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I am really curious about everyone's take on Ayn Rand. I first read "The Fountainhead" and "Atlas Shrugged" back in 2001 - 2002 while in my second year engineering and I loved them unabashedly. Howard Roarke, John Galt, Henry Rearden, Francisco D'Anconia, even Gail Wynand were all my heroes. I never read "We the Living", but caught up on "Anthem" a little later and loved that premise too.
For a long time I was sold on the idea that a minority of humanity is the fountainhead/ the engine that drives progress and all we (because conveniently enough inside my head I was part of said minority) ask in return is that everyone get out of our way.
Needless to say, I grew out of it. I was humbled many times over by experiences that showed me the world wasn't that simple... that grey dominated even as the human mind desperately saw things in black and white. Particularly sobering for me personally was reading "Of Human Bondage" by Somerset Maugham, and then later the work of Camus and Kafka. That troika served as an anti-Rand dose for me and while I still love the two novels, I look on any Rand fanatics that I run across with amusement.
Even as I was sobering up from my wannabe-objectivist phase, I came across anecdotal proof that Ayn Rand's own life (her affair with the guy she later disowned, the dynamic that existed within the coterie she mockingly called "The Collective" etc.) was as full of contradictions as any other human life.
Artistically, though initially I had loved her style where the characterization and plot advanced a (the!) central theme, in recent rereads I find her style too full of itself at times, and I just go zzz on the soliloquys.
Bottomline, I consider "The Fountainhead" and "Atlas Shrugged" landmark literature. I have spent many hours reading and rereading them. I still enjoy picking them up and reading bits and pieces.
Now as if the rant above isn't enough, I thought I'd quote from a post I'd written a couple of years ago on me blog to add some fuel to this fire. This is from http://rooshi.blogsp...f-ayn-rand.html
"The Error Of Ayn Rand" said:
Anyone who has read and been profoundly affected by the works of Ayn Rand (as I have) has probably felt what I'm about to say. (And what I'm about to say is awfully long-winded)
You can’t live by her principles in the real world. If you try to live like a Galt or a Roark or even a Rearden, you’ll get nowhere because you can’t depend on people to be effective and to excel at things. Mediocrity rules the world...
Ayn Rand says, “selfishness is the highest good” and “the hero is the key” and one of the basic precepts of modern management is “teamwork is the key, a team with a hero wins sometimes, a team that doesn’t need heroes wins all the time”.
There’s more. Once you step back from being awestruck with her style and prose, you realize her characters are monochromatic, her themes repetitive. She’s living in a very narrow-based world that does not exist – a world of blacks and whites that is separated from an actual world of greys.
Here’s the key to solving the problem – in Rand’s own words – “Contradictions do not exist. Whenever you think that you are facing a contradiction, check your premises. You will find that one of them is wrong.” (Fransisco D’anconia to Dagny Taggart, Atlas Shrugged).
Here are my premises - are they yours? (some conscious and some until recently subconscious):
1. Ayn Rand writes well.
2. I enjoy reading Ayn Rand – it gives me a high.
3. I think I would like the world she is describing and thrive in it.
4. Ayn Rand is writing advice that I should/ can follow.
5. Ayn Rand is describing the real world as it actually is.
6. Ayn Rand’s characters should/ can be my role models.
Do you see the problem? 1 and 2 are true, or I wouldn’t be writing this. 3 may or may not be true – it is a hypothesis that cannot be proved to any reasonable degree. 4 and 5 are blatantly inaccurate. Number 6 contradicts Rand’s own philosophy.
4 and 5 are inaccurate because, a) Ayn Rand isn’t writing advice. She’s writing for her own sake, and for your enjoyment and digestion, and
Ayn Rand isn’t writing about the real world. She’s a romantic (as she makes amply clear in the Romantic Manifesto). She’s like a fable writer – describing a world that doesn’t exist, but is a projection of her idea of perfection.
Her characters are unidimensional and unrealistic. But what a great rocking read they make! Don’t take them so seriously because – and here is the place where Ayn Rand made a mistake – they aren’t real, but they were her benchmark.
Galt/ Roark/ Rearden/ D’anconia/ Taggart/ Francon – if you think about them, they’re all alike (INTJs/ INTPs on the MBTI, just like Rand herself). In the end, any author is autobiographical in some way (as I know well). But Rand (and me, come to think of it) is a romantic, and so is exclusively autobiographical. Meaning she romanticises herself as she writes and forgets her own flaws. If your benchmark for liking people is a fictional one, you are allowing for a benchmark that may not exist. Or cannot exist.
In Ayn Rand’s world, a John Galt can probably get away with what he is and be successful. In the real world, maybe the flaws and unidimensionality of the character may make a) the character impossible – as in such a character cannot exist or such a character will be doomed to be a hopeless failure.
