Media

[lulie]

What are the best movies, TV programmes, books (fiction and non-fiction), and songs/music, with philosophical content? (Or if they're just really good. But if they're really good, they should have philosophical content.) Examples: Iron Man, House, Atlas Shrugged, Conjectures & Refutations. List all the most awesome stuff you've found.

Comments

[konora]

Really dark and with no absolutely good characters, yes. I'd say it was dystopian, but an extremely good read anyway. The "main" character, Rorschach, reminds me in some ways of Rand's sort of characters, with a very hard and fast view of what's right and wrong in his view. Him and The Comedian are both portrayed that way, albeit to different ends. But I would definitely say that Watchmen has a much different tone than any Rand I've read. I'm in the process of reading the comic, and a little over halfway through, so if things change I'll revise my statement. But thus far it has very interesting characters with a variety of flaws. The morality of the characters is very much left open for the reader to interpret, but given such a wide variety of them to choose from, I don't think it'd be too hard to pick at least one that was morally good from any one person's perspective.

Anti-Rand? I've honestly come across no such thing yet in the book... do you have an example of what you've heard was anti-Rand about it? Perhaps I missed something that could be construed as such.

[konora]

The "main" character, Rorschach, reminds me in some ways of Rand's sort of characters, with a very hard and fast view of what's right and wrong in his view.

Sorry, I was distracted while writing that. ^^;

[lulie]

Anti-Rand as in, if all the characters are bad, and Rorschach is an Objectivist/Randian, and Rorschach is bad, it's kind of implied that Randism made fun of?

[konora]

I wouldn't say that Rorschach is an Objectivist/Randian or bad. Bad perhaps in the sense that he kills criminals, but that's one of the moral issues that the book brings up, and even then it makes no clear distinction of whether it's right or wrong. As I said, the morality is largely left up to the readers, so in that way it is nothing like Rand's work. There is no condemnation for Rorchach's actions except from the general public in the story, and they most certainly are portrayed in a negative way - they tend to be ungrateful, weak, and immoral. So in that way perhaps there is some parallel with Rand's writing.

Honestly, Watchmen reminds me a great deal of Rand's sort of philosophy, just told in a much different way. Whereas Rand had characters representing ideas, Watchmen seems to have characters who carry those ideas. I don't want to go too much into the details, but it is heavily implied from the perspective of various characters that the "superheroes" are the only truly moral people left - everyone else is weak, or immoral, or both. The superheroes are, largely, ordinary people with no special abilities beyond their drive for justice, and determination to deliver that justice. It seems a very Randian idea, to me.

But I'm not sure where you're getting the idea that all the characters are bad. Because they all have flaws, they're bad?

[lulie]

Ah, I imagine that a world that makes no clear distinction between right and wrong would bother me. I always hate it when it gets unclear whether a character we thought was good turns ungood or not (I don't know if you've seen the TV series Heroes, but that happens there a bit). I dunno, though, maybe I'd like Watchmen.

Well, I haven't read it at all, just going on what other people have said. Presumably because they all have bad flaws.

[konora]

I've watched Heroes through season 2, so I think I know what you mean. Watchmen may be a little iffy on that for you, but I still think it would be worth it to at least flip through the first couple of pages in a bookstore or library. But I will admit that it brings up very interesting moral questions, and in what I found was an enjoyable way. Moral ambiguousness might taint that for you though.

It depends highly on what flaws the reader considers bad, honestly. Rorschache's cold-bloodedness might be a bad flaw to someone, while someone else thinks it's a good thing. *shrug*

[lulie]

I might try the first few pages of Watchmen then, like you said. :)

[shadowspinner]

I confess to being mildly impressed at the implication that you actually managed to sit down and read one of her books. I attempted the sample pages on amazon and found the writing to be rather bad quality and really quite purple.

[lulie]

Audio books ftw. ;)

I did read the book version of Anthem. It was a bit oddly-written at parts, but shrug.

I've heard this a lot though, so what's bad about her writing style?

(What do you mean by 'quite purple'?)

[shadowspinner]

Purple is a short hand way of saying flowery, overly colourful, sickeningly descriptive and overwritten to the point where it is detrimental to the text instead of helping to illustrate the point (I should mention that thus far I've only attempted her fiction). The first page or two of The Fountainhead brings this strongly to mind, though I'm willing to entertain the idea that there was in fact a point to it that was addressed later on. The descriptive term purple prose is usually used in relation to romance novels, if that gives you a little more context?

A criticism that (I must stress that I most certainly have not read a whole book - not even close - and cannot back this up with examples or, frankly, much in the way of first-hand knowledge) I have seen a few times is that her characters are "flat and uninteresting, and her heroes implausibly wealthy, intelligent, physically attractive and free of doubt while arrayed against antagonists who are weak, pathetic, full of uncertainty, and lacking in imagination and talent". I understand that this was at least partly deliberate on her part, but it certainly doesn't sound much like an interesting read.

Basically, I find them awkwardly written, overblown, unengaging and quite simply I can't get past the style (and I read lousy books as part of my job, so I have a fairly high tolerance) to access the undoubtedly interesting philosophy within. I suspect that I would disagree most heartily with her though, so I'm not exactly heartbroken about it. ;-)

[konora]

I'd have to agree. I've read Anthem and went a few chapters into Atlas Shrugged. The philosophy was the interesting part, so I can only imagine that her non-fiction is more interesting. Anthem was a decent read, and actually a very good idea for its time, though now the plot comes off as cliche because it's been used in many other stories. Atlas Shrugged on the other hand... its plot may be marvelous (I didn't get far enough into it to tell) but everything said about the characters is true. I've heard that it was deliberate, but frankly it could have been done a lot better. And probably in less pages.

[lulie]

Neat, learn a new word (or meaning of an old one) every day.

(Her non-fiction, as I understand it, wasn't as good as her fiction.)

Her characters seemed really quite interesting to me. The whole point is that they're wealthy, intelligent, attractive -- the idea is that she's writing about what she considers ideal people. Which I think is an awesome concept, and people should do it more. The antagonists embodied particular *ideas* (collectivism and selflessness being a prominent theme), and they explored what those ideas lead to (slightly exaggerated from real life, sure, but that's only because in real life people aren't entirely consistent, and exaggeration is good for showing ideas clearly).

Some of the antagonistic characters, notably the evil ones (instead of just the people who are bad because they follow bad people), are not weak, pathetic, full of uncertainty. Quite the opposite. They're scarily intelligent.

The idea (at least in the Fountainhead and Atlas Shrugged, from what I've read) is that the heroes are pitted against this great evil that isn't embodied in any one person, but comes from collectivism and people acting as groups and so on. So the fact that some of the antagonist characters are weak, pathetic, etc. isn't important. The thing is, put together they have unbelievably power over the heroes. It's actually much more realistic in this respect (real people don't usually have one enemy that prevents them from doing things -- or if they do, they can usually overcome the person without much trouble -- they have obstacles that include people being retarded collectively).

The audio books had a really fitting speaker IMO with a nice voice, though. You might try those (I recommend the Fountainhead first).

[konora]

Which speaker do you mean? Christopher Hurt?
Why do you recommend the Fountainhead first?

[lulie]

I think that's the speaker, yes.

The Fountainhead is shorter, easier, and less explicit and deep. So, it's a good thing to start off with, to become familiar with some of the ideas.

Though it could be for some people that going straight to Atlas Shrugged is fine.

[konora]

Atlas Shrugged is a dystopia, so my guess is it would be more appealing to read first than the story of a modern architect.

[lulie]

Why would a dystopia be more appealing to read first?