atlas shrugged

[BigOrange]

(did a search before posting, and all i really found were discussions about the movie, or ayn rand herself -- and none of them were posted in the book forum so GFY if you have a problem with my starting a thread about the book itself).

so after 2 months, i finally finished the thing. i'm not exactly sure what my overall opinion about the book is, but i do have some thoughts:

- i wasn't much of a fan of the 3rd act. when the story was about 2 giants of industry struggling to keep hold of their businesses from ever increasing governmental control, and being the only two people in the world who understood one another, that was something i really enjoyed reading. but when secret valleys full of the world's brightest minds on strike, 70 page radio addresses, government taking prisoner a private citizen and trying to force him into a dictatorship role and shootouts at secret torture chambers came in to play, it kind of made the story silly in my eyes.

- it was awfully repetitive. the version i read was 1,069 pages and the font was $#@!ing small. it was almost as if rand didn't trust the reader to understand her philosophy the first 5 times she spelled it out, so she went ahead and spelled it out a 6th or 7th time as well.

- in spite of it's length, i don't feel that the book did a very good job in showing how galt was able to successfully get all of these giants of industry to walk away from everything. it was understood when dagny and rearden finally walked away because we spent the entire book with them and saw how bad things got for them over a course of years (the chapter where rearden finally gives up may have been my favorite chapter in the book, btw. at least up until the point where there is a government staged riot in front of his factory). but at the start of the book, things didn't seem to be all that bad (at least for hank and dagny) and yet most of the world's best minds were already chilling in colorado.

i just wish the last third of the book had been different. i understand the idea of a strike against the government, but i think rand went too far with making the government so clearly 100% the bad guy. i mean, passing a directive that if you quit your job you will be arrested just doesn't really come across as realistic to me. the book was set in the united states, not communist russia (and yes, i know that is where rand was born and shaped many of her beliefs/philosophies and the world was a much different place in 1957 than it is today), but it just seemed like too much.

i'm glad i read it though. regardless of how i fell about the story told in the book, i do agree with rand that government is generally a leach upon the best a society has to offer and i feel like she did a fairly good job displaying that in the first 2/3 of the book. i just wish the ending had been as good as the set up.

[jose_medina_de_jesus]

(did a search before posting, and all i really found were discussions about the movie, or ayn rand herself -- and none of them were posted in the book forum so GFY if you have a problem with my starting a thread about the book itself).

so after 2 months, i finally finished the thing. i'm not exactly sure what my overall opinion about the book is, but i do have some thoughts:

- i wasn't much of a fan of the 3rd act. when the story was about 2 giants of industry struggling to keep hold of their businesses from ever increasing governmental control, and being the only two people in the world who understood one another, that was something i really enjoyed reading. but when secret valleys full of the world's brightest minds on strike, 70 page radio addresses, government taking prisoner a private citizen and trying to force him into a dictatorship role and shootouts at secret torture chambers came in to play, it kind of made the story silly in my eyes.

- it was awfully repetitive. the version i read was 1,069 pages and the font was $#@!ing small. it was almost as if rand didn't trust the reader to understand her philosophy the first 5 times she spelled it out, so she went ahead and spelled it out a 6th or 7th time as well.

- in spite of it's length, i don't feel that the book did a very good job in showing how galt was able to successfully get all of these giants of industry to walk away from everything. it was understood when dagny and rearden finally walked away because we spent the entire book with them and saw how bad things got for them over a course of years (the chapter where rearden finally gives up may have been my favorite chapter in the book, btw. at least up until the point where there is a government staged riot in front of his factory). but at the start of the book, things didn't seem to be all that bad (at least for hank and dagny) and yet most of the world's best minds were already chilling in colorado.

