I just started reading Atlas Shrugged a few weeks ago. With school beginning, I haven't had much time to keep at it, so I'm only about two hundred pages in. But so far, I adore it - the spirit, the writing, the ideas, the characters, all of it. It's exactly what I had been looking for in a book ever since I read Catch-22.

Meanwhile, I keep stumbling upon vague, hushed references to Atlas Shrugged, and Ayn Rand (to whose work I'm completely new), and this underlying philosophy of "objectivism," as if it were something unspeakably evil that deserves to be sealed away with the likes of Nazism. When I tell people what I'm reading, I invariably receive either an ominously knowing smile or a sudden awkward silence, followed by the tentatively murmured question: "What do you think of it?" I've stopped telling people that I love it because it seems to scare the hell out of them.

Should I just carry on with the knowledge that something very, very dark is lurking around the corner? How abhorrent can it be? Who is John Galt?

Kaelri, some people will read a novel, a philosophical exegesis or a polemic and come away from a reading no less given to decency and a kind regard for their fellows. A whole lot depends on what they take into it. The book is, after all, just a book and there's nothing to mandate acceptance of the ideas. Some people are so kindly disposed to others that a reading which inspires them to viciousness is not possible -- even if the authorial intent was to create vicious people.

Greenspan was a bitter, vengeful, hypocritical dipshit well before he read Rand. So were many other people, many of them loud and gleefully hateful. Quite a few of her readers nevertheless walked away with their empathy and humanity intact. Some of them, for reasons I don't fully understand, can extract a reading that leads them to become better people. Truly humans are strange critters.

I suspect that a lot of the dismay you've encountered is rooted in the belief that people are powerfully animated by philosophical concepts. And so they are, but that's a small part of what animates people.

kaeiri:

Ayn Rand isn't all bad. It's mostly what people do with her philosophy that makes people wary of objectivism. Much the way Machiavelli probably wasn't a bad guy, just someone who understood the nature of politicians makes his name synonomous with deciet and power-craze. His book The Prince is pretty tempered, but because certain people practice it in bad faith, they turn out to be the subject of his book, as opposed to the objective - they turn out to be bad politicians as opposed to politicians prepared to deal with evil agendas. Objectivism is a similar phenomenon. It's based on forethought and ethics, but most of the time people just zoom in on the morality of economics. The Randist will say it's immoral to tax, because that's one entity living off the charity of another. Which is so not in touch with the spirit of Randism. Although Rand did hate taxes and devoted some viking God/dirty harry named Ragnar Danneskjold to a reverse robin hood role to steal taxes from the disenfranchised and give back to the industrialist.

Also, her philosophy is kind of childish. It only works in a vacuum - when there are no repercussions beyond those intended. I guess her book lacks judiciousness.

Her characters are all supermodels blessed with Super Einstein's intellect, capable of figuring out linear algebra on the fly when they're 12 y/o's and want to make a zip line to play on out in their expansive mansion back yard.

They're all perfectly logical and rational about everything - especially love, family, and money. Weird. They also know everything, consciously or viscerally.

Her book is kind of cartoonish, long-winded, (she has one character talk for 80 straight pages! But she includes paragraph breaks, so that's nice) and repetitive. Also, she embeds highly technical language about her philosophy in a work of fiction, which is aesthetically discombobulating. Like you'll be reading along about Henry Reardon at a cocktail party (which Ayn Rand abhorred to her credit) and you'll be hit with this line: "Rationality is the recognition of the fact that nothing can alter the truth and nothing can take precedence over that act of perceiving it." Whoa, wtf happened to Reardon ordering another drink from a dead-eyed waitress?

Long story short, she tries to be a writer, a philosopher, a mathematician, an engineer, a cultural critic, a nation builder, a psychologist, and economist, and a teacher, but she doesn't really pull any of them off. There's no one aspect of her book you'd draw out and say this - this is what public policy should look like. This is what we'll subject citizens to. This shall be the foundation to expertise in this area from here on out. Mostly because all of her ideas exist in a vacuum, impossible to work in a world where one doesn't control all the variables.

But her political observations are on par with Orwell's. She just doesn't make the connection that everything's related - big money, psychology of power, incentives, and human nature. She says industrialist good, politicians bad, like there's no cross-over.

Another important point I gloss over due to generational bias: the book is about the encroachment of communism upon America. Some generations have seen communism play out and think it absurd that communism could catch on over capitalism around the globe, other generations have only read about communism in history books thus have no idea what the hell Ayn Rand is railing against for 100 pages.

