Atlas Shrugged After a long and arduous three years, I have finally managed to read Ayn Rand's "Atlas Shrugged." After having the book suggested to me by a few people I respect, I decided to pick it up, knowing that it would likely represent a worldview that rubbed against my own. Atlas Shrugged is a kind of cult philosophy novel a la Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance (that's where the similarities end between these two books) - a novel with a philosophical message, or at least a novel with philosophical content. As such, it should be judged both on its literary and its philosophical merits.

Atlas Shrugged as a novel

I once saw the book described as 'libertarian porn', which about sums it up. The grand strokes of the plot were interesting, the suspense moderately sustained, and the characters memorable, but all of these lacked even an intimation of subtlety. Aside from a very few characters who changed as the book evolved, most were about as black and white as Rand's philosophy. The scenes were almost always melodramatic, with characters in the extremes of agony or ecstacy with a regularity that made it tiresome. Rand did have a talent for describing the processes of peoples' thought in an interesting and insightful way, but after about 500 pages of incessant and relatively repetitive crack character psychoanalysis, I thought my head was going to explode the next time I read some expression along the lines of 'in the grayness of a thought half-recognized but denied'. Overall, an entertaining book, insightfully written, but that should have been 300 pages, not 1000.

Atlas Shrugged as philosophy

I must admit I thought when I first picked up the book that I might enjoy the novel in spite of the philosophy. Instead, I think I appreciated the philosophy in spite of the novel. Rand's arguments were often based on caricatures more than logic (which I thought was incredibly ironic given her purported rationality - everyone who embodied her philosophy was strong, responsible, good-looking, energetic, while everyone didn't was weak, evasive, ugly), however in the end I think she presented a relatively coherent worldview. Her critiques of 'looters' and those who praise weakness and, she argues, death, are interesting, and I think have something of value to add. More than anything she created an aesthetic of self-reliance and cherishing life and the self that is memorable, and has an emotional attractiveness if not an absolute logical justification, but what is ethics if not subjective? (I'm sure Galt would have a good reply to this last line)

Regardless, there is a reason why this book is flying off the shelf these days, as governments take over some of the largest businesses, and an ethic of charity prevails. Rand understood capitalism, understood the importance of the free market and the ways in which money as a medium of fair exchange, combined with individuals' self-interests can create an efficient system. As the ideological foundations of the free market system start to get challenged with more confidence than we've seen in decades, Rand's message has relevance in the debate.

So pick it up, or at least the Coles Notes version ;-)  ¶ 1:13 PM