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Entry: Whittaker Chambers Versus Ayn Rand Link: http://www.takimag.com/blogs/article/whittaker_chambers_versus_ayn_rand#7799 Post contents: @Say What? I was not the one who brought the issue of a childless novel, but Justin who defended it saying that it did indeed have children. I say that one page out of a thousand that is 0.1% of the total, which is meaningless from a statistics point of view. That falls under the heading of "experimental error" and cannot be advanced to prove or disprove anything. I am perfectly happy readiang novels without children (my big guilty pleasure is reading the Anita Blake novesl which can qualify as porn for women, but also have vampires, werewolves, plus a few decomposing corpses. Much guiltier than Keith Olbermann, for that matter). But "Atlas Shrugged" was not offerd as a novel, but as a philosophy which was "entirely self consistent" and "the answer to everything". As for the self-consisntency I cannot but recall Chesterton's comment that a madman's delusions can be entirely self-consistent, and adducing the consistency was as relevant as noting the perfection of a circle, because that perfection did not tell you how big or small the circle was. If someone has "the answer to everything" then I expect that when I want to discuss something that interests me, that such person has something to say on the subject, something enlightnening. If that person cannot bring herself to discuss the theme, then I'll ahve to say that she has the answer to everything, except A, B, C, or D. And that she may want to obviate the problem by denying the existence of A, B, C,and D, or call them unworthy of discussion. Note: I remember reading her comment about "the little autocrat of the Peace Corps spoonfeeding a baby". I do not think that anyone before her equated feeding a baby with autocratic tendnecies. I wonder what that shows about her mental processes. Sent at: 2008 07 23