MAL: How come you didn’t turn on me, Jayne?
JAYNE: Money wasn’t good enough.
MAL: What happens when it is?
JAYNE: When men reduce their virtues to the approximate, then evil acquires the force of an absolute, when loyalty to an unyielding purpose is dropped by the virtuous, it’s picked up by scoundrels—and you get the indecent spectacle of a cringing, bargaining, traitorous good and a self-righteously uncompromising evil.
MAL: What?
JAYNE: As long as you treat my loyalty as if it is available for purchase, it will be.
ZOE: We can’t steal a shipment of medicine bound for a bunch of sick miners.
MAL: I agree. What we can do is the job we were paid to do. Would you have me rob my employer on behalf of strangers unwilling to protect their investment?
ZOE: Jesus, Mal.
MAL: Do you agree that in a free society, men deal with one another by voluntary, uncoerced exchange, by mutual consent to mutual profit, each man pursuing his own rational self-interest, none sacrificing himself or others? That all values, whether goods or services, are traded, not given away?
ZOE: I don’t think this has anything to do with whether society is free or not. It’s about –
MAL: Everything is about whether society is free or not. If I am not free to act as I choose, then society is not free. There is no society without the individual. There is no freedom without the “I.” If I am not free to disrupt this shipment of medicine for profit, I am no better than a slave. If you demand I perform a selfless act for a group of strangers who mean nothing to me, you are a threat to my freedom, and I will deal with you as such.
ZOE: You wouldn’t shoot me, Mal?
MAL: No. But I would boycott you.
ZOE: What does that mean, in this context?
MAL: I cannot answer your question. I am on strike.
[MAL sits down.]
ZOE: What are you doing?
MAL: Asserting my freedom.
BOOK: That young man’s very brave.
MAL: [scoffing] Yeah. He’s my hero.
BOOK: Gave up everything to free his sister from that place. Go from being a doctor on the central planets to hiding on the fringes of the system…Not many who would do that.
MAL: I am glad of that, at least. The man is an altruist, and refuses to exist for his own sake.
BOOK: You think he should have left her there to die? Or worse?
MAL: Do not hide behind such superficialities as whether you should or should not rescue your sister from torture school. That is not the issue. The issue is whether you do or do not have the right to exist without rescuing her from torture school. The issue is whether you must keep buying your life, rescue by rescue, from any sibling who might choose to approach you. The issue is whether the need of others is the first mortgage on your life and the moral purpose of your existence. The issue is whether man is to be regarded as a sacrificial animal. Any man of self-esteem will answer: “No.” Altruism says: “Yes.”
DOCTOR CARON: “These are just a few of the images we’ve recorded. And you can see, it wasn’t what we thought. There’s been no war here and no terraforming event. The environment is stable. It’s the Pax. The G-23 Paxilon Hydrochlorate that we added to the air processors. It was supposed to calm the population, weed out aggression. Well, it works. The people here stopped fighting. And then they stopped everything else. They stopped going to work, they stopped breeding, talking, eating. There’s 30 million people here, and they all just let themselves die.”
MAL: I see no difference between this planet and any other.
SIMON: Jesus, Mal, this is where Reavers came fr –
MAL: Explain to me how the strangulation of men’s respiratory systems through Paxilon is any different from the strangulation of men’s ideas through government regulation.
SIMON: I…
MAL: If one upholds freedom, one must uphold man’s individual rights; if one upholds man’s individual rights, one must uphold his right to his own life, to his own liberty, to the pursuit of his own happiness; which means: one must uphold a political system that guarantees and protects these rights; which means: the politico-economic system of capitalism. All I’m saying, is that under true capitalism, this never would have happened.
ZOE: People need to know about this.
MAL: A free mind and a free market are the same thing. What people need are unregulated trade systems. And I’m going to give it to them.
[Image via]
this is the worst/best thing you’ve ever done.
oh my god
Love.
best response. only response necessary.
Aaaand we have today’s winner of the internet
This must be what going mad feels like
just realised Mallory could be Mal
not sure what to do with this information
Bad, in the Latin.
Request a gender-swapped version of the entire series with Mallory as captain y/y
Jesus, Mal.
