Watching Atlas Shrugged:

My Struggle (and rise) as a Fascist Looter.

How I Got My Start:

I tried to take the high road and give it a chance. I really did. But then I had tried as much with Rand and The Virtue of Selfishness, but got so nauseous by the third essay, I had to put it down. And nothing I further read or heard about her tempered my disgust. Certainly not the movie biopic, the Passion of Ayn Rand, in which she has an affair with an intern after telling her husband and the intern’s girlfriend what they were going to do. That only came across as some kind of psychopathic notion of enlightened honesty and the self indulgence of a narcissistic bitch: the kind of woman that would eat her babies as a peer once pointed out. And I had assumed my sentiment to be common among the creative community. So imagine my surprise when I read that Atlas Shrugged was being made into a movie in an article that gave the misleading impression that Angelina Jolie was backing it. But then why not? God only knows what runs through that chick’s mind. One sometimes gleams a hint of the psychopathic in that icy glare: the poutty lips and that narrowing of the eyes as they zero in on the kill. Still, it seemed odd that the alleged Hollywood liberal elite would even consider it.

My curiosity took root and only intensified upon seeing a clip where Hank Reardon declares his utter indifference to the poor. For some reason, I got the impression that it would be one of those moody independent films like The Blue Rose Hotel. But in my scheme it was a sort of cyberpunk Trojan horse in which subtle critique is cleverly concealed within tribute. Plus that, there was always the possibility of being surprised. I had always been impressed when talent from the other side managed to present old school and Christian values in a way that was digestible and empathetic enough to temper my own extremes and revise my mental concepts. Such sensibilities, even if I didn’t share them, could clearly be presented in a dignified and non-sanctimonious manner as in the movie A River Runs Through It, Robert Duvall in such roles as Rambling Rose and Second Hand Lions, the work of Terrence Malick, and, hating on chairs aside, Clint Eastwood’s classicist/conservative approach to filmmaking. So when I kept coming across it on Netflix, it was only a matter of time before I would set aside my political leanings, push the play button, resolve to not tarnish my intellectual integrity with petty heckling, and give the woman, her story, and her position their day in court. But then authentic Christian/classical values are something quite different than Capitalist ones.

It was a matter of minutes before the hope dissipated and I found myself reeling in shock and astonishment at the second (if not third) rate production values. Many critics compared it to a TV mini-series. But I would equate it with the cheap B movies that are sometimes made for the ScyFy channel or shown on Fear Net. The only difference was that those films were generally innocuous enough to serve as mindless entertainment –something you stick with while rolling your eyes just to see if it ends in the way you predict. Atlas Shrugged, on the other hand, took the mean-spirited and paranoid route of conspiracy theory or holocaust denial: less the individual perspective that constitutes a work of art and more like war to anyone with a non-pathological sense of reality. I even began to suspect, perhaps out of denial, that what I was watching was not the theatrical release, but some made for TV knockoff much like the miniseries of Steven King’s The Shining, that which stuck closer to the book at the expense of the production values, creativity, and style of Kubrick’s version. Even when I recognized the clip where Reardon expresses his indifference to the poor, I wondered if it wasn’t just another version of a key moment in the book. It just seemed odd that something like it would even be released in theaters, that some marketer would not have recognized that it might have made a better debut (it basically flopped with critics and the box office) in a more appropriate medium such as TV or straight to DVD. However, the more I watched and learned about it, the harder the possibility pressed itself: that ideological forces overrode business sense and the agents behind it thought they had something more than they actually did.

But I hung on anyway because between the cheesy production, the second rate special effects, and the one dimensional portrayals amplified by the talky ideology-laden dialogue, I had no choice but to focus on the message that was more or less being shoved down my throat. And while this approach seemed a little… okay, a lot heavy-handed in Kevin Smith’s Dogma, and while I can now sympathize with the offense that Catholics must have felt in the face of that film, it gets really heavy handed and unsympathetic when you’re facing the equivalent of a master expecting the sympathy of the slave. It was becoming less about aesthetics and more about ideology, and a challenge I couldn’t refuse.

My resolve continued to slip as a heavy handed contrast emerged between the protagonists and antagonists. In one corner of this mythical confrontation was the protagonists, Hank Reardon and Dagny Taggart, the respective heads of Reardon Steel and Taggart Transcontinental (a railway company), and champions of a miracle alloy that is lighter while being stronger; and in the other: the antagonists, those petty and bumbling government bureaucrats and rich quasi-socialists suffering from liberal guilt, the “looters” who skulked about plotting against the Promethean efforts of the supposed heroes, Reardon and Taggart. And as impressed as I was supposed to be by their heroics, I only found that awe undermined by the underlying message. Where I was suppose to hear stoic resolve, I only heard whining:

“Why is everyone picking on me? Am I not the driver of progress? The job creator?”

In Rand’s world, apparently, no one understands them. The only surprise was that the antagonists didn’t have Hitleresque toothbrush mustaches they could stroke as they contemplated their schemes and future victories. They were just short of it -and actually made the connection later in the series. But I hung on anyway. Then…

In hindsight, I’m not really sure what it was that set me off. I had seen the same kind of plot device in other movies: one to several people struggle for something until they come to a moment when their persistence pays off and it all comes together. It’s a common and still effective motif in movies. But when Taggart and Reardon were riding alone on that train, to make their point about the safety of the Reardon steel used for the rails, and that triumphant music was playing in the back while the viewer was treated with a panorama of grand vistas, I felt it welling up. But when they came to that bridge gleaming in the sun, the one that Reardon had promised he could build in 3 weeks… that was it. I had to throw down. It could have been how hokey it all seemed. It could have been the forced attempt to equate the beauty of nature with the beauty of Capitalism. It could have even been, as many RandHeads would have it: jealousy. But that neglects the many times I have found the approach effective in other movies where characters have done things beyond my capabilities -sometimes to the point of choking up or, if drunk enough, tears. Or it could have been my disgust at the sheer gall of thinking I could be manipulated into seeing the errors of my ways and prostrating myself before the glory of Capitalism. I could literally imagine a true believer (a Rand Head) standing behind me and shrieking triumphantly:

“You see it? Do you see it now?”

