Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Let me eat cake. The rest of you could stand to lose some weight, frankly.

At some point, the ability to learn is a factor of character, not IQ.

The rest of the comments were smacking Boebert like she was a piñata.

This isn’t Democrats spending madly. This is government catching up.

I really should read my own blog.

Welcome to day five of every-bit-as-bad-as-you-thought-it-would-be.

if you can’t see it, then you are useless in the fight to stop it.

You’re just a puppy masquerading as an old coot.

People are weird.

Someone should tell Republicans that violence is the last refuge of the incompetent, or possibly the first.

If you tweet it in all caps, that makes it true!

Proof that we need a blogger ethics panel.

Second rate reporter says what?

I would try pessimism, but it probably wouldn’t work.

Anne Laurie is a fucking hero in so many ways. ~ Betty Cracker

If ‘weird’ was the finish line, they ran through the tape and kept running.

Historically it was a little unusual for the president to be an incoherent babbling moron.

Let’s not be the monsters we hate.

The words do not have to be perfect.

Bark louder, little dog.

Nothing says ‘pro-life’ like letting children go hungry.

Let the trolls come, and then ignore them. that’s the worst thing you can do to a troll.

Too often we hand the biggest microphones to the cynics and the critics who delight in declaring failure.

The current Supreme Court is a dangerous, rogue court.

You are here: Home / Books / Galt as Text

Galt as Text

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Almost forgot about DougJ’s need to understand Atlas Shrugged. I believe Foucault or Derrida wrote an essay about this once – since I can’t find it right now, I’ll summarize from memory:

A post-modern reinterpretation of the text as a paean to Dagny’s frustrated sexuality and Hank’s borderline impotence is the only way to truly understand Rand’s magnum opus. Dagny tries to sublimate her sexuality into her work, but the appearance of Hank, who is cut from the same bolt of distant, quasi-rapist cloth as her dearly departed father, makes her long for the kind of semi-fulfillment that she can only find in the arms of a uninterested and dispassionate lover. Sadly, Hank is unable to perform even to her low expectations, and thus begins the perfection of “Rearden Metal”. Though ostensibly used to create rails for Dagny’s railroad, it’s real use is for a cock ring so that Hank can finally rail Dagny.

The train metaphor is thus extended throughout the book, culminating in the famous “train” and “tunnel” sequence. There, the failure of Rearden Metal causes Hank’s failure, and the whole sexual escapade blows up in a smoky dirty mess. Because Rand is using the railroad as a sexual metaphor and needs to express frustration in similarly metaphorical terms, it’s obvious that the only solution is the Objectivist response to any complex human problem: proles must die. And die they do, choking to death on smoke that represents not the failure of welfarist socialism, but rather the limpness of Hank’s member.

A careful deconstruction, therefore, shows us that what appears to be the central question of the text, viz., “Who is John Galt”, is merely a MacGuffin that Rand cleverly uses to disguise what is clearly a deep and forward-looking meditation on female sexuality.

Reader Interactions

43Comments

  3. 3.

    gogol's wife

    OT — I opened up my New York Times, printed on newsprint, this morning, and there was John Cole quoted by Krugman in the first paragraph of his column — not his blog, his column on the Op-Ed page! Has this been discussed? I can’t find any mention of it. I was so excited, and my husband could not figure out why I was jumping up and down about it.

  4. 4.

    Linda Featheringill

    I actually read Atlas Shrugged when I was 18 years old. Yes, that was many years ago. At that time, I thought that the author made some interesting arguments but I was turned off by her whole approach to sex. I was a country girl and was familiar with animals mating. It was my observation that many animals displayed more romance and tenderness than the characters in Atlas. I thought I could do better than that in my life. [And I did. :-)]

  5. 5.

    gnomedad

    since I can’t find it right now, I’ll summarize from memory

    Don’t bother looking; it can’t possibly be an improvement on your summary.

  6. 6.

    Sarah, Proud and Tall

    An even better way to truly understand Rand’s magnum opus is to simply recognize that it is the badly written scribblings of a bitter hypocritical old goat with the morals of a meerkat on crystal meth and the literary talent of the people who write tampon ads, and then you don’t actually have to subject yourself to the pain of reading the fucking piece of crap.

    I kneed Ayn Rand in the head once upon a time, so I should know.

  8. 8.

