It's Atlas Shrugged in that a catastrophic decline in standards and competence is inevitable in a society that abandons (and vilifies) merit. It's not a 1:1 match with the circumstances of the book, but the spirit is the same.
Atlas Shrugged is about the rebellion of John Galt, but it's more about the ruin caused by weak, petty and jealous men with weak, petty and jealous ideas. That ruin didn't occur because the great men abandoned society - it occurred because society abandoned the great men.
It showed a civilization that destroyed itself over progressive ideals and then turned on the people who still had standards and principles, openly despising and devaluing them but parasitically living off their efforts. But most importantly, those parasites could never, ever admit that they were wrong, and that their worthless ideas had failed them. It's not a stretch to imagine that the worthless ideas of our own delusional progressives (mass immigration, affirmative action, rejecting standards as racist) directly led to this outcome.
Of all the fictional dystopias, our trajectory most closely matches Atlas Shrugged. With a heavy helping of 1984, of course.
It's Atlas Shrugged in that a catastrophic decline in standards and competence is inevitable in a society that abandons (and vilifies) merit. It's not a 1:1 match with the circumstances of the book, but the spirit is the same.
Atlas Shrugged is about the rebellion of John Galt, but it's more about the ruin caused by incompetent men with incompetent ideas. That ruin didn't occur because the great men abandoned society - it occurred because society abandoned the great men.
It showed a civilization that destroyed itself over progressive ideals and then turned on the people who still had standards and principles, openly despising and devaluing them but parasitically living off their efforts. But most importantly, those parasites could never, ever admit that they were wrong, and that their worthless ideas had failed them. It's not a stretch to imagine that the worthless ideas of our own delusional progressives (mass immigration, affirmative action, rejecting standards as racist) directly led to this outcome.
Of all the fictional dystopias, our trajectory most closely matches Atlas Shrugged. With a heavy helping of 1984, of course.
It's Atlas Shrugged in that a catastrophic decline in standards and competence is inevitable in a society that abandons (and vilifies) merit. It's not a 1:1 match with the circumstances of the book, but the spirit is the same.
Fundamentally, Atlas Shrugged is about competence, standards, and the ruin that follows when incompetent men destroy those things. That ruin didn't occur because the great men abandoned society, it occurred because society abandoned the great men.
It showed a society that destroyed itself over progressive ideals and then turned on the people who still had standards and principles, openly despising and devaluing them but parasitically living off their efforts. But most importantly, those parasites could never, ever admit that they were wrong, and that their worthless ideas had failed them. It's not a stretch to imagine that the worthless ideas of our own delusional progressives (mass immigration, affirmative action, rejecting standards as racist) directly led to this outcome.
Of all the fictional dystopias, our trajectory most closely matches Atlas Shrugged. With a heavy helping of 1984, of course.