Criticisms of Objectivism (or Ayn Rand).
http://world.std.com/~mhuben/critobj.html
Big Sister is Watching You
by Whittaker Chambers. The 1957 National Review book review of Atlas Shrugged. Wants to be sympathetic, but just can't: the book was just too awful.

WHERE is John Galt? (when you need him most)

Slightly OT: As the subprime stuff plays out--and from everything I've read, it's just beginning--Greenspan's name will become blacker and blacker.

I hope he's enjoyed the worship. Because, as Ayn Rand so famously said, "Payback is a bitch."

Wait, what? Ayn Rand's political observations are on par with Orwell's? No, goddamnit, no.

The reason Rand is abhorred as adolescent and stupid is because her vision of the world is adolescent and stupid. There are no John Galts and Henry Reardons. The world is NOT run by super-competent capitalists who are dragging along the rest of us sorry carcasses, leaches on their genius. Fuck, no. This is a maniac vision suitable for those in the ruling class who wish to stroke their own egos, assert their own superiority, and insist that nothing needs to change, that they are on top because they deserve to be on top.

As a work of fiction, Atlas Shrugged is dumb. Aside from the plot holes, the crappy exposition, the inserted 56-page manifesto on Objectivism, the characters are wooden and non-human, all of them psychotic, maybe autistic. Real human beings cannot live according to her philosophy. A close compatriot of hers, Nathaniel Branden, a psychologist, describes in this article: http://www.nathanielbranden.com/catalog/rand.php some of the weird conversations he had with Rand's followers, who would come to him for treatment because of the manias trying to live according to Rand's philosophy had caused in them.

The biggest joke is the ending of the book, when Rand posits what is essentially a hippie commune (with a thin capitalist veneer) as the ideal society created by her super-men.

1991 poll conducted by the Library of Congress and the Book of the Month Club on which books most affected readers' personal lives:
1. The Bible
2. Atlas Shrugged

This reader would have put Terry Southern's The Magic Christian way above those two, but then I lost my way a long, long time ago.

Atlas Shrugged is the capitalist version of a communist utopia, where the worthy live happily ever after and the unworthy perish--Alan Greenspan's remark is a pithy summary of the novel. I don't think there is any daylight between her philosophy and his summary. What is interesting, though, is that I think there are some people who read her novel and take some worthwhile bits out of it. One guy in the NYT article Jonathan cites seems to have made his company into a model of transparency, apparently based on how he interprets her philosophy. I don't know if his company is really as good as he paints it, but that didn't seem like a bad idea.

What's interesting about Atlas Shrugged to me is that novels depicting utopias don't usually include a segment comparable to what Russia experienced in 1917-1921 (the disintegration of society and a famine that killed millions) as a necessary part of what it takes to bring about Paradise. I'd say that's honest of her, but it isn't, because most of those who obviously perish do so mostly out of sight.

I'm guessing the appeal of "Atlas Shrugged" (which I read and disliked) is similar to the appeal of "Dune" or other apocalyptic stories, some of which I like (I like "Dune")--you identify with Paul Atriedes and are fascinated by all the superhuman characters, good and evil, who surround him, and the fact that his quest to survive and regain his heritage will unleash a jihad that kills billions doesn't really register, because all that happens after the novel ends and you never get a portrait of how these power struggles affect ordinary people. Similarly, the only people who matter in Atlas Shrugged are the talented and their enemies are all either useless boring parasites or actively evil. They earn their fate, just as Greenspan says and in the context of the story it's pointless illogical sentimentality to pity them too much. To make another comparsion, it's the "Left Behind" series with a different sort of god, but the same mentality.

Atlas Shrugged is the capitalist version of a communist utopia, where the worthy live happily ever after and the unworthy perish--Alan Greenspan's remark is a pithy summary of the novel. I don't think there is any daylight between her philosophy and his summary. What is interesting, though, is that I think there are some people who read her novel and take some worthwhile bits out of it. One guy in the NYT article Jonathan cites seems to have made his company into a model of transparency, apparently based on how he interprets her philosophy. I don't know if his company is really as good as he paints it, but that didn't seem like a bad idea.

What's interesting about Atlas Shrugged to me is that novels depicting utopias don't usually include a segment comparable to what Russia experienced in 1917-1921 (the disintegration of society and a famine that killed millions) as a necessary part of what it takes to bring about Paradise. I'd say that's honest of her, but it isn't, because most of those who obviously perish do so mostly out of sight.

