Comment by irishcoffee
8 hours ago
Yeah, that and Atlas Shrugged, but mentioning that book is a magnet for dissention.
Edit: I was correct, and I don't understand why. Was AS somehow twisted for political reasons? It's a great book.
8 hours ago
Yeah, that and Atlas Shrugged, but mentioning that book is a magnet for dissention.
Edit: I was correct, and I don't understand why. Was AS somehow twisted for political reasons? It's a great book.
Atlas Shrugged (and the fountainhead) is like a superhero comic book where the almighty good guys fight the flat, faceless "bad guys" with pure and fully justified moral righteousness. The "bad guys" are a slobbering caricature of a boogeyman that everyone can easily despise - wanting to do nothing except take from others like a bridge troll or a grey goo disaster scenario.
Nothing wrong with that I suppose but the second someone implies it has something to say about real life capitalists or social welfare or anything else then it gets weird; that makes as much sense as any of the marvel movies helping you decide how to vote for exactly the same reason.
I expect it's for this reason you're being downvoted - these books are often used as a motte and baily to imply something about real life (or often to ironically excuse their own selfish/bad behavior) and they just don't hold up for that in my opinion.