The Speech
Thought provoking question (hopefully)- Would John Galt's speech have any impact if given in modern times? I am doing my yearly reading of AS, and that question kept percolating in my mind. Not whether it is right of wrong, good or evil, but would it have any impact? I'm questioning this from two different angles. First, in today's partisan team sport of politics and economics, would he simply be labeled as a member of one team, and ignored by the others? Second, and sadder, would the vast majority of humans today have the attention span to listen to it in its entirety? In our modern 30 second sound bite world, would anyone actually stay tuned in long enough to gain from it, or simply tune out and wait for someone to interpret it for them? Of course, even in the book, most listeners missed the point, and simply wanted to abdicate their decision making to Galt instead of their current leaders, but it did have an impact. I am pessimistic that it would have any impact today. Thoughts?
Previous comments...
IMO, The Speech is almost totally irrelevant to the book itself, and yet. not.
Long day on commenting online, exclusively in this great site, so I'll keep it short (I hope):
In total honesty, I've always "spread the word", for the most part, by saying to those I thought rational: "Read this book, Atlas Shrugged".
But I also said, "read the story, don't feel obliged to read the speech in full, the story is the point".
I still stand by that.
I have read the entire speech in retrospect. After all of Rand's non-fiction...so informative...to a degree. In truth, just a precursor to her brilliant later non-fiction works...
But for a first-reader, a fictional "average" listener on the radio in the book, or a movie...
No.
[edited for clarification]