Since one of the ongoing comment threads has gotten into a discussion of Ayn Rand, since she was in the blogs a lot this week because of this Stephen Moore article for the WSJ, and since few if any intellectual figures have done as much to shape the secular right in modern America, let’s make her the topic of a (polite, civil) open thread.
Rand famously did not want opposition to organized religion to be regarded as one of the defining aspects of her thinking, not because she was the slightest bit apologetic about her stand, but simply because other battles interested her more. As one writer notes, she aimed her fire on numerous occasions at pronouncements of the Roman Catholic hierarchy and the Vatican, while saying little that was specific to Protestantism (or Eastern Orthodoxy, Judaism, Islam, etc.). At any rate, some resources on Rand’s views of religion and faith can be found here, here, here, and (video) here.
So, what you want or require for “moral complexity” is a moral question that never gets answered, or one that is suggested to have no answer whatever?
No, what I want is for the moral complexity to be presented in a manner in which the choice is demonstrably right (or demonstrably wrong) in a context where the dilemma exists provokes thought and reflection on the nature of the dilemma. That requires, at a minimum, that the alternative view be given a chance or that the author explore situations where the “right” choice can lead to bad outcomes.
Here, Rand cheated. There is no real dilemma. She tried to frame it as conflict between Rearden’s existing philosophical outlook (which resulted in his cartoonishly evil family) and a new one which he could have if only he gave up his old outlook. But why would he not give it up? What will he lose if he goes with Dagny that’s worth keeping? Rand gives us no reason consider why Rearden would choose to stay, because she can’t or won’t state the opposite side of her philosophy honestly, preferring to personify by calling them names: “looters” and “moochers” and the like.
She failed to employ the axiom that no argument is properly defeated until it is first stated in the strongest possible manner. Paint Lillian and the rest of his family as the sweetest, nicest people you ever want to meet filled with love, support, good cheer and companionship, (with Lillian being a generous and gifted lover) but burden them with the love of charity work and social work which Rearden despises. On the other hand, make Dagny one who appreciates Hank’s virtues, but who also is incapable of having a fulfilling sexual relationship with him. Or give Hank and Lillian a child who will be devastated if Hank leaves.
Then you might start having some complexity, because to get something, he has to give up something. What is more important? Why would he choose one over the other? How does this philosophy work when there are no clear cut answers, when people aren’t just cutouts wearing black hats and white hats?
If Rand’s answers become really clear, even when others would find them ethically controversial, then this makes her a good writer.
No, Rand’s answers become really clear because she’s writing philosophy, not literature.
And, of course, Hank Rearden is not alone in his “complexity” in Rand’s work. I have already listed a sample of others.
I have only read Atas Shrugged, of her work and I agree with Polichinello’s analysis of the Wet Nurse issue.
I also can’t help laughing at the contrast presented here: one poster calls Dagny’s sexual behavior “catting around,” while another finds Rearden’s relationship with her the inevitably moral choice(!)
Why? Whether Dagny is a little slutty (she does seem to get around among the supermen…) is really inconsequental as to whether Rearden would prefer her to Lillian as presented by Rand.
Jim Valliant:
We use hypotheticals to eliminate factors such as consequences, in order to explore the limits of the thinking.
But how would the acquisition of this card at a phenomenal discount negatively effect the purchaser’s character?
Are Randians opposed to discounted shopping? Is there a Randian drive out there against Wal-Mart?
Having smuggled in a view that this is some kind of “screw up,” you seem to ignore that history has spoken loud and clear on this question.”
I’m not sure what you are saying here. It seems to me that business people want to do business with competent people, as well. If you were a dealer who failed to take advantage of a great, legal, non-coercive, honest bargain, would you not be a poor (i.e., incompetent) business person? If one were to have a chance to invest in your company, do you think they would be more or less likely to do so if you passed on this bargain??
I would ask those who seem agitated at those of us who have derived pleasure and benefit from reading Rand’s books, and integrated her philosophy into our own worldview, how we harm you in any way? Sure, we may attempt to persuade you to see the advantages of objectivism over altruism; but by its very nature, we are precluded from coercing you to abandon your Robin Hood’s creed for that of our John Galt.
Politically, you are winning hands down. You own both sides of the L/R political spectrum, have the sheeple eating out of your trough, and have turned this land into a nation of consumers, who produce almost nothing besides a blizzard of paper being shuffled from desk to desk. We are no threat to your game at the polls; we are a tiny minority, and half of us probably don’t even bother to vote for the lesser of the two evils you limit us to.
You own the banking system, have total control over the money supply, and have even redefined money from a fungible commodity with intrinsic value, to worthless green IOU’s, which you can devalue at will. Thus, your modern day Robin Hoods can just man the printing presses to loot the wealthy for the poor.
You own academia lock, stock, and barrel; and turn out a hundred complaisant and compliant “workers,” programed to accept an automaton’s life in a cubical, with just enough education to perform their assigned task, for every entrepreneur we might liberate from your mindset. Is one out of a hundred too many?
