A STILL = A
Posted on 10/11/2007 1:30:17 PM PDT by Publius
For intellectual heft, the capacity to spark debate and controversy, the number of young people inspired by her writing over the decades, the endurance of her ideas as the basis of a philosophical movement, the broad influence of those ideas -- and oh yes, for the number of books sold -- she was the most important American author of the post-World War II era.
And on this, the week of the 50th anniversary of publication of her greatest work, "Atlas Shrugged," if you happen to disagree with that assertion, Ayn Rand would not be at all bashful in pointing out the grievous error in your thinking.
Provided, of course, that she were still alive to challenge such notions. Even that might not prove much of a hindrance to the larger-than-life, force-of-nature personality and presence that was Rand.
That "Atlas Shrugged" is still being bought (this week, one edition ranked 107th among books on Amazon.com, and first in the subcategory of literature & fiction/general/ classics), read and debated is no small testament to Rand's personality. She achieved a sort of pop-culture celebrity status that might be rivaled today, among authors, only by Stephen King or J.K. Rowling.
That's all the more remarkable given that Rand achieved such stature with books that would hardly count as easy reading. Philosophical expositions are rarely the stuff of mass-market interest, even in novel form. The 1963, 95-cent unabridged Signet paperback edition of "Atlas Shrugged" runs 1,084 pages (the climactic speech by John Galt goes for 57 pages). Even more amazing is that "Atlas Shrugged," as popular as it has been and as amenable to film treatment as it would seem to be, has never been made into a movie, although there have been proposals over the years.
Part of the explanation for the Rand phenomenon comes back to the woman herself. Perhaps Rand, her books and her philosophy would have achieved recognition if she had been retiring or reclusive, but she was neither.
She was quite willing to discuss her ideas, to take on challengers and, on occasion, to pick fights. She gave one collection of essays the provocative title "The Virtue of Selfishness." While many sympathetic to at least some of Rand's ideas came from the emerging American conservative political movement, Rand had no use for them in return. And when she wasn't feuding with outsiders, there were always people within the movement to upbraid for daring to deviate from her teachings.
Indeed, some of the fascination with Rand comes not from her ideas but from the occasionally soap-operatic aspects of her life. (A good recounting of the milieu can be found in Brian Doherty's "Radicals for Capitalism: A Freewheeling History of the Modern American Libertarian Movement.")
But personality doesn't account for all the continuing interest with Rand, her ideas and "Atlas Shrugged." Thousands of students had the electric experience of discovering her books in high school and college without having the vaguest notion of the author herself.
"She was a pop culture figure from before I was born," says Mathew Manweller, an assistant professor of political science at Central Washington University, who includes Rand in the assigned readings for a course on political thought. For his students, Rand, who died in 1982, is more remote.
But that doesn't stop students from being fascinated with, and in some cases reviled by, what Rand has to say. Manweller assigns a chapter from Rand's earlier novel, "The Fountainhead," in his class. ("It's the same book with different characters," Manweller says, and which book a reader prefers tends to depend on "whichever you read first." He prefers "The Fountainhead." Your columnist prefers "Atlas," in part because Howard Roark, the architect hero of "Fountainhead," tends to come off as an insufferable, irascible crank.)
Students may have a passing interest when it comes to the writings of a Thomas Jefferson or a James Madison, but when it's Rand, "She still evokes passion," Manweller says. "When you assign Ayn Rand, there's no ambivalence. There's no one in the middle."
At the core of Rand's writings was "the concept of man as a heroic being, with his own happiness as the moral purpose of his life, with productive achievement as his noblest activity, and reason as his only absolute" (from a postscript by Rand to the paperback edition).
The greatest threat to man's achievement of that purpose was the notion that man should live for the betterment of others; collectivism was the force that tried to impose limitations on man's freedom and ability to achieve (Rand's abhorrence of collectivism came from personal experience, witnessing in her native Russia collectivism's most virulent form, the Leninist revolution).
"Atlas Shrugged" is a "what if" exercise: What if the achievers and creators, those who believe as Rand does, are so disgusted with the limitations placed on them by an increasingly collectivist society that they go on strike?
The novel traces the slow physical decay of society as more of the great minds disappear, even as people wonder if the inspiration for those disappearances is also the answer to the question that opens the book: "Who is John Galt?"
Galt emerges late in the book to deliver his long speech that is capped with a summation of the Randian credo: "I swear -- by my life and my love of it -- that I will never live for the sake of another man, nor ask another man to live for me."
Not surprisingly, that sort of thinking sparks heated debates in classrooms everywhere, with detractors calling Rand's philosophy a rationalization for greed, brutish capitalism and self-absorption to the exclusion of any concern for others. And it is true that for many, a youthful enthusiasm for Rand when discovered in high school and college tends to wane when it collides with the messy realities and compromises of life.
Still, one doesn't have to be an unquestioning acolyte to believe Rand had more than a few valid points about individual freedom.
Manweller says Rand still fascinates, and is still relevant, because although communism may be on the wane, collectivist thought in some form is still around and still factors in debates over issues from global warming to health insurance.
At the end of "Atlas Shrugged," in one of the more famous passages in modern literature, Galt declares victory, proclaims, "We are going back to the world," and traces the sign of the dollar in the sky. Rand may have long since departed this world, but as the intense interest in a 50-year-old book would indicate, her ideas never left.
I may have to dust off my copy and read it again. It’s been a decade or so.
In the late seventies, I went on an Ayn Rand craze. I read most of her works, fiction and non-fiction. I recall sitting in the student center at Bethel College as a young professor of Bible reading Atlas Shrugged. An Old Testament professor from the seminary walked by and saw what I was reading. He paused and said, “That stuff is incredibly dangerous.” He was right. For a certain mindset, she is addicting and remarkably compelling in her atheistic rationalism...To this day, I find her writings paradoxically attractive.
The rest is here. (He actually sent her a copy of the essay back in 1979).
He references the above in his blog post marking the 50th anniversary. That's here
I wore out the copy I read in the Sixties and recently purchased a high quality paperback version that should last me another 40 years.
I have read some, but far from all of Rand’s writings. My favorite was Atlas Shrugged. Thanks for the post!
It's too bad so many get caught up in the most concrete applications of her ideas with no understanding of the metaphysical philosophy behind it.
The only contradiction I find in her reasoning, aside from some political stuff, is that she is simultaneously an athiest and a Goddess.
READ
‘FOR THE NEW INTELLECTUAL’
everyone
....its a great distillation of the great AYN RAND’S philosophy....great great reading that should be mandatory in every college philosophy, history, economics (et al) classroom....
Immature, un-Christian, blasphemous? Perhaps. But I still believe, as my tagline indicates.
And, she'd beat you to a bloody pulp if you didn't rightly worship her. (I'm sure Atlas S. would be one-third shorter, at least, if her editor were not terrified of her.)
Oh come now.
Would you like to elaborate on that comment? Personally, I think that Rand's philosophy is both logical and consistent and certainly superior to any other philosophical system that I'm aware of. If you think it nonsense you should explain yourself.
I'm just being as hyperbolic as she was.
P.S. Atlas S. and The Fountainhead are two of my favorite books, but having the same thesis repeated ad nauseum becomes boring.
tlas Shrugged would have made a great 150 page book.
Atlas Shrugged would have made a great 150 page book.
All faith is based on reason, of course. Which is why all faiths are the same.
A STILL = A
She has had an impact as a political philosopher, but her attempt at the novel is akin to Michelle Wie’s attempt at the men’s PGA, or Michael Jordan’s odyssey into MLB.
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