valuable than money, so helping people in person through volunteering, mentorship, or just lending a helping hand/sympathetic ear is better than mindlessly donating money. But at the end of the day it's your life and your morals, I'm just stating what I believe to be decent human nature.
[deleted]
JungleJuggler 9y ago
You know someone's jumped the shark when they identify with Ayn Rand's work.
The difference is that in Atlas Shrugged, the "movers of industry" were necessary elements of society. Men are not necessary elements of the roles you've assigned them in your post. Starting a family and raising kids? Can be done by single mothers. Sure, it's not as "good", however you want to define that, but it still works. But men still become engineers and doctors. They still make society function. Science and technology have not stopped simply because you can't smack your wife when she disobeys you anymore.
You're under the disillusion that you are somehow better or even necessary simply by virtue of having a dick. That is not the case. Until you prove yourself to be a good father with genes worth propagating (and we can debate the definition of fitness in a society as advanced as ours until no end), or until you prove yourself to be a "mover of industry" forced out of his field because of adversarial rules and social norms, then you've got no business complaining.
All you're doing now is painting yourself as a collective victim and looking for some empathy. I don't care if things get tougher or if the risk for marrying has become higher and I certainly won't bitch and moan about it.
rife_omeqa 9y ago
I only got a few sentences into your post before I stopped reading.
The roles being societal? Men are not important to society (civilization)?
I've seen many scientifically published articles and statistics on this sub over the months that prove that contention wrong many times over.
Sexual roles? I find it hard to believe that men can be deemed unnecessary in this capacity either given that the very biology of our species and all other sentient beings on the planet dictates the paramount importance of sex.
[deleted]
stemgang 9y ago
Which recent post by /u/Whisper do you mean? I don't see anything relevant.
[deleted] 9y ago
In my opinion, Objectivism is a great philosophy for the individual but not a great one for society overall. You can definitely make the argument that capitalism has rode on self interest and has yielded the greatest technological and society advancements in mankind's history and you'd probably be correct. Furthermore, if you do follow it, you will become a better person yourself.
My problem is in the abstract where if everyone practices Objectivism, you're going to run into a few problems such as what obligation does society have to an individual and vice versa. To become a better person, you must improve yourself and to do that, you must assume that nobody owes you a thing. But once you do become a better person, what obligation do you have to the person next to you? Is self interest truly the apex of mankind or does organize society aspire for something else? That's the problem that Objectivism does not answer directly but rather indirectly by saying that if everyone improves, then society improves by making a few jumps in logic.
In either case, that is up to the individual to decide. I hold my doubts but I fully support Objectivism for the individual.
[deleted] 9y ago
There are no jumps in logic.
Objectivism allows for love, caring for another, protecting common goods and reducing externalities; just as socialism, communism, etc.
The difference is Objectivism tackles these challenges much more efficiently.
shazaam42 9y ago
I can understand how you got downvoted, I was sorely tempted by your first sentence, but I gave you the benefit of the doubt for the rest of your post, and I see that you're "technically correct".
Everyone has to act in their self interests, and objectivism acts in the self interest of the non-parasitic members of society.It doesn't really make sense for people who are "below average" to be objectivist, therefore you're correct in that it wouldn't be a great philosophy for "society overall".
rife_omeqa 9y ago
Pick your poison. Either the individual owes society and thus becomes it's slave or society owes the individual and thus others must serve to fulfill the needs of said individual and thus those serving become slaves. We get around the slave issue by allowing people to choose how to contribute and to what extent. We mandate some involvement and offer incentives for the rest.
Cars/Houses/Boats/Holidays/Clothes/Status/Travel/Power; we provide the carrot for the masses and let them decide how to go about their business so long as society gets a portion of the profits.
As an example: Pension cheques don't grow on trees. Someone had to pay taxes in order to fund the cheque. Treating the Pension Cheque as a right to the individual ensures the taxpayer must exist and must work to afford it.
