"Atlas Shrugged" by Ayn Rand and "The Book" by Alan Watts

"Atlas Shrugged" by Ayn Rand had to be one of the most painful books that I'd ever read. She is a bit preachy in her approach, but processing her ideas as she joins them into her fiction works was interesting and challeging. "The Book; on the taboo of knowing who you are", was a wild ride. Processing this book took me to a strange & different place, a wild ride for sure

I'm curious what made Atlas Shrugged painful for you to read. Painful, as in reading it was so difficult that it was painful to read? Or painful, because some of the realizations and ideas that are present in the book can be painful to think about?

The Book: On the Taboo of Knowing Who You Are is one of Alan Watts' masterpieces - definitely a fun read & worth it, since it's so short.

Her view of life, I suppose was painful to consider & process. Growing pains considering humanity as totally unconnected even as we all need the same air and are all dependent upon the same earth. I guess, it's from this point of view that I consider her work, "Painful"; but easy to process without question.

I love some of Alan Watts stuff. Sadly I read a biography of him and he didn't really live up to what he wrote... but then again, I'm not sure many philosophical writers do.

Did you get the same feeling I did, that "Atlas Shrugged" was primarily about the threat of communism?

Atlas Shrugged is required reading for all who really want freedom of thought and freedom from. If you exist, read this book.

I'd forgotten about this thread. Thanks to vpfluke for posting a link to it over here.

>5 Irvina: Atlas Shrugged can indeed be seen as a response to socialism as a movement, but her interests in writing this book went much further than that. Rand actually had a unique brand of moral philosophy known as "objectivism" (I use quotes because in mainstream philosophy, objectivism refers to something very different from what Rand was getting at), the major focus of which was the satisfaction of one's own desires, or the achievement of one's own happiness. In other words: pursue the satisfaction of your own goals, regardless of the impact on others. Many would characterize it as a very selfish moral outlook, and the philosophy itself receives a lot of scorn in the philosophical world. A great, short read to give you greater depth in Rand's philosophy would be her For the New Intellectual, which is only about 150 pages long.

All that said, I love Rand's (fiction) work, mainly because when we don't actually stop to think about the real consequences of such an outlook, pure self-involvement sounds pretty nice, dunnit? And of course, she manages to situate all of it within these grand stories which really make her quite fascinating. jadedoll89 made reference in the other thread to the fact that some people think Rand's writing is horrible. I am not one of those people. I think she weaves fictional masterpieces. I'm simply wary of bringing too much of what's going on there over into our real world.

Ayn Rand is one of those US authors whose work has not had much impact here in the UK. I tried reading Atlas Shrugged some years back and it all seemed a bit meh, really.

>8 joehutcheon: You might have a bit more luck with The Fountainhead. It's not as long, nor as preachy. Even shorter is Anthem (maybe 75 pages long, if that?), but it's not very representative of her style (although the style in it is extremely unique).

Having known people who were self-indulgent, none of whom were particularly happy in their self-centeredness, the idea of pure self-involvement, if by which you mean pursuing your own goals to the point that the devil takes the hindmost, which in the case of Atlas Shrugged turned out to be cold-blooded murder sounds pretty infantile. Where was the happiness in this book anyway. All the heroes were perpetually pissed-off at the world, at one another, and at themselves, even to the point of withdrawal. The villains were straight out of central casting. I can understand why someone with little practical life experience would be so moved by this bushwa, but for adults, I think it pales in the mirror of real life.

I (wrongly) posted this elsewhere, but here it is again:
So, I can fairly well say I am a Rand fan, Atlas Shrugged being my numero uno choice by far... I was initially drawn in by the "challenge" of reading such an enormous book, the writing style immediately grabbed my attention and i flew with it (though I have heard her style critiqued as being terrible, i highly disagree.) I was later drawn into her philosophy, Objectivism. I was like "Wow! This is something!" But then I read up on her history, and lo and behold...she does have a history.
I'm an 18- year old atheist, and i do believe in many of the features of Objectivism, though many (most) are not possible in reality.
I'd like to hear from some others who have read Rand and what you think of her philosophy as implied in her novels (and their contrast to application in the "real world.") **Especially Atlas Shrugged

Anyhow, I was actually drawn in by Atlas Shrugged, maybe to the point that I was biased. I liked The Fountainhead but never finished it entirely :/ It didn't seem as good as Atlas Shrugged but like I said...the bias.

Rand really was pushy with her ideas, and many are absurd... in fact, she and Nathanial Branden (?? forgive me if I'm wrong) were so convinced that they were the most amazing people on Earth that they had an affair, both were married and their spouses agreed to it...then he had another affair and she got pretty mad...go figure

Has anyone read Ayn Rand's novels, Anthem or We the Living?

When I noted this link, I didn't see that it also had Alan W Watts in the title. I've got Cloud-hidden, Whereabouts unknown; a mountain journal and The Supreme Identity. I only read one of his books, and it may have been a borrowed copy of Behold the Spirit. Ultimately, I wasn't grabbed by the style of his rejection of Christianity. Not much similarity between Watts and Rand.

>12 vpfluke: I've read them both, and realized that when I referred to Anthem in my post #9, We the Living was the one I was thinking of (that's the one where the guy doesn't have the word "I", right?) Going back up there to edit the post now...

eta: no, I think I had it right the first time. Now this is going to bug me all day until I can get home and check my copies...