Finally, it is really easy to reconcile teamwork and individualism or Ayn Rand and Management. Management is the art of the possible (pragmatism). Ayn Rand’s work is a projection of the ideal (idealism). Individualism and individual selfishness (in a good way) cannot exist in the real world beyond a point.
To use a whole bunch of (clichéd) truisms which contain some real wisdom…
No man is an island.
There are tasks where people have to work together and cannot be accomplished alone.
It takes all kinds of people (even those you think of as idiots) to make the world as good as it is.
He who looks for role models outside himself is setting up a disaster. No role models are perfect! (Rand may disagree with this!)
Ayn Rand, while a great thinker and writer, would be a lousy manager. She probably wouldn’t ever be a good CEO! And I don't think she ever stood a chance at getting anything done other than writing books. But then... she was so darn good at that!
You can’t live by her principles in the real world. If you try to live like a Galt or a Roark or even a Rearden, you’ll get nowhere because you can’t depend on people to be effective and to excel at things. Mediocrity rules the world...
Ayn Rand says, “selfishness is the highest good” and “the hero is the key” and one of the basic precepts of modern management is “teamwork is the key, a team with a hero wins sometimes, a team that doesn’t need heroes wins all the time”.
There’s more. Once you step back from being awestruck with her style and prose, you realize her characters are monochromatic, her themes repetitive. She’s living in a very narrow-based world that does not exist – a world of blacks and whites that is separated from an actual world of greys.
Here’s the key to solving the problem – in Rand’s own words – “Contradictions do not exist. Whenever you think that you are facing a contradiction, check your premises. You will find that one of them is wrong.” (Fransisco D’anconia to Dagny Taggart, Atlas Shrugged).
Here are my premises - are they yours? (some conscious and some until recently subconscious):
1. Ayn Rand writes well.
2. I enjoy reading Ayn Rand – it gives me a high.
3. I think I would like the world she is describing and thrive in it.
4. Ayn Rand is writing advice that I should/ can follow.
5. Ayn Rand is describing the real world as it actually is.
6. Ayn Rand’s characters should/ can be my role models.
Do you see the problem? 1 and 2 are true, or I wouldn’t be writing this. 3 may or may not be true – it is a hypothesis that cannot be proved to any reasonable degree. 4 and 5 are blatantly inaccurate. Number 6 contradicts Rand’s own philosophy.
4 and 5 are inaccurate because, a) Ayn Rand isn’t writing advice. She’s writing for her own sake, and for your enjoyment and digestion, and
Ayn Rand isn’t writing about the real world. She’s a romantic (as she makes amply clear in the Romantic Manifesto). She’s like a fable writer – describing a world that doesn’t exist, but is a projection of her idea of perfection.Her characters are unidimensional and unrealistic. But what a great rocking read they make! Don’t take them so seriously because – and here is the place where Ayn Rand made a mistake – they aren’t real, but they were her benchmark.
Galt/ Roark/ Rearden/ D’anconia/ Taggart/ Francon – if you think about them, they’re all alike (INTJs/ INTPs on the MBTI, just like Rand herself). In the end, any author is autobiographical in some way (as I know well). But Rand (and me, come to think of it) is a romantic, and so is exclusively autobiographical. Meaning she romanticises herself as she writes and forgets her own flaws. If your benchmark for liking people is a fictional one, you are allowing for a benchmark that may not exist. Or cannot exist.
In Ayn Rand’s world, a John Galt can probably get away with what he is and be successful. In the real world, maybe the flaws and unidimensionality of the character may make a) the character impossible – as in such a character cannot exist or
such a character will be doomed to be a hopeless failure.Finally, it is really easy to reconcile teamwork and individualism or Ayn Rand and Management. Management is the art of the possible (pragmatism). Ayn Rand’s work is a projection of the ideal (idealism). Individualism and individual selfishness (in a good way) cannot exist in the real world beyond a point.
To use a whole bunch of (clichéd) truisms which contain some real wisdom…
No man is an island.
There are tasks where people have to work together and cannot be accomplished alone.
It takes all kinds of people (even those you think of as idiots) to make the world as good as it is.
He who looks for role models outside himself is setting up a disaster. No role models are perfect! (Rand may disagree with this!)
Ayn Rand, while a great thinker and writer, would be a lousy manager. She probably wouldn’t ever be a good CEO! And I don't think she ever stood a chance at getting anything done other than writing books. But then... she was so darn good at that!
The one thing I would add to that article (yes, I have more to say!) is to say that her female characters are a disgrace. Dominique Francon and Dagny Taggart are both ultimately servile admiration-club prototypes to their men. Their highest aim in life seems to be finding a fitting match!
ANYHOO... enough ranting methinks... here's hoping you guys find the topic of interest!