Don’t you still need at least a few producers of real wealth, for you to redistribute to the masses; or do you think you can just keep increasing borrowing against future taxes forever? You may be appalled by our selfish desire to succeed in life without your largess, and regard it as “greed”; but doesn’t it keep your game alive? Are you sure you wish to eliminate independence and private enterprise? How has that worked out when tried in any other place in the world?
Or, is it just perhaps that, even subconsciously, you realize that our heroes don’t need yours; yet yours are out of business without ours? Human nature being what it is, without the coercive tools of guilt and fear, the altruistic provider is instantly out of business. Absent the same, the objectivist trader thrives, by simply offering value for value in the free marketplace; where everyone always wins, because they always receive something they value more, in trade for something they valued less.
The altruistic model drags all of mankind down to a mean, by force and enslavement; the objectivist model lifts mankind up to unlimited potential, with unsuppressed opportunity and Liberty. On some level, that must be obvious to anyone capable of reading this thread. When it reaches conscious awareness, it must be really difficult to continue to defend altruism.
Candidly, I fail to see how one manages the mental gymnastics necessary to do so; but I suppose it does explain the impetus to denigrate the literary style of the best selling novel of all time, and dismiss the author’s admirers as mere cultists. ◄Dave►
Dave,
Who are you referring to? We are simply having a discussion about the merits of the woman’s writing, not so much the philosophy. Who here is saying that we should “eliminate independence and private enterprise?”
Grant:
You seem to have misunderstood me. Rand said that a ~ dishonest ~ transaction is ~ always ~ unethical and unselfish for ~ anyone ~ who engages in it.
As I have said, Rand would neither impose a law to prevent your proposed deal, nor even the ethical judgment “dishonest.”
But, as I have indicated, she would not end the ethical discussion there.
If you can see no other negative consequences to taking advantage of this situation, by all means, go for it. Depending on your context, however, there may be other, more important considerations. You implied that the seller was a walk-in rube, and I have considered it from this perspective. You had not asked if there might be a situation where failure to do the deal would be a :”screw up,” e.g., when the seller is another dealer himself, but rather implied it would always be such a “screw up.” As we have already seen, this is not the case.
See, one of Rand’s principles is that the factual context is vital to any ethical question — and there are always “consequences.”
Thus, any hypothetical which simply stipulates “no other consequences” need not be taken seriously.
Simply denying that the Wet Nurse’s values change, unlike the guy in ‘October,’ won’t make him so changeless. He does.
And, of course, the kind of ‘hard choices’ you suggest are all over ‘Atlas.’ For example, Dagny must give up the railroad she loves, Francisco must act the worthless playboy, etc. etc. These are choices that the heroes even torment over making, and for god reason.
And why would Rearden have been “sacrificing” anything if his family had been virtuous? Unclarity under those conditions would only have been indicative of mental confusion on his part.
And, of course, that some find the relationship between Dagny and Rearden morally objectionable suggests that that situation, for them, is not so cut and dry as you personally find it to be.
And, of course, we shape and mold our soul with every single action we take.
I am also still laughing at this one: a total of three serious, long-term relationships in your whole life means “you seem to get around.” 🙂
@Grant Canyon
I was not referring to anyone in particular, or your current literary debate in particular. There have been some very dismissive remarks about “Randians,” which is a new term for me, and doesn’t strike me as meant to be complementary, in and of itself. I am an admirer of her life’s work and “Atlas Shrugged” changed my own as a young man; by allowing me to understand that I am not alone in the sea of altruism, and that it is OK to be me. I have read it three or four times, and probably will again. Does that make me a “Randian?”
I got even more validation for my own inherently contumacious nature, out of reading “How I Found Freedom in an Unfree World,” by Harry Browne. I have read that one at least once a year for the past 30 years, just to keep myself grounded. Does that make me a “Browneian?”
It seems to me that the opposite of objectivism is altruism. Thus, anyone dismissive of objectivism is implicitly endorsing the notion of altruism at least to some degree. When one considers that Marxism and Christianity are both based on the concept of altruism, it is not difficult to understand the fact that most Americans would reject objectivism as “selfishness.” I was addressing in general, those who do. ◄Dave►
I would ask those who seem agitated at those of us who have derived pleasure and benefit from reading Rand’s books, and integrated her philosophy into our own worldview, how we harm you in any way?
Nobody’s “agitated” at you for taking pleasure or benefit from Rand’s work. I’ve found some good stuff in there, too. It’s just the idea that Rand was some supreme storyteller or stylist that we find laughable.
There have been some very dismissive remarks about “Randians,” which is a new term for me, and doesn’t strike me as meant to be complementary, in and of itself.
There are two types of objectivists out there, I’ve found. Those who treat Rand as practically infallible (Peikoff’s group, mainly), and those who don’t. I use the term Randian to label them. If you feel I’ve unfairly labeled you as such, I apologize.
Jim,
“You seem to have misunderstood me. Rand said that a ~ dishonest ~ transaction is ~ always ~ unethical and unselfish for ~ anyone ~ who engages in it.”
Okay, but where is the dishonesty in the hypothetical?
“Simply denying that the Wet Nurse’s values change, unlike the guy in ‘October,’ won’t make him so changeless. He does.”