Whichever one it was, I thought the premise of the novel was fantastically unique.

I read whichever one it was where the guy and the gal discovered they were individuals (I) when I was twenty and thought it was pretty fantastic, too. It reminded me of the kind of fantasy I read earlier in my ACE doubles.

Not being very imaginative, I thought it was a pretty dumb premise. Even then I knew it was impossible to separate the I from the person, thus every human starts out as an I and has to learn to live as we.

I'm sorry Ayn Rand just does not compute for me. I know she was escaping the collectivism of Russian society and that her books are an attack on such a system, a system just as unrealistic as Objectivism seems to be. I think if her books had been left at the level of cautionary tales, she would have been just another hack writer writing nineteen-fifties style pop fiction. But to elevate her thinking to the level of a philosophy was an egoistic stretch with as little basis in reality as collectivism.

Rand was an interesting and flawed woman. Any reading of her philosophy has to be taken in the context that she was actually Russian, and fled communism to the United States (much of which she writes about in a fictional way in We The Living).

Objectivism is still influential today, especially in the modern Libertarian movement. I agree with a lot of what she says, but following her philosophy leads to disastrous consequences. Her ideas are romantic and attractive, and many have real worth, but the bottom line is that people are neither as grand nor heroic as she wants them to be; the captains of industry who are her heroes in fiction are often nothing more than gifted thieves in real life.

Still, Atlas Shrugged changed my life, made me more financially conservative, and forever shattered my youthful enthusiasm for Communism. Perfect? Absolutely not. Life changing? You betcha.

I read Atlas Shrugged when I was abouth fourteen, which was 55 years ago, and without a doubt it changed my whole outlook on life. From this book I learned to be an individual, not a follower; to think my own thoughts, not to unquestionably believe others; and, to use my own ethics to guide my life, not the beliefs of ideological evangelists. Afterwards, I read all of Ayn Rand's books with interest, but without new revelation.

Recently, I started reading Atlas Shrugged again, but found I lost interest within the first 100 pages. It seemed dated and no longer in touch with my world. Perhaps I had just moved on from my childhood ignorance.

I never regarded Ayn Rand's books as political expressions, only as stories that awakened ideas and new thoughts, which I found helped me through life and allowed me to keep my independence from the pressures and persuasions of others. For that, I will always be grateful.

Do I detect a trend here? The immaturity of youth? I, too, was a teenager when I first read "The Fountainhead" and Atlas Shrugged" and both had a profound effect at the time. But as I matured and gained more life experiences, her message seemed not only quaint but against my fundamental beliefs in the value of community and connection. Now, 40 years on, I couldn't be bothered with her outdated ideas masquerading as philosophy and wonder why people still read her - try Marcus Aurelius instead!

I read Atlas Shrugged when I was 20, and by then already knew I didn't like her political philosophy, but I was thrilled by her train locomotive sequences. I was being subsidized by the government for being the son a military man who died during the Korean War. This subsidy didn't fit into Ayn Rand's philosophy.

Interesting posts about the book's impact on youth and does it wane when you get older. I, on the other hand, read Atlas Shrugged when I was well into my thirties, and it too changed my life. I think what Tony_A20 described was my experience as well, even though I was around 25 years older.

And I did try reading it again when I was 50, and found it couldn't hold my attention. I think that the "grandness" of the events, and the lack of nuance in the storytelling makes rereading pointless. The story really is over the top - all the better to hold your attention. And the philosophy is explained so completely (and repetitively) through the storytellling, you cannot miss a thing. No wonder you cannot get anything more out of it, or re-experience the thrill of revelation, by re-reading it.

I do still wish everyone does read this book. I don't find the ideas outdated at all. In fact they provide useful insight into what works and what doesn't work in society, and why.

All that said, I love Rand's (fiction) work, mainly because when we don't actually stop to think about the real consequences of such an outlook, pure self-involvement sounds pretty nice, dunnit? And of course, she manages to situate all of it within these grand stories which really make her quite fascinating. jadedoll89 made reference in the other thread to the fact that some people think Rand's writing is horrible. I am not one of those people. I think she weaves fictional masterpieces. I'm simply wary of bringing too much of what's going on there over into our real world.

That's probably the strongest argument against Rand's fiction, though... As a work of fiction, it elides many of the consequences of such actions in order to advance an agenda. None of her heroines ever get knocked up after the steamy ego-boosting sex they've had.

I read Atlas Shrugged just last year and felt like shouting "Yes, yes, yes!" I am 54-years-old. Deciding that I needed a copy of my own to mark up, I returned the book to the library before finishing it and made a trip to Borders.

Some of the long passages of "preaching', for example, John Galt's radio broadcast, I skimmed. And I don't agree with the idea that the weak should be left alone to fail for the betterment of mankind in a natural selection sort of way.

BUT---

Here is one of the passages that makes the book so great:
(Cherryl to Dagny) "Dagny, how did you do it? How did you manage to remain unmangled?"
"By holding to just one rule."
"Which?"
"To place nothing - nothing - above the verdict of my own mind."
"You've taken some terrible beatings...What held you through it?"
"The knowledge that my life is the highest of values, too high to give up without a fight."

I wish I had adopted that religion long ago and spurned the patriarchal one that kept me in miserable submission far too long.

So my admiration of the book is not on the macro political level but on the micro individual level.