Spoiler!

i just wish the last third of the book had been different. i understand the idea of a strike against the government, but i think rand went too far with making the government so clearly 100% the bad guy. i mean, passing a directive that if you quit your job you will be arrested just doesn't really come across as realistic to me. the book was set in the united states, not communist russia (and yes, i know that is where rand was born and shaped many of her beliefs/philosophies and the world was a much different place in 1957 than it is today), but it just seemed like too much.

i'm glad i read it though. regardless of how i fell about the story told in the book, i do agree with rand that government is generally a leach upon the best a society has to offer and i feel like she did a fairly good job displaying that in the first 2/3 of the book. i just wish the ending had been as good as the set up.

fixed it for you. just kidding. very glad you posted this. I have been staring at this book on a shelf for 4 weeks now, and haven't quite wanted to start it. you made my mind up for me. I think I'm gonna pass

[kevwun]

I liked the message that women should dump their significant other whenever an upgrade is possible. I liked the book through the first few hundred pages and then it became a beating that I had to trudge through to finish. The radio address is without a doubt the worst thing I've ever read.

[BigOrange]

yeah i didn't read all of that. i read about the first 5 pages and then just read a paragraph or two per page until i got to the end of it and read the last 2-3 pages.

and i agree that dagny deciding to get rid of rearden after a month with galt was hard to believe.

[DFWBear]

The influence this book has exerted continues to be a mystery to me . . . its is just so poorly written. Granted, I'm a complete $#@! that looks at the Harry Potter series derisively because it's poorly written; absolutely no one should give a $#@! what I think.

That being said, I wouldn't advise anyone to read Fountainhead or Atlas Shrugged unless they were interested in Objectivism, or they just really really wanted to read it. There are far too many high quality bibliographies / fiction / history to waste 2 months of your time on drivel this boring.

[MrPhlegm]

tl;dr

I started some of Rand's $#@! tl;dr boring ass $#@!. ratger read mr wizard's $#@!

[rage-a-holic]

Atlas Shrugged and The Fountainhead helped make me the angry, selfish, uncaring $#@! that I am today.

[CooterBrown]

The TL;DR definition of Objectivism I heard a while back is "I'm already in the life boat, pull up the ladder."

If that's accurate, then I can see why it appeals to a certain subset of the population.

[clear lake horn]

The TL;DR definition of Objectivism I heard a while back is "I'm already in the life boat, pull up the ladder."

A mindless anecdote meant to be consumed by the ADD crowd.

[TheCruiser]

We have no issue with self-guided assistance to others, only an issue with altruism. I will not be directed to aide others, but may do so of my own accord, if it makes me happy. And sure enough, many of us are made happy by doing so. I'll take the philanthropic pepsi challenge with anybody, anywhere, anytime.

[wildcat09]

We have no issue with self-guided assistance to others, only an issue with altruism. I will not be directed to aide others, but may do so of my own accord, if it makes me happy. And sure enough, many of us are made happy by doing so. I'll take the philanthropic pepsi challenge with anybody, anywhere, anytime.

Who is "we"? Because if you consider yourself an objectivist, you're doing it wrong.

[SPII]

liked the book when i was 17. would probably hate it now. radio address was awful and dagney was a $#@!.

[clear lake horn]

You have heard it said that this is an age of moral crisis. You have said it yourself, half in fear, half in hope that the words had no meaning. You have cried that man's sins are destroying the world and you have cursed human nature for its unwillingness to practice the virtues you demanded. Since virtue, to you, consists of sacrifice, you have demanded more sacrifices at every successive disaster.

In the name of a return to morality, you have sacrificed all those evils, which you held as the cause of your plight. You have sacrificed justice to mercy. You have sacrificed independence to unity. You have sacrificed reason to faith. You have sacrificed wealth to need. You have sacrificed self-esteem to self-denial. You have sacrificed happiness to duty.

You have destroyed all that which you held to be evil and achieved all that which you held to be good. Why, then, do you shrink in horror from the sight of the world around you? That world is not the product of your sins; it is the product and the image of your virtues. It is your moral ideal brought into reality in its full and final perfection.

[DemosZTV]

Read Anthem and after that I decided that I wanted no part of any other fiction she ever wrote. Kudos to you for plowing through that though.

[Wally Banger]

The influence this book has exerted continues to be a mystery to me . . . its is just so poorly written. Granted, I'm a complete $#@! that looks at the Harry Potter series derisively because it's poorly written; absolutely no one should give a $#@! what I think.

