10.18.17
From the book, "Why Things Are Falling Apart", a quote:
"...the unbridled pursuit of self-interest will magically lead to an optimum economy and society."
Or, "no man is an island". That may sound socialistic, but socialism is also flawed for the same reason. "Nobody does the right thing".
The original post follows:
Most likely you have heard of the saying "don't shoot the messenger" for bad news. The story goes like this: the King didn't like the message, so he shoots the messenger. Well, to sum it up shortly about this movie, don't shoot the message because of the messenger. The message has a good point, however, it is the way it was delivered in the movie was not so good.
I wanted to like this movie, you see. Our world is a lot like what this movie was supposed to be about. Our world, meaning the US, is falling apart at the seams. Shifting back to the movie, this aforementioned world was supposed to be falling apart because John Galt was "stopping the engine of the world" with a capitalistic strike. Atlas was shrugging because of the unrealistic demands of a socialistic government was crushing him with burdens that were killing him. Atlas was the force that made everything work, his absence meant the world must fall apart. Atlas was saving himself and letting the world sink into ruin. He relinquished any responsibility for its demise and put his own needs ahead of the others. In other words, the world can go to hell. The individual comes first.
I liked that concept when I first read the book. I have come to a different opinion today.
Trouble is with this concept, I have come to believe that that's pretty much why we are in the mess we are in. Here's why: There has to be a sense of self not only in an individual, but in the group in which he belongs. Man cannot just live for himself. For if he does, his world will cease to exist. What better way to describe what is happening to the West and the US these days. It's every man for living for himself and himself alone. This is true even when it may seem otherwise. Even if it is vehemently denied by those who practice socialism.
Once again, that doesn't mean that the message is all bad. For there is a philosophical underpinning to individualism, as depicted by Rand's philosophy, that will allow a society to exist as a society. That society based upon the concept of free exchange. It eschews compulsion of the collective in favor of a free exchange of values-for-values from individuals. Such a society could exist as such, but does not exist today in the West or in the USA. For the rather extreme individualism is what leads to such phenomena as same-sex marriage and abortion. Society must procreate in order to survive the end of a generation. In the kind of society that we have now, the individual will not want to do that for he must give up something of himself for that to occur. Thus, the society dies out.
When John F. Kennedy said in his inaugural, "ask not what your country can do for you, but what you can do for your country", he was expressing the obligation of the individual to his community. That sense of obligation is very tenuous in our culture now. Perhaps a lot of it died in Vietnam.
Unfortunately, that part of the message, if it exists, gets lost in this flawed presentation. It is assumed to occur by itself with Rand's philosophy, evidently. This notion of what it takes to make a nation wasn't developed in the movie nearly enough, so you really don't know if there is an adequate explanation for how that can occur.
The movie also has other perhaps more obvious flaws. I really didn't believe that actors nor the plot. If the world is falling apart, then why do so many things seem to work so well? Sure, there are things that fall apart, but you don't see this affecting overall conditions like you know they must in order to accept the premises. Your suspension of belief just doesn't get suspended enough. Not to mention that some of the actors just were not good enough. For example, I didn't believe the performance of the guy that Jim Taggart ( Dagny's brother ) hires to take Dagny's place when she decides to go on leave. He couldn't pull off the character. Besides that, I really didn't like that lack of continuity from the first film. Too many new actors and actresses.
There should have been a ton of artistic license in this movie in order to make it work. Instead, it sticks too closely to the book while the book is way out of date. For example, there aren't many passenger railroads today in the US. There were when the book was released in the fifties. That pretty much makes it implausible, and then you have another failure in your suspension of disbelief. That problem could have been solved by just making the movie follow the book a lot more loosely and perhaps that would have allowed the message to survive.
But the message gets killed by a flawed movie and that's a shame.
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