What is the purpose of society if it does not benefit the individual? There is no other to benefit. The real question is which individuals do we help and at the expense or opportunity cost of which others and to what extent?
For every right there is an equal cost to enforce it or supply it.
The system that has minimal baseline rights afforded and thus minimal costs incurred is the one in which personal merit prospers the most. It's also the system most people hate because merit is exactly what most people lack and having daddy government prop them up when they stumble or support them when they're lazy/comfortable/entertained makes for an easier life.
Galt said it with "I shall never live for the sake of another man, nor ask another man to live for mine". They are one and the same. Flip sides of the same coin. Only the men who can achieve on their own value such a system. The creme of the crop like that just fine because they know they don't need others. The people who do need the help of others are the ones that never seem to understand or value such a stand alone system.
[deleted] 9y ago
Yes, Galt did say that. And that's what I am talking about: is self interest the apex of mankind? Galt's answer directly says yes because, as you have pointed out, the people who have made it see no need in helping those who have not. I'm not disagreeing with this. I'm simply posing the question of whether that is the end all, whether saying "I'm getting mine, screw you" is the end.
Furthermore, I dont disagree with you when you say that the system does reallocate resources. Thats inescapable: to feed the rest of people, you have to take from those more fortunate. Objectivism would claim that nobody owes anyone else anything which basically means that there is no support. All I'm asking is if you're comfortable with that and if you believe that people who haven't made it are either too poor/too stupid/too lazy, then you probably are comfortable.
One more thing, I'm curious you think the purpose of a collective entity is and what "society" really means to you. Are there any personal benefits to joining this society? Why or why not? And if there are not, why are you still in it?
Krackor 9y ago
Society is simply a composition of individuals, so this is a nonsense statement. If a philosophy is good for individuals, there's never going to be some transcendental entity called "society" that says "Whoa, hold up, this philosophy isn't good for me so I'm not going to abide by it".
There's no jump of logic to make. There's nothing to jump to. A philosophy that's good for the individual is already complete.
[deleted] 9y ago
Thats utterly absurd. You've literally said "If it is good for one person, it must be good for a thousand" without a bridge as to why. If you were correct, then the term "tragedy of the commons" would not exist in economics.
Krackor 9y ago
No, of course I didn't say that. The point is that individuals make decisions based on what they think is good for themselves individually. "Society" doesn't make decisions for itself as an entity.
[deleted] 9y ago
I've always felt you could test Rand's theory simply by putting flea killer on your dog. Does the dog die when they abandon ship or die out? No. It's health improves until a new bunch of parasites turn up to take its resources.
JohnsonBonesJones 9y ago
Except that Rand's theory is the opposite. Would the fleas die without the dog is what the question is. You mistakenly switched it.
[deleted] 9y ago
No, because Rand utterly fails to make the case that the wealth comes from those that have accumulated and not the labour that created it. She fails to make a credible case because there isn't one.
Dev_on 9y ago
sounds great. except for the kicking the ladder out behind them 'policy' that came after. I disagree with her writing, not as an ideology, but as a shitty first draft, full of holes. actually, yeah, as an idology too.
Also the whitewashing of history. Pinkertons and the robber barons used private power to ensure that the first one across the finish line kept everyone else from finishing the race. the depression was the culmination of 'fuck you I have mine' over decades... Finally, some populist measures had to take place in order to keep it from crumbling.
Equating that to marriage law really shows poor perspective. a bronze age tradition, co opted in the last 70 years piecemail, without any thought to it's use in the 21st century. Theres a reason it sucks for men to get married now. It sucks for your doctor to leech blood from you when you get sick too.
For the competent owners bit in the end, I've always laughed at that. Between the spanish worker-owned factories that were violently shut down in the 20th century, (and sort of exist today in california) it shows that the competent business owner isn't as vital as it's made out to be.
there will always be need for organization, but it's a facilitating role, and thinking it's some kind of 'better man' who can keep 200 people together long enough to produce widgets. And I'm willing to bet that in the next 50 years or so, you'll find the ranks of the administrators and managers will become more and more obsolete.
