Call It 'Atlas Snubbed'

Wall Street Journal ^ | 7/17/2011 | Al Lewis

[Colonel Kangaroo]

Love for Ayn Rand goes unrequited. Libertarians love her, but she rejected them as "emotional hippies of the right." Conservatives love her, but she opposed Ronald Reagan, saying, "His likeliest motive for entering the Presidential race is power lust." Right-leaning Christians love her, but she was an atheist, an abortion supporter and a champion of the anti-Christian ideal that selfishness is a virtue. She also called religion a "sign of a psychological weakness." Her fans -- including Republican Rep. Paul Ryan of Wisconsin, talk radio's Rush Limbaugh and Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas -- would be crushed to learn she might never love them back, either. Ms. Rand has been dead since 1982, but today she's as loved as ever. Her 1957 novel "Atlas Shrugged" champions laissez-faire capitalism and individual achievement. She vilifies communism, socialism and unionism. She dubs government redistribution of wealth immoral. Some of her ideas are central to the American Dream. But Ms. Rand did much of her writing while hopped up on amphetamines and nicotine. And like most people who abuse this combination, she went too far. She crafted philosophical arguments and wrote bizarre works of fiction to prove their premises. Then, in the delusional grandiosity that only chemicals can inspire, she declared herself, "the most creative thinker alive."

[Publius]

I have not personally read, or seen Atlas Shrugged (yet).

Read it along with our first FReeper Book Club from 2009. Some of the FReepers who commented on those threads were among the most erudite people on his site.

FReeper Book Club: Introduction to Atlas Shrugged
Part I, Chapter I: The Theme
Part I, Chapter II: The Chain
Part I, Chapter III: The Top and the Bottom
Part I, Chapter IV: The Immovable Movers
Part I, Chapter V: The Climax of the d’Anconias
Part I, Chapter VI: The Non-Commercial
Part I, Chapter VII: The Exploiters and the Exploited
Part I, Chapter VIII: The John Galt Line
Part I, Chapter IX: The Sacred and the Profane
Part I, Chapter X: Wyatt’s Torch
Part II, Chapter I: The Man Who Belonged on Earth
Part II, Chapter II: The Aristocracy of Pull
Part II, Chapter III: White Blackmail
Part II, Chapter IV: The Sanction of the Victim
Part II, Chapter V: Account Overdrawn
Part II, Chapter VI: Miracle Metal
Part II, Chapter VII: The Moratorium on Brains
Part II, Chapter VIII: By Our Love
Part II, Chapter IX: The Face Without Pain or Fear or Guilt
Part II, Chapter X: The Sign of the Dollar
Part III, Chapter I: Atlantis
Part III, Chapter II: The Utopia of Greed
Part III, Chapter III: Anti-Greed
Part III, Chapter IV: Anti-Life
Part III, Chapter V: Their Brothers’ Keepers
Part III, Chapter VI: The Concerto of Deliverance
Part III, Chapter VII: “This is John Galt Speaking”
Part III, Chapter VIII: The Egoist
Part III, Chapter IX: The Generator
Part III, Chapter X: In the Name of the Best Within Us
Coda: Ten Years After
Afterword and Suggested Reading

[Larry Lucido]

Ayn Rand promulgated some great truths about government snd the virtues of self reliance. I accept her philosophy for it's truth and allow her the failing all humans have. I can't see a better way.

Well said.

[Gondring]

ROTFL! I guess you haven't been on Sarah Palin^TM threads where someone who reveals a hint of agnosticism wakes to torches, pitchforks, and cries of "Ban her! Ban the witch!"

[Gondring]

And a atheist's ability to discern the moral from the immoral derives from......?

The Bible acknowledges that humans know right from wrong even before encountering The Word through Christ or Scripture. So this is really no new question. It's the same old question of what you have faith in--the concept of man having morals within is not contrary to either atheism or Judeo-Christian thought.

[Joe 6-pack]

"The Bible acknowledges that humans know right from wrong even before encountering The Word through Christ or Scripture. So this is really no new question."

So Ayn Rand's atheism was biblically based?

[Haiku Guy]

ROTFL! I guess you haven't been on Sarah PalinTM threads where someone who reveals a hint of agnosticism wakes to torches, pitchforks, and cries of "Ban her! Ban the witch!"

I'm not a big fan of personality cults. That sort of thing is what got us into this mess.

[Mind-numbed Robot]

Ayn Rand promulgated some great truths about government and the virtues of self reliance. I accept her philosophy for it's truth and allow her the failing all humans have. I can't see a better way.

And there you have it, bottom line.

[Mamzelle]

So I'm a conservative Christian who enjoyed and was edified by her writing.

Why does this keep coming up as an issue? She was a vulgar, crude, ugly, grandiose and cruel person. Who she was doesn't really have much to do with what she created.

If we conservatives insisted on our artists being decent people...well, then we'd have no art at all.

[sickoflibs]

RE :"ROTFL! I guess you haven't been on Sarah PalinTM threads where someone who reveals a hint of agnosticism wakes to torches, pitchforks, and cries of "Ban her! Ban the witch!"

It's pretty safe to post on those threads that she is running (a slealth campaign) for POTUS now that only the blessed (like you) can see the signs of and that she will win in a landslide. Begging her to run works too. Anything else and you risk having your mother called a ..., OPPPS, I mean a PDS.....

