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Note that most people who aren't fans of Atlas Shrugged resort to making dumb, belittling jokes about it rather than articulating an argument. The internet is

Note that most people who aren't fans of Atlas Shrugged resort to making dumb, belittling jokes about it rather than articulating an argument. The internet is full of parodies, etc., but there really aren't many people who dislike the book and are also capable of persuasively arguing against it without resorting to religious authority or mocking sneers (or both). Why? Probably because most people haven't read the book. It's not the easiest read. There are great audio versions, but audiobooks are generally viewed with disdain by literary types...

lzw 16y ago
When I first read the book, I started looking for criticism to see if I'd been tricked, or if she'd played on my emotions to make me think something was reasonable or logical that wasn't. I have found some obscure philosophical arguments that seemed to be based on a misunderstanding or different interpretation, or making a mountain out of what I think is a molehill. But those are in the minority. Almost all the criticism I've found seems to take a very shallow, "soundbite" perspective. eg: to presume that the book opposes charity, advocates meanness or evil, etc. Near as I can tell, there is a huge cult who hates Ayn Rand and Atlas Shrugged, and the reason seems to be that her book clearly and logically demolishes the philosophy they espouse. They cannot address it honestly because that would bring up the actual issues in their philosophy and likely many people would see that Atlas Shrugged shows them to be fallacious. So, instead, they attack her with ad hominem and derision and refuse to be honest about what the book actually said.
- AmberShah 16y ago
  It's actually a tribute to Ayn Rand that this long after the book was written, it still espouses such strong praise and such strong criticism.
  - grandalf 16y ago
    That is a good point. I just wish that even 20% of those who praise or criticize the book had actually read it :)
- SomeCallMeTim 16y ago
  I've read it. I was charmed by its philosophy...for a while. Then I had a good friend talk me down from the cloud. The main theme of Atlas Shrugged, as I saw it, is that really smart/creative people are often used and abused by people in power, and that if all the smart/creative people left, that society would collapse. Now, any attractive philosophy needs to have at least a grain of truth to be popular--and I fully agree that people are abused and manipulated by those in power. I identify as a smart and creative person, so of COURSE I want to be the one calling the shots, and not some idiot! Where Rand falls short is in idolizing capitalism and taking an idealistic view of human nature. She also misses that if ANY large enough group walked out on society, it would grind to a halt--and that includes truck drivers, janitors, or whoever. It's called a strike. The reality is that people are born into situations that make it possible to be smart/creative. The studies on this are conclusive--just giving a poor kid an extra year of preschool raises their chance of graduating high school, and their salary 35 years later. It's a fact that you were born to parents who taught you well as a young child that makes you smart enough to be arguing the merits of Ayn Rand. This all destroys her core axiom that people who are the smart and creative builders of society are that way because of some inner moral purity, and therefore they deserve to be treated fairly--and the rest of society be damned, because they aren't as hard working/moral/whatever. The truth is that smart people are equally likely to be selfish (and lazy!) jerks; "enlightened self interest" is a fantasy that doesn't exist outside of possibly a few individuals and Rand novels. Looking at the other side, people without money or advanced skills frequently will vote against their own economic interests in order to vote their beliefs. You can't base a real system of government on wishful thinking--ask the USSR how that worked out. Ironic that Rand came from that background only to espouse her own philosophy equally based on wishful thinking...but I digress. The whole reality, in my opinion, is much bigger than just smart people being exploited: EVERYONE should be treated fairly, and no one should be exploited. Rand entices smart people by telling them that they're special, and that THEY are the ones should should be running the world. And to some degree I can buy into this. ;) But not to the exclusion of helping others--and the sad truth of the matter is that charities can NOT do enough simply from voluntary contributions to support those who weren't as lucky in selecting their genes, and that means that taxes and government social programs are a necessary part of the moral behavior of society. As are government rules that protect workers, or that protect the food supply, or that protect the environment, and the other things that libertarianism/objectivism would have us do away with. She argues for pure, unregulated capitalism, and that's just completely insane. There's too much corporate influence in government as it is, and not enough regulation. Unless you think oil spills are fun, and don't mind the environmental damage that big Ag causes, and think that miners SHOULD be risking their lives for low pay, and on and on... The reality is that the market spectacularly fails under some circumstances, and that government is necessary to regulate it. There. I've said it. Let the libertarian downvoting commence...
