Ive got this forum running alongside Bean, where Im attempting to compose a reasoned, response to the points raised by Bob et al. and somethings just occurred to me. Do those people, who live their lives, with absolute focus, on, '[i]me men`mine mine’,[/i] ever get bored rigid with it?
OR how about this scenario.
Work hard then give it to the guy who partied all night and is now sleeping off the hangover. Let him complain that you aren’t working hard enough then go work even harder and when you come back there are two bums waiting with their hand out. Now you want to write a book but another person has decided for you that you need to be a bilge cleaner and writing books is not in your future. Now your new life long goal is cleaning a bilge. Now the harder you work the more you have to give to the guys sleeping after partying all night. And your new career is bilge cleaning because everyone wants to be a writer but no one wants to be a bilge cleaner.
Extreme either way would never work. THere has to be some kind of reward/punish system or once again we come back to
The Lord of the Flies.
Most colourfully decorated straw man I’ve seen in a while…
In order for Evil to Flourish all that has to happen is for Good men/women to sit by and do nothing.
To me there are two types of people.
Leaders
Followers
Leaders do for themselves and in some cases do for others as well.
Followers cannot do for themselves and have to have things done for them or direction given.
Many Leaders can choose a path that leads to success.
A few times followers can ride on the coat tails of those who led and achieve a limited amount of success.
No follower can ever achieve success without some form of leadership. They depend on leaders in order to survive.
Leaders do not need anyone else. They choose to take others with them either out of compassion, sympathy, or self interest.
One is a parasite. One is the host. Together both can lead a beautiful life. But the parasite cannot live without the host and if takes too much can kill the host ending both of their lives.
The host can live without the parasite in most cases.
anyway this was a discussion on life reflecting books, etc
Not meant to get into indepth discussions on political views and personal system values…
I hav e notice lately that H.A.L. is showing up a lot. He is in WALL-E as the “co-pilot”
In a Jerads commercial using a Tom Tom as a female HAL
and a few other places.
H.A.L. go back forward one letter in the alphabet and you get I.B.M.
To me there are two types of people.
Leaders
Followers
No, now…what about READERS??
Would you please give us a break and go watch TV for a while?
This is H.A.L. announcing that you have exceeded your quota for forum commentary today.
All further pronouncements on anything will be forwarded to the circular file.
Cease. Desist. Abscond. Halt. Discontinue. Finish. Terminate.
What does Symbiosis mean? 
Followers are parasites?
So it’s safe to assume that you are a self-employed entrepreneur? As is everyone you know? And that your business has no employees, vendors, or subcontractors (since they would be parasites, and are not needed)? And that you personally built your home, grow all of your own food, built the generator that powers your computer, and ran the wires connecting your computer to the Internet?
I thought this thread had already achieved utter ridiculousness. I was wrong. I bow before the master.
Katherine
As a writing forum may I suggest posts are about 1-2 paragraphs length.
It would encourage a tight writing style and help those with goldfish attention spans.
As a contribution to the discussion may I state Nietzche is cool.
Anyone that can create a supremacist or existenitialst (bugger) philosophy on a dose of terminal clap has to be respected.
As a second point: Is it just me or is reading Ayn Rand tedious ?
I am sorry to carry on in my previous posting style, but hey, someones got to put the blender in the fish bowl.
Paul
I’ve enjoyed following this debate, partly because it has spurred me to learn more about Ayn Rand and objectivism. And, thanks Paul for that insight into Nietzsche. 
But as a hack, I have to observe that Rand supporters are losing the battle - not necessarily the battle of ideas, but the battle of events. The economic tide that’s now flowing will change people, countries, institutions, and systems of ideas. The brand of less fettered capitalism that we’ve experienced in the Anglo-Saxon world since 1980 won’t come back for at least a generation, perhaps a lifetime, and with it will pass the opportunity for ideologies attached to it, such as objectivism, to flourish and grow.*
It is particularly unfortunate for Rand supporters that Alan Greenspan is a self-declared disciple. History will not treat him kindly. He failed in the second responsibility of a central banker (failing to remove the drinks bottles just as the party was threatening to get riotous - the first responsibility being to put the bottles on the table).
Sorry Paul - at least 50 per cent too long.
- Business schools in the United States are finding that many more students than in the past now seek careers associated with “values” rather than earning power.
H
I almost wholeheartedly agree with you here. Unfortunately (thanks again Bush, you F*ing DIless wonder) we never had anything approaching unfettered capitalism. We’ve never experienced it at all - ever, but especially not even close since the early decades of the 20th century.