Okay, but even if we stipulate his values change, that doesn’t establish that the work is full of moral complexity. Does the character even have a name? If one of the exemplars of your position is the change in a minor-minor character, who doesn’t even have a name, that doesn’t really support the notion that this is a grand piece of literature.
“And, of course, the kind of ‘hard choices’ you suggest are all over ‘Atlas.’ For example, Dagny must give up the railroad she loves, Francisco must act the worthless playboy, etc. etc. These are choices that the heroes even torment over making, and for god reason.”
What you are pointing to are plot points. Her giving up the railroad is not a moral dilemma, it’s a response to the antagonists attempting to advance their cause. It’s what she likes to do, not who she is. Francisco pretending to be a playboy is him advancing the cause of the strikers. That he finds it distasteful, because it prevents him from prancing about declaring his überman-ness, doesn’t make it a moral dilemma.
And why would Rearden have been ‘sacrificing’ anything if his family had been virtuous? Unclarity under those conditions would only have been indicative of mental confusion on his part.
Yes, it would have been unclear. He would be in a moral dilemma. That’s the exact point. He would have been confused and forced to explore his values and his aspirations. The decision to leave his wife for Dagny would not have been an easy one; there would have been advantages and disadvantages on each side of the question and he would have had to apply his moral and ethic precepts to those advantages and disadvantages. That lack of clarity, that mental confusion – and the process of shifting through it, examining it, resolving it (or not) is exactly what constitutes moral complexity in the arts, and what this novel lacked (among many, many other things.) If he faced sacrificing a virtuous family for a virtuous other woman, he would have been human, and not a cardboard cutout.
And, of course, that some find the relationship between Dagny and Rearden morally objectionable suggests that that situation, for them, is not so cut and dry as you personally find it to be.
They may find it morally objectionable, but they (assuming “they” have a brain and are fluent in English) wouldn’t have had trouble guessing whether Rand was going to get those two wacky kids together, because for the previous eleventy million pages, she’s been beating the readers over the head with the fact that the reason Rearden stayed with his wife was because of a silly attachment he had to a moral code which Rand repeatedly noted was pure, sweet, unadulterated evil and the basis of all unhappiness in the universe. Doesn’t take a genius to figure that one out.
Jim Valliant
“I am also still laughing at this one: a total of three serious, long-term relationships in your whole life means ‘you seem to get around.'”
It was mostly a joke because, you know, she keeps slipping with the supermen.
Dave,
I’ve used the word “Randian” as shorthand, not necessarily as an insult.
“Randroid” is the more popular word of abuse.
Now, you’re just being very confused yourself.
Of course, Rearden was, for a considerable time, “confused and forced to explore his values and aspirations.” Let’s take just one aspect of this: many folks feel that sex is somehow a low, dirty matter, disconnected from one’s highest values. Not realizing that it can express our highest and noblest self, Rearden must learn how the same principles that guide his business activities are applicable in the realm of personal values. This is neither obvious nor easy. He considers this question from a number of perspectives. Events, such as his being blackmailed because of this relationship, force him to consider it some more… Nor has Rand implied that this was easy ~ for him ~ or that his previous position was, as you claim, “pure evil.” Quite the reverse, she explains just how in his context Rearden came to this conclusion. We “understand” his error and readily want to forgive him. Yet, Rand shows how errors have “consequences,” even relatively innocent ones in their inception, and Rearden is forced to face those “consequences,” in any event. Even Tony, the Wet Nurse, plays his role. So, it’s still not clear what “complexity” requires for you if not ethical skepticism generally.
Moreover, Dagny’s decision to give up her railroad is very much a MORAL question, as are all our volitional choices, according to Rand, and as certainly as is Francisco’s decision to play the playboy, and as is Ragnar’s decision to take up piracy (a judgment not shared by all the other heroes, btw), etc. For Dagny, the thought of quitting is nothing short of blasphemy, at first, something that would almost kill her personally and which might devastate the economy. At first, it is by no means obvious why Dagny should give up her railroad — and, for her, it is initially out of the question, and for good reasons the reader has no problem seeing. Rand powerfully makes us feel Dagny’s increasing agony, however, as the situation develops, and as Dagny is weighing what are, in fact, the considerable “pros and cons.” Rand also quite powerfully makes us see why and how the decision eventually became easy — and from her very love of that railroad. It is, at first glance, not an obvious decision at all, but something of paradox that for her to gain it forever, she must give it up now, and it involves a consideration of numerous “consequences” on her part.
Obviously, there’s vastly more plain old fashioned reality, more moral complexity, and more ethics as such, than anything Hemingway ever gave us.
Okay, three long term, serious sexual relationships — one at a time — over a whole lifetime makes you a slut.
Are you sure you’ve actually learned the lessons Rearden had to?
Jim,
No, what Rand does is tell us about these things. She has stacked the deck ahead of time so that not only is the reader aware of her operative moral paradigm — i.e., that this is a pro-objectivist fable — but that every so-called moral dilemma you point to can and will be phrased in terms of objectivism and solved by the soothing application of this new moral paradigm over the old. (And I did not say that Rearden’s previous position was pure evil, I said that Rand said that the moral paradigm that led to his previous position was evil.)
