I CAN’T TAKE ANYMORE OF THIS

The world of Ayn Rand is sick. Sick. Sick.

I know there are well intentioned people who perceive that Ayn Rand’s philosophy and way of life is an alternative. Especially for those who come from traditional, theistic, benighted, mainstream families. In the face of superstitions, religions that don’t seem relevant, and whatever disillusioning factors in their own lives, Objectivism might seem like an exciting escape, a valid alternative. (This article from The Nation called “The Nightmare of Christianity” sparked a connection for me between disillusioned youth from restrictive religious backgrounds, and the alternative that Objectivism might offer for them.)

At its worst, the Ayn Rand worldview is a cultist dead-end; it deifies the idea of causality and logic. It fetishizes “objective” value, and perversely conflates achievement, material wealth, and relations between human beings.

Her writing is lackluster and hackish. Her characters have no dimension. The tone and themes are muddled. Some claim that Atlas Shrugged is parody, or prophecy, or philosophy. The vision, the scope of her novel is pinched by her half-formed philosophy. There is no depth. If there is parody, it doesn’t function correctly. It is certainly didactic, and her message is communicated effectively. But as a piece of writing, it is unbearable.

I have spent more than half a year reading Atlas Shrugged. I am not a fast reader. But I have read a lot of literature. It took me several years to complete Proust, but I didn’t read it all in one go. I have read most of Thomas Bernhard, Don Quixote, and every major Dostoevsky book except his diaries. I have read War and Peace and Anna Karenina. I have read a lot of thick books–but I CAN’T GET THROUGH THIS ONE. And it feels like it’s ruining my life. It is disillusioning my belief in humanity. I can’t believe that people like this. Love this. Start forming how they view the world through this extremely sick book.

To be clear, I believe that there’s nothing wrong with being selfish. Money is not the root of all evil. I agree with these statements. We have to be selfish in order achieve, in order to remain sane. To say that money is the root of all evil is a facile, reductive statement that has no useful, practical value. But to try to create a totalizing worldview out of the idea that to be selfish is a virtue–it just does not work. It is simplistic. It is juvenile.

And the entiriety of Atlas Shrugged is a juvenile hissy-fit.

The entire premise of the construction of the book is faulty. It is not a speculative fiction. It is not science fiction. It is not parody.

On the back inside jacket of my copy of Atlas Shrugged there is an advertisement for Leonard Peikoff’s book Objectivism: The Philosophy of Ayn Rand. The ad copy states: “It is an essential book for all those wishing to discover the philosophic system underlying Ayn Rand’s stories about life as ‘as it might and ought to be.‘” Italics mine.

This to me represents the severe disconnect from reality that Objectivism manifests. In the Randian scheme, how can life ought and might be one way? The morality of objectivism is derived from the idea that causality and logic are the explanations for the universe. If we take that from the premise that all of the good things follow from logic and causality, then shouldn’t life be as it ought to be? According to Rand’s point of view, since we cannot escape logic and causality, life IS a certain way. Yet, according to this statement on the leaf jacket, and according to how Atlas Shrugged is constructed, life isn’t this way. It is only the way it might and ought to be. Rand concedes that logic and causality are the rules of the universe, yet, she and her Objectivists are not pleased with the way the world is. I don’t know if I have properly expressed myself, but bear with me, because this seems to be the crux of the sickness, and the awfulness of Atlas Shrugged.

The way things are, and the way things might and ought to be are not things that can exist simultaneously. Science seeks to discover the way things are. We, as humans, all know, don’t always like the way things are. There is no way that science and desire can be reconciled unless we discover a way to make our desires magically fulfilled–through drugs, or conditioning, or something else. Or, if we can remove our desires. But I think that most of us think desire is part of what makes us human and makes life worth living.

Now, the happy people in Atlas Shrugged are the people who fulfill their desires. They make big factories and genius inventions, and fall in love and have sex with their intellectual equals. Happiness does not seem possible for the rest of the population. Why, it is unclear. It seems to be the case that only smart, competent people can know what happiness is. This is not entirely explicit in Atlas Shrugged, but it is certainly the implication. The rest of the population are parasites. This article from The New Republic talks about how Objectivism is a sort of reverse Marxism, glorification of industrialists and capitalists.

This obsession of how happiness is the heart of the sick cult aspect of Atlas Shrugged, and repulsed me and continually repulsed me from early in the book and throughout. Ayn Rand insists to her readers that happiness is only accessible to those who unburden themselves from parasites, and fulfill their selfish desires. (And who doesn’t want happiness!?) This sick pummeling on the reader by the happy message pervades this book.

So, here you see, happiness, logic, causality, and the way things ought to be. How do we make a book out of this? Well we just start writing about how the whole world is going to hell because of the looters, and then we throw in this weird bit about a parallel secret society of non-mooching golden geniuses who won’t have a part of it.

There is no logic to the book. Ayn Rand just makes things happen. The crucial technological development in the book, “Rearden Metal,” is a miracle because it is made by a man of genius. It follows that the man is a genius and used his genius to make a metal, that the metal is infallible, and can be applied like flubber miraculously to any situation. If only the moral climate of the world would conform to the logic of his metallurgy and handsomeness.

It’s all just impossible and makes me sick to my stomach. And the book gets sicker and sicker.