ATLAS SHRUGGED THE WORLD: Another Look at Ayn Rand’s Classic
As long as a man draws breath, it is never too late to change one’s pattern of thinking – his paradigm of reasoning. Perhaps a Russian-born, Jewish woman has altered mine to some degree.
Case in point is the classic novel of Ayn Rand, Atlas Shrugged, and her ingenious dramatization of her controversial social philosophy that came to be known as Objectivism. I remember well the frenzy of public reaction when this book was first released in 1957. The name, Ayn Rand, was the subject of many heated debates whenever and wherever learned men and women came together.
Unfortunately, I was only ten years old at that time with a brain full of mush, desperately seeking a philosophy of basic survival in a household dominated by my father, Neal Edward -- a poor man from a poor Scots-Irish family who demonstrated through his mannerisms and deeds that it was my destiny as his son to never hope for anything more in life than mediocrity. My so-called teenage rebellion took the form of an existential revolt against his abiding mindset. During that period of time, I did thumb through the book, Atlas Shrugged, but realized it was years beyond my comprehension. To be fair to the memory of my ‘old man,’ I must admit that he did teach me a noble work ethic. These were his words, “there is no reason for any able-bodied man to ever be on the public dole, son. There is no job too low... ditch digging, cleaning shitters, whatever. The biggest disgrace is to take charity just because you think you’re too damned good to get your hands dirty.”
He lived by those words… and so have I. Additionally, I must say, if not for the faith and encouragement of my mother and her parents, I probably would have been dragged down into the gutter by my father’s nonsensical lack of self-worth. Today, psychologists agree, for the most part, that male children tend to gain their self-esteem by drawing upon the honor and esteem of their fathers – the converse also being true.
By the time I did begin to discover my own identity, around twenty, I had drifted off into mysticism and the sort of hippie socialist mindset that Rand demonizes in her works; therefore, in obedience to the influence of my peers, I came to regard her as the enemy without even reading one chapter of her writings, nor investigating how and why she arrived at her motivational philosophy. That was my loss, and my penalty for dropping out of college after only one year of freshman prerequisites.
Now in my sixties, it is much too late in life for regrets. My mind is sharper than ever, but – as time and fate would have it – that brain is housed within a deteriorating shell.
Ayn Rand is the pseudonym for one Alisa Rosenbaum, born in Czarist Russia, witness to the Bolshevik Revolution, student of Marxist-Leninist indoctrination. At first, her intellectual power helped her gain access to the highest institutions of learning, but as the false altruistic ideal of communism took its natural path through Soviet society, her intelligence became a liability to the Dictatorship of the Proletariat. She was ultimately denounced as one of the undesirables: a not-to-be-trusted member of the Intelligentsia.
It was then that she made her escape to the United States of America and to New York City specifically. Her mind continued its relentless search for meaning as she examined firsthand the practical applications of capitalism in a free society. Her education continued under the flag of personal liberty.
Drawing upon her real life experiences, she brought to her most famous of writings – Atlas Shrugged and its predecessor, The Fountainhead – an authenticity unparalleled by few other novelists of her time. The appeal of her writing is not just in the philosophical realm however. Her superior skill as an author causes the characters in her stories to take on real flesh. The reader is allowed to develop an intimate kinship with each lead, fully understanding the inner workings of his or her mind and the outward manifestation of such reasoning.
After reading the book, I understand the title. Atlas represents the great minds of the world, those who constitute the motive power of civilization: inventors, scientists, entrepreneurs, industrialists, business geniuses, revolutionary artists… basically those with the brain power and motivation to make life better not only for themselves but for the entire civilized world. Such great minds, according to the author, constitute Atlas, the Greek god who supports the world on his shoulders despite the fact that the majority of those living on the surface of the planet tend to hate Atlas because he is, in their words, “an unscrupulous capitalist, a fat cat, a greedy rich man, an exploiter of the weak, a man who lives like a king while the poor and needy wallow in their own despair, a man who has more money than he needs or deserves.”
Because of those perceived sins of Atlas, he is punished by a so-called just society by being taxed up to, and sometimes beyond, 50 per cent of his profits. Punitive regulations and controls are placed on him by corrupt politicians.
Ayn Rand asks the questions: What if Atlas reached the end of his patience? What would happen to civilization if Atlas decided on his own volition to no longer support the world? What if, Atlas shrugged and dropped the world? The results, as you can imagine, are disastrous, and that's where the story goes.
