Galt's Gulch

So...What is Atlas Shrugged?

Posted by awebb 10 years ago to Entertainment
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*** SPOILER ALERT: If you have not yet read the book, you may want to skip this post. ***

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When asked "What is Atlas Shrugged?", how do you typically respond? An epic novel by Ayn Rand? A story of a dystopian society where the best among us are disappearing? The greatest book ever written?

We're looking for the clearest, most concise, and most compelling answers to help promote the message of Atlas and the film.

So Gulch... what exactly is Atlas Shrugged? Submit a comment on this post with your answer or vote on the answer you think is best. The best answers just might be used on upcoming ASP3 promotional materials and, if your answer is used, you’ll get a special thanks in the credits of the film “Atlas Shrugged: Who is John Galt?”

This is your chance to not only help spread the word about Ayn Rand and what Atlas Shrugged symbolizes but also... to forever be a part of Atlas Shrugged history.

How long should your answer be? No longer than 15 seconds to say/read. Think of it as an “elevator pitch.” Submit as many answers as you like but please submit them as individual comments.

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  • Posted by Amosley88 10 years ago
    Atlas Shrugged is the daydream of the moral man. It is the ideal of man as his own god. Man creates within himself motivation, love, power and progress. Looters who condemn the hand that feeds are comforted by promises of the creators to guide them; but while they are busy looking to the heavens, Atlas Shrugged breaks the chains of the true creators so that they may visualize a world of their own.
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  • Posted by gg1109 10 years ago
    What is Atlas Shrugged? Perhaps, Ayn Rand’s finest work, Atlas Shrugged can be read on many levels. It is a novel, a political theory, an economic strategy, a business approach, a social, moral, and life philosophy.
    As a novel, it is an action-packed, suspenseful story in which the forces of good and evil meet in an ever-growing conflict of values, ideas and actions. Twists and turns of the plot keep you wondering who will win and how the issues will be resolved. A background mystery keeps you wondering what hidden impact it will have on the story. A great, entertaining read!
    The book is much more than an enjoyable work of fiction, however. It looks at political systems, evaluates the true measures of a free society and examines the potential for corruption in the system. It teaches valuable lessons about the nature and key requirements of a free market. It also illustrates the flawed execution when altruism creeps into Capitalism. It is a great primer for basic business principles. Finally it presents a social, moral and life philosophy based on strong convictions about living one’s life with absolute integrity.
    This work contains critical lessons for our times. It is a book to be read and re-read both for enjoyment and for continued examination of the ideas.
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  • Posted by $ Susanne 10 years ago
    Atlas Shrugged... is a profound work of literature that has the power to open ones mind, change one's philosophy, and allow one to see - and live - life in a very real, very rational sense.
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  • Posted by straightlinelogic 10 years ago
    When the men and women of the mind go on strike, there are no pickets at the factory gate. There are no factories, production lines, inventions, or jobs. Atlas Shrugged shows the bleak consequences when the mind demands its due and doesn’t get it. Prophetic when written in 1957, it now stands as a clarion call to action. The message is as clear as John Galt tracing the sign of the dollar over the “desolate earth”: meet the strikers’ demands, or watch what's left of civilization collapse.
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  • Posted by marynell 10 years ago
    Atlas Shrugged is a philosophical ideal by Ayn Rand who wrote this book a half century ago. It is a work of fiction but when I first read it around 1960, I found it like George Orwell's 1984. Now...we are there! The author tried to warn America that if we put the needs ahead of ability and public assistance ahead of hard work, then eventually no one is left who is willing to work. She said over and over..."the worst phrase in the English language is "for the good of the common people"!" This is a story of what happens to a society where all the people who are willing to work and produce simply withdraw and let the do nothings try and run their world! From the time I was in high school, this book formed my view of the world. It should be required reading for all Americans!
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  • Posted by $ Abaco 10 years ago
    Atlas Shrugged is a novel that helps explain the cause of some of the major problems plaguing society today. It really brought clarity to me about things that had perplexed me for a long time. (I know this is short and vague. So be it.)
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  • Posted by MikeJoyous 10 years ago
    Atlas Shrugged is about honest workers paying higher and higher taxes and deciding to drop out of the rat-race and leave the resulting chaos in the hands of the welfare bums.
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  • Posted by theciscoshow 10 years ago
    A story about what happens to society when ability and wealth are demonized instead of lionized. A story of what happens when those who produce and are punished and vilified for it, decide to withdraw their evil from the world.
    What would happen if those who produce things decide they no longer need the permission of those who produce nothing, to live.
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  • Posted by Robbie53024 10 years ago
    Atlas Shrugged is a morality play, or perhaps more appropriately, an immorality play. It paints a picture of a society dominated by crony capitalism where who you know seems more important than what you know. It layers in a populace increasingly bent on "social justice" and creating equal levels of misery for all in order to bring down those of ability.