10/10 would like again
*whispers* Ayn Rand’s Doctor Who
I’ve never watched Doctor Who and I never will, so that will remain forever unwritten.
THANK YOU
Could you explain to someone who’s watched only one épisode of Doctor Who in their life what’s so terrible about it?
I binge watched it on Netflix over the last few weeks with my boyfriend because the first few episodes seemed okay, so I could write you a thirty page dissertation about it, but I’ll resist.
As we progressed, I went from “this seems whimsical and charming and just a touch dramatic” to “I’m not really sure if I like this or not, but what the hey” to “what even is this, this makes no sense at all?” to “I want to punch you in your smug controlling asshole face, doctor”.
I don’t hate it, exactly, but between the completely unnecessarily inaccurate science (due to bad writing) that completely prevents me from suspending disbelief, the cheesy recycled narratives, and the Doctor slowly progressing into someone who ticks off several boxes on Lundy Bancroft’s “characteristics of an abuser” checklist (and it being romanticized like these are good characteristics to have), I am done.
There are good things about it, some episodes that weren’t badly done, some good characters who I actually like, but I see no need to continue wasting my weekends on it.
I am with you. But I am forever in debt to Doctor Who for one glorious concept. It speaks to my soul and makes me happy: the TARDIS, bigger on the inside.
Yeah. I love Doctor Who in a very deep kind of way–I knit Four’s scarf, I met my boyfriend at a Doctor Who trivia night, etc.–but hoooo boy has it go its problems. They vary a great deal from one writer to another, of course, and any show that’s been around for fifty years is going to have its share of terrible writing and really sexist/racist bullshit.
But. I can’t get over the idea of a blue box traveling through space and time, driven by a character who’s lived through damn near everything, and still *tries* to see the good in all living things. The opening music (in all its versions) gives me a thrill every damn time.
“RUN” *Christopher Eccleston’s manic grin*
“Do you know like we were saying, about the earth revolving? It’s like when you’re a kid, the first time they tell you that the world is turning and you just can’t quite believe it ’cause everything looks like it’s standing still. I can feel it… the turn of the earth. The ground beneath our feet is spinning at a thousand miles an hour. The entire planet is hurtling around the sun at sixty seven thousand miles an hour. And I can feel it. We’re falling through space, you and me, clinging to the skin of this tiny little world. And, if we let go…”
I love that scene so hard
I mean, there are many a reason lots of us stopped wathing once Moffat took over.
BUT HE’S LEAVING. Finally.
I could also write so much about Doctor Who, because at it’s best I love it more than most things but I also hate it so much so often.
The deification of the Doctor by his pretty young female companions is annoying from the start, but gets terrible by the latter seasons. He is the ultimate man-child, but companions stop thinking for themselves and start running around telling people that it doesn’t matter, the Doctor will save us. Badass amazing female characters say things like ‘never let him see you age’ and ‘when the Doctor is in the room you do exactly as he says.’ The Doctor makes completely arbitrary judgements about who is worthy and who is not based on things like ‘is pretty and asked an intelligent question within 30 seconds of meeting him’. But don’t worry; they’ll probably die either way because horrible things happen to excellent characters to fuel his deep deep mainpain. The entire show is essentially the definition of Male Tears.
I know. I wish they would replace all the writers, producers, directors and 80% of the characters with women. Then maybe I’d start watching again. I mean, I can handle many of the classic who series better than Moffat’s run.
To this end, I want a Madame Vastra and Jenny show, where they solve mysteries, and there are aliens. I’d watch the HELL out of that.
I want a spin-off with Lady Me from the most recent season.
…So Hamilton is out of the question too, then?
Thank Christ.
Ayn Rand would love Hamilton as-is, tbh. A self-made man who torpedoed his own marriage for the sake of preserving the legacy of his capitalist systems!
But no, because our Ham LOVED big government and taxation and regulations. Rand’s views on liberty and individualism align far more closely with Democratic Republicans,
Well YEAH sure but I feel like she’d admire his spirit! (and here is where I reveal that 100% of my Ayn Rand knowledge comes from Mallory’s articles.)