In 1961, if, instead of Lutheran Catechism class at fifteen, I had been taught the Objectivist philosophy, my life may have taken a much more prosperous direction but alas, I have dedicated the bulk of my years striving for that which I thought was righteousness in the eyes of the Judeo-Christian God – and in so doing, have reduced myself to a virtual pauper at the age of desired retirement. My Christian friends, relatives and associates assuage my frustration by telling me that my rewards, my crowns, will come to me in heaven. Maybe so… but it would be nice to achieve some more rewards while still walking upon the earth.
Throughout my life, many have said to me in disdain, “You, Logan, think you are better than anyone else!” That is incorrect. My goal, and that of Ayn Rand, is to “think better than anyone else.” It’s an unattainable goal but the nobility is in the trying. It is not unlike the Christian who aspires to be more Christ-like or the Jewish man or woman who aspires to implement Tikkun Olam, the healing and repairing of the world.
Returning to Ayn Rand’s hypothesis… Can Christian dogma hybridize with an Objectivist epistemology? Has it? I am not enough of a scholar to know. The indoctrination of my youth taught me that one of the greatest virtues is selflessness, not selfishness; and that a man’s noblest pursuit is to fulfill the needs of the poor and disenfranchised of society.
My Catechism teacher emphasized that such was the abiding philosophy of Jesus the Christ and that it was also required of me if I was to become one of his confirmed followers. Ayn Rand’s moral position, on first reading, seems to stand in direct opposition to the programming of my youth. The supreme hero of her novel – her übermensch, if you will – is a genius named John Galt. In two instances of Atlas Shrugged, he expresses Rand’s fundamental belief in succinct and to-the-point affirmations:
“I swear by my life and my love of it that I will never live for the sake of another man, nor ask another man to live for mine."
“[I refuse] to be born with any original sin. I have never felt guilty of my ability. I have never felt guilty of my mind. I have never felt guilty of being a man. I accepted no unearned guilt, and thus was free to earn and to know my own value.”
On level with Galt is an amazing woman, Dagny Taggart -- smart, shrewd, fearless -- a woman enjoying all the perks of leadership as CEO of Taggart Railroad Lines, a position she and her brother inherited upon the death of their father, and of which Dagny ultimately took full control when her brother's foolish decisions nearly plunge the company into ruin. Dagny Taggart is a woman before her time -- an icon of what women were destined to become three decades later. Author Ayn Rand saw the future.
The dominant themes of Atlas Shrugged are Rand’s answer to the questions: What would happen to the United States of America if the Marxist mindset took over all strata of government? What would happen if public education began to ingrain the doctrines of socialism into our children’s minds?
This is why I chose to step back in time to read Atlas Shrugged – because the voting majority of my country and yours has indeed been seduced by the false promises of redistribution of the wealth, by the utopian delusion that a strong, powerful central government can and will supply all needs to all people, no matter their social status.
In the 2008 presidential campaign, our ears were tickled by the Democratic candidate’s vocalized promise to provide all manners of comforts and securities for U.S. citizens regardless of race, creed, color, ethnic origins, sexual preference, motivation or ability to reason one’s way out of a soggy, cardboard box. It was a major expansion on the ages-old political ploy promising a chicken in every pot, a milk cow in every barn. And to receive these wonderful gifts, all one has to do is forfeit his liberties, bit by bit, one at a time. It smacks of cult leaders who have always known that there are plenty of sheep who are pleased to have someone else do their thinking for them.
Mental Blanks, as Rand calls them, are happy as long as they have their monthly public assistance check, their cable and satellite televisions, online streaming... as long as they have plenty of snacks, alcoholic beverages, recreational drugs, indiscriminate sexual opportunity, internet pornography and – most important of all, no bag of hot air telling them all such hedonistic pleasures are meaningless in the long run.
Atlas Shrugged remains just as significant today as when it was first published in 1957 – perhaps more so. It most definitely deserves its status as a classic of American literature if only for the fact that it requires the reader to employ a full measure of his critical thinking skills. For me, there was much more to like than to dislike in Atlas Shrugged. Any novel that pulls a person away from the mundane, from the tyranny of the dailies, and provokes him or her to think outside "socially acceptable" parameters, while couching it within a very compelling and entertaining story, is well worth one’s time commitment.
