Dangerous Ideas 1 - What if Atlas Shrugged?

My experience of Ayn Rand until this year had always been that she was an author widely disliked, a radical thinker, generally shunned by the literary world. A jibe from South Park here, a sneer from someone there. Perhaps with good reason -- I had no idea and was not particularly intrigued to find out.

Until I saw an interview with her about her personal philosophy. She was fascinating, and I found myself hypnotised by her; the unexpected accent, the distracted flicking of the eyes, her verbosity in explaining such dangerously radical ideas.

I had to know more. Not because she spoke to me on a personal level, but for the same reasons I'd explore an abandoned building.

When I said I was going to read Atlas Shrugged I was warned away by many friends that had already read it. "She's the queen of deeply unlikable characters," one said. Another tried, "Read The Fountainhead, it's not as bad -- or perhaps one of her shorter novels."
Absolutely no one encouraged the idea. Which, I have to say even encouraged me further.

Having gone down that path, I feel obliged to share my criticisms, but I will only say directly one thing about her literary techniques, because that is the ground she is most easily attacked on, and actually the least scary aspect: her techniques are very limited for a book of such length and the view they provide too narrow for her attempts at such philosophical depth.

So, general criticisms aside, what is so wrong about Ayn Rand's ideas?

Well, plenty, to be honest, if you take her seriously. She posits a world inhabited by fickle, shallow people. Her heroes are characters with no understanding of selflessness, nor empathy. If Mark Haddon had written about her heroes everyone would assume they suffered from Aspergers and feel sorry for them. But he didn't, and in Rand's hands they just seem socially incompetent and detestably self-involved. Those characters with altruistic feelings, who are never heroes, are misguided and deeply unsatisfied, and are often simply characters to confound the heroes' progressions. Anyone who is not a hero is a cipher character.

Almost every scene in this novel is composed of one or two characters astonished (or, completely un-astonished, Rand only writes in extremes) by something they can't quite understand in someone else's expression, while the plot trudges along slowly, irregardless of whether the characters can 'grasp' the situation or not. Quasi-philosophical conversations abound, but not often enough to ever truly explore the ideas, as if Rand is trying to prove that nobody, unless a hero, is capable of using their own reason sensibly.

I can accept that some readers might not see this as too wrong in itself, maybe just a bit nasty, and short-sighted. Everyone sees the world from different perspectives. But that, too, is short-sighted, and surprisingly against Rand's own (misguided) 'ideal' of a world governed purely by reason.

She has said herself that she doesn't write her characters as people, but as embodiments of ideas, or ideals. Whether this is intentional, or merely a practical view of a poor writing style is entirely up to you to decide (I go with the latter, simply because I can imagine her egotism blinding her view of her own prose). But it is a dangerous writing style because it completely dehumanizes the characters. Abstracting philosophical ideas to view them unbounded is one thing. Doing this gave us maths, and science and pointed out the many limitations of language as a exploratory tool. But to philosophise about social sciences with so little concern for other people, to generate a single-minded fantasy world populated by personified ideas removes the humanity from philosophy, and that is dangerous.

None of the characters go about this almost clueless meandering with more intensity than the protagonist, Dagny Taggart. At first, it seems easy to estimate Dagny as Rand's attempt at a feminist character. She's strong minded, strong willed, willing to work her way to success in what is clearly a patriarchal society. What could be wrong in that. How can someone clearly of the view that a woman's place in society is equal to man's begin to approach the realms of misogyny?

Oh, there we go, I've spoiled the surprise.

Dagny Taggart requires a man. It's not immediately obvious at first. The first man she falls in love with is cold and horrible, like all the other characters, and Dagny inexplicably admiring him is no surprise given the circumstances of being in a Randian fantasy. But when she falls in love with her next man it becomes clear that Rand believes a woman should suit a man, and make herself suitable, pliable to her man.

The first time they have sex is brutal (in that same tedious tone in which all the other action wades by); he is trying to prove his sexual urges are something separate from love, and she is determined to be his animate sex doll. She keeps this up, her willingness to do anything and everything to satisfy him. "Hank," she said, "I'd give up anything I've ever had in my life except my being a luxury object of your amusement."

At first I thought this was Rand embarking on a bit of Foucauldian sexual dynamics, and I had to read elsewhere to check up on this. But no, she does indeed believe that a woman's place in a relationship is to hero worship.

This problem with Rand's philosophising pops up all over the book, and perhaps highlights best the most dangerous thing about her thinking. Despite adamantly propounding the power of reason as the only guiding force a human being could need, so much of her own reason is founded on personal feelings that she does not take the time to question. It's a horribly strong, and paradoxical foundation to build a logical structure on: "You're reasoning is wrong." / "But I can't be wrong, because selfish reasoning is infallible." Like a child sticking her fingers in her ears and screaming, "I can't hear you!"

So, we have a book that comes across as a teenage steam-punk sci-fi by an egotist author who doesn't seem to have had any other human to bounce ideas off. She's capitalist, corporate, selfish, misogynist and believes in acceptable discrimination. Absolutely nothing dangerous about that, is there? What on Earth made me think this could be a dangerous book.

Actually, it was this book, an exploration of real-world Randian heroes, that made me think Atlas Shrugged could be bad for humanity. If Randian 'philosophy' is about hero-worship, then Randian philosophers hero-worship her. What's scary about this book is the number of important, incredibly influential names that submit to the ideals of Objectivism: Bill Gates and Steve Jobs, John Allison, Milton Friedman and Alan Greenspan. Here are some of the most influential and richest (interchangeable terms after a certain degree of wealth is achieved) openly believing in a personal philosophy of selfishness. Is this what wealth does to you, forces you to adopt a narrow minded, Randian view of other people in order to justify your own incredible degree of wealth (read 'influence')?

Even though it took me so long to bother to find out anything about Ayn Rand, the title, Atlas Shrugged, has been drifting about in my awareness of popular culture for ages. The idea of Atlas, a person with the infinitely exhausting task of holding the world aloft on his own, is a powerful image. More so, the idea of him shrugging. Apparently, Rand called the book The Strike (because of it's plot of all the 'creative' minds going on strike) until the eleventh hour when she changed it to Atlas Shrugged. And for good reason. It's a revolutionary image, perfectly capturing the idea of place and caste being overthrown. It's just such a pity that Rand had to make his reasons selfish.

Again, this is only dangerous if you bother to take her seriously...

If Ayn Rand shrugged and nobody saw, would her ideas be of any significance?

As a counterpoint to my melodrama, try reading this bubbling reaction.

Dangerous Ideas 2 - here.