Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Trump’s cabinet: like a magic 8 ball that only gives wrong answers.

You come for women, you’re gonna get your ass kicked.

Dear elected officials: Trump is temporary, dishonor is forever.

Every decision we make has lots of baggage with it, known or unknown.

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

Giving up is unforgivable.

The arc of history bends toward the same old fuckery.

The republican speaker is a slippery little devil.

Imperialist aggressors must be defeated, or the whole world loses.

Only Democrats have agency, apparently.

You are so fucked. Still, I wish you the best of luck.

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

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Republicans: The threats are dire, but my tickets are non-refundable!

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

Everybody saw this coming.

Whoever he was, that guy was nuts.

This must be what justice looks like, not vengeful, just peaceful exuberance.

Red lights blinking on democracy’s dashboard

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The Giant Orange Man Baby is having a bad day.

We are builders in a constant struggle with destroyers. keep building.

Never entrust democracy to any process that requires Republicans to act in good faith.

You are here: Home / Open Threads / St’Anconia

St’Anconia

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We need some kind of an Ayn Rand open thread. In particular, I’d like to choose a new Ayn Rand themed name for myself. D’AnconiaJ doesn’t seem to work.

In the meantime, I’d like to revisit mistermix’s brilliant post-structurlist reading of Atlas Shrugged:

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.

And also too:

Reader Interactions

61Comments

  1. 1.

    Steeplejack

    The obvious “DougJGalt” doesn’t work for you?

    ETA: On second thought, I like “DougJShrugged” better.

  3. 3.

    Ben Franklin

    Ryan was big on Ayn Rand until he realized the Tea Party is big on God.

    What I am waiting for is theRepublican Convention. The silence of the Paul Wing of the Party as to Ryan, gives me hope there is some mischief afoot.

  6. 6.

    Rommie

    How about DanneskjöldJ? Given the piracy that was returning money to the rich folk, it fits right in with RomneyHood and Purina Paul.

    DougJShrugged works too.

  9. 9.

    Villago Delenda Est

    The classic quote sums up the whole fucking thing.

    I will not repeat the classic quote here, it’s been cited FSM knows how many times already today.

  16. 16.

    Dennis SGMM

    Time to revisit this gem from Kung Fu Monkey:

    There are two novels that can change a bookish fourteen-year old’s life: The Lord of the Rings and Atlas Shrugged. One is a childish fantasy that often engenders a lifelong obsession with its unbelievable heroes, leading to an emotionally stunted, socially crippled adulthood, unable to deal with the real world. The other, of course, involves orcs.

  24. 24.

    The Bearded Blogger

    The mistermix quote sums it up perfectly. Galtian overlords are making up for small weiners.

    If we could only convince them that peace, social justice and sustainability promoted penis growth, all would be fine.

  27. 27.

    LanceThruster

    In “The Fountainhead,” why is it that Gary Cooper’s character (Howard Roark) couldn’t submit his skills to someone else’s vision as an architect, but that did not come into play as a stonecutter? Who knows what awful crap they were building with his slabs?

  28. 28.

    Dennis SGMM

    @Villago Delenda Est:
    Sorry about that, I just skimmed the thread and fired away. I read Rand’s novels when I was in High School and I thought that they were rubbish back then. Anyone who clings to Rand’s bullshit after the age of 23 is, to my mind, a sociopath.

  29. 29.

    TG Chicago

    Anybody know how to start an email forward chain amongst wingers? I’m thinking there’s great potential in a Romney/Ryan = SATAN theme. Use some stuff about how Mormons supposedly think Jesus and Satan are brothers and how they have restricted mysterious temple rites. Then add some stuff about Ayn Rand being an atheist and how the founders of LaVey Satanism were highly influenced by Objectivism. Tons of potential for ratfvcking.