That being said, I wouldn't advise anyone to read Fountainhead or Atlas Shrugged unless they were interested in Objectivism, or they just really really wanted to read it. There are far too many high quality bibliographies / fiction / history to waste 2 months of your time on drivel this boring.

If I recall correctly, Rand did not allow Atlas Shrugged to be edited. I know that I've read criticism on this board to that extent, anyway. To me, anyone who criticizes the book based on style or diction misses the broad point of Rand's philosophy. Rand didn't write Atlas Shrugged to appeal to broad masses, she wrote it for herself.

[wildcat09]

If I recall correctly, Rand did not allow Atlas Shrugged to be edited. I know that I've read criticism on this board to that extent, anyway. To me, anyone who criticizes the book based on style or diction misses the broad point of Rand's philosophy. Rand didn't write Atlas Shrugged to appeal to broad masses, she wrote it for herself.

Yeah, that's frequently why people write 70 page speeches that are nothing but blatant attempts at converting readers to a specific point of view.

[bozo_casanova]

I think I covered this topic pretty fully two years ago

the problem with Ayn Rand from my perspective is that she was a lightweight and a dilettante who's work wasn't taken seriously at the height of her powers, because it was widely understood then to be insubstantial, self-indulgent crap. So why is she taken seriously now?

[CutTheCrackJack]

You know- those are good points BO. Usually Any Rand threads get $#@! on and made fun of. I understand, she obviously has an agenda and it plods on and on and on and on. Still, I liked Fountainhead and Atlas Shrugged was pretty good, imo, because I identified with the much of the values presented. However, if I may:

In Defense of John Galt

Lately it's become fashionable to besmirch and dismiss Ayn Rand because of her simple message and how it, seemingly, appeals to the middle class which is the fat part of the "smart people with an iota of ambition" bell curve.

As people- I'll go ahead and assume everyone on this thread, with the exception of those who have probably tapped out their god-given and/or environmentally-given potential (an honorable thing), anyways I digress- As people who are beyond that, as learned men of commerce and trade and men of ability and experience, we sometimes grow defensive and show personal weakness. Like a food snob who is offended by the ignorance of the uninitiated with $#@!ty palates and ill breeding, we sometimes need to be reminded that we were 19 once, too.

I've been meaning to post in advocacy of Rand and her works, so here is as good a time as any.

Atlas Shrugged Haters:

Having read the book, I get the hate. I really do. Rand romanticizes certain values (as is her prerogative with AS being a work of literary fiction, mind you) and oversimplifies the benefits of particular behaviors. It has the predatory feel, at times, of being solely written to manipulate the youth of which it targets and purportedly empowers- those young and naive souls with just enough knowledge and understanding of life for it to be dangerously sterile. How sterile, you ask? With respect that if one was to end life’s investigation with a short sighted and stunted philosophy like Objectivism, one would be castrating their selves of their analytical-right and critical-thinking-left testicle.

However, what the self appointed protectors of economic, literary, and social integrity, like our vociferous business-hipster friends who write belittling and scalding critiques (or pithy, dismissive quips, as shaggy is wont to do), fail to realize is that they are discrediting their position by engaging in a logical fallacy; tu quoque.

Instead of quietly moving on with their lives after, ostensibly, reading a book of little value and intrigue, they instead must shout how offended their sensibilities are. Stated another way, instead of stepping over the $#@! on the ground, they scoop it up and wheel around with it in their bare hand telling anyone who will listen to beware the $#@!.

Much like Tim Tebow, the very fact that Rand inspires so much passion and distaste from people who can't help but dolefully bemoan her merits, my position in favor of AS’s right to exist solidifies.

Besides, in the Fall of 2002 I fondly remember thinking I was a pretty tough cookie reading that bad boy between classes in the West Mall and I don't want to revise that!

[bozo_casanova]

But she couldn't write

[rage-a-holic]

But she couldn't write

It's every single $#@!ing Ayn Rand thread with you. We get it, you don't like her. The fact that liberals hate her has been clearly established.