From that point to the end of part one (the story was divided, in Lord of the Rings fashion, into three parts with the third one pending), it was a self degrading frenzy of eye rolling and heckling my computer –when I’m not sure the poor thing deserved it. Meanwhile, the movie did everything it could to encourage my behavior. For instance, there was the heavy handed explanation that Rearden provided for the demise of the 20th Century Motor Company. Apparently, it was due to everyone getting pay raises based on need rather than merit. This was later reinforced by a loyal Taggart employee who explained to Dagny that new management had run it into the ground with new ideas about treating it like one big family. The question, though, was what factory (in reality that is) was it suppose to resemble. Granted, many companies will simplify things by granting raises through across the board percentages. But a percentage means that those who have been there longer will be gaining more. And, as far as I know, the way the more ambitious bypass that is by working their way up the ladder through promotion. But, once again: what profit seeking corporation would even consider such an approach? Of course, the preposterous nature of this slippery slope only foreshadowed the Kafkaesque labyrinth of bumbling and petty bureaucrats, and their policies, that grew more absurd as it went along.

But the bigger issue was Rand’s well-known propensity towards the heroic and mythological coupled with her clear disgust for her antagonists. Her influence by Shakespeare made itself more and more apparent as it went along, which seems strange given Shakespeare’s clarity on the corruption of power. What resulted was a vacillation between a comic book approach and a classical propensity towards speechmaking. On one hand, there were lines of dialogue that sounded like something off a Lichtenstein painting such as when James Taggart, an antagonist by virtue of his wanting to serve “the public good”, advised his sister, Tagny:

“You can’t leave. It’s a violation of the directive.”

Or this line by Reardon (typical of the false dilemma the story presented) as he stomped away from an agent of the State Scientific Agency:

“One of these days, you’re going to have to decide which side your on.”

Even the repetition of the line “Who is John Galt?”, which threaded throughout the narrative and was passed about like some cultish inside joke, as well as the mystery character himself who went about collecting high achievers like a shepherd gathering his flock, took on a hokey comic book aura.

On the other hand, there were these Shakespearian dialogues that, for the too obvious purpose of effect, seemed delegated to the more heroic characters. Esai Morales, for instance, as Francisco d’Anconia, skulked about like some modern Iago, shaman-like, dispensing wisdom in resonant soliloquies on the folly of fools who do not know what they do and the unrecognized wisdom of Lassie Faire Capitalism:

“When money seizes to be the tool of men by which men deal with other men, then men become the tools of other men.”

And this might have seemed a poignant point if it wasn’t for the fact that no one I know of is trying to get rid of money and that, as anyone who is not self-employed would know, even with money men are the tools of other men. This Shakespearean element got even more vulgar in Part Two with the heroics of Hank Reardon as he stood before court accused of violating the “Fair Share Act”, that which imposed a limit on how much one company can sell to another –another act committed by petty, bumbling bureaucrats that eluded me as to what the purpose would be.

“I do not recognize this court,” he stated in bold defiance, then proceeded to indict government policies that could not, in any dimension, exist. At one point, at the mention of “the public good”, he responded, yet again, with the same smug disregard he did earlier:

“I do not recognize the good of others as justification of my existence.”

And let’s be fair here. Robert Reich makes a convincing point, in SuperCapitalism, that we cannot expect corporations to act as moral agents. They exist solely to create profit for their shareholders. It is government that must serve as check and balance to corporate power. But then, it is government, regardless of what function it serves, that Rand and the moviemakers wanted to undermine. At another point, Reardon proceeded to frame the “public good” in terms of being defined by:

“….those who would regulate and define us in our businesses and homes by stealing our liberty.”

Of course, at this point the crowd broke into the cheers of the converted. But then, who wouldn’t? Who isn’t concerned about their personal liberty? The problem was that Reardon’s point was a little hard to assimilate with the fact that, in our world (the real one), the primary agent of social control (under the encouragement of the health insurance industry) has pretty much been our employers through drug testing, smoking policies, and increasingly wellness programs. But then I wasn’t in that world, was I? I was in Rand’s world. Reardon then proceeded to describe the benefits provided by corporations, such as job creation and technological progress, while the crowd cheered and the court slammed their hammer and screamed:

“Silence! Or the court will be cleared!”

The cliché continued as the court, recognizing that they could not turn Reardon into a martyr, decided to sentence him to 10 years in prison then, in light of his achievements, suspend it. And note the irony here in that while this was a clear reference to the kind of double-speak we’ve gotten too use to out of government, in the real world, we’re equally inured to it by corporate PR and spin. This was then punctuated by the following scene in which Dagny played cheer squad and told Reardon that he had provided a voice to the people. But what people exactly? The rich? Those who are ignorant enough to believe that their personal freedom is dependent on the freedom of the rich and powerful to do as they please?

Of course, you can get away with a lot in a movie if the comedic effects work. But this depends on character-defining wit. However, when this is applied to character built around a questionable and unsympathetic ideology, what results is a lot of lame humor. To give you a sense of it, think of the kind you see on church billboards, the heavy handed attempts at cleverness that can only fall flat and roll the eyes of anyone but the true believer, but addressed to the same kind of dogmatic certainty displayed throughout this love letter to Capitalism. At one point, Dagny Taggart, faced with an employee who drones “Who is John Galt?”, responds:

“Don’t ask that question if you can’t answer it.”

