Atlas Shrugged: The most awfulest book ever written is more Satanic than Satan

I need recovery.

I’m not halfway through this Atlatean Slog, and I’m already deflated. I like to believe that the inner humanist in me is indomitable and resilient; I take pride in this quality of mine. I am not the sharpest tack, the clearest-eyed critic, the purist hearted, but I believe in other people. Not all people, all of the time. But in the potential of humanity. This doesn’t mean I have some drippy, mealy, sappy, soppy view of the wonderfulness inherent in every precious individual. But that there is as much worth in collaboration as their is in competition and individual achievement. It is a simple observation that people have differing abilities, and differing strengths and weaknesses, and these attributes complement each other as much as they hinder. It is a facile, 14 year old, Marilyn Manson-listening, worldview that sees the world in heroes and parasites; and Ayn Rand’s pedantic screed that masquerades as narrative is, 400 pages in, one that seems purely that of a 14 year old.

Ah. Marilyn Manson. One of the few international celebrities that is openly a member of the The Church of Satan!

It reads “we’re looking for a few outstanding individuals.”

Indeed, Dark Lord, isn’t that all the world needs? A dark-eyed man of vision; Satan, in lieu of Rand, hold my hand down that rocky path towards…

Okay…get a grip! Maybe I’m looking for solace in the wrong place. Embracing Satan instead of my fellow man; Aleister Crowley instead of The Dalai Lama; Neil Pert instead of Gandhi. [Oh, wait, Neil Pert is a big Randian. Makes sense. Outside of Marilyn Manson, the best artists are associated with Satan (I’m paraphrasing Bart Simpson here)]. Anyhow, how much worse can it be to be a Satanist than a Randian? Let’s look at The Official Church of Satan’s “11” commandments, and then pose, facilely, that Rand and her coterie hashed it out over cocktail napkins:

1. Do not give opinions or advice unless you are asked.
2. Do not tell your troubles to others unless you are sure they want to hear them.
3. When in another’s lair, show him respect or else do not go there.
4. If a guest in your lair annoys you, treat him cruelly and without mercy.
5. Do not make sexual advances unless you are given the mating signal.
6. Do not take that which does not belong to you unless it is a burden to the other person and he cries out to be relieved.
7. Acknowledge the power of magic if you have employed it successfully to obtain your desires. If you deny the power of magic after having called upon it with success, you will lose all you have obtained.
8. Do not complain about anything to which you need not subject yourself.
9. Do not harm little children.
10. Do not kill non-human animals unless you are attacked or for your food.
11. When walking in open territory, bother no one. If someone bothers you, ask him to stop. If he does not stop, destroy him.

At this silly egoist mixer, the points of contention might be numbers, seven (obviously), nine, and possibly ten: I can imagine Rand saying with her rational cigarette burning at the end of cigarette holder: “Hm-mm. I don’t think I can go along with them.” She coughs out some rational smoke, and we’re not sure if she is being sarcastic when she dismisses reticently: “I mean, who doesn’t love children?” Some titters in the room, but her face is fierce. “But let’s be reasonable, gentlemen. It might have some unforeseen consequences and I would have not part of that.” She ashes; and thus the schism: Satanists have no problem keeping “little children” out of the room during their blood rituals…but Objectivists? I’m not so sure. Pampering seems equated to hampering.

Any Satanists out there? Randians turned to Satan, or vice versa to verify or quash my suspicions? I’m not done examining this issue. I know that Rand can’t stand anything that has a whiff of the spiritual. According to the website “unexplainedstuff,” (what a pedigree!) Anton LeVey, the founder of The First Church of Satan, intends that:

The First Church of Satan does not recognize the existence of Satan as an actual being, but as a symbol representing materialism. The church emphasizes that the figure of Satan stands for an inner attitude, and it is never to be regarded as an object onto which human powers are projected in order to worship what is only human in an externalized form. In The Satanic Bible, Satanists are charged to Asay unto thine own heart, ‘I am my own redeemer.’ (Book IV, line 3.)

Rand seems to espouse pure rationality; but also selfish pursuits. Pure Randians would say this is nonsense; but I think as an outsider, comparing the Church of Satan and the Rand Worldview is amusing, if not illustrative. Satan is a symbol that manifests materialism. Isn’t that what Randians covet? Materialism? Dagny gladly accepts the jewelry Hand Rearden offers her. She accepts it because it is a symbol of a shared covetousness of material. Hank’s wife has no inkling of the magnitude of his accomplishments, his purest happiness: his super-human creations that have generated profit despite festering, looting maggots. The purity of the “inner attitude” of what is “human in an externalized form.” It seems to me that a hardcore Randian has a lot more in common with a proper Satanist than they may care to admit. We, indeed, we the living, Master Anton LaVey, are our own redeemers!

Of course, a Satanist might take umbrage in being associated with a sect of materialists whom have no rule against harming little children.