[CutTheCrackJack]

But she couldn't write

It could have been written better, sure. The same can be said for The Bible, Twilight of the Idols, The Myth of Sisyphus and the Communist Manifesto. The fiction is an after thought and is sacrificed for the advancement of the "philosophy".

It's worse than the aforementioned and she comes off as a hack in a lot of it, but I still think it's something young people should read once.

[linux]

The communist manifesto does not get similar air time though, seriously the defense of Rand's work is befuddling, read it if you are a masochist and like to have things hammered over and over and over and over and over and over.

The thing about the fountainhead is that even that was 800 pages, but at least it had mild progression, if she still lived I would have loved to troll her by telling her I loved the first half of the book but could not bother finish the latter part (where she hammers the point incessently) and that Toohey was a great selfless role model.

[TheCruiser]

I'm gonna go out on a limb and assume you thought that "the Motorcycle Diaries" was really well-written...

[crinermad]

Every time someone mentions how good Atlas Shrugged is, I think of Whittaker Chambers' review of it. Greatest takedown of a writer by a review ever.

[Rimbo]

It's every single $#@!ing Ayn Rand thread with you. We get it, you don't like her. The fact that liberals hate her has been clearly established.

As a libertarian-leaning type, can I hate her $#@! ass writing and bull$#@! philosphy, too?

[wildcat09]

I think it bears repeating that Ayn Rand was a crazy sociopathic $#@!. She idolized a serial killer who dismembered a little girl. Her heroes were based on him.

And let's not forget that Alan Greenspan and the rest of the $#@!s who helped crash the economy into the ditch loved Rand. The idea that the "elites" hate her is hilariously misguided. She gives an intellectual front to their naked greed and helps justify their corruption.

[bozo_casanova]

It is accurate to say that she admired sociopathy, but in her defense that's because she was too dumb to tell the difference between sociopathy and intellectual liberation.

[clear lake horn]

I think it bears repeating that Ayn Rand was a crazy sociopathic $#@!. She idolized a serial killer who dismembered a little girl. Her heroes were based on him.

Noam Chomsky made excuses for the genocides of Pol Pot and Mao, yet I'm betting you think he's the bomb.

[BigOrange]

oh boy, more posts about rand herself and not the book.

[CutTheCrackJack]

What is intellectual liberation, exactly?

[CutTheCrackJack]

oh boy, more posts about rand herself and not the book.

This is the thing- when you write a piece of fiction that sacrifices the craft of writing and puts it on the back burner to pimp out an ideology, the author is personally going to be inextricably tied to the work. You can't separate them as easily and just analyze and critique the book without discussion of the author because, in essence, what she is trying to do is validate herself as a serious and profound philosopher. Especially after she trademarks a name of the philosophy, starts an institute, etc. etc.

[bozo_casanova]

oh boy, more posts about rand herself and not the book.

The book is crap.

[bozo_casanova]

Noam Chomsky made excuses for the genocides of Pol Pot and Mao, yet I'm betting you think he's the bomb.

Now there's a relevant comparison.

Tip: if you are defending the work someone whom you take seriously by judging it against the standard of someone you don't, chances are you've made a poor argument.

This is why I frequently compare Ayn Rand to Karl Marx, for example - to frame Ayn Rand against the backdrop of Karl Marx is to discredit her. Was your intent to discredit Ayn Rand?

[clear lake horn]

Now there's a relevant comparison.

Tip: if you are defending the work someone whom you take seriously by judging it against the standard of someone you don't, chances are you've made a poor argument.

This is why I frequently compare Ayn Rand to Karl Marx, for example - to frame Ayn Rand against the backdrop of Karl Marx is to discredit her. Was your intent to discredit Ayn Rand?

Thanks for the debating lesson perfesser.

I'm suspecting the original poster is labeling Rand as a "sociopathic $#@!" not because of her behavior or her writing style but merely because he does not like her politics. Isn't "$#@!" de rigueur language for a leftist to describe any conservative or libertarian woman nowadays?

[clear lake horn]

The book is crap.

You are so much smarter than the millions who have bought, read and enjoyed the book.

[CutTheCrackJack]

You are so much smarter than the millions who have bought, read and enjoyed the book.