And it was these kinds of references to the mock heroics and above-the-fray nature of the main characters that were suppose to seduce me throughout it all. At another point, Taggart and a scientist played by Dietrich Bader plot to research a supposed super-battery that, as we are to understand it, only the private sphere is capable of making happen. When Taggart inquired as to where the plan would be carried out, the scientist assured her, in the conspiratorial way meant to suggest a couple of lovable rascals, that he can use his state funded lab to study it and that she shouldn’t worry since they have the best night watch there is: him. What poetic justice: the state’s failures are what allow the private sphere to carry out its own more heroic efforts. But the most telling came when a CEO and political candidate snarled when his train was stopped:

“I swear, if this train doesn’t make my campaign stop in San Francisco, I’ll make it my personal priority to nationalize this railroad.”

This was then followed by the drunken wit of a fellow traveler in a British accent:

“History shows that it is the only way to make the trains run on time.”

Get it? Nazi Germany? Trains running on time? Unfortunately, for the movie, the real humor laid in what those behind it wanted me to take seriously. At one point, CEOs and government officials are filmed walking, with expressions of serious intent, to a board meeting in (can you guess?) slow motion. The only thing missing was the hard beat and crunchy guitar from Kill Bill Volume One in the club scene with Lucy Lui’s crew. But the continuous joke throughout it all was the way plot line built not through suspense, but rather through of the heavy handed manner in which Rand’s message was being relayed through the escalation of the ludicrous. This tendency peaked, appropriately, at the very end of Part One when Ellis Wyatt, before leaving with Galt, left his newly discovered natural gas field in flames and a note that said:

“I’m leaving it as I found it.”

Really? So now we know how he came into it. Apparently, he just wandered upon a burning field that no one else had noticed, put out the flames, and had his redneck self a natural gas field. And again, doesn’t there seem to be an underlying whininess about it: the feel of a child throwing a fit?

Part two, in Peter Jackson/Lord of the Rings style, was almost admirable in the way it maintained the thread of absurdity and kept it building to the most preposterous moment yet: the introduction of Directive 10-289. In a scene that was clearly meant to chill my progressive ambitions, the President (played by Ray Wise) made a televised announcement of new policies that would make no sense in a purely communist regime, much less a democratic one. And in order to direct me as to how I was supposed to feel, there was everyone in the nation, rich and poor alike, watching with dropped jaws of shock and disgust. Among the policies were total bans on firing employees or employees quitting or changing their jobs, wage freezes, all companies surrendering their patents in the form of gift certificates, and a mandate on everyone to spend the same amount of money they had the year before. Of course, in a perfect world where the government wasn’t so far up corporate ass as to actually act in the behalf of people, this might, at best, seem like a legitimate slippery slope. But how would wage freezes and bans on quitting or changing a job serve that purpose? In fact, what purpose would it serve under any circumstance? Forcing entrepreneurs to give up their hard earned patents would be a disincentive to new discovery. Even a Social Democrat and looter like me knows that. And the government has nothing on the market when it comes to forced consumption as anyone would know who, due to a lack of public transportation, has to maintain a car in order to get to work, or finds themselves in need of healthcare, or paying more for basic services such as TV which, by the way, use to be free, or generally wants to function in contemporary society. The only thing missing from the whole scene was the low, eerie hum of a synthesizer and someone shrieking at the president:

“Oh my God! It’s a white Obama!”

From that pivotal point on, the denouement proceeded with a montage style breakdown that consisted of anti-corporation protesters, having been schooled in the principle of unintended consequences, turning anti-government, and Tagny pursing her scientific ally in a plane, having lost him to Galt, crashing, and, in the final scene, finally meeting the man himself: John Galt.

However, the real money shot, for both the mentality behind the movie and for me in its lame attempt at grim irony like that of the ending to Altman’s Nashville, came with a bum sitting on a curve in the midst of the chaos, a sort of Nietzschian madman, writing on a piece of wood shaped like a gravestone:

America:

Born: 1776

Died: Yesterday.

How I Faltered and the Plot Thickened:

I mean: why? Why did they even go through with this? Who would push such a project? They had to have seen how badly the whole project was developing. Wouldn’t the stilted dialogue have been a clue? Were the Koch brothers behind it? It just seemed self defeating to showcase Rand’s work and thought in such a hokey and ridiculous manner. I found myself going back to the theory that what the producers were actually doing was offering up a combination of tribute and critique of the book. But that might have made a good movie. The only other possibility was that they were undermining it, in a backdoor kind of way, by presenting it in the most distasteful manner possible. But that seemed an incredible risk of money without marketing it and actually presenting it as satire. And, of course, there was the most obvious possibility of the project being pushed as propaganda by corporate interests or a right wing think tank.

By Part Two, I had calmed down and found myself playing the game of “why these actors would involve themselves?” And this was mainly because the cast from Part One had been completely replaced with what, as far I could tell, were more familiar faces. There was Richard T. Jones utilizing the same stoic loyalty as Dagny’s assistant that he did in Judging Amy and Paul McCrane portraying the same obnoxious worm, as a government official, that he did in ER. And the inclusion of these two suggested that they had been chosen, like character actors, for their perfect fit based on these previous roles. And further research showed that, unlike An American Carol where all the actors had some association with the Republican Party, there was nothing to indicate that any of these had any ideological affinity to the story itself. Nor was there any indication that they were lacking for work and participated out of desperation. The only conclusion I could come to is that they were just minor actors who took whatever work was available to them and stood little to lose by it: the immunity to career suicide that comes from being a minor actor. This especially seemed the case with Ray Wise, as Head of State Thompson, who, having gotten notice in David Lynch’s Twin Peaks, seems to show up everywhere, regardless of quality, and keeps showing up due to his unique physical characteristics. He’s hardly a precious diva when it comes to his art. And given that possibility, I had to wonder if such character actors such as Danny Trejo and William Forsyth might show up in the third installment. That said, though, I couldn’t help but suspect that Esai Morales took the part to brush up on his Shakespearian chops, while Deidrich Bader took it to break from his more air headed roles and write complex mathematical formulas on glass, just like he saw Russell Crowe do on A Beautiful Mind.