It's a horrible book, regardless. poorly written, and fills heads with asinine ideas, by a poor hypocritical woman who couldn't even live according to her own ideas.
[deleted] 9y ago
[deleted]
Dev_on 9y ago
you know what. I didn't even read it. This has nothing to do with the idea of TRP, and I regret even posting about it.
[deleted] 9y ago
Have you ever wondered if Reddit is a giant libertarian experiment? I have.
It's clearly a hands-off approach to governance, where subs are free to do what they please.
The Rand-style governance of Reddit has produced a wild variety of outcomes, the majority of which are better than the other systems.
Her books are great, and the outcomes her ideaology produces are even better.
Dev_on 9y ago
fiction can be fun, agreed.
also, it's a social media architecture, reddit isn't a libertarian experement, any more than construction companies run companies inside buildings.
Go start screwing up sidebar knowledge in here, see how free you are to stay here and keep posting.
Though, I'm guessing, you also mean american libertarian... because it means something different over there. and it fucking scares me to think it could happen. if you think it through, on an important level, it just gives capital the power to leverage capital, at the expense of everyone else. It won't benefit anyone, just the top quintile of society, and the rest are told to fend for themselves.
I believe my favourite term describing it is an 'advocate for private tyranny'
Small aside though... what does any of this have to do with being a man today?
id-buyer 9y ago
Atlas holds the heavens up on his shoulders, not the world.
Antibuddy 9y ago
The quote is taken directly from the book.
id-buyer 9y ago
I'm aware, I just want to clear it up for everyone
alphafucks_bb 9y ago
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BoXQf2f2Yxo
[deleted] 9y ago
People forget they can just walk away.
RCFlyboy 9y ago
There are some redpill lessons in the behavior of Dagny Taggart, though I think she's way more decisive and dominant than any real-life woman could be. But her behavior is definitely hypergamous - she begins the book as essentially an alpha widow of Francisco d'Anconia. Between her past association with him and her own elite status at the top of the business world, she can find nobody who will satisfy her need for a higher-status male.
Finally she meets the married Hank Rearden, another captain of industry - and begins an affair with him. She has a desire to be dominated sexually and even wears a bracelet of Rearden Metal to display his ownership of her.
But she leaves him for the ultimate alpha in the book (actually more of a sigma) - John Galt.
shazaam42 9y ago
I think you have to excuse a little bit of self-insertion fantasy from Ayn Rand in her book.
But the part where Rearden's wife disrespect's his gift of Rearden metal, and Dagny Taggart snaps it up to wear it publicly, that part was extremely TRP.
[deleted]
[deleted]
[deleted]
mister_barfly75 9y ago
In the Alpha/beta/sigma/omega way of looking at group dynamics, Alpha's are pack leaders, betas are followers, omegas are the bottom tier of the pack that even betas look down upon and sigmas are the lone wolves who have no interest in being part of a group dynamic and quite content to do things their way, on their own terms, on their own.
IVIaskerade 9y ago
It's more like a 2-axis grid with "power" plotted against "sociability"
Alphas are high-power-high-social.
Betas are low-power-high-social.
Sigmas are high-power-low-social.
Omegas are low-power-low-social.
[deleted]
TheRealMouseRat 9y ago
Isn't this post more MGTOW than RedPill?
watersign 9y ago
keep working..millions on welfare depend on you!
Trellink 9y ago
Let's brush aside politics, philosophy and literature and talk about sex. Ayn Rand's views on sex were redpill as fuck. Here's one sex scene:
"She tried to tear herself away from him. The effort broke against his arms that had not felt it. Her fists beat against his shoulders, against his face. He moved one hand, took her two wrists and pinned them behind her, under his arm, wrenching her shoulder blades.…She fell back against the dressing table, she stood crouching, her hands clasping the edge behind her, her eyes wide, colorless, shapeless in terror. He was laughing. There was the movement of laughter on his face, but no sound.…Then he approached. He lifted her without effort. She let her teeth sink into his hand and felt blood on the tip of her tongue. He pulled her head back and he forced her mouth open against his."
