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I posted this on Pandalous, but since other people are posting answers here: I'm surprised that no one has yet mentioned any of Ayn Rand's works. I highly rec

I posted this on Pandalous, but since other people are posting answers here: I'm surprised that no one has yet mentioned any of Ayn Rand's works. I highly recommend Atlas Shrugged, The Fountainhead, and her many nonfiction books. For an academic perspective on these ideas, I recommend two of Dr. Tara Smith's books (she's a professor of philosophy at UT-Austin) - "Viable Values: A Study of Life as the Root and Reward of Morality" and "Ayn Rand's Normative Ethics: The Virtuous Egoist." EDIT: Why am I being modded down? I think these ideas are essential for any person to consider themselves "well-read". I am being voted down because a few people dislike (or misunderstand) the ideas that these books put forward.

Estragon 17y ago
If you're going to read Ayn Rand, make sure you read "The Heirs of Ayn Rand," too. Puts her work in historical perspective. http://www.mclemee.com/id39.html http://www.mclemee.com/id39.html
- maxharris 17y ago
  I just read this essay - it is focused on personal attacks and smears, not on an honest evaluation of Objectivist ideas. Think about what these kinds of critics are saying, in essence: "If you read books containing these ideas, you will be reduced to some sort of miserable caricature." To anyone that worries about this, I ask: do you think so little of yourself that you think that reading a few books is going to turn you into some kind of nutter? That your own reason and judgement is that powerless?
  - Estragon 17y ago
    it is focused on personal attacks and smears That's not a fair characterization at all. Arguments which hurt your feelings aren't necessarily ad hominem.
    - maxharris 17y ago
      Do you believe that the media's focus on Bill Clinton's sex life during the 1990s was anything but a smear? The Republicans wanted to win arguments on national policy not on the basis of the soundness of his policies, but on something that was not (and still is not) any of our business.
mquander 17y ago
I suppose you're being voted down because a lot of people don't like Atlas Shrugged. Personally, I think it's fair to say that if your aim is to be well-read, you should probably pick up Ayn Rand at some point just because her novels are likely to be common ground with other folks you're dealing with. That said, the actual quality of writing in Atlas Shrugged and The Fountainhead is frankly god-awful. If you're making a canon full of books that exemplify the craft of written storytelling, Atlas Shrugged would be sitting somewhere behind the Twilight novels.
- maxharris 17y ago
  Can you explain why you think the writing is "god-awful"? I've read both books, and I don't agree with this at all. (I'm not trying to be sarcastic. If you're correct, you should be able to make your case with more specific examples.)
  - mquander 17y ago
    Well, her habit is that whenever she has a theme that she wants to emphasize, instead of demonstrating it, she just says it; either through the narrator's description of things, or through some huge silly speech like Galt's famous monologue at the end of Atlas Shrugged, Francisco talking about the beauty of money, or Dagny's dialogue with James Taggart's wife. That's ridiculous. Either Rand doesn't have the skill or inclination to demonstrate through story the philosophy that she foists upon us, or she doesn't trust her reader to be smart enough to figure it out. Besides that, generally purple prose, one-dimensional characterization, and way-too-exaggerated melodrama. I think I have a copy in the pile of books over there so I'll see if I can't find any passages that exemplify my complaints. Anyway, I think there's a lot of people besides me who feel the same way, so if you search around online you should be able to find plenty of folks bitching and moaning about Ayn Rand's fiction. EDIT: Atlas Shrugged, page 316 in my edition (I opened it randomly.) Dagny Taggart met Hugh Akston in the diner and is riding somewhere on a train. I did not italicize the following or quote it because it's quite ugly on HN, but it's verbatim. It was the chance conversation of two men somewhere behind her that came beating suddenly against her closed attention. "But laws shouldn't be passed that way, so quickly." "They're not laws, they're directives." "Then it's illegal." "It's not illegal, because the Legislature passed a law last month giving him the power to issue directives." "I don't think directives should be sprung on people that way, out of the blue, like a punch in the nose." "Well, there's no time to palaver when it's a national emergency." This impels Dagny to go grab a newspaper and read about the awful directives, and so on. How inartful. Good fiction does not spoonfeed arguments like this to the reader; it leaves the reader to argue it out himself, in his own head. It presents him with a story, not a conversation. And it doesn't present half of the story as an endless series of straw men waiting to be knocked down, as Rand treats all her "evil" characters. EDIT: Atlas Shrugged, page 567 in my edition. This is what Ayn Rand wrote about Counterfactual Rand's famous theatre production, Progressive Atlas Just Held It: The man in Roomette 3, Car No. 11, was a sniveling little neurotic who wrote cheap little plays into which, as a social message, he inserted cowardly little obscenities to the effect that all businessmen were scoundrels. Oh dear!