Although Rand creates a lot of melodrama in the characters agonizing over what they will do, we, as the readers, never feel it, because we can see Rand putting the rabbit in the hat.
Did you ever seriously think that Francisco was not putting on a show at being the playboy? That Dagny would end up with Galt? That Rearden would enjoy sex with Dagny? That Lillian would reject the Rearden metal bracelet? Is there any morally ambiguous characters in the whole book? Did anyone ever question whether one of the characters was an antagonist or a protagonist? Even for a second? If she printed the strikers’ words in a different color like they do with Jesus in some bibles, I don’t think she would have been that much more obvious than she was.
I can understand that it affects you deeply and brings meaning to you life that you want to think its wonderful literature filled with all kinds of insight. (Hell, that’s why Dianetics is in its bajillionth printing.) It just isn’t.
Polichinello: Rand was an excellent stylist and storyteller, demonstrably far more skilled than most 20th Century writers with whom I am familiar. But I value as highly as I do Rand, from the standpoint of literature, Rostand, Shakespeare, Sophocles and Mark Twain, among others, even if I find them philosophically inferior to Rand. Your laughs do not an argument make.
Okay, three long term, serious sexual relationships — one at a time — over a whole lifetime makes you a slut.
Are you sure you’ve actually learned the lessons Rearden had to?
I didn’t say she was a slut. I said that some people believe that she is because she slept with three of the main characters of the book (two within the narrative of the book.)
Grant: Rand no more “stacks the deck” than does Sophocles — or Shakespeare. Indeed, she gives far more actual consideration of the “complexities” of ethical questions in the plot, action and psychologies of her characters than they do (she had a whole novel’s space to do so) while using most of the same techniques they do to address such questions. Her heroes’ decisions are not morally obvious (her heroes indeed will disagree among themselves), and the situation that gives rise to these decisions are considerably thought-provoking. (You haven’t even begun to consider them.) Indeed, books after books, and articles after articles, worth of “thought” has been so “provoked” (or you can take your complaint up with, for example, Cambridge University Press or a dozen peer-review journals, and not with me.)
Grant: No, all three are within the narrative of the book, complete with sex scenes!!
Of course “slut” was my contribution, but if “some people” believe this from such facts, then it is they who need to learn Rearden’s lessons. If you find their case plausible, then this includes you, too. See?
Having said what I said above about Rand’s contribution to rights theory, I shall say one thing I think Rand was not only quite wrong about, but disturbingly wrong about. Rand had a tendency to believe (or at least sound like she believed) her opponents, or those philosophers whose views she despised, fully comprehended and intended the consequences (as she saw them) of the things that they argued. That is, she seemed to believe that there were philosophical dark forces who set out, like comic book Evil Geniuses, to wreak philosophical havoc on the world. Her arch-villain Kant, for example, she characterizes as “the most evil man in mankind’s history,” and she and other Objectivists have sometimes claimed that he intentionally set out to do all sorts of philosophical evil. Now, accepting as true Rand’s allegations against Kant (many of which I’m not in a position to evaluate), it seems very far-fetched to say that this man actually intended to do bad things with philosophy. It seems much more likely that he attempted to follow through on certain philosophical principles, and that he, in Rand’s view, came to disastrously wrong conclusions which led to bad things being done in the end. But it is enormously naive and immature to imagine Kant, or other philosophers, as though they were members of S.P.E.C.T.R.E.
Indeed, Rand herself rejected conspiracy theories offered in her day by, e.g., the John Birch Society, rightly seeing that communist conspiracies could not work unless the philosophical ground were already laid for them. So, too, with Kant, it’s enough to say that the things he believed were false and have terrible consequences–it’s not necessary to draw caricatures of him.
And this problem has persisted among Objectivists, who are often far too keen to latch on to the (real or imagined) venality of their opponents rather than to discuss their ideas in terms of ideas. This is one of the big reasons for the various schisms and self-destructive (to Objectivism) infighting that have plagued Rand’s followers. If Rand’s ideas have merit–if her attacks on Kant are well-founded–then they ought to be susceptible of expression in dispassionate terms without need for hyperbole and histrionics.
On that score, the person who deserves a shout-out is Tara Smith, who in my opinion is the best thing to happen to Objectivism since Rand’s death. Her work is scholarly, responsible, intelligent, and most of all calmly and carefully written. In her books, one finds a person who, whatever the merits of her arguments might be, is interested less in blasting her opponents than in refuting or criticizing them. Thank heaven for Tara Smith, and here’s hoping other Objectivists follow her lead.
Mr. Sandefur: I also admire Prof Smith, and have had the great pleasure of meeting her. She is as reasonable in person as she is in print. I think Rand had a case against Kant. but I agree that – despite her own injunction to always consider context — Rand did herself sometimes wrongly impute a knowledge of “intentions and consequences.” She did not always appreciate her own “subtlety,” and she often assumed that her readers, for example, had — or should have — already “gotten” something that they simply hadn’t even considered. However, in my view, most of her “blasts,” and certainly most of those in print, were completely justified.