I'm guessing the appeal of "Atlas Shrugged" (which I read and disliked) is similar to the appeal of "Dune" or other apocalyptic stories, some of which I like (I like "Dune")--you identify with Paul Atriedes and are fascinated by all the superhuman characters, good and evil, who surround him, and the fact that his quest to survive and regain his heritage will unleash a jihad that kills billions doesn't really register, because all that happens after the novel ends and you never get a portrait of how these power struggles affect ordinary people. Similarly, the only people who matter in Atlas Shrugged are the talented and their enemies are all either useless boring parasites or actively evil. They earn their fate, just as Greenspan says and in the context of the story it's pointless illogical sentimentality to pity them too much. To make another comparsion, it's the "Left Behind" series with a different sort of god, but the same mentality.

saurabh:

fair enough point. I made a sloppy statement.

I was thinking of Ayn Rand's emphasis on language, about how she says "never let an evil remain unnamed." (no one gets away with saying "you just don't get it" or remaining vague in matters of life and death, as Orwell talks about in "Politics and the English Language.") I wouldn't otherwise confuse Orwell's political critiques with Rand's, just the emphasis on language where there's some crossover.

Aside from clarifying that one point, I agree with all your other points. Although I still think Rand teaches some worthy lessons, it's easy to imagine her books driving people insane.

on-topic: most newspapers are covering greenspan's hating with some paraphrase of you can't cut taxes without taking food from the mouths of orphans. it's fiscally unsound. the amounts don't have to be equal; the thought counts.

off-t: there are literally billions of people alive today who wouldn't have been born without genius discoveries, and probably wouldn't be able to live without ongoing genius maintenance. this creates a problem for geniuses, suddenly morally bound to fix social plumbing. the trouble with rand, for me, is that her attitude creates tolerance of slums, which increases the maintenance overhead and drives people even further into dreams of separation and neglect.

I liked it, but I always saw it as science fiction, I mean EVERY book gots some kind of manifesto.

hapa

Problem is, even paranoids could like good novels. Like the ones the Board of Modern Library picked on the same website (Joyce et al).
But, most "folks" don't, whether in the anti-intellectual USA or the Land of Goethe. The trash content there may be 50% to our 85%, but when "even" the college elite complains that the readings assigned in English Literature coures includes too many works by, well, traditional English authors, what do you expect from the prolis?
My grandfather tried to interest the workers of Vienna in presentations at a cultural center the Social Democrats built (1920s). They went to pro wrestling instead, where the brave blond Austrian defeated the bald bad Turk.

Actually Greenspan knew Ayn Rand and was one of her acolytes. He's always been a hard core Objectivist. to the poster above reading Rand. Don't worry, you'll grow out of it

hf: You beat me to it. :-P

Actually Greenspan knew Ayn Rand and was one of her acolytes. He's always been a hard core Objectivist. to the poster above reading Rand. Don't worry, you'll grow out of it

And it's likely that before you grow out of it, you'll see more of the societal havoc it is capable of wreaking. The turbulence that lots of people want to stuff back into the bottle ain't half done playing out yet. Just watch those ARM's reset, etc. Oh, and don't you think there will be another go at privatizing social security. I think there's a good chance.

no, that's not just folks. that's a stack of the some of the most egotistical hero books ever written. i've read enough popular hero stories to know the difference between proud-defenders-of-culture and contempt for democracy.

Err, I assume you're excluding To Kill a Mockingbird and 1984 from "egotistical hero books"?

The good and the bad of Ayn Rand, and the perversion of her legacy by the personality cult she left behind, can all be compiled into one simple declarative and perfectly factual sentence:

Ayn Rand opposed the Vietnam War because it was too altruistic.

QED.

I too was floored when I discovered that one of the lesser Randians had ended up running the Fed.

Then I found out about former Chief Justice Rehnqist's anti-black voting shenanigans as a young wingnut.

Leaving Bush aside, who can top that?

Rand, like that Rajneeshi guy, and the Scientologists, offer a rationalisation for greed and for contempt for others less fortunate. Her surfaces are as hard as the science she worships, but the soul of it is a sort of millennial romanticism. It's difficult though to make conceit and arrogance, not to mention emotional aridity, romantic.

She didn't succeed for me, but I'm another who didn't make it to the end of Atlas Shrugged. Any Atlas worth his salt wouldn't shrug in any case.

no, i'm merciless. i'm multiplying the density of the reader by 5, then viewing the books through a compatible lens: i see an individual nobleman teaching morals to proles, and a martyr crucified by biggus brothericus.

basically my summary of the novel is this: when the principal character of a book is a petulant man who makes a perpetual motion machine, it falls into the genre of fantasy and not seriousness

as regards the vacuum that surrounds the book, i noticed that there are no black people as central characters. that's not really odd for the time the book was written in, but to ignore a swathe of humanity like that? doesnt seem very serious to me.

but then my dad, a nice loving, generous and smart man is a big fan of this book. so maybe i'm missing something here.