Biting his hand? Yeah, she liked being dominated. As this article shows, many of her female readers concur. “I know that many view it as a rape scene, but I definitely did not see it that way,” says Huynh of the Fountainhead scene. “Yes, there are elements of nonconsensual sex in that scene, but I was aware of Dominique’s feelings towards Roark and to me, she internally agreed to it,” she says. “I guess in the way that a lot of females may enjoy ‘rough’ sex and want domination behind closed doors.” And Huynh’s view of the scene hasn’t evolved in the five years since her first reading. “I will always feel this way about sex in the novel,” she says. “It changed the way I viewed men. The way they are supposed to be. Their motivations. It also made me look for raw dynamics when it comes to relationships.” (italics mine.)
More here. Redpill all day long.
Kill_Your_Ego 9y ago
I have a fancy degree from a liberal college. I was taught that Ayn Rand was a terrible witch who should be burned alive. Then I grew up. Without competent fucking delivery men we don't even have civilization.
You can't even imagine what all men revolting would look like. It would be death incarnate. Insane.
Steve_Wiener 9y ago
All men revolting. Violently, or peacefully opting out of the status quo? It could be a new and freer life incarnate.
[deleted] 9y ago
[deleted]
rife_omeqa 9y ago
Her books have flaws like all others, granted.
They are above all else the acceptance and adherence to reality regardless of wishes and whims. They are the antithesis of the Hamster. Her heroic characters achieve what they do through their virtues. Her villains; through the vices and shortcomings of others at the expense of the sacrifice of their betters.
The people I see belittling her works are the ones who never understood them and chose to instead pick at her abstract political philosophies and her so called unreasonable characters.
redpillerinnyc 9y ago
There is a breed of men who remain impressed by Ayn Rand well beyond his teenage years. And they are mostly imbeciles.
[deleted] 9y ago
Men won't revolt any time soon. Too many broken and thirsy men to pick up the scraps.
Teeklin 9y ago
Men wont revolt because everyone has a stake in keeping society functioning. We have better lives than 99.99% of all human beings who have ever lived on this planet. No one wants to fuck that up.
[deleted] 9y ago
Some men just want to watch the world burn.
Subhazard 9y ago
The same could be said about society before WWI. In fact, that's what most people said.
And then it happened.
rife_omeqa 9y ago
Exactly the example I was going to cite.
Correspondence between officials, public opinion and the news media all held the notion of War as being a preposterous joke.
It had to be a joke because there was no way so many nations would throw their amazing economic circumstances down the toilet to go to War.
It was the five largest, most powerful and prosperous nations/empires in the World going to war with each other knowing that only 3 could win in a best case scenario. For anyone other than Russia it was a 50/50 chance of losing big time.
mister_barfly75 9y ago
And then Russia had a Revolution and fucked it up for themselves.
Heuristics 9y ago
translates to: "we have more plastic crap from china"
Teeklin 9y ago
We have clean water, accessible food, shelter, medical care, modern hygiene. We live longer, we have the entire collection of human knowledge at our fingertips day and night. Art, music, literature, entertainment...it's all there for us to sample at our leisure. That's more than anyone in any generation that ever lived can say.
Spirax212 9y ago
Yea, and what does any of it mean when it comes at a fingers touch? Nothing. It's just as dull as anything else for the most part.
All people look for is experiences. That's what makes life memorable and fun.
rainmeter1 9y ago
You must be high on some spoiled weed. I have several Africans as friends. Not Afro-Americans. Africans. They've had that life of high adventure you want and you know what? They relish the western lifestyle.
So fuck off to some third world people where people die pulling a tooth if that's your thing, crazy fuck. Life in the western world is a paradise on earth.
[deleted]
Teeklin 9y ago
So go have those experiences. Who is stopping you?
Spirax212 9y ago
You don't even understand your own train of thought.
