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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NOTE: By submitting a comment on this page you agree to the site's terms and conditions and give Atlas Productions, and all of its affiliates, permission to use your submission in any and all promotional material. Read terms and conditions here: http://www.galtsgulchonline.com/terms

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  • Posted by ProfChuck 10 years ago
    Ayn Rand understood the inevitable consequences of the collectivist ideology because she experienced them first hand in soviet Russia. Atlas Shrugged is her illustration of those consequences and ranks with 1984 and Animal Farm as a terrifyingly real image of the near future. Atlas Shrugged is no longer fiction if it ever was.
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  • Posted by Temlakos 10 years ago
    Who are the Prime Movers of society?

    What happens when that society not only deprecates the Prime Movers and what they do, but worse yet, make what they do impossible?

    And who, or what, is impelling so many Prime Movers to stop moving? With whom will those who are left, deal?

    Is someone actively trying to destroy the larger society? And if so: is/are that/those person(s) destroyer(s), or liberator(s)?

    Two Prime Movers desperately seek answers to those questions, as their rulers keep making decisions that make no sense. Soon they will be the only ones left.

    And then each of them must choose.
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  • Posted by $ rainman0720 10 years ago
    Atlas Shrugged has become the greatest literary foretelling of future events since Nostradamus' Quattrains.
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  • Posted by thewaynebass 10 years ago
    In Greek mythology Atlas was a Titan who held the world on his shoulders. The book Atlas Shrugged highlights how captains of industry, the leading producers of oil, transportation, banking, and steel are carrying the world today. This book highlights the probable outcomes if one day these leading producers simply decided to shrug off the weight of the world.
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  • Posted by zanetucker 10 years ago
    Nobody can tell you what Atlas Shrugged is about. It is something you need to experience first hand to truly find out the meaning behind Atlas Shrugged.
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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 Darcie 10 years ago
    Clearly and concisely it states, 'We've had enough, and we're not going to take it anymore!'
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  • Posted by $ guinness222 10 years ago
    Like my bumper stick says,..."Who is John Galt". Inevitably every time I stop for gas, go to the convienent store, or just doing errands, someone comes up to me and says,"....Hey Who is John Galt, what does that mean?"
    I simply say "Read the book Atlas Shrugged,....then you will reaally know!"
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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 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 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 $ 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 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 iroseland 10 years ago
    Imagine a world where the truly capable people stopped carrying the rest of us on their shoulders. They have left humanity on the side of the road, and are now on the other side of the ravine picking daises.
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  • Posted by DanDel 10 years ago
    Atlas Shrugged is about freedom and mans desire for it. It's about choice - your right to have an opportunity to choose your own fate. It encourages man to think not accept others misguided ideals.
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  • Posted by jamesradams3rd 10 years ago
    Atlas Shrugged describes what happens under a statist government when those capable of running successful businesses, the victims of Utopian scheming, decide they will no longer be victims. They quit. They disappear. Those who remain prove it is impossible to build a productive economy based on corruption, cronyism, influence peddling and penalizing those who produce while rewarding those who don’t. They discover that production can’t be mandated by directives or executive orders. In the end, society regresses into isolated bands of warring tribes when it runs out of victims, the producers.
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  • Posted by johnlaxmi 10 years ago
    Atlas Shrugged explains why we must be thankful, even reverential, to the men and women who create, produce and supply all the products, services, ideas and technology that we consume. These creators, like Atlas, bear the burden of all human progress. Consumers, politicians and regulators often act as if they are “entitled” to the creators' products, assuming that Atlas would continue to bear the burden endlessly. The novel asks and answers the question: what if Atlas shrugged? The entire edifice of modern civilization would collapse.
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  • Posted by wordmuse 10 years ago
    A towering achievement, Atlas portrays a simplified America that lets the reader see with exceptional clarity the values that people hold and the realistic consequences of holding them It celebrates knowledge, competency, loyalty, love, attention to detail, self-reliance, and rationality. Do not take the simplification of America as a negative. The book has a story to tell, and it comes in at more than 1000 pages. If Rand were to try to take into account every nuance to make it more "real" she'd still be writing today from her grave. My favorite novel of all time - it is very much worth the read. And as others have said, it is, unfortunately, prophetic - one feels as though you're reading today's headlines as you read her book.
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  • Posted by $ AJAshinoff 10 years ago
    One of the greatest and most inspirationally American stories ever written. Sadly, it was prophetic.
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  • Posted by mikebahm 10 years ago
    Atlas Shrugged is a story about the undeniable end result of a culture of entitlement and political correctness.
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  • Posted by PBC 10 years ago
    A group of men who refuse to be victims or slaves. Driven by the motor of one man, they bring the looters of the entitlement state to their knees by taking them at their word and giving them what they asked for. It's about justice. It's about freedom. It's about the greatness and nobility of the individual.
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  • Posted by dennyem 10 years ago
    Atlas portrays the worst points of Communism. Look around the world today, there are many, many comparisons.
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  • Posted by $ Rmart520 10 years ago
    Atlas Shrugged is a fictional story with an underlying premise that the power of the individual will always triumph over the power of the collective in a truly free society. The characters in the story show the courage, bravery, and intellectual superiority needed to remain as individual contributors and successes while the cowardice, selfishness, and deviousness shows through the actions of the people trying to take away all that the individual has created. Although this was written as a fictional story it has come to pass in recent times that its basic ideals are showing themselves to be so prophetic in today's world
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