Nah. “I feel that my people need a centralized government system which taxes and regulates their commerce, for their own good” is VERY different from “People are garbage and they can only save themselves through self-worth and Capitalism.”
I second this. Doctor Who is in my nope bucket.
Ayn Rand’s Doctor Who has already been written, and it’s Doctor Who.
“And when this war is over, when you have the homeland free from humans, what do you think it’s going to be like? Do you know? Have you thought about it? Have you given it any consideration? Because you’re very close to getting what you want. What’s it going to be like? Paint me a picture! Are you going to live in houses? Do you want people to go to work? Will there be holidays? Oh! Will there be music?! Do you think people will be allowed to play violins? Who will make the violins? Well? Oh… you don’t actually know, do you? Because, just like every other tantruming child in history, Bonnie, you don’t actually know what you want! So, let me ask you a question about this brave new world of yours: when you’ve killed all the ‘bad guys’, and it’s all ‘perfect’ and ‘just’ and ‘fair’, when you have finally got it exactly the way you want it, what are you going to do with the people like you? The troublemakers. How are you going to protect your glorious revolution from the next one?”
Though I guess this could also be read as a direct response to Atlas Shrugged, so YMMV.
I hated that speech so much. I mean, I see his point, but I think that the argument that any revolution which has not fully thought through every potential facet of the system afterwards doesn’t deserve to happen is not one that I can get behind.
Special hell!
Can’t decide if that’s Mal reacting to this post or Randian Mal going on strike.
Sometimes I worry that you know Ayn Rand far too well, my friend. 😀
(Yeah, I do too, so it’s scary that I recognize ALL of this.)
All I’m saying, is that under true capitalism, this never would have happened.
Ah, the ever-retreating “true” capitalism.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/No_true_Scotsman
This post does show how smoothly Her rhetoric fits into the Whedon flow of narrative. As naturally as it does into everyday life.
It’s funny that this very serious Wikipedia has the subtitle “For the practice of wearing a kilt without undergarments, see True Scotsman.”
isn’t Firefly / Serenity already pretty much a libertarian flick anyway what with it’s ‘government overreach is atrocious and will murder you all/turn you into Reavers via fluoride’ plots and ‘plucky band of self-actualized do-gooders who operate beyond the law’ protagonists
Yes, which is exactly why I chose it for this series!
Well, now that you mentioned it, it’s going to go in my “things I love that are secret libertarian propaganda machines” basket along with the Little House books. That does explain my libertarian friends’ love of it while rejecting all things Angel/Buffy.
I was a little surprised that the article wasn’t just the DVD box art ‘shop, honestly.
I think it can swing both ways…I aim to misbehave by the standards of the legalistic fundie jerkfaces who support the clown car that is the Republican Party. I aim to misbehave on the part of increasing amounts of surveillance on my life without my permission. However, I am in favor of a government that fosters a free and fair civil society. I suppose it depends on whose rules you’re breaking.
… my god, the deleted comments on this should be pure gold, by which I mean a garbage fire.
Not that I wish a shit storm on the mods, but you know they are going to be great.
I’m pretty sure the length of time it takes my comments to show up on any given day corresponds with the amount of non-user comments the Toast is getting. Judging by that metric, they are SWAMPED about now. Although some of the queue is probably thanks to the “obscure knowledge” comment thread.
The Fountainhead is somewhat fuzzier on the subject of kneecaps.
I… I love you.
I am still cringing about my high school Ayn Rand phase. Thank god I grew out of that/
This doesn’t feel substantively different from regular Firefly, to be honest.
ugh everyone is making the same joke as me and I feel like a dope now
Firefly was a well-made show that was actually bad.
HOT TAKE
Firefly was a well-made show that could have been pretty great with a different show-runner.
Firefly was a show with great characters and dialogue that could have been pretty great with even half-assed–nay, quarter-assed–worldbuilding, instead of what we got.
Summary: Joss Whedon ruins everything.
I think he thinks that other people ruin his stuff, all the time. He did an AV Club interview a while back during which he went to pains to settle old one-sided grudges; he went on at some length about Halle Berry’s delivery of a single line in the first X-Men movie (it was the “what happens when you hit a toad with lightning” line). He even seems remarkably bitter at Marvel for having given him a billion-dollar movie franchise to play with, even though it raised his profile immensely after two failed TV shows. If he’s ever taken any part of the blame for something that he was involved with not turning out exactly as he wanted it to, I haven’t seen it; he may have done so at one point or another, but I don’t really like reading interviews with him, for the reasons mentioned above.