That's really not saying what you think it is saying.

[clear lake horn]

That's really not saying what you think it is saying.

Yes it is. Only a smug $#@! would interpret it any other way.

[bozo_casanova]

You are so much smarter than the millions who have bought, read and enjoyed the book.

I couldn't agree more.

[clear lake horn]

I couldn't agree more.

Mommy always went on about how smart you were, didn't she?

Atlas Shrugged isn't popular because it's a literary masterpiece, it's popular because of it's libertarian values. It has accurately described an ineffective and inefficient big government whose motivations are for fairness rather than justice.

[Rimbo]

This is why I frequently compare Ayn Rand to Karl Marx, for example - to frame Ayn Rand against the backdrop of Karl Marx is to discredit her. Was your intent to discredit Ayn Rand?

I don't think that's the reason you compare Rand to Marx. The reason you compare Rand to Marx is that Rand cannot exist without Marx. In fact, without Marx, Rand is nothing; her entire philosophy is a reaction to Marxism, a point-by-point response. There is, in fact, nothing said within the entirety of Atlas Shrugged that is not a response to Marxism; if it does not exist in Das Kapital or another work of Marx, then it does not exist in Atlas Shrugged.

Thus, all of the same oversights and mistaken assumptions of Marxism also exist in Objectivism. They are both limited to the same myopic cross-section of the Industrial Revolution, but one is merely a shrill voice shrieking at the other, "No! You're wrong!"

[Japhy Ryder]

I don't think that's the reason you compare Rand to Marx. The reason you compare Rand to Marx is that Rand cannot exist without Marx. In fact, without Marx, Rand is nothing; her entire philosophy is a reaction to Marxism, a point-by-point response. There is, in fact, nothing said within the entirety of Atlas Shrugged that is not a response to Marxism; if it does not exist in Das Kapital or another work of Marx, then it does not exist in Atlas Shrugged.

Thus, all of the same oversights and mistaken assumptions of Marxism also exist in Objectivism. They are both limited to the same myopic cross-section of the Industrial Revolution, but one is merely a shrill voice shrieking at the other, "No! You're wrong!"

This is accurate. A wordy counter to Marxism and it's appeal to me was her harsh critique of mediocrity that overregulation creates...I think it is also a counter to the existential anguish of the post industrial period ie. "The Scream". I think it is a must read IMHO.

[wildcat09]

Thanks for the debating lesson perfesser.

I'm suspecting the original poster is labeling Rand as a "sociopathic $#@!" not because of her behavior or her writing style but merely because he does not like her politics. Isn't "$#@!" de rigueur language for a leftist to describe any conservative or libertarian woman nowadays?

You'd be wrong. I called Rand a sociopathic $#@! because that's what she was. She worshipped a man who raped, murdered, and dismembered a 12-year-old girl. Here's some of what she wrote about him in her journals:

Rand wrote great stretches of praise for him, saying he represented "the amazing picture of a man with no regard whatsoever for all that a society holds sacred, and with a consciousness all his own. A man who really stands alone, in action and in soul. … Other people do not exist for him, and he does not see why they should." She called him "a brilliant, unusual, exceptional boy," shimmering with "immense, explicit egotism." Rand had only one regret: "A strong man can eventually trample society under its feet. That boy [Hickman] was not strong enough."

and...

The first thing that impresses me about the case is the ferocious rage of a whole society against one man. No matter what the man did, there is always something loathsome in the 'virtuous' indignation and mass-hatred of the 'majority.'... It is repulsive to see all these beings with worse sins and crimes in their own lives, virtuously condemning a criminal...

She saw people who recognized that they were part of a society as worse criminals, simply for recognizing that they were a community, than a man who raped and murdered a little girl. That's why I call her a sociopathic $#@!.

[NameAlreadyInUse]

Thanks for the debating lesson perfesser.

I'm suspecting the original poster is labeling Rand as a "sociopathic $#@!" not because of her behavior or her writing style but merely because he does not like her politics. Isn't "$#@!" de rigueur language for a leftist to describe any conservative or libertarian woman nowadays?