secretasiandan 16y ago
This phenomenon isn't isolated to Ayn Rand/Objectivism. And it doesn't occur with Objectivism because Atlas Shrugged/The Fountainhead are hard reads. Its because most people don't spend time objectively studying topics/philosophies they don't have a positive bias towards.
- grandalf 16y ago
  That's true. I actually had a very negative bias toward the book before I first read it and within an hour I could not put it down.
- dk 16y ago
  Your last statement is certainly true but it doesn't explain the vitriol. Most people don't have a positive bias towards, say, Plato. But you don't see at every single mention of his name this seeming compulsion to speak up and smear his image and spread misconceptions about his thought. By people who at times even confess that they haven't read his books.
  - secretasiandan 16y ago
    I would suggest that's because they don't (often) feel threatened by Plato or by the way people present Plato's views. Also, the objectivists they're speaking to/at aren't always looking for dialog as much as "scoring points". You can sometimes, with work and patience, introduce ideas that threaten someone's worldview. But I think people's efforts to do that are as rare as their efforts to objectively study ideas they aren't biased towards.
  - _delirium 16y ago
    You do see it with almost anything political, though. Take, say, Marx: most of the anti-Marx vitriol isn't from people who've read Das Kapital.
msie 16y ago
On the other hand, many of her proponents probably haven't read the book either so it sort of evens out.
- lzw 16y ago
  Never met a proponent of the book who talked about it who hadntbread it. On the other hand this is the default for opponents. Usually their first sentence is false asstion based on their own prejudice and that is the only time they spend on the book, spending he rest of their time making what amounts to an ad hominem. Most of the anti statements in this thread are examples of this.
yummyfajitas 16y ago
True, though there is a perfectly good criticism to make - Rand is simply incorrect when she claims you can use reason to derive morality (either her specific kind, or any kind). You can use reason to evaluate actions based on moral principles of low complexity, but you simply can't derive those principles. In terms of formal logic, you need at least one true statement about the morality predicate in order to derive other true statements about it, you can't start from nothing.
- brg 16y ago
  I see where you are coming from. Rand tried to take the same path as Descartes in formulating that axiom. In objectivism it is "Existence exists" and in Descartes dialog it was "I think; I am." /not an objectivist
- grandalf 16y ago
  Have you read The Virtue of Selfishness? I thought she did a decent job in justifying the first principles. Considering that a lot of philosophers rely upon concepts like God, I think Rand's is a lot better developed than people give it credit for. Rand's notion that humans have brains like animals have claws, and that brains are useful b/c they allow us reasoning, thus reasoning is good (to humans) like claws are good (to an animal)... I think that's a fairly persuasive claim, unless you would argue that human self-deception is more valuable than objectivity...
  - yummyfajitas 16y ago
    My point is that there are limits to the power of reason, which I never felt that Rand acknowledged. I freely admit that I only read her two major works (Atlas Shrugged and Fountainhead). I would grant that you are correct that reasoning is a utilitarian good (for humans) just as claws are a utilitiarian good (for tigers), but it does not follow from this that reason can derive a notion of moral good.
    - grandalf 16y ago
      Good point. I agree that her argument is not the strongest there, but I can't imagine another one that could be any more persuasive, especially if it involved the supernatural or tradition as many do.
dublinclontarf 16y ago
Read Atlas shrugged, liked it, so here are some critical comments. Galts speech is too drawn out, I skipped over it after 2 pages (it's like 20 pages). Way too much repetition. Characters are fairly stiff. For a good month or two after reading I was a selfish shit. In this I think I'm not alone. It's pretty difficult to find issues with the philosophy espoused in the book, I think the only thing worth criticizing is how poorly it is as a novel (as a political treatise it's a pleasant read).
msluyter 16y ago
A good place to start would be "Why I Am Not an Objectivist," by Michael Huemer: http://home.sprynet.com/~owl1/rand.htm http://home.sprynet.com/~owl1/rand.htm