Still, there was the question of what happened to the first cast. John Aglialoro, the driving force behind the series, implied that the cost of hiring the cast from Part One exceeded Part Two’s budget and added that Taylor Schilling, Dagny in Part One, had become a bona fide star. This was immediate cause for suspicion since I hadn’t heard of or seen much of her. However, as a little researched showed, she had since appeared in the movie The Lucky One and the Netflix Series, Orange is the New Black. But how did that make her anymore inaccessible or expensive than Esia Moralas, Ray Wise, or Diedrich Bader? And Aglialoro wouldn’t be the first executive to spin something. So there was still the possibility of what, in some deep, dark, and petty element of my psyche, would have given me the satisfaction of the sanctimonious: that the first cast, having seen what a flop they had participated in, jumped ship, or the less pleasurable one of the producers abandoning them in the hopes of getting it right the next time. Or it could have been a combination of both.

Unfortunately, the real history offered less leeway for self indulgence and sanctimony than I would have liked. After I got past my own expectations, and the propensity to read them into this, I found the truth to be a little less sinister. First of all, it was a project that took 30 plus years to be realized, starting in 1972 when Albert S. Ruddy approached Rand with the idea, which she agreed to on the condition that it focus on the love story between Reardon and Taggart and that she had final script approval. However, Ruddy rejected the offer and the deal fell through. It was then proposed as a 8 hour mini-series, but fell through again due to a CEO change. Rand even attempted a screenplay, but misfortune followed the project when she died 1/3 of the way through it. After yet several more setbacks, Aglialoro, an investor and co-writer to the script that finally got used, obtained the rights in 1992 only to suffer several more setbacks (including losing the commitment of Angelina Jolie, Julia Roberts, Charlize Theron, and Anne Hathaway to play Dagny) until the movie went into production in 2010 and was released in 2011. The hope was that Part One would finance the making of Part Two. But that, due to bad critical and box office reception, didn’t happen. However, Aglialoro and conspirators would not be discouraged and they somehow managed to scrape together an even bigger budget for Part Two only to create an even bigger flop. And as would be expected, the criticism it received was contingent on the individual’s ideological position. Most critics, being of a liberal or moderate lean, bludgeoned it with some caveats such as the look of the film and the casting choices in Part Two. But the most insightful criticism came from the A.V. Club:

"The irony of Part II’s mere existence is rich enough: The free market is a religion for Rand acolytes, and it emphatically rejected Part I.”

Reception in the Conservative press was, as we would expect, generally more positive while being more mixed than one might expect. Fox New’s Sean Hannity and Jon Stossel, along with critics from conservative journals, sang its praises , while others were a little more reserved in recognizing the bad production values while recommending it for the message. But a point needs to be made here, one I have neglected, in that not every conservative would necessarily advocate this series or the ideological extremes that Rand goes to. William F. Buckley Jr., for instance, rejected the book itself on the grounds of its underlying objectivism. It would serve us here to make an important distinction made by Thom Hartman between your everyday conservative and the Neo-Con, or what he referred to as a Con. As I have learned, throughout my intellectual process, conservatism can mean any number of things depending on which conservative you’re talking to, and even if I disagree with it in general, it is far too complex to warrant, across the board, the venom I have focused on this particular extreme.

As it stands now, Part Three is slated to appear in the summer of 2014. And given the struggles and dramatic turns this project has gone through, it will be interesting to see if it does. The making of it has become a kind of narrative in itself –one that, like a cheap B movie, you can’t help but follow through with to see how it turns out. There will, of course, be the true believers that will try (much as Aglialoro did) to pass these struggles off as the result of a Hollywood leftist conspiracy. It was the critics that killed it; not the quality of the movie. And we have to attribute some credibility to this argument. Creative people, at least those in the arts, do tend to be more liberal. This is because their chosen pursuit requires that they be a little sympathetic and sensitive to the complexity of a given character or personality type. I, myself, have long felt it to be cornerstone of my creative process to recognize that, if I look deep enough into myself, there isn’t anyone I can’t at least empathize with, if not sympathize, no matter how despicable. Still, what did they expect? Aglialoro had to of anticipated resistance from the so-called Hollywood liberal elite. And no more than I could hope to get through to the true believers with this, how could they think this series would get through to the very people they are, with an air of disgust, referring to as “Looters”? How well would that work if people on my side of the fence referred to rich people and the true believers as “Hoarders”? How much corporate sponsorship could they hope to solicit?

In the end though, I had to eat a little crow in having to admit that it wasn’t pimped by corporations, or a right wing think tank, for the sake of propaganda. And the Koch brothers, as far as I know, were not involved. Eventually, I had to admit, as much as I didn’t want to, that it was a labor of love. With time, I found myself making further concessions as I went back through both parts in a more lucid and calm state of mind. I found myself, having gotten past the initial sting, a little more sympathetic with Jack Hunter, from The American Conservative, who noted:

“If you ask the average film critic about the new movie adaptation of Ayn Rand’s Atlas Shrugged they will tell you it is a horrible movie. If you ask the average conservative or libertarian they will tell you it is a great movie. Objectively, it is a mediocre movie at best. Subjectively, it is one of the best mediocre movies you’ll ever see.”

