humanities.philosophy.objectivism

On Feb 26, 9:02 am, David Buchner wrote:
[DB quoting Puppet Sock snipped for brevity]
> I was just wondering about this. In The Fountainhead, we had Toohey.
> He's a major character; a real villain, calling a lot of the shots
> behind the scenes. There's really no equivalent character in Atlas, is
> there? I mean, there are plenty of pundits and flaky intellectuals
> making speeches and issuing bromides, but it's not portrayed as a
> concerted effort; they're more random and ineffectual-seeming in the
> second book. Or do I have that wrong?

We are in danger of having an actual discussion of Rand here.
Warning! Danger Will Robinson! Danger!

The real villain in AS is a group of ideas. It's not really what one
would call a philosophy, though it does form a system of ideas.
At least, it fails to be a philosophy for me in that it is obviously
not viable. You can't live the life of the Starnes heirs. Not without
a steady stream of victims. That was one of the major points
of the book. And of course, the real hero is alos a group of ideas.

Both books have ideas expressed through archetypes. Toohey
is perhaps the single focal point as far as villains in TF. There
are several others who are less pivotal, though they have
their little push towards villainy. Peter Keating as an example,
though he's much more of a manipulated failed personality,
allowing himself to be used by Toohey.

The problem is, if there was somebody like Toohey in AS, and
if he were to be both capable and evil, then he could possibly
have delayed the collapse. And, odd as it may seem to say
about a book of about 1000 pages, Rand took some shortcuts.
Galt's speech, for example, probably saved her from 500 or
so pages of "show rather than tell." Various of Franciso's tirades
probably saved her another 500 or so. A few other things she
did (the calendar that Francisco and Ragnar vandalize so that
it says something like you had it coming for example, or the
"analysis" of the tunnel disaster in terms of the attitudes of
the passengers) probably saved another 500.

Much as I like AS, and I do, I don't think a 2500 page novel
could be commercially viable.

There isn't a central single character acting as anti to Galt.
Not the equivalent of how Toohey does for Roark. But then,
the lesson of TF is somewhat taken as read.

Roark tells us that we must learn not to take any notice
of certain people and things.

Galt tells us something very different. He tells us not to
have anything to do with certain people and things.

So, to some extent, TF is about Toohey trying to break
down Roark and harness him. Where AS is about Galt
showing people they have been harnessed, and they only
need to stop accepting it to get unharnessed.

But also, I'd have to say Toohey isn't really all *that*
important after all. For example, he's probably no more
than the fourth most important character, or maybe
even fifth, after Roark, Dagny, Wynand, and maybe
Peter Keating. So, in AS, when there are so many
characters that move through most of the novel, the
evil characters tend to get fairly little stage time.
Socks