E4 - Historical Context, Craft, What is Right, and Meeting Jim Taggart

A Socialist Reads Atlas Shrugged

In today's episode, Jonathan introduces listeners to ideas about how to interact with a text from the past using practices taught to history teachers. Following that explanation, Jonathan discusses just some of the historical context of Atlas Shrugged, published in 1957. Today's Moment of Non-Contradiction touches on the topic of fiction writing craft and Jonathan shares ideas about how to address the buckets of criticism directed at Ayn Rand for the craft problems of Atlas Shrugged. Jonathan then does a close reading of the flashback scene with Eddie and Dagny in which they discuss how to know one's purpose in life. Today's episode finishes with a close read of the physical description of James Taggart. (And, apologies for the mic noise that pops up about five times in the podcast. I'm still learning and hopefully next episode there will be none of that.)
Today's Moment of Non-Contradiction comes from Quora.
In this episode, I mention Sam Weinberg and the Stanford History Education Group (SHEG).
My five themes to explore in this podcast's close read of Atlas Shrugged are:

1. What is human nature?
2. Straw-man arguments and their impact on the world Ayn Rand creates.
3. Dagny Taggart as a true hero.
4. How empathy can be de-legitimized.
5. What is Capitalism and what is wrong with it?

Questions or comments? Email me at: [e-mail]
Learn more about Jonathan Seyfried at their website, https://jonathanseyfried.art
If you'd like to support my creative work, please visit my Patreon page.
The intro/outro music was composed by John Sib.
The podcast theme image was created by Karina Bialystok.

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