Atlas Shrugged Day

[Guest]

Ayn Rand's masterpiece begins on this day. If you haven't already read it, today would be a good day to make a start:

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Atlas-Shrugged-Penguin-Modern-Classics/dp/0141188936/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1314982898&sr=8-1

I'd say it's the most important novel published since 1945.

[french frank]

Tell us more, Mandryka. A very well-known book but probably one about which little is known.

I hope it won't be too controversial to ask you why Ayn Rand means so much to you - but all ideas are allowed here!

[makropulos]

Ayn Rand's masterpiece begins on this day. If you haven't already read it, today would be a good day to make a start:

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Atlas-Shrugged-Penguin-Modern-Classics/dp/0141188936/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1314982898&sr=8-1

I'd say it's the most important novel published since 1945.

You're not alone in thinking that. Glenn Beck and Rush Limbaugh both agree with you. Fascinating as Rand and her books are, there's a problem when her most recent fans include two of the most voluble rabble-rousers of the far right. She may not have wanted that, but it seems to be the current fate of "Atlas Shrugged". Without resorting to quoting some of its more rabid concepts, I do have to say I think it's a book that needs to be read with extreme circumspection, as well as a lot of patience (my copy is well over 1,000 pages long).

[french frank]

Glenn Beck and Rush Limbaugh both agree with you.

I tremble

[Mandryka]

I hesitate to post a link to the Ayn Rand Institute, which is run by her intellectual 'heir' Leonard Peikoff - a man who has made many questionable decisions concerning her legacy, so this wikipedia article will have to suffice. I think it's pretty fair:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ayn_Rand

I'm far too old and cynical to be an uncritical Objectivist (or, probably, even a critical one) but I think Rand's achievement is stunning - she was definitely fighting against the tide for much of her life (her first novel was published during the 'Red' 1930s, in America) and she was one of the few public intellectuals to outspokenly oppose socialistic ideas during the 1950s/60s.

Part of the appeal of Rand to me is her clarity of thought and her passion in advocating what she believed in (Capitalism) - Atlas Shrugged itself parries the most powerful anti-socialist arguments since Dostoyevksy.

Of course, this shouldn't blind us to the fact that we now live in anti-socialist utopia, where bankers are rewarded for trashing the economy (though that's an argument for another time). To blame the state of the world today on Ayn Rand (as some TV documentary maker whose name eludes me did, recently) is just plain stupid.

I doubt if Rand herself would have recognised Beck or Limbaugh as her disciples; for what it's worth, the ARI tends to advise Objectivists to vote for Democratic candidates, rather than Republicans.

[Don Basilio]

.

[makropulos]

I doubt if Rand herself would have recognised Beck or Limbaugh as her disciples; for what it's worth, the ARI tends to advise Objectivists to vote for Democratic candidates, rather than Republicans.

I agree with you - I imagine she would have been appalled. The problem (at least, I think it's a problem) is that "Atlas" has been hi-jacked.

[Mandryka]

I agree with you - I imagine she would have been appalled. The problem (at least, I think it's a problem) is that "Atlas" has been hi-jacked.

To be fair, it's an eminently hijackable book and definitely NOT a book for teenagers (with whom it was once - and may still be - very popular in the USA).

Not to give too much of the plot away, but the sequence at the end of Book 2(I think) where the train crashes and Rand articulates the silent complicity of its passengers in the disaster always makes the hairs on the back of my neck stand on end. It's also the nearest this impeccably self-possessed writer ever comes to 'losing it'.

[Al R Gando]

'Masterpiece"?? Missed-a-piece more like. Poorly written drivel.

[hackneyvi]

Ayn Rand's masterpiece begins on this day. If you haven't already read it, today would be a good day to make a start:

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Atlas-Shrugged-Penguin-Modern-Classics/dp/0141188936/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1314982898&sr=8-1

I'd say it's the most important novel published since 1945.

What makes you feel her novel is important, Mandryka?

I've just finished reading "Independent People" by Halldor Laxness and that's currently a very important novel for me; to my own surprise, I'm intending immediately to read all 534 pages again.

[handsomefortune]

a long wait for a reply on this thread hackneyvi!

[Simon]

For most people, any book whose philosophical ideas you agree with, you will like/recommend/admire.

Any book whose philosophical ideas you disagree with, you will dislike/not recommend/not admire.

I have not read the book mentioned, but my curiosity is aroused and I'll try to. Thanks for the pointer. But probably not till I've finished the two dozen or so other books that are already lying about the house half-read!

[Mandryka]

a long wait for a reply on this thread hackneyvi!

I DO recall posting a response, but I was in pre-mod at that point, so my reply may have been mislaid.

Anyway.....A.S. is a book worth reading because it attempts to put the MORAL case for capitalism/competition, which is not something many authors have ever been inclined (or able) to do. Most rightists defend capitalism on the basis that it's 'the most efficient' system we have and that, though flawed, it is the only system that consistently guarantees our freedoms. Rand goes further than that and asserts that capitalism is 'an ideal system', the only system under which people of goodwill can deal honestly with each other.

You may think her arguments are flawed but her way of arguing is exhilarating. The best thing anyone can do is read the book.

Besides all of which, you won't find many serious works of fiction that articulate right-wing, pro-capitalist beliefs, whereas novels by leftists are twenty-a-penny.

[Lateralthinking1]

Quote - "The plot involves a dystopian United States in which the most creative industrialists, scientists and artists go on strike and retreat to a mountainous hideaway where they build an independent free economy".

Please, please, please can they do it now. The rest of us might still have some chance of survival.

[Simon]

Just being "anti-capitalist" is the stance of many who can't be bothered to think more deeply and understand. It's an easy way for the intellectually lazy, or the intellectually incompetent.

That some capitalists have been evil and greedy is a given. So have some of those who are not capitalist. The system, at its basic level, is fine - but is corruptible, as are all systems used by humans.

Another book worth reading is "Good Business" by Steve Hilton and Giles Gibbons. Well-written, with a moral take.