[Gondring]

"He made me vote for Newt!"
<pause>
<skeptical looks and quiet shuffling>
(sheepishly) "...in a straw poll"

[Chode]

feh...

[Gondring]

So Ayn Rand's atheism was biblically based?

No.

I can't speak for all atheists or her, but I think it's clear that one theory is that the sense of morality developed from natural selection.

Without God, there's no command to be fruitful and multiply...but somehow some atheists decide to procreate. Likewise, moral behaviour doesn't require a God to command it.

[Billthedrill]

Her brand of laissez-faire capitalism led to corporations growing bigger and bigger until "too-big-to-regulate" became "too-big-to-fail."

I think Mr. Lewis would be well-advised either actually to read the novel he's criticizing or at least to read the newspaper he writes in now and then. At no point in American history have corporations ever enjoyed Randian economics or laissez-faire economics either, and no, they're not the same thing. Corrupt government intervention on behalf of corrupt corporations encompassed at least half of Atlas Shrugged, and Rand was precisely correct about that abuse's sources, motivations, and ultimate outcomes. That part isn't speculative fiction, we're living it.

Nor does her catchphrase "moochers and looters" refer merely to "unproductive" members of society as Lewis suggests. It refers to knowing leeches who game the system. The difference is made crystal-clear and only a determinedly inattentive reader - or a BS artist - could miss it. Rand had her faults as a novelist but her portrayal of he villains was brilliant and exquisitely uncomfortable for the real-life moochers and looters who read it.

[Joe 6-pack]

"...moral behaviour doesn't require a God to command it."

Without God who defines it (moral behavior)? Without a Supreme arbitor/law giver, the whole concept of morality/immorality becomes one of relativist nuance.

[higgmeister]

“Lewis shows that business writing can be fun and interesting as well as informative,” a panel of SABEW (Society of American Business Editors and Writers) judges wrote. “The writing is clever, witty and visual. He has the tempo and timing of a good comedian.”

Al, you really are a comedian! How many hundreds of your most admired authors abused far worse drugs and alcohol than Ayn Rand!?

Wait a moment, I suppose we had better approach this from the opposite direction. Name five of your most admired authors of all time that did not abuse hard drugs or alcohol!

Ayn Rand staying awake on speed while butt smoking cigarettes sounds absolutely tame compared to names such as Thompson, Cheever, Bronte, Hemingway, Maupassant, Cassady, Poe, Dickens, Joyce, Faulkner, King, Carroll, Dowson, Wolfe, Thomas, Fitzgerald, Burroughs, Kerouac, Capote, O. Henry, Chandler, Williams, Coleridge, Wilde, Baudelaire, Shelley, Wordsworth, Byron, Keats, Balzac, Gautier, Huxley, Browning, Bronte, Scott, ad infinitum, using Laudanum, Absinthe, Cocaine, Alcohol or various other illicit paths to personal literary Nirvana.

[RichInOC]

I always thought a great name for a libertarian blog/journal/whatever would be “Atlas Hurled”. Not as in vomited. As in “shrugging off the world just wasn’t forceful enough, so....”

[Flotsam_Jetsome]

Thanks for the info. I’ll dip my toes into the first few links, but when I decide to digest the material in its entirety, I’m going to need to get my hands on a physical copy. I don’t do super-long reads in e-format. At least, not until I get a kindle or some other portable book reader.
:(

[DrC]

“Anyone who agrees with anyone 100% of the time is an idiot.”

Shouldn’t that say “anyone ELSE 100% of the time”? Or do you find yourself disagreeing with yourself just to ensure you’re not an idiot?

[DrC]

“She was a vulgar, crude, ugly, grandiose and cruel person. Who she was doesn’t really have much to do with what she created.”

I too enjoyed her writing. But I don’t think her personal life is entirely irrelevant. She advocated living by a personal code that is challenging to live by at best (illustrated repeatedly in the strongly negative reactions of “everyday” people to uncompromising characters such as Galt and Roark). That she herself failed to live up to those ideals and/or that they caused great emotional anguish amongst people she viewed as her best friends is evidence that should have lead any rational Objectivist to “check their premises.”

It’s difficult to picture Galt or Roark relying on diet pills rather than self-discipline to maintain their weight (as one illustration). Likewise, it’s hard to argue the case that her affair with Nathaniel Branden—conducted (at her insistence) in full view of both of their spouses—was psychologically “healthy” or worthy of emulation. Again, had they been married, I can’t picture Galt or Roark browbeating their partners into a similar arrangement. And I have to concur with David Kelley’s view that benevolence unfortunately played too little role in the brand of Objectivism preached by Rand herself.

[Mamzelle]

I don't think I asserted that it was irrelevant so much as producers of important art are seldom anything BUT depraved. A rare exception might be JRR Tolkein, and individual of great moral worth. Whenever I happen to really enjoy an actor or actress, for example, I avoid watching any interview of that actor. He will surely spoil my pleasure in his performances the moment he opens his fatuous mouth...

The most amusing thing about Ayn Rand is that she received extensive help from her family when she emigrated to the US after the Communist takeover in Russia. She would have starved without it, and got to live in relative comfort because of it as she made her way. Yet she pretended like she rose through her own merit, unable to exhibit any morsel of gratitude. So in addition to everything else, she was the rankest ungrateful hypocrite.

But she made an eloquent, passionate and energetic argument for American freedom.