50 Years On, Rand's "Atlas" Still relevant

Seatle Post-Intelligencer ^ | 11 October 2007 | Bill Virgin

[Publius]

Virgin (pronounced with a hard "G") is the business writer for the P-I.

[Choose Ye This Day]

I may have to dust off my copy and read it again. It’s been a decade or so.

[Pete]

I saw in your profile that you are a secular humanist. I thought you might enjoy a view of Ayn Rand from one of the smartest Christian theologians alive today - John Piper. Here is the first paragraph:

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

[Publius]

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.

[MtnClimber]

I have read some, but far from all of Rand’s writings. My favorite was Atlas Shrugged. Thanks for the post!

[mbraynard]

Is there an AR ping list?

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.

[flat]

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....

[Colonel Kangaroo]

Rand had a few good points among her verbosity on the topic of the dangers of collectivism written in an age. Too bad her philosophy was tied up in an idiotic non-reasoning dogmatic atheism. Thus, on the whole her work has a bad effect on all the little would-be Atlai that ingested it. Not recommended for children.

[Publius]

When I first read the book, I was attending a Catholic prep school in New Jersey. The priest told me that Rand was immature, and her ideas appealed to immature people. Then he began a long paean to the New Deal and all the good things that Lyndon Johnson's Great Society was doing for people. With that, he ended by characterizing Rand's beliefs as un-Christian, blasphemous and explained how socialism in America was both inevitable and good.

Immature, un-Christian, blasphemous? Perhaps. But I still believe, as my tagline indicates.

[Socratic]

...she is simultaneously an athiest and a Goddess.

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.)

[Colonel Kangaroo]

I meant to say in my last post that she wrote against the trend toward social collectivism in an age when that seemed the wave of the future. For that she should be commended, but as a unified system of philosophy her thinking was nonsense.

[mbraynard]

Oh come now.

[InterceptPoint]

"I meant to say in my last post that she wrote against the trend toward social collectivism in an age when that seemed the wave of the future. For that she should be commended, but as a unified system of philosophy her thinking was nonsense."

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.

[Socratic]

Oh come now.

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.

[Soliton]

tlas Shrugged would have made a great 150 page book.

[Soliton]

Atlas Shrugged would have made a great 150 page book.

[narby]

Too bad her philosophy was tied up in an idiotic non-reasoning dogmatic atheism.

All faith is based on reason, of course. Which is why all faiths are the same.

[Colonel Kangaroo]

She was no incidental agnostic, but at the heart of her philosophy was a positive assertion that there is no God. That cannot be proved and it’s ironic that one who put herself forward as a reasoned thinker would take such a blind leap of faith.

[Chode]

A STILL = A

[jobim]

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.