Gerald Logan MacLennon, 62, April 2009, Rio Grande Valley, Texas
Case in point is the classic novel of Ayn Rand, Atlas Shrugged, and her ingenious dramatization of her controversial social philosophy that came to be known as Objectivism. I remember well the frenzy of public reaction when this book was first released in 1957. The name, Ayn Rand, was the subject of many heated debates whenever and wherever learned men and women came together.
Unfortunately, I was only ten years old at that time with a brain full of mush, desperately seeking a philosophy of basic survival in a household dominated by my father, Neal Edward -- a poor man from a poor Scots-Irish family who demonstrated through his mannerisms and deeds that it was my destiny as his son to never hope for anything more in life than mediocrity. My so-called teenage rebellion took the form of an existential revolt against his abiding mindset. During that period of time, I did thumb through the book, Atlas Shrugged, but realized it was years beyond my comprehension. To be fair to the memory of my ‘old man,’ I must admit that he did teach me a noble work ethic. These were his words, “there is no reason for any able-bodied man to ever be on the public dole, son. There is no job too low... ditch digging, cleaning shitters, whatever. The biggest disgrace is to take charity just because you think you’re too damned good to get your hands dirty.”
He lived by those words… and so have I. Additionally, I must say, if not for the faith and encouragement of my mother and her parents, I probably would have been dragged down into the gutter by my father’s nonsensical lack of self-worth. Today, psychologists agree, for the most part, that male children tend to gain their self-esteem by drawing upon the honor and esteem of their fathers – the converse also being true.
By the time I did begin to discover my own identity, around twenty, I had drifted off into mysticism and the sort of hippie socialist mindset that Rand demonizes in her works; therefore, in obedience to the influence of my peers, I came to regard her as the enemy without even reading one chapter of her writings, nor investigating how and why she arrived at her motivational philosophy. That was my loss, and my penalty for dropping out of college after only one year of freshman prerequisites.
Now in my sixties, it is much too late in life for regrets. My mind is sharper than ever, but – as time and fate would have it – that brain is housed within a deteriorating shell.
Ayn Rand is the pseudonym for one Alisa Rosenbaum, born in Czarist Russia, witness to the Bolshevik Revolution, student of Marxist-Leninist indoctrination. At first, her intellectual power helped her gain access to the highest institutions of learning, but as the false altruistic ideal of communism took its natural path through Soviet society, her intelligence became a liability to the Dictatorship of the Proletariat. She was ultimately denounced as one of the undesirables: a not-to-be-trusted member of the Intelligentsia.
It was then that she made her escape to the United States of America and to New York City specifically. Her mind continued its relentless search for meaning as she examined firsthand the practical applications of capitalism in a free society. Her education continued under the flag of personal liberty.
Drawing upon her real life experiences, she brought to her most famous of writings – Atlas Shrugged and its predecessor, The Fountainhead – an authenticity unparalleled by few other novelists of her time. The appeal of her writing is not just in the philosophical realm however. Her superior skill as an author causes the characters in her stories to take on real flesh. The reader is allowed to develop an intimate kinship with each lead, fully understanding the inner workings of his or her mind and the outward manifestation of such reasoning.
After reading the book, I understand the title. Atlas represents the great minds of the world, those who constitute the motive power of civilization: inventors, scientists, entrepreneurs, industrialists, business geniuses, revolutionary artists… basically those with the brain power and motivation to make life better not only for themselves but for the entire civilized world. Such great minds, according to the author, constitute Atlas, the Greek god who supports the world on his shoulders despite the fact that the majority of those living on the surface of the planet tend to hate Atlas because he is, in their words, “an unscrupulous capitalist, a fat cat, a greedy rich man, an exploiter of the weak, a man who lives like a king while the poor and needy wallow in their own despair, a man who has more money than he needs or deserves.”
Because of those perceived sins of Atlas, he is punished by a so-called just society by being taxed up to, and sometimes beyond, 50 per cent of his profits. Punitive regulations and controls are placed on him by corrupt politicians.
Ayn Rand asks the questions: What if Atlas reached the end of his patience? What would happen to civilization if Atlas decided on his own volition to no longer support the world? What if, Atlas shrugged and dropped the world? The results, as you can imagine, are disastrous, and that's where the story goes.