Once I got past my predispositions and expectations, I found it to be not totally lacking in cinematic quality. And it did seem a little more sophisticated than most B movies in that, between Rand and those who behind the series, there was a clear awareness of just about every plot device that Hollywood had to offer –even if they came off as clichés. And Rand certainly seemed to know how to put a story together (how to structure it), which gives some credibility to the achievements she managed with other books such as The Fountainhead. So I can easily see how someone who was a little more sympathetic to the ideology, or even indifferent (or just plain oblivious), could enjoy it in the same mindless manner I might with some low budget film on ScyFy or Fear Net.

And while I have yet to well up as the train crosses the bridge, I also found myself with an inkling of sympathy for Hank Reardon. In the beginning of Part One, he gave his wife, Lillian Reardon a bracelet made of Reardon Steel, a rather appealing piece of work and admittedly thoughtful gift that reflected Hank’s commitment to his work and his high hopes for her future. However, Lillian, a gold digging looter who spends much of the story skulking about and plotting against her husband, takes it as a symbol of his egoism, scoffs, and eventually trades it with Dagny for a pearl necklace. And we have to recognize the semiology at work in that achievement is given privilege over materialism, and in the suggestion that Dagny’s common understanding of this is what underlies the chemistry between her and Reardon. Interestingly, though, it was Lillian that provided the one insightful line in the whole thing. In a confrontation between her and Hank, over the divorce he wanted but she wouldn’t consent to, she approached him, looked him straight in the eye, and said:

“I’m the one that knows you most. You’re an ordinary man who thinks he doesn’t owe anyone anything. But you do. You owe everyone.”

What was revealed, whether consciously or not on the part of those who produced this story (perhaps even Rand), is the natural force fallacy that haunted and compromised Reardon’s courtroom stand. What one needs to accept, that is in order to see his point as anything else than ludicrous, is the notion that it is perfectly natural for some to rise to the top even if it comes at the expense of others. And while we can agree with Reich that it is not the role of corporations to act as moral agents, we have to take pause when the question is asked:

“What do the rich owe us?”

The problem is the underlying assumption that the achiever acts in a vacuum, which is easy to do when Capitalism does such a effective job of mimicking a natural force and can be treated like an expression of nature (like the weather or death). But it’s not. It’s a human construct and, by virtue of that, an agreement. And as with any agreement, when it fails to work for all parties involved (or too few of them), it becomes a disagreement that warrants renegotiation. Second of all, in the real world, Reardon would not have created his wealth by himself. He would have built it on the productivity of labor and the purchases of consumers. So while he is not obligated to recognize the “public good” as justification for his existence (even though it actually is given that the “public good” was and is why we agree to Capitalism in the first place), he has every obligation to recognize it when it expresses itself through government policy –that is since his achievement was as dependent on that policy, via infrastructure, as anything. But then I’m speaking in terms of the real world where far less ludicrous forms of legislation are created and enforced. And doesn’t this interdependence between producer and consumer point to a major discrepancy between the real world and Rand’s? Throughout the story, we’re presented a scenario in which America is suffering from major economic distress, one that is unlikely to produce the consumer base necessary to support Reardon’s and Taggart’s activities. Where would the profits come from? It just seems that if such a scenario actually did exist, the only real struggle the main characters would have is avoiding bankruptcy.

And it gets more interesting, assuming this scene to be taken from the book, when we consider that Rand may have revealed an internal conflict that inadvertently gave the story a little depth. First of all, she clearly recognized that Capitalism was, in fact, not a natural force, but a human agreement that was vulnerable to further choices made by future agents. Otherwise, what would be the point? Why would she even feel the need to write Atlas Shrugged in order to “warn us”? And this just goes to a general inconsistency at work in the argument that results in a back and forth between Capitalism as an agreement that must be protected from the non-believers at all costs, and Capitalism as a natural force immune to all arguments against it -that is: dependent on which take happens to be convenient at the time. Furthermore, we get the feeling from this that Lillian, having broken through Hank’s denial concerning his dependency on others, is Rand’s worst nightmare due to a truth that Rand could not completely overcome. You have to wonder if Lillian did not serve as her evil alter-ego: a composite of common characteristics (ambition, materialism, and general narcissism) and Rand’s own doubts about herself.

But, in all fairness, we should consider the time in which Rand wrote Atlas Shrugged which was published in 1957. At the time, the cold war was heating up and there were Marxist elements that still bought into the egalitarian dream of Communism. Nor was she the only one concerned about this aspect of it as was demonstrated in Kirk Vonnegut’s short story, published in 1961, Harrison Bergeron. Plus that, she, like Smith and Marx, had no way of foreseeing the actual consequences of her push for deregulation much as we saw in the economic meltdown of 2007. However, this point fails to redeem those who started this series in 2010 and, in fact, strategically chose the release date of the first part for tax day and the second for the 2012 election thereby confirming the series’ status as propaganda.