lzw 16y ago

When I first read the book, I started looking for criticism to see if I'd been tricked, or if she'd played on my emotions to make me think something was reasonable or logical that wasn't. I have found some obscure philosophical arguments that seemed to be based on a misunderstanding or different interpretation, or making a mountain out of what I think is a molehill. But those are in the minority. Almost all the criticism I've found seems to take a very shallow, "soundbite" perspective. eg: to presume that the book opposes charity, advocates meanness or evil, etc. Near as I can tell, there is a huge cult who hates Ayn Rand and Atlas Shrugged, and the reason seems to be that her book clearly and logically demolishes the philosophy they espouse. They cannot address it honestly because that would bring up the actual issues in their philosophy and likely many people would see that Atlas Shrugged shows them to be fallacious. So, instead, they attack her with ad hominem and derision and refuse to be honest about what the book actually said.

AmberShah 16y ago
It's actually a tribute to Ayn Rand that this long after the book was written, it still espouses such strong praise and such strong criticism.
- grandalf 16y ago
  That is a good point. I just wish that even 20% of those who praise or criticize the book had actually read it :)
SomeCallMeTim 16y ago
I've read it. I was charmed by its philosophy...for a while. Then I had a good friend talk me down from the cloud. The main theme of Atlas Shrugged, as I saw it, is that really smart/creative people are often used and abused by people in power, and that if all the smart/creative people left, that society would collapse. Now, any attractive philosophy needs to have at least a grain of truth to be popular--and I fully agree that people are abused and manipulated by those in power. I identify as a smart and creative person, so of COURSE I want to be the one calling the shots, and not some idiot! Where Rand falls short is in idolizing capitalism and taking an idealistic view of human nature. She also misses that if ANY large enough group walked out on society, it would grind to a halt--and that includes truck drivers, janitors, or whoever. It's called a strike. The reality is that people are born into situations that make it possible to be smart/creative. The studies on this are conclusive--just giving a poor kid an extra year of preschool raises their chance of graduating high school, and their salary 35 years later. It's a fact that you were born to parents who taught you well as a young child that makes you smart enough to be arguing the merits of Ayn Rand. This all destroys her core axiom that people who are the smart and creative builders of society are that way because of some inner moral purity, and therefore they deserve to be treated fairly--and the rest of society be damned, because they aren't as hard working/moral/whatever. The truth is that smart people are equally likely to be selfish (and lazy!) jerks; "enlightened self interest" is a fantasy that doesn't exist outside of possibly a few individuals and Rand novels. Looking at the other side, people without money or advanced skills frequently will vote against their own economic interests in order to vote their beliefs. You can't base a real system of government on wishful thinking--ask the USSR how that worked out. Ironic that Rand came from that background only to espouse her own philosophy equally based on wishful thinking...but I digress. The whole reality, in my opinion, is much bigger than just smart people being exploited: EVERYONE should be treated fairly, and no one should be exploited. Rand entices smart people by telling them that they're special, and that THEY are the ones should should be running the world. And to some degree I can buy into this. ;) But not to the exclusion of helping others--and the sad truth of the matter is that charities can NOT do enough simply from voluntary contributions to support those who weren't as lucky in selecting their genes, and that means that taxes and government social programs are a necessary part of the moral behavior of society. As are government rules that protect workers, or that protect the food supply, or that protect the environment, and the other things that libertarianism/objectivism would have us do away with. She argues for pure, unregulated capitalism, and that's just completely insane. There's too much corporate influence in government as it is, and not enough regulation. Unless you think oil spills are fun, and don't mind the environmental damage that big Ag causes, and think that miners SHOULD be risking their lives for low pay, and on and on... The reality is that the market spectacularly fails under some circumstances, and that government is necessary to regulate it. There. I've said it. Let the libertarian downvoting commence...