    Culture of Truth

    Speaking of Ayn Rand, I hear that Dr. Robert Paul, son of Ron Paul, and Rand’s brother, has “thought about running” for the Senate sat being vacated by Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison.

    It’s a Randian dynasty I tell you!

  9. 9.

    Rex

    If that is really a quick summary from memory, may I suggest that you have really been holding back from showing your skillz here on the site.

  11. 11.

    geg6

    HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!

    mm, I bow to you this morning. As our bloghost wins the prints, you win the internets.

  15. 15.

    Paul in KY

    @Sarah, Proud and Tall: You should go to the Amazon review of the book & enter it. I think it might stop some poor bastards from wasting their money on it.

    Also, can you review Evil Mama Cheney’s bodice ripper?

  16. 16.

    Joel

    @Linda Featheringill:

    The best way to understand Rand’s fictional portrayal of sex is to also understand that in real life she was boinking Alan Greenspan.

    (I’m also reminded of what TVTropes calles “IKEA erotica” — typically used of teenage fanfic writers who have a mechanical idea of how prong-A fits into slot-B, but being virgins, they do not yet even begin to comprehend sex at any deeper or more meaningful level.)

  17. 17.

    russell

    no kind of love
    no kind of love
    i don’t want to make no scene
    lovers come and go
    or make you mrs. anyone
    or make you mr. me
    i’m into you like a train
    into you like a train

    brilliant summary mistermix. almost makes me want to go read some derida and/or foucalt.

    almost.

    sarah, you are my kinda gal. lovely.

  18. 18.

    Tokyokie

    Sadly, a Murdoch employee (the New York Post film critic) gave the movie a positive review, ruining its perfect splat rating on Rotten Tomatoes.

  20. 20.

    TG Chicago

    The upcoming Atlas Shrugged movie is going to be marketed to wingnuts much like Passion of the Christ was.

    I wonder how those evangelicals will feel about the fact that Rand was an atheist who looked down on people of faith.

    Or this, straight from the belly of the beast:

    Satanism has far more in common with Objectivism than with any other religion or philosophy. Objectivists endorse reason, selfishness, greed and atheism. Objectivism sees Christianity, Islam and Judaism as anti-human and evil. The writings of Ayn Rand are inspiring and powerful.

    That’s from the churchofsatan website. Contrast that with this thought about Egoism, which was a close precursor to Rand’s ideas:

    Self-interest, or rather self-love, or egoism, has been more plausibly substituted as the basis of morality. But I consider our relations with others as constituting the boundaries of morality. With ourselves, we stand on the ground of identity, not of relation, which last, requiring two subjects, excludes self-love confined to a single one. To ourselves, in strict language, we can owe no duties, obligation requiring also two parties. Self-love, therefore, is no part of morality. Indeed, it is exactly its counterpart.

    That was written by Thomas Jefferson.

    So the Tea Partiers can run wild with Randamania all they want. But we should remind them that when they do, they’re aligning with satanists against the Founding Fathers.

    (How far will the three-cornered hats fly when the Tea Partiers’ heads explode?)

  21. 21.

    The Republic of Stupidity

    I’d like to thank you, mistermix, for such a succinct, terse, and undoubtedly accurate review of Atlas Shrugged, thereby relieving me of any need to ever actually, ya know, READ the damned thing myself…

    Mind if I crib from that, should the need ever arise… like a book report is due?

  23. 23.

    AnonGuest84

    Oh Jeebus, over at Tbogg:

    When a Randian goes to see Atlas Shrugged, do they make their date pay for their own ticket? And don’t even think about sharing popcorn. Fucking looter…

  24. 24.

    Dennis SGMM

    @Sarah, Proud and Tall:

    It’s only Seven AM here on the coast and I’ve already been gifted with two excellent pieces of writing. My thanks to both you and mistermix for getting my Friday off to such a great start.

  25. 25.

    Chris

    @TG Chicago:

    Satanism has far more in common with Objectivism than with any other religion or philosophy. Objectivists endorse reason, selfishness, greed and atheism. Objectivism sees Christianity, Islam and Judaism as anti-human and evil. The writings of Ayn Rand are inspiring and powerful.

    And that’s why Ayn Rand was never embraced by as the patron saint of modern conservatism. Instead, people went to William F. Buckley and the rest, who preached the same economic gospel as she did, but wrapped it up with a lot of warm fuzzy talk about Christian values and American traditions.

  26. 26.