And it’s not as if I’m completely unsympathetic with the ideology. I too recognize that “selfishness” is a term that tends to be bandied about by those who would selfishly insist that you focus on what it is they think you should be doing. Plus that, being a man of modest resources, I know what it’s like to be surrounded by people who either can’t do for themselves, or won’t, yet make demands that I’m expected to fulfill. Like Bill Maher, who expressed as much on Real Time, I too know what it’s like to feel like I’m the only one pulling the wagon while everyone else jumps in. But it’s always a little more complex than that. There is a big difference between deciding to balance one’s own needs with that of others and the plundering of taking what one wants regardless of who suffers. For one, what do we do with those who can’t do for themselves? Help them? Or do we take the more fascistic route of letting them die off? And it’s not like those that won’t lack for incentive or motivation. Working still seems to be a much better option than the hand to mouth existence I’ve seen such people get by on -social programs or not. But the most odious aspect of this is that Rand’s version of Capitalism acts as if society shedding this burden would magically make it disappear. What really happens, by not spreading the burden through social programs, is that it becomes more localized either through the crimes committed by the desperate, or the desperate that turn to those closest to them to survive. Take, for instance, the Tea Party justification for dismantling social security that refers back to the good old days when families took care of their elderly. The problem with this is that back then the elderly usually didn’t get so elderly because healthcare was less developed and effective (and life expectancy much lower) with the consolation of being less expensive. A stroke, heart attack, or cancer generally meant imminent death, not a lot of lingering around in a decrepit state. In other words, you were generally either healthy enough to take care of yourself, or dead. On top of that, a family could usually survive on one income, thereby leaving one parent, more often than not the wife, with the time to take care of the aged. And given that such a financial arrangement is no longer practical, I fail to see how such an approach could be conducive to “achievement”, which is supposedly the main issue here. But if we follow the reasoning through, we find that the only real achievement at stake is that of the Rand Head or Tea Bagger, since the possibility of achievement in their world would be contingent on either being fortunate enough to not have any relationships with those who cannot do for themselves, or even won’t, or being cruel enough to abandon them -that is unless you have the good fortune of having excess resources in the first place.

And it is the repeatedly proven failure, poverty, and outright cruelty of their policies that forces them to the misdirection that Atlas Shrugged represents. Such self-indulgence simply cannot be propped up through reason -that is since reason, a cooperative venture, must inherently involve a consideration of all interests involved. Instead it must work purely in the mode of rationalization, an inherently competitive venture that seeks to dominate the discourse by any means available. Hence the false dilemma (it’s either Capitalism or totalitarian Communism -take your choice) that neglects to get across how Liaise Faire Capitalism serves all our interests, downplays of its failures (the people dying due to lack of access to healthcare, food, or shelter, or ghettos and distressed environments that invariably exist under it), and emphasizes the evils of the looters who, we’re suppose to believe, want it all -which now strikes me as a kind of transference in that the greed and megalomania of the Capitalist is magically imposed upon the reformer. But let’s be clear on this: neither myself, nor anyone I can think of, want to strip the rich of all their assets and distribute BMWs in the ghettos. The notion that they do is utter nonsense. And had Rand, or the movie makers, taken such considerations into the balance, they might have achieved something more than propaganda. They might have created a decent story. But that, in a spectacular way, is not what happened.

The Comeback or how I Crossed My Bridge:

Of course, some true believers, those with the taste and the honesty to know bad cinema when they see it, would argue that it is unfair to judge Rand’s book, and the ideas behind it, on a badly made movie, that I should read the book. And outside of the most obvious objection, that the movie did little to inspire wading through a 1200 page book, there are a couple problems with this argument. For one, let’s imagine the movie made with top level talent. Let’s say George Clooney for Hank Reardon. I could see him play it with the mixture of drive, restraint, and civility that Rand seemed to want for this character. However, Clooney would play up the conflicts in more subtle ways, much as he did in Up in the Air. And this would have to include his stated indifference to the poor. He would have to find a way to smooth the vacillation between the likable Rearden and the smug, obtuse one. And that might include self doubt. For Dagny Taggart, any one of the actresses originally slated for the movie would work. Angelina Jolie could certainly play it hardnosed. As could Julia Roberts as was demonstrated in Charlie Wilson’s War where she played a right wing contributor to Senator Wilson’s agenda. But, for all the rough edges, Roberts had to play counter to Tom Hank’s humanity and make their compatibility seem realistic. Charlize Theron could certainly pull it off. And I don’t know enough about Anne Hathaway to comment. But they would also have to incorporate the Madonna –like character of Taggart. And it’s something we can be certain actresses of such a caliber would be willing to do. However, it would involve a little more than being nice to people who happen to serve their purposes. They might actually have to show a little reservation when witnessing the struggles of the poor. But regardless of who played what, it would require much better dialogue and a more rounded approach to the motivations of the main characters and those around them. And this would be especially true of the antagonists as no talented actor would choose to play the one dimensional villains portrayed. And this would likely require stepping outside of Rand’s original intent and message into a combination of tribute to those aspects of her thought that many can agree with, such as the value of achievement, and critique of those aspects many find repulsive. For instance, the main characters might have to be as fallible and prone to being wrong as they are heroic. And one thing good actors would not do, as Stallone has, and Costner back in his The Bodyguard days, is just tack those flaws onto their otherwise heroic behavior. Their flaws would have to be as intertwined in their character as their virtues. In other words, the greed and self indulgence would have to rear its ugly face.

And similar considerations would be at play concerning how the movie was made or by whom it was directed. Someone like Spielberg, for instance, would bring much better special effects into the mix and might approach it like he did War of the Worlds and jumble up time by setting it in the near future of 1957 when Atlas Shrugged was written. That would insulate it from the present and what we know now, thereby, making Rand’s predictions a little more palatable since the causality at work would be that of an imaginary world remote from our own. Plus that, it would effectively deal with something that bothered a lot of critics: the discrepancy between the movies economy, built around the railway, and our own digital economy. But Spielberg, like the actors, would want to mix it up. He too would want to dig into the multiplicity of motivations and circumstances and the conflicting ethical considerations. And once again, the only way to do so would be a subtle mix of tribute and critique.