Also if it had had some actual Asians in it as more than just set dressing.
I’m including that in my wish list for a better showrunner, because Joss Whedon also seems to think there are no black people in L.A.
Firefly would have been better without all the neo-Confederate bullshit.
Everyone makes that same joke in every Ayn Rand and Dirtbag post, so don’t feel that bad!
When you think about it, getting canceled is basically the same as being regulated out of existence.
cannot help the delighted smirk on face. it continues to grow. co-workers may start to notice.
Frankly, I don’t see the difference.
As long as you treat my loyalty as if it is available for purchase, it will be.
Ok, but this line is amazing and successfully addresses the soft bigotry of low expectations.
Yeah. My response to that one was “Jayne has a point, actually.”
I love this, but I was kind of hoping for one where Inara informs Mal that she a producer who creates value and then gains value from others through voluntary exchange and that he has no cause to shame her for her entirely valid career choices.
Nice.
Because she already *says* that in Canon, and part of the humor comes from changing the meaning of the exchanges into something absurdly Aynrandian
Yes! I used to love Firefly until I realized just how terrible it was about sex work.
I was always really conflicted – like Inara is a smart, rounded, in control character, and the others don’t have any issue with her employment, just Mal. So it could be that Mal is just a patriarchal dick and the show itself is pro-sex work. BUT Mal is also in love with her, so is the show positing that a) jealousy is inherently real and proof of love and b) it’s impossible to have a good relationship with a sex worker?
I mean, Mal was a dick in other ways too, so I prefer to believe it’s positing that Mal is a jealous dick and it’s impossible to have a good relationship with a jealous dick.
My impression was similar, but specifically that Mal had to arc past being a jealous fuck before they could have a relationship.
Though I’m glad I don’t have to find out if that also meant that Inara would also have to give up her career for it to work.
Which she did. In the comic book follow up, Mal and Inara are together, but Inara has been kicked out of the Companions Guild because of the Minerva incident.
I never really *got* Firefly and that was one of the many reasons. All my friends were obsessed. But in one of the first episodes, even though it has been established that companions are respected and valued members of society, Mal still calls her a slut. I was like ?????
One of many seeds of WTFs that were planted in early episodes and then caused me to never finish the series.
To be fair, Mal knows this and says so. He doesn’t want her to participate in his crimes, because she does honest work. He hates some of her customers, particularly Atherton, but he does respect her and her work.
However, he teases her because he is an insecure baby who would rather have an antagonistic relationship with her, than make himself vulnerable and risk rejection.
#yesmalloryknowsthisisnotastretch
#thewholeseriesisaboutthingsthatarealreadyratherlikeaynrand
#funnierthisway
Mallory you are officially out of control.
I love this unabashedly. Bravo!
Jayne saying a five-syllable word? Color me confused.
Simon gets one measly syllable, never opens his confuddled mouth again.
Perfect.
Funny. But libertarians already love FIREFLY and consider it a libertarian show, an antidote to the collectivist-minded STAR TREK.
Request a gender-swapped version of the entire series with Mallory as captain y/y
“The issue is whether you do or do not have the right to exist without rescuing her from torture school. The issue is whether you must keep buying your life, rescue by rescue, from any sibling who might choose to approach you.”
omg
"The issue is whether you do or do not have the right to exist without rescuing her from torture school. The issue is whether you must keep buying your life, rescue by rescue, from any sibling who might choose to approach you."
omg
Every time I see a post title that begins wit the words “Ayn Rand’s,” I hear the “Y’all ready for this?” from the Space Jam theme in my head.
Every time I see a post title that begins wit the words "Ayn Rand's," I hear the "Y'all ready for this?" from the Space Jam theme in my head.
Get up and SLAM and welcome to AYN RAND
Very odd to see self-actualized and Libertarianism in the same argument. I would also make the point no one on that crew is very self actualized. That's a big part of their charm.