    Against this backdrop struggle several heroic men and women of the mind. Most prominent among them are Hank Rearden, a steel magnate, and Dagny Taggart, VP of Taggart Transcontinental, the premier and last national transportation system. These heroes struggle not only against the government and society, but against an unknown force seemingly steeling the people of ability from the world.

    Atlas Shrugged is a prescient view of our current society painted more than half a century ago. It identifies a society where those of ability are vilified and asked to support all those who live by treachery, sloth, and free-loading and asks what would happen if they all just disappeared.
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  • Posted by PBC 10 years ago
    A group of men- steered by one man-who hold the world accountable for their irrational beliefs and actions simply by taking them at their word and giving them precisely what they asked for. Justice.
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  • Posted by slimeguy46 10 years ago
    Atlas Shrugged is the story of rebellion by a precious few from the culture and mindset that holds us all in bondage. These few refuse to accept their roles as forced caregivers for men who demand the fruits of their labor without working for it. Outnumbered and outgunned, they resort to the only option they have: abdication from the world.
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  • Posted by msmith55 9 years, 12 months ago
    Atlas Shrugged is a story about a railroad trying to keep the economy operating while the politicians are trying to make money by controlling the economy for the "good of the common man", and by so doing, are destroying the economy.
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  • Posted by Notperfect 9 years, 12 months ago
    To me Atlas Shrugged is a confirmation of what Patrick Henry said at the Constitutional Debates on June 9th 1788. They said let us try it this way because it will be good for all. Ayn Rand confirmed again on what had and was and eventually would happen. Some called Henry a lunatic. Ayn Rand confirmed him a prophet.
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  • Posted by gowri 10 years ago
    After centuries of struggle, anticipating to encounter a giant as enemy, he discovers it is a molehill he is up against ... so Atlas shrugged .
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  • Posted by belyr 10 years ago
    Atlas Shrugged is one of the finest books ever written. After you read the book, you will have had your values questioned to the point where you can ask yourself who you are. Are you a maker or a taker? Honestly knowing the answer about yourself will allow you make informed decisions about you for the rest of your life.
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  • Posted by BeVeryAware 10 years ago
    What is Atlas Shrugged...?

    A Story...A philosophy...An idea for creating the person you dream about everyday, the person that is inside everybody and everyone. An idea that in a story that is not a self help book or a guide to wealth, but an idea that takes one self to another level of achievement...!
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  • Posted by BeVeryAware 10 years ago
    Atlas Shrugged represents to me the individualist creating the destiny for oneself...if that is creating and working your own ideas and starting a company or just working for somebody who believes in what they do and you believe in the same...it seems to be about standing on principle of mind and thought, with fairness and opportunity for all of those that desire a quality of life way beyond the normal way of life. Life itself is so creating on it's own and should not be abused or lost in the shuffle of actions of every day life....
    We live, right now, in an information rich environment and have more opportunities than ever in the history of mankind. Atlas puts this into words and ideas that work in any time period....Atlas in is not for everybody, not for the masses that seem to follow each other into eternal normality...one does not have to have an education or high IQ to get the Atlas idea...just a desire....
    I think it may be a good time to read, listen and review it again....
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  • Posted by bridgetlynn 10 years ago
    Atlas Shrugged is a novel about how a dystopian society is created out of a functional, free, and prosperous society. Rand details how heavy-handed economic regulations that are sold as "for the people" are actually for the benefit of the well-connected, and how those regulations are the most harmful to the alleged beneficiaries of the policies.
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  • Posted by Mikki 10 years ago
    Atlas Shrugged is the story of apathy driving a society to degradation and the ability of the human spirit to achieve greatness in the face of the most insurmountable of obstacles.
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  • Posted by mesabill1 10 years ago
    I will keep this very simply. what atlas shrugged is about in my opion is that the government is trying to take over all Bussiness and tell all businesses what they could and could not do. we have already reached this in America today with all the agency that we do not need or want. we need no outside authorities to tell us what to do.
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  • Posted by Fountainhead24 10 years ago
    Atlas Shrugged is an in-depth inspirational embodiment of the human ethos personified in fictional heroic characters whose motivation is to produce! They value their mind, life and their integrity and will stand up to any and all antagonists to achieve their goals.
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