Estragon 17y ago

If you're going to read Ayn Rand, make sure you read "The Heirs of Ayn Rand," too. Puts her work in historical perspective. http://www.mclemee.com/id39.html http://www.mclemee.com/id39.html

maxharris 17y ago
I just read this essay - it is focused on personal attacks and smears, not on an honest evaluation of Objectivist ideas. Think about what these kinds of critics are saying, in essence: "If you read books containing these ideas, you will be reduced to some sort of miserable caricature." To anyone that worries about this, I ask: do you think so little of yourself that you think that reading a few books is going to turn you into some kind of nutter? That your own reason and judgement is that powerless?
- Estragon 17y ago
  it is focused on personal attacks and smears That's not a fair characterization at all. Arguments which hurt your feelings aren't necessarily ad hominem.
  - maxharris 17y ago
    Do you believe that the media's focus on Bill Clinton's sex life during the 1990s was anything but a smear? The Republicans wanted to win arguments on national policy not on the basis of the soundness of his policies, but on something that was not (and still is not) any of our business.

mquander 17y ago

I suppose you're being voted down because a lot of people don't like Atlas Shrugged. Personally, I think it's fair to say that if your aim is to be well-read, you should probably pick up Ayn Rand at some point just because her novels are likely to be common ground with other folks you're dealing with. That said, the actual quality of writing in Atlas Shrugged and The Fountainhead is frankly god-awful. If you're making a canon full of books that exemplify the craft of written storytelling, Atlas Shrugged would be sitting somewhere behind the Twilight novels.

maxharris 17y ago
Can you explain why you think the writing is "god-awful"? I've read both books, and I don't agree with this at all. (I'm not trying to be sarcastic. If you're correct, you should be able to make your case with more specific examples.)
- mquander 17y ago
  Well, her habit is that whenever she has a theme that she wants to emphasize, instead of demonstrating it, she just says it; either through the narrator's description of things, or through some huge silly speech like Galt's famous monologue at the end of Atlas Shrugged, Francisco talking about the beauty of money, or Dagny's dialogue with James Taggart's wife. That's ridiculous. Either Rand doesn't have the skill or inclination to demonstrate through story the philosophy that she foists upon us, or she doesn't trust her reader to be smart enough to figure it out. Besides that, generally purple prose, one-dimensional characterization, and way-too-exaggerated melodrama. I think I have a copy in the pile of books over there so I'll see if I can't find any passages that exemplify my complaints. Anyway, I think there's a lot of people besides me who feel the same way, so if you search around online you should be able to find plenty of folks bitching and moaning about Ayn Rand's fiction. EDIT: Atlas Shrugged, page 316 in my edition (I opened it randomly.) Dagny Taggart met Hugh Akston in the diner and is riding somewhere on a train. I did not italicize the following or quote it because it's quite ugly on HN, but it's verbatim. It was the chance conversation of two men somewhere behind her that came beating suddenly against her closed attention. "But laws shouldn't be passed that way, so quickly." "They're not laws, they're directives." "Then it's illegal." "It's not illegal, because the Legislature passed a law last month giving him the power to issue directives." "I don't think directives should be sprung on people that way, out of the blue, like a punch in the nose." "Well, there's no time to palaver when it's a national emergency." This impels Dagny to go grab a newspaper and read about the awful directives, and so on. How inartful. Good fiction does not spoonfeed arguments like this to the reader; it leaves the reader to argue it out himself, in his own head. It presents him with a story, not a conversation. And it doesn't present half of the story as an endless series of straw men waiting to be knocked down, as Rand treats all her "evil" characters. EDIT: Atlas Shrugged, page 567 in my edition. This is what Ayn Rand wrote about Counterfactual Rand's famous theatre production, Progressive Atlas Just Held It: The man in Roomette 3, Car No. 11, was a sniveling little neurotic who wrote cheap little plays into which, as a social message, he inserted cowardly little obscenities to the effect that all businessmen were scoundrels. Oh dear!