It is exactly this supposed capitalism, which it is not, that will be the template upon which any real case for capitalism will for some time, be tainted by.
Actually, I don’t see the tide that is now flowing to be a bad thing. I say, let them re-practice all of these demonstrably bad ideas in practice yet again, but this time (and for the first time fully) in America. Just as the reek of medieval life left men willing to embrace Aristotelianism, so I think, when we have sunk far enough, these ideas will bear fruit.
Why is there this interpretation? I have been married, very happily, for 16 years. Do you think I tell my wife to fend for herself if she has a cold and asks for chicken soup? Do you not think I would care (as I do) for my parents in their old age? Do I not lend an ear when my friends need it? Or my sister or nephew? Would I not defend my valued acquaintances (or friends) if they were unjustly treated? Would I not lend them my time, money or help by Objectivist standards?
They are part of my realm of concrete values. Concrete as opposed to abstract values like honesty or integrity. But, if you understand a system of rational egoism (and this is not a compromise of the actual philosophy, but its real meaning in practice) you would know that these people that comprise your life are valuable to you, give your life meaning and richness. Think of the alternative motives that lead to betrayals in everyday life that you see and hear all around you. I wouldn’t do anything to cause pain to any of the people I value anymore than I would harm a piece of my own body and for the exact same reason.
You may not want to think of it this way, but it is the real truth. I get giddy when I have scored a real good Christmas gift for my wife. I get pleasure from her delight, and as well I should because she is at the top of my values in this world. It is entirely selfish. Just try to think of a disinterested love.
It is always me, me, me, mine, mine, mine, but not in the way that you think. The only way you can think that is to assume that other human beings cannot be a value to you. And then you are damned. Love is selfishness, because it is the highest value. Chew on that.
No. Kant is tedious. Aristotle is tedious. Sartre is mind-numbing. Hegel is on acid. Plato is poetry to make Stalin blush. And everyone brought up on Dewey… poor bastards.
I mean really, in the history of philosophy, is it really that tedious?
Sign up for what? Your complete misunderstanding of the philosophy? No, I don’t want to sign up for a misunderstanding of anything.
You are saying that, according to Objectivism, Tom Clancy is a better human being that Elie Wiesel? Why? What principle are you talking about here? Because Clancy made more money? There is no principle in Objectivism that says this at all.
If we were to take your example then every book Rand wrote is a self-contradiction. Because, if you look closely, it is the evil men that make the most money - at least in the short term. It is the poor man than sticks by the integrity of his mind, struggles, and wins in the end.
Wasn’t that blatantly obvious in The Fountainhead, or do you just gleam summaries from lit professors?
[size=150]mine mine[/size] as in my wife, child, friends, relations, values, all the things, ‘I’ (thats you), perceive as being of 'me' (thats you too). You do seem to want to impose your own interpretation on anything I say. One of the things I find worrying about Rands acolytes, is what appears to be a propensity for, Gymnasticated Semantics. I credited you with possession of enough wit to appreciate the difference between, ‘me’ and 'mine’.
Take care Bob
Vic
I don’t know what the last sentence of you post was supposed to mean. Are you faulting me?
Regardless, I could, in turn, accuse you (and others on this board) of wanting to impose your own interpretation on anything Rand said. Gymnasticated Semantics - good one. Although pointless. The exact meaning of what we say, and what we mean, is dependent on the meaning of the words that we use. Do you mean what I mean when we use the same word? Did we agree upon usage beforehand? No? Then surely it is not just my fault if we miss each other through undefined terms, is it?
Of course my wife, my friends etc. Do you want me to value your wife? Is she okay with that? My values. Of course it’s an “I”. Are you asking to have values of things in which my “I” is not a part? You are asking an impossibility. There is no value without an “I”. Of course anything I value is “of me”. What is your alternative? A disinterested value? Talk about Gymnasticated Semantics!
I am wondering if you are asking for a Kantian view of morality. This is the only explanation I can think of for the separation, that you seem to require, between “me” and “mine” when talking about values.
Do you agree that the concretes I enumerated constitute, as I have put it, a part of me, as in being a part of my values, and therefore in a certain respect “mine”?
If so, is your argument that I should value some things that are outside of my self? That are not me? That do not constitute my values? That are not “me”, nor “mine”? That, to use our presidential candidates’ terms are “higher than one’s self”?
I find such a notion repugnant. I can at least assure those that I do value that they represent a true value and concern to me in a very personal, and, yes, selfish manner. One, who wants values higher than himself, or any of those “lofty” “non-selfish” “platonic” “disinterested” - not “I” “me” or “mine” notions, I don’t know what his true relation to me could ever be.