But Prof. Smith is not alone. The authors of the books I have already mentioned, for example, do not engage in “histrionics” or “hyperbole” of any kind in their books. Nor does Andrew Bernstein’s recent book on capitalism. I could name more, if you;d like.
I haven’t got around to Bernstein’s book yet. It’s on the exponentially growing pile of books to get to Someday.
Wait a minute.
You cannot show me one word where Rand charges Kant with deliberate, overt, intentional evil-doing in print. Where you are going off the track Mr. Sandefur, is not that she specifically charges him with overt plotting, but something more powerful: Rand HOLDS Kant RESPONSIBLE for his destructive, corrosive thought and tracts.
In fact holding Kant responsible is worst than charging him with inciting. Rand is far more subtle and deep than a melodramatic plot. She knew his game. She was certain he knew what he was doing. I am sure she smiled to see how he coats it in obtuse scholarly formulations that take a team of linguists to parse. But no one else is calling this guy’s bluff. You may prefer kindly nice exchanges, but I am personally grateful Rand did and could tee off on Kant and Plato and Augustine and Dewey and FDR and…..whoever deserved it. You go girl.
Even though Mr. Canyon and the others disdainful of Rand’s literary style in this thread are totally wrong, their feeble protestations seem even more pointless when compared to this: Rand knew that she was the only brain alive in the 20th century that could save Western Civilization AT THE ROOT. Gee, that is all that was at stake. I guess we can tolerate the human character who personifies the solution going on for 32,000 words when he feels it’s valuable to do so. Brevity when no one else will speak up is no vice.
John Donohue
Pasadena, CA
No surprise that Rand spawned such a long and intelligible comment thread!
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Look, Grant, Rand’s call for a legal system of caveat emptor does not end the discussion for her, as it does for many libertarians. Nor does Rand’s identification of dishonesty as a self-destructive vice end the ethical discussion for Rand. Her ethics require a complete evaluation of the factual context for every proposed transaction with that baseball card.
What the most selfish and the most rational thing to do about disclosing the information depends entirely on that context. Rand’s worldview is perfectly consistent with the development of professional codes of conduct — as I say, perfectly selfish ones — requiring more than the law does of just anyone. Her worldview is not a “closed” one, in this sense. It demands of us the most rational and the most selfish conduct we can muster in any given context, and it implies an active and continuous use of the rational faculty, not a mindless conformity to the technical bright lines of a moral commandment.
The ethics of “full disclosure” in the case of your card is not amenable to a universal rule, like the principle of honesty itself is. Mere honesty may be insufficiently demanding to meet the exacting standard of rational self-interest — and such other demands may vary from context to context.
Rand’s ethics require us to strive for the best within us, and recognizes active rationality as the highest virtue.
Rand’s fiction tightly weaves its action with its philosophy. So deeply connected are the issues of plot and theme in Rand’s literary judgment, she called the topic “plot-theme.” Her ideas are expressed in the action of her stories, unlike, say, Thomas Mann, who gives speeches to his characters that bear little or no relation to the action of the story, Rand’s speeches are intense discussions of that very action, and made part of the drama itself.
Rand ~ shows ~ her themes, vividly and visually, she does not merely state them.
It would be a big mistake not to recognize that this is a major part of power as a writer.
Excuse me, “part of her power as a writer.”
Mr. Valliant, your last post and the others explicating the baseball card example constitute a rare illumination of Objectivism’s ability to find the proper legal line, but then go so much farther into proactive exchange of moral value as a result of being based on self interest. It makes visible the enormous generosity lying underneath and beyond ‘trader rules.’
Personally knowing hundreds of entrepreneurs in manufacturing in my profession, and knowing which ones are of Objectivist inclinations, I witness this wellspring. Most would look at the situation, realize they were perfectly within their moral code to obtain as much as possible, but then evaluate the context and person involved, his intentions, his root values. It is very likely they would say something in many cases. They know how to identify value in another and instantly make an investment in seeing it soar.
John Donohue
Pasadena, CA
Thanks, Mr Donohue 🙂
Yeah, Rand was the kind of person who could object to the space program, qua government program, but still get the total thrill out watching an Apollo lift-off and listening to the telemetry come in from the moon, recognizing the milestone for humanity it represented.
Jim,
Rand no more “stacks the deck” than does Sophocles — or Shakespeare. Indeed, she gives far more actual consideration of the “complexities” of ethical questions in the plot, action and psychologies of her characters than they do…
No, she doesn’t. What she does is package her philosophical discussion in the mouths of her characters. She didn’t create drama, let alone literature, she created an unrealistic fantasy world where unrealistic people take unrealistic action and make unrealistic statements in order to push her philosophy. Good propaganda? Sure. Good literature? No.
Again, take of her philosophy what you will, but as literature, her work is passable, at best. Your opinion, no doubt, will differ. (Of course, it is a wholly subjective question, and only a braying jackass of an idiot would claim someone is “totally wrong” about an evaluation of literary style.)
Of course “slut” was my contribution, but if “some people” believe this from such facts, then it is they who need to learn Rearden’s lessons. If you find their case plausible, then this includes you, too. See?