Teeklin 9y ago
No, you don't understand. You say that none of it means anything and that it's all about experiences. I'm saying that society allows those experiences now more than any point in history.
Unless you consider experiences like cholera, dysentery, polio, slavery, segregation, famine, drought, and genocide to be what we are going for. Because that's what most of human history was filled with. Short, miserable, brutal lives filed with nothing but the struggle for survival.
We don't "revolt" (whatever the fuck that means in this context) because we recognize just how good we have things. We work from inside the system to reform the things we don't like because we recognize that fixing a flawed system is better than no system at all.
alpha_n3rd 9y ago
It's true. As much as people bitch, we are living in a golden age.
Spirax212 9y ago
Not in any way even slightly related to anything I typed out. Clearly showing your ability to comprehend anything. You said, "So go and have these experiences".
I never said I wasn't, nor in any way did I suggest I wasn't going to. So yea.... I never talked about specific experiences. I said, "experiences". You can have them in bronze age Assyria, doesn't matter. Doesn't matter in what kind of society you have them. People are always more fond of their experiences with others than anything else.
heist_of_saint_graft 9y ago
And the march towards serfdom continues apace.
[deleted] 9y ago
But we don't have much leasure time to explore the world, to travel or go see all this art, literature, music. We are diseased with stress in order to get a mere chance to succeed at a plain and meager life. We don't even get enough time to recover from colds and flu's, let alone experience all this world has to offer.
Undoubtedly we as a whole have more than any previous generation, but it doesn't make us any happier because we lack a lot of fundamentals and we've moved away from seeking virtue to seeking pleasure and comfort.
[deleted] 9y ago
Assuming you can enjoy the privileges in life without having to work is ignorant. Besides, today's jobs are a lot less labor enduring and difficult than past jobs by a landslide
antidoxdevice 9y ago
oh yes of course all that leisure time people had in the 1500's, exploring the world while being illiterate.
Better then being literally diseased.
Heuristics 9y ago
People had half the year off in the middle ages. If you don't have any bills you don't need to read
antidoxdevice 9y ago
And what did they do all day other then get drunk?
Hell if you really want to live like that you can, become a homeless bum and be as free as you want.
[deleted]
Teeklin 9y ago
Boo hoo. It's not societies job to find meaning in your life for you. "Oh woe is me I have more than anyone that's ever lived but I'm still unhappy!"
Look inward and stop blaming society for your own personal shit.
[deleted] 9y ago
You can't just pour plastic shit on someone in exchange for a nine-to-five grind and expect them to be satisfied with their lives. So much of our time is spent on acquiring basic necessities + bonus shit, that we don't have much time for anything else. Ofcourse one could run away to some tropical island filled with illiterate and criminal dipshits, but what would be the point?
Teeklin 9y ago
Or you could be living at any other time in human history where people would literally murder their own mother to get what we have. Yeah I agree we should work on improving the 40 hour week and get with the times when it comes to vacation days and sick days and whatever else we need to work on. But that doesn't change the fact that the system we have right now is still better than everything that has ever come before it bar none.
[deleted] 9y ago
I believe that there are things beyond material things that we're losing out on. Sure, life was tougher before, but there were still unchartered waters to explore, there were mountains unclimbed, land unclaimed, et cetera. Today we've got a lot of entertainment, but none of the adventure left. We used to forge empires, now we're just barely keeping them from falling apart.
whitey_male 9y ago
This is why I fundamentally support the Ron Paul side of politics. They attack the parasitic behaviour of both the left and right.
thehonestdouchebag 9y ago
I'm Canadian, and I wish we had someone with his mindset/political staunchness up here. Trust me our political parties are just as fucked, we have no good choices either.
Most politicians are self serving bastards, this is coming from someone studying Political Science.
[deleted]
[deleted] 9y ago
[deleted]
[deleted] 9y ago
[deleted]
[deleted]
Popeman79 9y ago
Exactly this.
