Ayn Rand & the Prophecy of Atlas Shrugged

If you have ever read Ayn Rand's grueling 1168-page novel "Atlas Shrugged" (from 1957), then, you are most certain to have formed either a positive or a negative opinion about its philosophy (where selfishness is praised as being a virtue).

Through dozens of interviews - This 90-minute documentary (from 2011) tries its best to substantiate the overall relevance of Rand's words in the realm of present-day society.

Anyway - I certainly encourage one and all to view this presentation as its clearly biased viewpoints need to be heard, first-hand, to be believed.

This documentary does a good job of capturing Rand's ideas and philosophy - missing in the movie that came out last year. It starts out with the idea that the events of the novel are being played out in real life today. Then it drops back in history to show how Ayn Rand escaped from communist Russia and came to America in the 1920's. But when she finally got here and the Depression started, how surprised she was to hear American intellectuals claiming that things were so much better in Russia with communism being the answer for everything. But Rand knew differently. She knew that the 1930's under Stalin saw tens of millions murdered or starving and forced to work in labor camps. Rand spent her career making it crystal clear - especially in Atlas Shrugged - that collectivism in any form is inherently evil and inevitably leads to disaster.

The documentary also focuses on Rand's contention that the so-called virtues of altruism and self-sacrifice are misguided and that this willingness - so ingrained now in progressive western thinking - to subjugate the individual to the collective is not only most responsible for our country's current woes but it is this same twisted sense of morality that ultimately leads to totalitarianism.

This is a film with a lot of information and insight that can easily be viewed more than once.

Ayn Rand came to American in the 20s as her family's business gets confiscated by Soviet Communists. She would become the leading voice of individualism and the virtue of selfishness. Her opus Atlas Shrugged would be critically panned but gains a small devoted following.

This is a well produced movie by fans to praise Ayn Rand. The most compelling parts are her and her personal history. It's a fascinating journey that could probably use more research and more of a spotlight. The other noticeable thing here are the talking heads. They are all fans. In fact, some are friends. It would really help to give light to who some of these people are. Basically there are too many nobodies giving expert opinions. The other noticeable talking head group are businessmen. Certainly, they are the obvious group who considers themselves as makers and everybody else as takers. The corollary effect is to place her philosophy strictly as the philosophy of the corporate world. It limits the audience into thinking that she is the patron saint of the super rich. It's an unintended consequence that may be unwise. Instead of former heads of big corporations, it would be useful to have working small business owners who actually is facing these regulations. Overall, it's a slick movie with limited appeal and with limited depth. It's a good introduction for new converts.

A documentary that appeals to insouciant libertarians, neophytes in economics, and everything in between. The filmmakers have succeeded in amassing an impressive range of political hacks and starry-eyed apostles that are more than willing to espouse their unbridled adulation of Rand. Viewers are richly rewarded with both a flattering homage to the person Ayn Rand as well as receiving a treat of mental masturbation to her philosophical ideas.

The two interviewees with more substantive understanding are Jennifer Burns and Anne C. Heller, which both have written purportedly comprehensive books on the topic. All in all the documentary briefly touches upon Rands privileged childhood in Russia, semi-forced escape to the US in the mid-1920s, to the harsh criticism in the media after the publication of Atlas Shrugged. Objectivism and her magnum opus are slightly expanded upon, while all critical viewpoints are conspicuously absent. Moreover, what is further lacking is any discussion of the character flaws and hypocrisy Rand displayed in her personal life.

The main problem with the implied prophesy of the novel - and the most crucial piece that Rand got completely backwards - was the expected cronyism of the "big government". In reality the problem in US was always an exceptionally strong and overpowering private sector, which has been able to water down regulations and any attempts to rein in its power. This has concerned everything from a lax oversight of Wall Street, to curbing polluting industries, to ensuring America has became inundated with guns and fire arms, to an ever-mushrooming military-industrial complex... At the core the problem was never the naive and idiotic fantasy of secretive government churning out Soylent Green, but an unhinged private sector that won every battle against ordinary people by a cadre of K-Street lobbyists, bought republican politicians, and well-funded media campaigns propagating misinformation.

In fact, after the global meltdown of financial markets in 2008 even the ex-fed chairman Alan Greenspan, the early disciple Ayn Rand ever since the 1950s, had to admit that the outcome of a free, unregulated market was complete financial disaster.

Finally, what clearly detracts from the documentary is having an entire conveyor belt of asinine opinions and mind-boggling ignorance regurgitated by a series of ever dumber pea-brained minions.

The House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC) became a permanent (or "standing") committee of the House in January 1945. It had existed on a temporary basis since 1938. HUAC was supposed to investigate "un- American propaganda" in the United States. Although it also investigated pro-fascist or pro-Nazi activity, HUAC is most widely known for its investigations of suspected Communist influence in the late 1940s and early 1950s. Along with the investigation of Alger Hiss, the investigation of Communist influence in the motion picture industry is one of the defining episodes in the committee's history. HUAC would continue to exist into the 1960s, but these memorable hearings are its best-known legacy. The committee's name was changed in 1969, and it was abolished in 1975, when jurisdiction over investigation of foreign influence was transferred to the House Judiciary Committee.2

HUAC and Hollywood

The first HUAC investigations of Communism in Hollywood occurred in 1940, when Representative Martin Dies, a Texas Democrat, was chairman of the committee. Dies convened meetings of the committee in Los Angeles and questioned several actors and writers, including actor Humphrey Bogart and writer John Howard Lawson. All denied either being Communists or knowing with certainty that any of their co-workers were Communists. These early hearings ended with Dies finding no credible evidence of Communist activity in the movie industry. Once the United States entered World War II in 1941, the Soviet Union was an ally, and Congress had little interest in exposing any Communist activities in Hollywood.