Of course it’s plausible, in the sense that if you accept their subjective judgments, the label would be appropriate. There are people out there who would say that that any woman who slept with any man she wasn’t married to could be described that way. Simply recognizing that they feel that way doesn’t mean that I agree with them or accept their subjective judgment.
Rand was an excellent stylist and storyteller, demonstrably far more skilled than most 20th Century writers with whom I am familiar.
You should read more. I could cite Waugh, Greene, Naipaul, Orwell Huxley, Wolf and other top flight novelists, but that’s not fair to Rand, who could never hope to be comparable to them, even in her better work. Pick up almost any low-brow commercial writer from the past century, like Doyle, Heinlein, Moorcock, Helprin, King, etc, and they will produce more readable books with far more true to life characters. Hell, even Tom Clancy bests Rand in his best novel, The Hunt for Red October.
As Grant C. has pointed out, Rand deals with some serious issues and makes a case that’s worth reading, even if you don’t agree with her, but her fictional framework is a tedious slog.
I’m not sure why you invoked their “subjective opinion” about sex, in that case. I do know that the opponent of what you at one point seemed to regard as obvious and no interesting moral “dilemma” now has a “plausible” concern in your book. While the matter is clearly of interest, my own standard for what is “plausible” does not include accommodating a judgment simply because it’s held by certain “people,” much less their subjective” ones. “Plausibility” is a question of fact.
What you call Rand’s “unrealistic fantasy world” has been reconsidered in the last few days in a ‘Wall Street Journal’ article titled, “‘Atlas Shrugged’: From Fiction to Fact in 52 Years.” What you call “unrealistic people” are characters who perform no greater miracles than humans have already achieved. They get married, divorced, struggle to keep their businesses going and to make sense of the world. But they are capable of being evaluated as good, bad, heroic, villains or, like a great many (your count notwithstanding), thoroughly mixed bags. Such evaluation is possible for the characters in lots of literature, every one with heroes and villains, that is. Rand leads you to evaluations of her characters only after watching them act, and the reader is left free to form his own evaluation. (Like those folks who think that any sex out of marriage tars Dagny do.) What you call “unrealistic action” is all action which is perfectly logical in the context of the story — e.g., Hank’s submission to the blackmail, Dagny’s method of ending it, etc. — and I would challenge you to show otherwise.
Now, don’t get me wrong, I enjoy that wonderful tale of hobbits from a place called “the Shire” fighting the Dark Lord over a magical ring, and I certainly wouldn’t object to it being called “literature” just because it is really a “fantasy,” in any event. Even if its author did not, I can appreciate the allegorical power even of a literary universe which is THAT stylized.
To show us “the role of the mind in human survival,” the theme of ‘Atlas,’ Rand shows us a world in which the best minds are removed — she shows us why such a thing might happen (with or without the direction of its leaders) and what happens when it does — and to show is the role of the rational businessman in our society, she dramatically lays out the results of the ~ boss ~ (the good ones, that is) going on strike.
It is a worthy mental experiment. It is ~ elegant ~ allegory, thought-provoking on multiple levels. Take just one: as an allegorical refutation of Marxist Labor Theory of Value.
Now something like ‘Animal Farm’ truly IS impossible if taken literally, a pure allegory, but it’s still “literature,” isn’t it? Yet, I have “met” the very characters from ‘Atlas’ in a more realistic way than I know one can actually ever “meet” all of the characters from ‘Animal Farm.’
Polichinello: I’ve read some Waugh, Greene, Orwell and Huxley, in fact, and I think they are all TOP writers.
And I still rank Rand higher.
What you call “unrealistic people” are characters who perform no greater miracles than humans have already achieved.
One character invented a motor whose description on its face violates the laws of Thermodynamics and another character cooked up an alloy that defies chemistry and metallurgy. Sure, I’ll grant, that the metal at least acted as a plot device, but so did a magic ring in Tolkein’s books.
I’ve read some Waugh, Greene, Orwell and Huxley, in fact, and I think they are all TOP writers.
And I still rank Rand higher.
And no doubt a Muslim would rank Mohammad’s style higher.
Glad you took the bait: My “totally wrong” phrase was puposefully inflamatory. It was to counter the flat and smug claim in the last paragraphy of post 117, which was rude and insulting. Now that Mr. Canyon has repeated the same bald assertion in #132 — but at the same time declared all evaluations of literary style subjective, my mission is accomplished: your game is exposed.
You can’t have it both ways. Either flat statements such as ‘totally wrong’ are understood to simply be strong affirmatives of an opinion and everyone accepts them as such, or else are claims of objective certainty which have to be substantiated. If you instead hold that you can post flat claims and have them taken as fact, but that mine are subjective and therefore my flat claim is insufferable, well then you are a braying…..well I’m not sure which animal, certainly one lacking cognitive abilities or honesty.
I won’t be posting any further extreme phrases like that unless the offending Mr. Canyon persists in his one-way street.
John Donohue
Pasadena, CA
@Polichinello Both of those have analogous equivalents in human achievement, even ignoring your unfair descriptions, from steel to plastics to nuclear power. I know a great many highly successful engineers of computers (like my father) and roadways who have very much enjoyed ‘Atlas,’ and had no problem “getting it.”