In 1961, if, instead of Lutheran Catechism class at fifteen, I had been taught the Objectivist philosophy, my life may have taken a much more prosperous direction but alas, I have dedicated the bulk of my years striving for that which I thought was righteousness in the eyes of the Judeo-Christian God – and in so doing, have reduced myself to a virtual pauper at the age of desired retirement. My Christian friends, relatives and associates assuage my frustration by telling me that my rewards, my crowns, will come to me in heaven. Maybe so… but it would be nice to achieve some more rewards while still walking upon the earth.
Throughout my life, many have said to me in disdain, “You, Logan, think you are better than anyone else!” That is incorrect. My goal, and that of Ayn Rand, is to “think better than anyone else.” It’s an unattainable goal but the nobility is in the trying. It is not unlike the Christian who aspires to be more Christ-like or the Jewish man or woman who aspires to implement Tikkun Olam, the healing and repairing of the world.
Returning to Ayn Rand’s hypothesis… Can Christian dogma hybridize with an Objectivist epistemology? Has it? I am not enough of a scholar to know. The indoctrination of my youth taught me that one of the greatest virtues is selflessness, not selfishness; and that a man’s noblest pursuit is to fulfill the needs of the poor and disenfranchised of society.
My Catechism teacher emphasized that such was the abiding philosophy of Jesus the Christ and that it was also required of me if I was to become one of his confirmed followers. Ayn Rand’s moral position, on first reading, seems to stand in direct opposition to the programming of my youth. The supreme hero of her novel – her übermensch, if you will – is a genius named John Galt. In two instances of Atlas Shrugged, he expresses Rand’s fundamental belief in succinct and to-the-point affirmations:
“I swear by my life and my love of it that I will never live for the sake of another man, nor ask another man to live for mine."
“[I refuse] to be born with any original sin. I have never felt guilty of my ability. I have never felt guilty of my mind. I have never felt guilty of being a man. I accepted no unearned guilt, and thus was free to earn and to know my own value.”
On level with Galt is an amazing woman, Dagny Taggart -- smart, shrewd, fearless -- a woman enjoying all the perks of leadership as CEO of Taggart Railroad Lines, a position she and her brother inherited upon the death of their father, and of which Dagny ultimately took full control when her brother's foolish decisions nearly plunge the company into ruin. Dagny Taggart is a woman before her time -- an icon of what women were destined to become three decades later. Author Ayn Rand saw the future.
The dominant themes of Atlas Shrugged are Rand’s answer to the questions: What would happen to the United States of America if the Marxist mindset took over all strata of government? What would happen if public education began to ingrain the doctrines of socialism into our children’s minds?
This is why I chose to step back in time to read Atlas Shrugged – because the voting majority of my country and yours has indeed been seduced by the false promises of redistribution of the wealth, by the utopian delusion that a strong, powerful central government can and will supply all needs to all people, no matter their social status.
In the 2008 presidential campaign, our ears were tickled by the Democratic candidate’s vocalized promise to provide all manners of comforts and securities for U.S. citizens regardless of race, creed, color, ethnic origins, sexual preference, motivation or ability to reason one’s way out of a soggy, cardboard box. It was a major expansion on the ages-old political ploy promising a chicken in every pot, a milk cow in every barn. And to receive these wonderful gifts, all one has to do is forfeit his liberties, bit by bit, one at a time. It smacks of cult leaders who have always known that there are plenty of sheep who are pleased to have someone else do their thinking for them.
Mental Blanks, as Rand calls them, are happy as long as they have their monthly public assistance check, their cable and satellite televisions, online streaming... as long as they have plenty of snacks, alcoholic beverages, recreational drugs, indiscriminate sexual opportunity, internet pornography and – most important of all, no bag of hot air telling them all such hedonistic pleasures are meaningless in the long run.
Atlas Shrugged remains just as significant today as when it was first published in 1957 – perhaps more so. It most definitely deserves its status as a classic of American literature if only for the fact that it requires the reader to employ a full measure of his critical thinking skills. For me, there was much more to like than to dislike in Atlas Shrugged. Any novel that pulls a person away from the mundane, from the tyranny of the dailies, and provokes him or her to think outside "socially acceptable" parameters, while couching it within a very compelling and entertaining story, is well worth one’s time commitment.
Gerald Logan MacLennon, 62, April 2009, Rio Grande Valley, Texas
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