Or it could be approached like a CGI remake of a graphic novel like Sin City or Sky Captain of Tomorrow. This would make it remote enough from our reality to preempt most comparisons between Rand’s slippery slope and the way things have actually turned out. The problem, of course, is that purposely making it all seem like a cartoon would only seem like mocking the seriousness of Rand’s message –at least to the true believers. It would lack the compromise that is characteristic of good art and risk becoming little more than propaganda for the other side. But if I had my choice, I would go with Neil Blomkamp. Given the point he made in the director’s comments for District 9 (and expanded on in Elysium), that anyone who wanted a look into the future only needed to go to Johannesburg where 5% of the population holds all the wealth while the other 95% lives in abject poverty, and given the portrayal of it he gave in the movie, he would seem qualified and willing enough to bring out something that was conspicuously missing in the first two parts of the series: the distressed environments and ghettos that would certainly surround the world of Reardon and Taggart.

But regardless of who participates or how the movie was made, such high level artists would insist that there be changes and additions to Rand’s original story in order to obtain the subtle complexity that distinguishes real art from propaganda. But then such a balanced perspective would not serve the tunnel vision and one sided perspective propping up the ideology. Such complexity would only raise the possibility that the only economic system that makes sense would be the one we’re already in, the hybrid economy, and that beyond that there is only the question of which aspects of its multiplicity should be either left where they are, and which should be moved closer to either the command or the market side of the spectrum.

Therein lies the core problem with the argument that it’s not Rand’s fault, but mine for not reading the book. While I may not be able to completely blame Rand for a badly made version of her story, what I can almost be certain of is that the story and message is hers. This would seem evident in the high praise given the series by true believers such as Hannity and Fossel. Plus that, this was a labor of love by true believers who would have little reason to alter the message. But, for me, it was most evident in the fact that I have heard the same arguments used a thousand times against any argument I have presented for anything less than a religious and dogmatic faith in the invisible hand of the market.

And this leads me to question whether Rand’s sensibility, and her zealous embrace of it, excludes her from the possibility of writing a classic. Once again, art’s distinguishing asset, especially as concerns storytelling, is its ability to capture the complexity and often conflicting forces at work in reality. It, more than any other medium, is equipped to deal with the multiplicity of motives and the emergent subtleties that can come into play in any confrontation. But Rand only sees one side, that of Capitalism, and stubbornly maintains a blind spot for the other. At best, she only offers caveats such as her apparent respect for the railway service tech (which is the equivalent of the token black or gay friend for xenophobes) and her willingness to portray the rich surrounding the main protagonists as looters along with government and the needy masses. Consequently, I can’t help but feel that the main source of this deficit lays in a seething contempt, rooted in her experiences in communist Russia, for the other that she struggles to contain for the sake of integrity -or the expectations she found herself surrounded by as a Hollywood writer. Furthermore, we should consider the distinction between fancy and imagination made by Coleridge. In fancy, we indulge the fantasies that emerge from our baser impulses and thereby give into simplistic notions concerning the monsters that inhabit them. With imagination, we utilize the cognitive in an attempt to understand those monsters as having recognizable and sometimes sympathetic motivations. And Rand, given the one dimensional portrayal of her antagonists and heroes, clearly settles for the fanciful. And while you can entertain people with such, art, sooner or later, requires imagination -not the caveats she sprinkles throughout the story. Paul Krugman makes a humorous but observant point on this:

“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.”

This becomes especially evident when we consider the main thread that ties it all together: John Galt, the enigmatic but shadowy figure that goes about like a shepherd gathering his flock of overachievers to take them to their promise land, a place where their efforts will be fully appreciated and nourished. But appreciated by who? And how does insulating oneself from the world nourish the creative impulses that arise from dealing with the problems presented by the world? And who exactly will there be to reward those accomplishments with money or applause? Lack of reward, after all, was the issue in the first place. They would, of course, have the appreciation of their peers. But would that be enough? As Nietzsche, an apparent influence on Rand, well knew: mediocrity, for all the frustration it might present, is as necessary to greatness as greatness is to it. There exists an interdependence between the two. But this seems to be a complete blind spot to Rand. This is why she can entertain this rather vindictive fantasy of Galt’s ultimate revenge: to stop the motor of the world, to punish the looters and show them the error of their ways by depriving them of the benefits of greatness and excellence. And how does she know that this will necessarily lead to the downfall? She bases this on the assumption that excellence can only flourish within the context of Laissez Faire Capitalism. But how does she know the challenges presented by a world without Galt’s flock wouldn’t stimulate those left behind to rise to their full creative potential and assure the survival of their community? And wouldn’t it be poetic justice to see the strike fail and Galt and flock skulking back to society, hoping to partake of the fruits of its efforts, much as the scientist, who had tried to undermine Reardon Steel, did with Dagny after her success with the John Galt line? Perhaps then the looters could engage in the same heavy-handed nobility by deflecting the pathetic concessions of the once great. And in the end, doesn’t Galt’s strike feel like the child-like fancy of holding one’s breath until they either get their way, or everyone’s face turns blue?

And it is this vindictiveness, coupled with Rand’s zealousness for her beliefs and her propensity towards fancy that undermines the aesthetic of the work. It appeals to beauty, but succumbs to propaganda. It’s as if she is less concerned with convincing anyone of anything than rallying the true believers. She plays on the internal feedback loop of the cult dynamic. And in her Gecko-like world where greed, if not good, is acceptable for the sake of achievement, and altruistic notions such as the public good are spat out with snarls of disgust, a world where there are only the achievers and the looters, and in which we can assume most of us to be the latter, you have to wonder how much we are suppose care or feel for the main characters, to what extent we are suppose to share in the triumph of Reardon and Taggart as the train crosses the bridge. But then it wasn’t sympathy or care that Rand wanted us to feel, was it? It was, rather, awe: the very awe that subjects of the past were suppose feel for their monarch.