  30. 30.

    chopper

    stankonia, love it.

    i once had a dream where andre 3000 was my waiter and he was all

    hi i’m Dre and welcome y’all to applebees
    burger motherfucker, burger, american cheese
    excuse me sir but would you like some apple pie
    bathroom’s down the hall the second door on the right
    i need yo tips cause my wife’s on birf control
    and my bank says my checking account is on hold

    and it went on like that. it was fucking strange.

  33. 33.

    Ash Can

    The 12-year-old read a stripped-down version of Rand’s Anthem for a school reading project this summer. He loved it; it made for a good adventure yarn as far as he was concerned. Even so, he was able to recognize plot holes in it. And I have a feeling that if and when he tries to read more of her stuff, he’ll lose patience with her non-edited writing style and penchant for writing the same fucking plot over and over again.

  34. 34.

    Haydnseek

    @Dennis SGMM: Precisely. Reading these novels only proves that you were once a college sophomore with a certain capacity for beer and 3 am bullshit sessions with 3 friends who had read them as well. Once you were a senior, you had misplaced the novels, and had ditched the friends.

  37. 37.

    srv

    @The Other Chuck: Ayn Rand, Cougar Zero

    Rand developed a coterie of followers in New York City that called themselves The Collective. Rand and a young graduate student (25 years younger) named Nathan Blumenthal (he later changed his name to Nathaniel Branden) became close. Although they were each married to other people, Rand is said to have coordinated approval for their affair among the spouses, asserting to his wife and her husband that it was in their financial interest to support her assignations. This unconventional arrangement was completely consistent with her philosophy of economic self-interest.

    So Cougar, pseudo-pedo.

  38. 38.

    srv

    I think you fit Wesley Mouch or:

    Claude Slagenhop is president of political organization Friends of Global Progress and one of Lillian Rearden’s friends. He believes that ideas are just air, that this is no time for talk, but for action. Global Progress is a sponsor of the Equalization of Opportunity Bill.

    DougJ Slagenhop

  39. 39.

    Ash Can

    @srv: And how interesting that a group of supposed fanatics of rugged individualism should call themselves a “collective” and pride themselves on a certain uniformity of thought. I mean, the whole Rand phenomenon is just such obvious bullshit from start to finish.

  42. 42.

    Haydnseek

    I play bass and guitar with some friends in an informal band that gets together once a week or so, and I think we’re ready to introduce a style of heavily distorted power chord driven rock with Rand inspired lyrics. Well call it Rearden Metal.

  43. 43.

    Judge Crater

    It’s sad that the “ideas” of a third rate novelist and genuinely narcissistic personality like Ayn Rand have become the “intellectual” bulwark of a significant portion of America’s political, economic and social elites.

    Today, the free market grifters on Wall St. were beside themselves with joy. “Economic freedom” (the freedom of the rich and powerful to game the system) is the latest banner to be hoisted over the smug and self-proclaimed “entrepreneurial class.”

    Ayn Rand has given rise to a clique of self-important money changers who believe, genuinely as far as I can tell, that they are doing “gods work”, and that the marketplace (governed by their rules) is the ultimate arbiter of all things great and small.

    Government interferes with this holy calculus, thus it must be starved and drowned in a bathtub. This is the real “Ryan Plan”. The rest is malarky that only the main stream media would swallow.

  44. 44.

    Seanly

    @Dennis SGMM:

    I haz a sad as my work blocks KFM. Only blog I like which is blocked… though I haven’t tried Rude Pundit or Jesus’s General since I got here.

  45. 45.

    Dennis SGMM

    @Seanly:
    That just plain sucks. I can understand an employer wanting to block pr0n sites because of the liability angle. I cannot understand blocking blogs.

  46. 46.

    Gus diZerega

    I think one of the more interesting aspects of Rand’s contemporary importance is she was the principle ‘vector’ by which Nietzschean nihilism got established in the American right.

    Its individualist roots were too strong for the kind of collectivism and state worship popular in European fascism, but its love of hierarchy and authoritarian spirit made it very open to Rand’s version of the “superman” once the moral power of their earlier belief in natural rights had dwindled away to meaningless incantations.

