E17 - Public Relations

A Socialist Reads Atlas Shrugged

Jonathan begins this episode by returning to a question explored in Episode 6: the difficulty of determining the moral and ethical responsibilities that a business owner has regarding social justice and responding to social change. This scene within Chapter 2 addresses the question with Hank Rearden's friend, Paul Larkin, voicing concern about Hank's poor public image. Jonathan discusses the role of public relations in holding corporations accountable for ethical violations as well as the trouble with public relations as a tool of deception (similar to advertising). The episode ends with a focus on the one sentence about the government that foreshadows Rand's interpretation of government as existing only as a predator of society's producers and innovators.
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?

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Learn more about Jonathan Seyfried at their website, https://jonathanseyfried.art
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The intro/outro music was composed by John Sib.
The podcast theme image was created by Karina Bialys.

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