As for your comparison of me to a member of sect of mystics recently known for its many violent fanatics, I will let your emotion, and the fairness of your comment, speak for itself.
@Grant Canyon Orwell’s ‘1984’ is another good example to consider. It is a powerful indictment of the totalitarianism of Hitler and Stalin not despite, but ~ because of ~ its stylized exaggeration, which we might more fairly describe as its “stylized logical reductio.” Rand also took on such totalitarianism in two novels published years before ‘1984’: in a far less “stylized” take on the Soviets than Orwell’s, called ‘We the Living,’ and in a far more “stylized” rendition in ‘Anthem.’ As for ‘Atlas,’ it is much more realistic picture, I think, of what dictatorship in America would like, with its “economic directives” and “temporary emergencies,” than any of those earlier works.
I’m not sure why you invoked their “subjective opinion” about sex, in that case.
Cause it was a joke.
I do know that the opponent of what you at one point seemed to regard as obvious and no interesting moral “dilemma” now has a “plausible” concern in your book.
No, they’re two different things. It was obvious what choice Rearden would make. It is superficially fair to say that someone with a certain set of beliefs would find Dagny to be a slut. I don’t, but they might. You are trying to create a connection here when none exists.
While the matter is clearly of interest, my own standard for what is “plausible” does not include accommodating a judgment simply because it’s held by certain “people,” much less their subjective” ones. “Plausibility” is a question of fact.
But the question of whether one is or is not a slut is a matter of opinion. Thus, one is forced to consider the subjective element. There is not platonic ideal of sluttiness out there in the aether that Dagny can be compared to, to answer the question. It’s based on judgment. And, as I said, if I were to consider the basis for their judgment to be valid, then the resulting answer that Dagny is a slut is facially or superficially fair or valid (i.e., plausible). But, again, that does not mean that I have the same judgment or would reach the same result if I were deciding the matter.
What you call Rand’s “unrealistic fantasy world” has been reconsidered in the last few days in a ‘Wall Street Journal’ article titled, “‘Atlas Shrugged’: From Fiction to Fact in 52 Years.”
I read the article and found it quite unconvincing. Nevertheless, the broad social strokes which the article discusses are, in the book, while wholly unconvincing, are less unrealistic than much of the personal interactions, especially of the characters that Rand considers to be not only antagonists, but evil.
She peopled her story with characters whose only defining trait of consequence is where they lie along the line defined by her philosophy. Thus, they are one-dimensional characters.
Such evaluation is possible for the characters in lots of literature, every one with heroes and villains, that is.
Well, a story must have protagonist and antagonist, but need not have heroes and villains. Only a few genres, mostly the pulp genres – superheroes, fantasy, western – require heroes and villains as genre conventions (and even then sometimes presents anti-heroes…).
What you call “unrealistic action” is all action which is perfectly logical in the context of the story — e.g., Hank’s submission to the blackmail, Dagny’s method of ending it, etc. — and I would challenge you to show otherwise.
My favorite example is the court scene, in which we are supposed to believe that judges would get flustered and rocked back on their heels, floundering, by nothing more than an obstinate defendant. That scene, and the actions of the judges, were so unrealistic as to be laughable to anyone whose ever watched an episode of “Law and Order” (which, itself isn’t too terribly realistic at times), let alone has been inside an actual courtroom or has been before an actual judge.
It is a worthy mental experiment. It is ~ elegant ~ allegory, thought-provoking on multiple levels.
Uh, it isn’t even allegory, let alone elegant allegory. The businessmen in the book are fictional, but they are not supposed to be metaphoric businessmen. They are supposed to represent real businessmen.
Take just one: as an allegorical refutation of Marxist Labor Theory of Value.
If it refutes this theory, it does so directly, not allegorically. An allegory is an extended metaphor. Animal Farm wasn’t about animals or a farm.
Now something like ‘Animal Farm’ truly IS impossible if taken literally, a pure allegory, but it’s still “literature,” isn’t it?
Allegory and fantasy can absolutely be literature, and great literature, like Animal Farm. Rand’s no Orwell.
As for your comparison of me to a member of sect of mystics recently known for its many violent fanatics, I will let your emotion, and the fairness of your comment, speak for itself.
It speaks volumes. Muslims will make the same claim, and they’ll even pull out the sales numbers to back up their point, like Randians do.
Both of those have analogous equivalents in human achievement, even ignoring your unfair descriptions, from steel to plastics to nuclear power.
My description of them is bang on. These other “equivalents” you describe had drawbacks to them or are so early in development that you can’t really cite them in a modern fable. Steel goes back to the Hittites. Fabricating plastics involve toxic by-products and waste disposal issues. Nuclear power involves dangerous emissions, meltdown threats and radioactive wastes. Now the advantages may outweigh the disadvantages, but there are acknowledged disadvantages. With Galt’s wonder motor and Rearden’s alloy, no such drawback is mentioned (other than the usual bad faith ones Rand puts in the mouth of her villains). That’s why they’re really “magical.” These innovations are absolutely wonderful and the only people who can oppose them are straight up evil. It’s nothing like the real world with its trade-offs.
