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You know, from his perspective, Andrew Ryan won.
He basically spat in the face of the man who played a big part in destroying his perfect world.
He denied his worst enemies their rightful victory over him. Atlas didn't kill him in the end: Ryan did.
He died on his own terms. He died because he exerted his own will over a person or a concept, which was his motivation for building Rapture in the first place.
And in the end, you, his worst enemy, turned into someone who was in many ways a lot like him.
Comments
What's the context?
Bioshock.
Objectivism is still dumb though.
And from the perspective of any sane person, he lost. He built a society grounded in sociopathy, which then collapsed in on its own sociopathy, a rival pushed him into a corner, and he committed an abstract form of seppuku to save face and give one last middle finger.
He died having watched everything he believed in demonstrated to be spectacularly untenable, and just happened to be deluded enough to think that was acceptable.
And it worked.
Quoting from the man himself:
Andrew Ryan's true power was the power to make choices, a power that Jack ultimately lacked. Remember what he said in the audio logs? He burned down his own forest just so that the government (the "parasites") would never take it from him.
It did not matter to him that he had lost something. What mattered to him was his ability to exert his own will over said thing, even if it was ultimately destructive.
so basically he's a fucked up objectivist who will cut off his nose to spite his face
That's pretty much it, yeah.
glad we came to this conclusion
Actually, I'm not sure he did win. He seemed to be rather angry and disappointed that Jack couldn't break out of his conditioning - he was prepared to die to make his point, yes, but I don't think that death was exactly the optimal, hoped-for outcome.
Basically, dude was pissed that his ingrate son couldn't bootstrap his way out of something as measly as literally being built from the ground up as a brainwashed living weapon.
That would require Andrew Ryan to care about someone other than himself, which goes against the idea of Objectivism.
Yes, but we already know he's kind of a hypocrite on that count, what with trying to regulate Fontaine's work. Not only that, but Objectivists fetishise product. He would have had a difficult time accepting that something he'd helped make would be that badly broken.
Jack's birth was an accident. Ryan wasn't even aware that he had a child until after Fontaine acquired Jack. It is true that Ryan was Jack's biological father, but Jack was more Fontaine's "product" than anything. If anything, Ryan would want Jack to be destroyed, as he is very egotistical and thus loathes the idea of making mistakes.
Andrew Ryan's hypocrisy does not conflict with his selfishness. On the contrary, it was directly derived from it. That was one of the flaws inherent in his system. Rapture required an altruistic benefactor to exist in the first place (a benefactor that Ryan initially presented himself as) yet inherently condemned altruism. It required selflessness to exist, yet condemned selflessness and celebrated its opposite.
He didn't really have a choice but to become a hypocrite, because his system was inherently unworkable and flawed. Which was the point.
As far as I remember, Objectivism has a sort of love-hate relationship with relationships. An Objectivist might care for another person (like a spouse) because it makes him (her) feel better, which makes it rational self-interest. Or sort of. I never cared to check the details. I also never played Bioshock so probably I shouldn't have posted in here, but has that ever stopped anyone on the 'Net?
These are the stats for the Atlas Shrugged movies. Production of part III starts soon.
Proof that objectivists do not truly believe in rational self interest.
Further proof: you risk dehydration by sitting through Galt's rambling bullshit manifesto.
Under Objectivism, wouldn't that be your fault for not purchasing water beforehand?
So what exactly is objectivism? Coming from a quick read of its page on Wikipedia, it appears to advocate for reason-based free will and freedom, which it supports by assuming (1) that people are capable of perfectly rational behavior, and (2) that dealing with circumstances with perfectly rational behavior will result in optimal outcomes.
That is bollocks, super-rational behavior is where it is at.
You're barely rational as it is.
I don't like rational behavior that much, it tends to devolve into tragedy of the commons too often for my liking.
Your face is rational.