    JR in WV

    My first incarnation as a college stunit was 1968-69 in the little ivy league, and I read some Anyn Rend back then. Fortunately, I am now in my 60s (‘steadv in the 60x!) and can no longer remember much about the forgettable body of work of Anny Ryan.

    If you keep learning new stuff, eventually yer brain fills up, and old stuff you knew purrfectly well falls out your ear. Remember when Homer learned to make wine, and forgot how to drive?

  27. 27.

    SFAW

    Remember when Homer learned to make wine, and forgot how to drive?

    Homer pre-dated the internal combustion engine by a few thousand years, bucko. Now if you said Homer fergot whether Hector was “breaker of horse” or “poker of horses”, well, that I can believe.

    Yeah, yeah, I know, that’s one of them facks what dripped outta yer ear.

    ETA: WTF is this in moderation for? Poker? Hector? Wombat? Snarfle?

  28. 28.

    gnomedad

    @TG Chicago:

    The upcoming Atlas Shrugged movie is going to be marketed to wingnuts much like Passion of the Christ was.

    27% will claim it’s awesome.

  29. 29.

    Just Some Fuckhead

    @Dennis SGMM:

    It’s only Seven AM here on the coast and I’ve already been gifted with two excellent pieces of writing. My thanks to both you and mistermix for getting my Friday off to such a great start.

    It’s an embarrassment of riches, huh?

  30. 30.

    Petorado

    If Rand was truly visionary, she would have made Rearden a pharmaceutical company CEO who discovers a magical potion to keep his wood up and battles the evil government that wants to let his patent expire.
    And doesn’t Rearden sound like a gay porn name? Maybe that’s why he couldn’t keep it up for Rand’s alter ego. That was a good foreshadowing of today’s right wingnuts.

  35. 35.

    Steve M.

    We may need to understand Atlas Shrugged as a sacred text of our Republican overlords, but we don’t need to understand it because it’s a freaking movie now. Dave Weigel notes that even though it’s being savaged by critics, people who’ve seen it (presumably fanboys and fangirls) love it and it’s on tap to exceed box office expectations for the weekend. Yeah, but so what? It’s on tap to exceed box office expectations by making barely over a million dollars. That makes it, in effect, Meek’s Cutoff for Cheeto-crumb-covered parents’-basement dwellers. The movie is not a broad-based cultural phenomenon if it’s that kind of niche product.

  36. 36.

    gelfling545

    @danimal: Don’t do it. You will always regret those unreclaimable hours you invested when you could have been watching the dust settle on the credenza. A friend talked me into reading it when I was about 18 & I have never forgiven him.

  38. 38.

    Just Some Fuckhead

    @Dennis SGMM:

    In an era when so many people seem to have been lobotomized by teevee it’s very heartening to see people play real good fer free.

    I agree, and I don’t think there’s any cultural substitute for good writing. My highest praise is when I read something and think, man, I wished I hadda written that.

  40. 40.

    Dave

    A deep and forward-looking meditation on female sexuality!

    Oh man. That’s infinitely better than the previous line on this movie, that it’s train porn. Yes. Bang this drum.

    Since no one’s actually read this book, there’ll be no one to argue.

  41. 41.

    Bob L

    Ryand said she researched the book by ridding in the cab of a 20th Century limited.

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:NYC_Hudson2.jpg

    Probably the closest thing to a giant penis on rails ever made by man. The engineer let Raynd handle the throttle on that big boy.

    She enjoyed it.

    MasterMix is on to something. This suggest the long diatribes are just to disguise the entire book is simply railfan porn.

    EDIT: Cool, I am in moderation for talking about locomotives.

  42. 42.

    BrianM

    I think you misremember – no way was that analysis from Derrida or Foucault. I remember the original essay, too. It was by some psychoanalytic literary critic. I first found out about it via a footnote in Harold Bloom’s Poetry and Repression (1976). Can’t look it up again because I gave away all my older books when I became a deconstructionist.

  43. 43.

    JR in WV

    @SFAW: More recently, Homer Simpson is a comedic character I have never seen, but about whom I have heard a few jokes, bucko.

    Sorry to offend your Greek sensibilities, not!

    I did read Livy, Ovid, etc in the original Latin, but never attempted Greek or Russian because of their varied alphabetical character sets. And relating Ayn Rand to Homeric epic writing in any way is crazy, as opposed to The Simpsons, which is at a culturally equivalent level to Miss Rand.

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