secretasiandan 16y ago

This phenomenon isn't isolated to Ayn Rand/Objectivism. And it doesn't occur with Objectivism because Atlas Shrugged/The Fountainhead are hard reads. Its because most people don't spend time objectively studying topics/philosophies they don't have a positive bias towards.

grandalf 16y ago
That's true. I actually had a very negative bias toward the book before I first read it and within an hour I could not put it down.
dk 16y ago
Your last statement is certainly true but it doesn't explain the vitriol. Most people don't have a positive bias towards, say, Plato. But you don't see at every single mention of his name this seeming compulsion to speak up and smear his image and spread misconceptions about his thought. By people who at times even confess that they haven't read his books.
- secretasiandan 16y ago
  I would suggest that's because they don't (often) feel threatened by Plato or by the way people present Plato's views. Also, the objectivists they're speaking to/at aren't always looking for dialog as much as "scoring points". You can sometimes, with work and patience, introduce ideas that threaten someone's worldview. But I think people's efforts to do that are as rare as their efforts to objectively study ideas they aren't biased towards.
- _delirium 16y ago
  You do see it with almost anything political, though. Take, say, Marx: most of the anti-Marx vitriol isn't from people who've read Das Kapital.

msie 16y ago

On the other hand, many of her proponents probably haven't read the book either so it sort of evens out.

lzw 16y ago
Never met a proponent of the book who talked about it who hadntbread it. On the other hand this is the default for opponents. Usually their first sentence is false asstion based on their own prejudice and that is the only time they spend on the book, spending he rest of their time making what amounts to an ad hominem. Most of the anti statements in this thread are examples of this.

yummyfajitas 16y ago

True, though there is a perfectly good criticism to make - Rand is simply incorrect when she claims you can use reason to derive morality (either her specific kind, or any kind). You can use reason to evaluate actions based on moral principles of low complexity, but you simply can't derive those principles. In terms of formal logic, you need at least one true statement about the morality predicate in order to derive other true statements about it, you can't start from nothing.

brg 16y ago
I see where you are coming from. Rand tried to take the same path as Descartes in formulating that axiom. In objectivism it is "Existence exists" and in Descartes dialog it was "I think; I am." /not an objectivist
grandalf 16y ago
Have you read The Virtue of Selfishness? I thought she did a decent job in justifying the first principles. Considering that a lot of philosophers rely upon concepts like God, I think Rand's is a lot better developed than people give it credit for. Rand's notion that humans have brains like animals have claws, and that brains are useful b/c they allow us reasoning, thus reasoning is good (to humans) like claws are good (to an animal)... I think that's a fairly persuasive claim, unless you would argue that human self-deception is more valuable than objectivity...
- yummyfajitas 16y ago
  My point is that there are limits to the power of reason, which I never felt that Rand acknowledged. I freely admit that I only read her two major works (Atlas Shrugged and Fountainhead). I would grant that you are correct that reasoning is a utilitarian good (for humans) just as claws are a utilitiarian good (for tigers), but it does not follow from this that reason can derive a notion of moral good.
  - grandalf 16y ago
    Good point. I agree that her argument is not the strongest there, but I can't imagine another one that could be any more persuasive, especially if it involved the supernatural or tradition as many do.

dublinclontarf 16y ago

Read Atlas shrugged, liked it, so here are some critical comments. Galts speech is too drawn out, I skipped over it after 2 pages (it's like 20 pages). Way too much repetition. Characters are fairly stiff. For a good month or two after reading I was a selfish shit. In this I think I'm not alone. It's pretty difficult to find issues with the philosophy espoused in the book, I think the only thing worth criticizing is how poorly it is as a novel (as a political treatise it's a pleasant read).

msluyter 16y ago

A good place to start would be "Why I Am Not an Objectivist," by Michael Huemer: http://home.sprynet.com/~owl1/rand.htm http://home.sprynet.com/~owl1/rand.htm