It's not that you advocate the Right or Left as you give your forever faith in a religion. It's a subtle, momentaneous path.
Right now the western world is in great need of right policies, to correct its problems. Then when we come back to a more sane society, we should move forward towards reducing the importance of the State.
Depending of the countries I'm in, I'm right wing or left wing -but my ideas don't change.
CriticalThink 9y ago
Too bad neither the Reps nor the Dems are conservative.
[deleted] 9y ago
[deleted]
CriticalThink 9y ago
I'm talking about the parties as a whole, which is the effective result of politics in the US. No single politician can change the outcome of either party, so we have to look at what the parties do as a team.....and that result is not very conservative.
If you think that peoples' realization that the Republicans aren't conservative is a result of Jon Stewart or Rachel Maddow (or any mainstream media for that matter), you're an idiot. It's the result of the Republican's actions as a team.
[deleted] 9y ago
[deleted]
RogerHaymaker 9y ago
His speech on money was great. “To trade by means of money is the code of the men of good will. Money rests on the axiom that every man is the owner of his mind and his effort. Money allows no power to prescribe the value of your effort except the voluntary choice of the man who is willing to trade you his effort in return. Money permits you to obtain for your goods and your labor that which they are worth to the men who buy them, but no more. Money permits no deals except those to mutual benefit by the unforced judgment of the traders. Money demands of you the recognition that men must work for their own benefit, not for their own injury, for their gain, not their loss–the recognition that they are not beasts of burden, born to carry the weight of your misery–that you must offer them values, not wounds–that the common bond among men is not the exchange of suffering, but the exchange of goods. Money demands that you sell, not your weakness to men’s stupidity, but your talent to their reason; it demands that you buy, not the shoddiest they offer, but the best that your money can find. And when men live by trade–with reason, not force, as their final arbiter–it is the best product that wins, the best performance, the man of best judgment and highest ability–and the degree of a man’s productiveness is the degree of his reward. This is the code of existence whose tool and symbol is money. Is this what you consider evil?
[deleted] 9y ago
[deleted]
RedHeimdall 9y ago
From that Ayn Rand interview clip:
"It is not in a woman's personal interest to rule a man. It puts her in a very unhappy position. I don't believe that any good woman would want that position."
[deleted] 9y ago
But then again, no good person would want to be in politics.
shazaam42 9y ago
It seems like she was saying that it wasn't a woman's place to be Commander in Chief; to send young men off to die.
Steve_Wiener 9y ago
I haven't read the books. What is it they truly value?
shazaam42 9y ago
Please consider reading them; reading things that you normally wouldn't is the surest way to intellectual growth. It will pay off in the long run.
But don't tell anybody you read them.
realityczek 9y ago
In short form?
From those, all else flows. For many women even if they disagree with the ethics / priorities the result will still be attractive. It is the self contained congruity of action and purpose that is inherently desirable.
This is one of the reasons why serial killers and others of the ilk gain so many female admirers. Setting aside the psychopathic groupies, even women who accept that serial murder is ethically wrong are often attracted to such men because they acted on their beliefs in the face of all social pressure and stigma.
Atlas is an awesome book and well worth the read, but for the purposes of Red Pill discussion there is a lot to be said for The Fountainhead. It is somewhat less preachy about meta-politics and as such has quite a bit of focus on male / female archetypes.
edited: I suck at words
Steve_Wiener 9y ago
Cool. Thank you for your concise and thorough response.
[deleted] 9y ago
First off, please add a spoiler alert to the top of the post as a lot of people may want to read the book. Secondly, I'm curious as to why you felt the need for the disclaimer to "forget about her politics/philosophy?"
Antibuddy 9y ago
There is no way I'm going to add a spoiler alert to a nearly 60 year old book. That's ridiculous.
[deleted] 9y ago
Her politics/philosophy are a hotly debated topic that is likely to come up whenever the book is mentioned. OP wanted to ignore that aspect of it and focus solely on this one quote.
anonymoustrper 9y ago