    Paul Ryan as “Fuhrerprinzip.” History first as tragedy, then as farce.

  48. 48.

    Uncle Cosmo

    “mistermix’s brilliant post-structurlist reading” demonstrates beyond question that Atlas Shrugged should have been titled Witless Shagged…

    Upon further review, I need to check out The Book Thing for a freebie paperback of one of Rand’s tomes–I’m going to be spending a lot of time on overnight trains in Europe & I sleep so badly in couchettes I’m gonna need all the quaaludicrous help I can get…

  51. 51.

    Josh G.

    You know, you could easily interpret Atlas Shrugged as a tragedy/horror novel: two basically decent people (Dagny Taggart and Hank Rearden) get slowly sucked in to a destructive, doomsday cult led by Francisco d’Anconia and John Galt, which succeeds in toppling American civilization via terrorist attacks.

  52. 52.

    Villago Delenda Est

    @Dennis SGMM:

    NP! There was a request for it, after all, and JC himself created an FP post that proclaimed it everything you need to know about the literary works of Ayn Rand.

    I heartily agree with the good Mr. Cole on this topic.

  54. 54.

    lgerard

    I love having conversations with Randians

    Me: At the end of “The Fountainhead”, Howard Roark blows up the building he had designed.

    Randian: Yes

    Me: He claims he has the right to do so because others have used his intellectual property in a way he does not approve of.

    Randian: That’s right

    Me: If Roark has the right to do that, does Bill Gates have the same right today

    Randian: uh

  55. 55.

    1badbaba3

    Don’t go changin’ DougJ dontcha know. Also,too – motherfuck Ayn Rand, Rand Paul, Paul Ryan, Ryan Secrest, Rex Ryan, and thats all I can think of right now. All this rugged indivualism is making my brain hurt.

  58. 58.

    Rex Everything

    Rand fans all think of themselves as ubermenschen, but when you actually meet them they’re invariably either (i) 15 years old, (ii) self-styled “intellectuals” whose most prominent feature is breathtaking stupidity, or (iii) the kind of people who clubbed Nancy Kerrigan’s knee.

  59. 59.

    El Cid

    It pisses me off continually that this trivial, inane shit — primarily promulgated via the worst and clunkiest crap to be called a “novel” — must be discussed publicly as though there’s an idea in this pile of shit worth discussing.

    It’s no different than if people on TV and politicians and a few of the people you know keep discussing whether or not a nation’s economy would be better off based upon discussions between Moe & Larry in one of those philosophical works, the 3 Stooges.

    Admittedly, it would make for a much more intellectual conversation and would allow for a much greater depth of character and dialog than the Ayn Rand feces pool, but it’s still not the sort of thing which has anything to do with anything outside that particular show / movie.

  61. 61.

    Chris Grrr™

    @TG Chicago: Here’s some nuggets of joy…

    “It is true that many of the Christian churches worship a different Jesus Christ than is worshipped by the Mormons or The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.” – LDS Quorum of the Seventy member Bernard P. Brockbank, The Ensign, May 1977, p. 26g

    President Spencer W. Kimball wrote: “Long before you were born a program was developed by your creators … The principal personalities in this great drama were a Father Elohim, perfect in wisdom, judgment, and person, and two sons, Lucifer and Jehovah.” (Teachings of Spencer W. Kimball, p. 32-33).
    James Talmage explains who Jehovah is: “Jesus Christ was Jehovah…Jesus Christ, who is the Jehovah of the Old Testament” (Doctrines of Salvation, vol.1, p.11,27).

    fairmormon.org goes to Herculean lengths to avoid describing Jesus and Satan as peers, but it also gives us this wonderful chestnut:
    “The Father is understood to be the literal father of His spirit children.”
    …
    “God the Father also had many other spirit children, created in His image and that of His Only Begotten. These children include all humans born on the earth.”

    (Either somebody doesn’t know what “literal” means, or my Da has some explaining to do.)

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