I was a big fan of Rand for a long time. That being said, she was pretty much a $#@!. I think a woman cheating on her husband, especially a woman that expresses the views she does, qualifies her as a $#@!. Especially if that cheating is long term.

[wildcat09]

And let's not pretend that despite her shortcomings as an author she should still be respected for providing some sort of original point of view. Her "philosophy" blatantly rips off Nietzsche, and it's not as if other authors never wrote about the struggle of the individual against society.

[linux]

You are so much smarter than the millions who have bought, read and enjoyed the book.

Where you being ironic?

I am sure Idol is the smash hit to end all TV hits, but yeah the average poster is smarter than them. Hell the Deep South disporportionately watches it more than the rest of the country, take what you will of it.

[DFWBear]

Mommy always went on about how smart you were, didn't she?

Atlas Shrugged isn't popular because it's a literary masterpiece, it's popular because of it's libertarian values. It has accurately described an ineffective and inefficient big government whose motivations are for fairness rather than justice.

In the same way that Dave Chappell gets to make fun of black people because he's black, I get to make fun of libertarians since that's what I most closely identify with.

That book is so badly written that I can't take the philosophical weight behind it seriously. Bernstein Bears is a kids book, but I would aptly compare the two when it comes to attempting to import a philosophy. The difference of course being that Bernstein Bears is for small children and is meant to be a stepping stone, and Atlas Shrugged is the keystone, from a literary perspective, of libertarianism.

[Rimbo]

In the same way that Dave Chappell gets to make fun of black people because he's black, I get to make fun of libertarians since that's what I most closely identify with.

That book is so badly written that I can't take the philosophical weight behind it seriously. Bernstein Bears is a kids book, but I would aptly compare the two when it comes to attempting to import a philosophy. The difference of course being that Bernstein Bears is for small children and is meant to be a stepping stone, and Atlas Shrugged is the keystone, from a literary perspective, of libertarianism.

Maybe modern post-Soviet Libertarianism. Libertarianism's roots have more to do with Thomas Hobbes than anything Rand wrote. Rand is the Liberace rendition of libertarianism, dumbed down and gussied up and, as I said above, meaningless outside the context of Marxism. Libertarianism, on the other hand, predates Marx.

[CutTheCrackJack]

That book is so badly written that I can't take the philosophical weight behind it seriously. Bernstein Bears is a kids book, but I would aptly compare the two when it comes to attempting to import a philosophy. The difference of course being that Bernstein Bears is for small children and is meant to be a stepping stone, and Atlas Shrugged is the keystone, from a literary perspective, of libertarianism.

You aren't wrong but I think you, and everyone else besmirching Rand, miss the point. In my opinion Atlas Shrugged is recommended reading for young adults, 16-22 year olds as an pretty good introduction to libertarianism. It isn't Bernstein Bears or a White Paper, it is something inbetween like a Judy Blume novel. She probably could have titled it, "Are You There Galt? It's Me, Ayn Rand."

Maybe modern post-Soviet Libertarianism. Libertarianism's roots have more to do with Thomas Hobbes than anything Rand wrote. Rand is the Liberace rendition of libertarianism, dumbed down and gussied up and, as I said above, meaningless outside the context of Marxism. Libertarianism, on the other hand, predates Marx.

This is correct.

[DFWBear]

Maybe modern post-Soviet Libertarianism. Libertarianism's roots have more to do with Thomas Hobbes than anything Rand wrote. Rand is the Liberace rendition of libertarianism, dumbed down and gussied up and, as I said above, meaningless outside the context of Marxism. Libertarianism, on the other hand, predates Marx.

This post blows mine out of the water.

[DFWBear]

You aren't wrong but I think you, and everyone else besmirching Rand, miss the point. In my opinion Atlas Shrugged is recommended reading for young adults, 16-22 year olds as an pretty good introduction to libertarianism. It isn't Bernstein Bears or a White Paper, it is something inbetween like a Judy Blume novel. She probably could have titled it, "Are You There Galt? It's Me, Ayn Rand."

This one does as well. Great Judy Blume reference.