The analogy is one of a mindset and not employment status. It is not about material belongings but rather achievements and motivation for personal goals.
Materialistic people are followers is another example of the mindset.
You can follow a beaten path and see only what the path dictates you see. Or you can make your own path which other people in life can follow and see what you have seen.
It is not a question of employment, not a materialistic question of how much money you have or how many “toys” you bought in life. It is a state of mind and the reason for your motivations. If you go through life only seeking approval and justification from the public above your own beliefs, morals, and expectations then you are a follower. If you make up your own mind about your own views, your own style, your own wants, your own needs, and hold yourself accountable for your own actions then you are a leader.
And no I do not follow Objectivism to the letter. I believe in modern capitalism. I abhor socialism, communism, defeatism, and other systems that take away freedom of choice to enact control and replace it with perpetual slavery.
I guess the question one could ask is if you were Gant what would you have done? Would you have played the role of a follower and followed directions to the letter or would you have rebelled?
PS: I am the master of no one. If I was that would mean I had slaves and slavery is something any true leader would abhor.
Bob
Dictionary
[size=150]mine[/size] [1 |mʌɪn|
possessive pronoun
used to refer to a thing or things belonging to or associated with the speaker : you go your way and I’ll go mine | some friends of mine.
possessive adjective archaic
(used before a vowel) my : tears did fill mine eyes.
ORIGIN Old English mīn, of Germanic origin; related to me 1 and to Dutch mijn and German mein.
[size=150]me[/size] |miː|
pronoun [ first person singular ]
1 used by a speaker to refer to himself or herself as the object of a verb or preposition : do you understand me? | wait for me! Compare with I 2 .
• used after the verb “to be” and after “than” or “as” : hi, it’s me | you have more than me.
• informal to or for myself : I’ve got me a job.
2 informal used in exclamations : dear me! | silly me!
PHRASES
[size=150]me and mine[/size] my relatives.
Let`s agree to disagree…period 
Take care Bob
vic
Disclaimer – I haven’t read the novel, and my prior awareness of objectivism is mostly limited to aesthetics (and I’m no expert even on that small subsection!)
I have completely lost the thread of this thread. Surely “Atlas Shrugged” is a novel… a work of fiction? It isn’t a factual record of actual events and opinions, or a model for real life. When an author explores political or philosophical ideas in fiction, why do people seize on these ideas as a blueprint for their own thought systems, and cite the book as evidence/manifesto? I believe that Ayn Rand herself described the book and its characters as being “artistic” rather than carrying any specific message.
Indeed, belief in the essential truth of any message carried by a novel would be inconsistent with objectivism as I understand it. To interpret fiction as a blueprint for fact requires the reader to exercise faith in the value system portrayed by the author - which is directly contradictory to the precepts of objectivism (which denies both the validity of faith and the existence of value systems external to the individual). It is an interesting paradox that professed proponents of objectivism undermine the basic fundamentals of their philosophy by citing a work of fiction as a supporting text.
But that could just be me. I do not see fiction as representative of fact, but as an imaginative exploration which may (possibly) hold elements of truth for writer or reader. I once went to a presentation on autism in children, where the so-called experts incensed me by saying that “The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time” (by Mark Haddon) was an excellent source of information on what it is like to be autistic. How can it be? Mark Haddon is not autistic himself, and even if he was, the book is not autobiographical. At best, as a work of fiction, it can be realistically plausible. But it is not and cannot be real.
Objectivism is a philosophical viewpoint. By definition, this means that it is debatable. By extrapolation, the fact that it is debatable means that it cannot be proved to be either right or wrong (otherwise the matter would be resolved and there could be no debate). And therefore, the personal tone to some of these posts seems rather misplaced. Everyone is right (even the ones who have said things I don’t agree with).
Too many paragraphs… sorry.
I think you hit the nail on the head for this thread.
This thread’s intention was to just point out how sometimes people refer to a work of fiction as reflecting everyday life which asks the question of does art reflect life or do we try to find our own interpretations of fiction as a reflection of actual life.
One example was how after 9/11 people thought it was eerily similar how one of Tom Clancy’s novels scenarios was to the horrific events of 9/11 giving many people the idea that maybe the terrorists devised their plan on Tom Clancy’s novel. So would that be art influencing real life, a coincidence, or as some might ask, a prediction or even an influence?
References I have seen personally were to Tom Clancy, 1984, Atlas Shrugged, and even Lord of the Flies.
The original question was what are others that other people have seen where fiction could either influence real life or be interpreted as current events…