This is evident in Dagny’s relationship with a service tech from Taggart Railway. Rand, like most who argue for Laissez Faire Capitalism, was prudent in including the common man in her vision. As Deleuze and Guattarri point out: no tyrranny could exist in a vacuum. They always have to insulate themselves from those they would exploit by creating a cushion of loyal and well compensated benefactors. This is what Malcolm X was talking about when he referred to the house slave -in terms a little harsher than mine. But what he pointed out was that in the days of slavery, the slave owner would keep one family of closer to the house and give them advantages the others would not have. That way, when one of the lesser slaves started to get uppity and talk about rebelling or escaping, the house slave would be right there arguing that such acts of dissent could only make things worse. And one could easily see the RandHead fawning over this particular employee: complacent to the point of easy going, dedicated to his job, and perfectly willing, as an ex-employee of Twentieth Century Company, to reiterate Reardon’s explanation of its demise –not to mention his casual awe at finding himself in the presence of Dagny. After he explains to her where the scientist who created the super battery was, she asks if she can take his truck to which he responds in yet another lame attempt at humor that plays on the dogma of private property:

“Sure, it’s yours anyway.”

Of course, Dagny rewards this loyalty, as most employers do (?), by telling her other loyal sidekick, Eddie, to get that employee another truck since (another stab at humor) she stole his and to triple his salary. But we really need to look at the semiology at work here. What one might see in this employee is the one non-achiever that manages to avoid the tag of being a looter: someone perfectly willing to just do what their told and not question the forces at work in their life: the ideal producer/consumer. In other words, what is being praised here is conformity. And this seems a little strange and contradictory given that Rand, throughout her career, pushed her ideology under the banner of some radical form of freedom. She argued as if she were championing what was best for all. But the only vision that seems to be at work is a world in which the achievers, unobstructed, can enjoy the full fruits of their labors, while those that can’t complacently accept their position in life for the sake of the higher principle of Capitalism.

Despite all that, allow me to indulge in a cheap narrative device (that of the gratuitous plot twist) and actually plug the series and say that I look forward to Part Three, if for no other reason than to see how ludicrous it can get. And I would also confess that I do so, in part, in the pure Randian spirit of self interest. Why wouldn’t I? Those that do will understand and appreciate the preceding essay all that more? Furthermore, I would implore Netflix not to take my 1 star rating as an inducement to take the series off their catalogue. It was their user critiques that inspired this. With most films I didn’t like, I wouldn’t even bother. And I generally find negative criticism to be a little self indulgent in that it becomes more about the critic than the thing being criticized. But this case is special. And because of that, I would argue that it is Netflix’s social duty to keep it available as an ideological artifact, something to be approached in the same negative sense of Reefer Madness, the thought of John Calvin, and Mein Kampf. And while the series may not exactly represent Rand’s thought, story, and ideology, it clearly represents the mentality that has evolved from it. And in that sense, it is every bit as significant and culturally important as the book itself.

Furthermore, I would encourage everyone to see it –even at the risk of reinforcing the belief system behind it. While Roger Ebert expressed disappointment that the low quality of Part One preempted a healthy discussion around the work and ideas of Rand, I would respectfully disagree and reiterate that it may well be the ideology itself that preempted the possibility of a good movie. And that, in itself, is cause for discourse and contention.

Now for my fellow looters, my progressive and moderate peers, I would appeal to their forgiving nature and ask that they bear with it until they find themselves immune to the initial sting of insult and bad taste and find in it what I have: a sense of clarity about the other, the encouragement to set aside one’s self-questioning and open mindedness and recognize bad reasoning when one sees it, and the recognition that when even the boundaries of common sense have been transgressed, one can no longer afford the luxury of being a noble or beautiful soul. We can no longer afford the relativity of acting like it is just one opinion among others. This, via global warming and the empire of globalization, can actually end up destroying civilization as we know it.

As for the true believers, the Rand and Ditto-heads who have invaded, throughout much of my intellectual life, a large part of my audio and ideological space with droning repetitions of Randian scripture and the unquestioning praise of producer/consumer Capitalism, many of which I have found to be otherwise decent people (some to the point of dear friends), I can, on one hand, see it as a just form of therapy or deprogramming in that given the task, the best method would be to strap them to a chair and force them to watch this nonsense, repeatedly, with the added effect of interspersing it with ad-like spots, made by real talent, that describe the misery and devastation their perspective has caused. Maybe then, after enough of it, they’ll develop some taste, then a clue, then hopefully, just hopefully, a social conscience. One can only hope that it might lead to an epiphany and recognition of what is effectively a sickness and form of addiction to producer/consumer Capitalism, and that this break from denial will force them to see their belief system for what it is: not so much reason as reason in the service of baser impulses. Maybe then they’ll see that referring to someone as “looters” is as much as calling them “rats” or “cockroaches” and goes to the same effect of reducing the other to an undesirable which must be overcome to achieve some erroneous notion of perfection. But more important is the hope that they’ll see Rand’s thought and Atlas Shrugged for what it is: the propaganda of the self indulgent and sociopathic, the hegemony that would blind us to the exploitation of those impulses, and the fancies that emerge from them, for the sake of advantage and power. On the other hand, many of “those people” are dear friends who are far more than their ideologies. Therefore, in my more rational moments, I lean towards forgoing strapping them to a chair. Still: I would recommend the series in the remote hope that they’ll see how absurd and disturbing some of the reasoning is to their dear friend. Maybe then they’ll think less in terms of defending their corner at all costs and, while not surrendering to my position on it (that would just be scary), recognize Atlas Shrugged for the dangerous extreme it is.