| | > Folks, this wasn't just a home run,. This was a grand slam in the bottom of the ninth in the seventh game of the World Series. Study it closely, and you will learn how real influence is achieved in our world. [Robert]
I agree! Look at how well (and persuasively) it's written:
In the second paragraph he concretizes how businessmen are viewed and treated today in a way that drives that point home. He doesn't just state it abstractly. Then he arouses further interest by listing well-known names who have been influenced by Ayn Rand. After the abstract statement of her value (to this audience of readers) of her moral defense, he concretizes further arousing interest (or remembrance from a long ago reading) about who the people he mentions - Rearden, Dagny, Francisco - are. And a great quote about the symphony and the coal mine. Then the moral issues, including the strike, the issue of sacrifice, the right to produce and trade freely.
The 'logical structure' of the essay, to coin a phrase :-), is quite effective.
> One of the finest things David accomplished in this piece was to invite America's business leaders to go beyond what they might obviously like about Rand's novels -- her positive, romantic portraits of entrepreneurs and business people -- and instead to dig and think deeper: to Rand's core message about individualism and selfishness.
And that's exactly what needed to be done for this audience. This isn't "Vanity Fair".
So much for the unjust stereotype of David Kelley as an appeaser, compromiser, who is trying to insert Objectivism into the culture by watering it down or never mentioning the controversial parts. (I mean how much more direct can you get than the Rearden "I work for nothing but my own profit" quote. Duh!!)
People who say things like the above about Kelley should actually engage their brains and try reading what he writes once in a while. (Unless they were expecting a treatise on selfishness in a book on the evidence of the senses?)
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