A major problem with almost all these poll questions is that there is no follow-up. If someone claims that a book "affected" his life, or that a Covey seminar changed her "management style," nobody asks_ "Just How? or "In What Ways?" Give me details, instances, and, "For How Long?" Was the "effect" permanent? etc etc
Most lists are lists. It's like coverage of the economic news on NPR--"Now, let's do the numbers."
In one brain, out the other.

Almostinfamous--I think it's possible for good people to read "Atlas Shrugged" and pull out morals like "Don't be afraid to stand up against the crowd and think for yourself" and "Work hard and don't expect to freeload off of others" and stuff like that, without really noticing all the nasty ugly themes the rest of us see. I'm not sure why people don't notice that nasty stuff, but it happens.

I've never read Rand, but I can see myself being a fan as a teenager; I mean, I actually enjoyed the Reader's Digest when I was 10 and only started to distrust it when I noticed all the articles about black schoolkids being ostracized for "acting white". Although Pam Spaulding at Pandagon says that's a genuine problem, so make of that what you will.
I find the author who in my mind does the best and funniest defense of individualism is Terry Pratchett, and his defense is so powerful precisely because his heroes never forget that "that it is through other people that we truly become people."

Kaelri may not be interested in this, but I really feel that he or she ought to, after reading Atlas Shrugged, read some selections from Nietzsche. "The Gay Science" is a good start. I really feel that Nietzsche's philosophy is like a more thorough and honest version of what Rand believed. He talks about how the 'supermen' need to use force or cunning to enslave the sheeplike masses, and how the masses are really good for nothing but slavery. He has some ideas of how this could be accomplished, without the masses even noticing. Good stuff.

Rand's biggest problem is that the way she describes the thought processes of altruistic characters can be intuitively understood as inaccurate by anyone who has ever felt empathy in their entire life.

I actually enjoyed reading Atlas Shrugged, because huge parts of her moral code are actually good and perfectly salvagable when you pull them from her silly view of the world. The ideas of trusting in your own judgment rather than the mob's, of never giving up on your life or submitting to despair, of never asking someone for more than you've earned and of learning to take joy and pride in hard work are all worthwhile ideas that are ripe for the picking from Ayn Rand's novels.

That said, Hank Rearden's revelation (which was foreshadowed for like a thousand fucking pages) that altruists are, at their core, driven by a rational philosophy that hates life and longs for death, was fucking hilarious. Actually, Ayn, humans have this crazy capacity, known as "empathy," that forces us to feel some measure of pain when witnessing a fellow human being's suffering. Crazy, I know.

Still, on the whole, I like her. I am trying not to touch the flamboyant comparison of Atlas Shrugged to Mein Kampf, as it is a piece of idiocy that was designed to make anyone who wastes his time criticizing it look like the idiot himself.

"Randian man, like Marxian man is made the center of a godless world"

And this is a problem why?

I like the part at the end when all of the ass holes leave and no one cares.

Never read Mein Kampf, but I think your view of Rand as someone who doesn't know what empathy feels like is about right--this would account for why she presents a global cataclysm as a justifiable prelude to the kind of world where talented people like her get to rule the world.

Hitler-like? Don't know. And yeah, there are some decent extractable morals you can get from Atlas Shrugged--it's hard to concoct a moral system which is evil in every possible respect.

off-t: there are literally billions of people alive today who wouldn't have been born without genius discoveries, and probably wouldn't be able to live without ongoing genius maintenance.

Yeah. But there are also literally billions of geniuses who would not be able to live without ongoing work, help, and consideration from mediocre-to-stupid people. The geniuses, as a class, owe their entire existence to the throngs of mediocre-to-stupid people who populate the entire Earth.

Without a huge human population, a huge food surplus, and human cultures that include vast amounts of mediocre, untalented people, and even downright morons, Geniuses would not even be able to use the well-developed mental abilities that they have been gifted with. They would, instead, be fighting for survival, and no-one would know or care that they could do mathematics amazingly well.

Greenspan contributed essays to Rand's book Capitalism: The Unknown Ideal. He's been with objectivism for a long time.

Greenspan contributed essays to Rand's book Capitalism: The Unknown Ideal. He's been with objectivism for a long time.

Greenspan contributed essays to Rand's book Capitalism: The Unknown Ideal. He's been with objectivism for a long time.