Fear and Loathing

[wlotus]

I am reading Atlas Shrugged, by Ayn Rand, and the book is stirring anger and fear in me. I am about 1/4 through the book, and there is an overwhelming theme of mediocrity being rewarded, while those who do not walk in lockstep are pushed down until they surrender. When the person who is shining brighter than the rest does not quietly accept pleas from friends to step back, people in authority step in to create rules to force them to submit. The rules are created in back rooms and under tables, and the jealousy and hatred that fueled their creation are whitewashed...in this case with empty words about social responsibility and the need to even the playing field so everyone can achieve. Furthermore, those who do not fall in line are told they are selfish and wrong to fight the power.

Not only does this remind me of current political events in this country, it reminds me of some of my experiences in corporate America. I know it is just a book, but it is pushing all sorts of buttons.

Comments

[ex-redrain.livejournal.com]

Just a book? It is more than just a book if it's pushing that many buttons for you.

[flewellyn.livejournal.com]

Be careful...Rand was actually advocating for a philosophy in which the "true makers", the really good people, just do for themselves, and screw everybody else, I've got mine!

Rand's philosophy is a favorite of the Republican elite.

[caravel.livejournal.com]

I gave up on Atlas Shrugged after about 300 pages. I'd already read The Fountainhead, and I was tired of being beat about the head by the author's points.

Normally, I'm not really a big believer in the idea that everything an author writes is strongly shaped by her upbringing, but I think that Ayn Rand's childhood in Stalinist Russia pretty much set her method of thinking into place forever.

[verucas-chaos.livejournal.com]

I read AS at the recommendation of a "more mature" friend when I was in college. It was 1976 when I met him. He'd been to Vietnam and back. He was probably 24 to my 19. I did everything for everybody back then (meaning whatever my parents told me to do). Dean gave me his copy of AS and told me he thought it would change me. It did. I can't say I could ever be like the folks in the book nor Ayn Rand herself, but it did help me to realize I needed to grow up. I so agree with the parallel you draw between the political whitewash, corporate crime today and the events in the book.

[jane-etrix.livejournal.com]

I enjoyed Atlas Shrugged, but there are a LOT of problems with Rand and with Objectivism. All the "there are no contradictions" stuff is absolutely nonsensical. Human beings are not solely rational people, and we do not live in a rational universe, so of course there are going to be contradictions.

Also- note that no one ever laughs in an Objectivist universe- at least not because they found anything amusing. They laugh derisively at other people quite a bit, and they do this weird, creepy "I am so happy I must throw my head back and shout 'hahaha' to express it" thing, but there is no humor at all.

And John Galt has to be one of the most irritating characters in the entire history of literature. In Galt, she is basically creating the antithesis of the "Soviet Man," and the "Objectivist Man" is just as flawed, if not slightly moreso, than his collectivist counter-part.

[placate-me.livejournal.com]

I never thought of AS as just a book. It's sort of one of those manuals to the philosophy of Individualism that is laid out in story form instead of outlining the principles. I read it my freshman year of college, and it was one of the things that made sense to me. Fear of Flying by Erica Jong was still the most influential book for my life, my feminism, etc., but AS was a book that taught me the survival of the mentally fittest.

I don't agree with a lot of Randian philosophy,( I dare say you wouldn't as well, as Ayn Rand argued that photography was not art and should not be called art) but I still think the book stands alone to reward drive and intelligence. I glad you are reading it! It's great timing.