Rand’s no Orwell.
Amazing that this point actually has to be made.
@Jim Valliant
Orwell’s ‘1984′ is another good example to consider. It is a powerful indictment of the totalitarianism of Hitler and Stalin not despite, but ~ because of ~ its stylized exaggeration, which we might more fairly describe as its “stylized logical reductio.”
Absolutely (although I would argue that he had Stalin but not Hitler in mind.) I don’t criticize Rand for stylized exaggeration, per se, but I would criticize her for sloppy stylized exaggeration. Orwell, for example, interposed the rise of the Party in Nineteen Eighty-Four as a way of realistically warning about the rise of totalitarianism in the West. Rand did no such thing. Imagine how laughable Orwell’s work would have been if everything had been the same, but it was run by the British Labour Party, rather than the Party spouting Engsoc. Ridiculous.
Rand also took on such totalitarianism in two novels published years before ‘1984′: in a far less “stylized” take on the Soviets than Orwell’s, called ‘We the Living,’ and in a far more “stylized” rendition in ‘Anthem.’ As for ‘Atlas,’ it is much more realistic picture, I think, of what dictatorship in America would like, with its “economic directives” and “temporary emergencies,” than any of those earlier works.
As I said before, I have only read Atlas Shrugged, so perhaps Rand is better in other works. It’s certainly possible.
@John Donohue,
I’m sorry my post #117 was rude and insulting. But I’m sure the Scientologists will get over it.
Still buoyed by the unexpected delight resulting from the baseball card example, and in a gesture to bring this thread back on topic, I’d like to expose a certain quandary about USA culture vs the world and the religious right vs the secular right.
Very often it is pointed out that Americans are far more “religious” than other nations. Certainly there is a visible stream of born-again Christianity running free in the nation. Beyond that is a larger stream of those claiming to believe in God, and these citizens often belong to a milder form of religious institution. There is another segment not affiliated with any church or religion who would still claim to believe in a higher power.
In my opinion, the more radicalized someone is on this spectrum, the more likely they are to be found on the right, politically. And….leaving the issue of atheism aside, most people would tend to put Ayn Rand on the right, politically. [I do not]
As an Objectivist and atheist, I have poked at this from an obverse angle: ‘What would it take for people to let go of the superstitious aspects of their belief system but retain the power they derive from it?’
Another way to put it is this: First exclude the more radical positions; those completely certain God owns one’s soul and reality is only about God. But for the others, if they were to consider un-tethering the source, to remove it from ‘outside’, ‘above’ and ‘higher’ than, and relocating it into their own soul….what would be the result? Frankly, you’d just about have an Objectivist. You’d have that benevolence I frequently find in ‘mild Christians’ and nearly all Objectivists, you’d have quite a few with small government, pursuit of happiness attitudes with charity/helping in healthy perspective.
Before I post my actual question, I’ll state that I am aware that many religious people look at myself and other Objectivists and say, ‘gee if only they’d believe in God, they’d be okay, they’d be just like us.’
My actual question (I’ll post my own answer if anyone cares to discuss this) is: what keeps the mildly religious right sutured into their belief in God?
John Donohue
Pasadena, CA
@Grant Canyon No, the ~ situation ~ in ‘Atlas’ is not meant to be journalistic reality, but allegorical (Rand is not expecting an actual strike led by a Galt to happen to make her point), but the logical results are very much meant to be seen as real. The businessmen in ‘Atlas,’ as I have said, are far less “stylized” than the agents of Big Brother in ‘1984.’ I included the existence of “literature” without heroes or villains when I singled out that which actual has heroes and villains, of course, but noted that it is still “literature” despite its intentional “stylized exaggeration.”
And none of this really answers my point about realism in literature. In addition, while I must observe that the absence of a “platonic” version of something does not yet confine us to the realm of the “subjective,” your point in all this is still not clear.
But one thing you are just wrong about: Rearden’s own problem includes regarding sex as low or dirty and this is very much connected to an opinion that Dagny is “slutty” — and it is an issue addressed in the action and ideas in ‘Atlas.’ The two are inextricably linked.
The “evil” or otherwise of Rand’s characters is measured by their ~ actions ~ in light of Rand’s ethics, not their relative intellectual agreement with Rand’s whole philosophy. The principle virtues of Rand’s ethics are honesty, rationality, productiveness, independence, integrity, justice and pride. If you find this system of ~ moral evaluation ~ repugnant or artificial, then let’s spell out just what is meant.
I happen to be a former trial attorney, a public prosecutor for over 16 years, who, unlike most lawyers, spent a huge proportion of my time in court in front of judges, and I have successfully prosecuted over one hundred jury trials.
That scene is particularly realistic, and a good example of how Rand’s stylization is dictated by the logic of the situation.
When the law itself has turned into a subjectivist hash, as Rand details in ‘Atlas,’ and as I have seen the equal of in real life, the judge(s) will inevitably get flustered with the same kind of all-too-logical response. In ‘Atlas,’ amid the insanity of a coercive law being called “voluntary,” and requiring one’s own formalistic signing-off on it to be enforced (and, Zeus, how many laws today are like that!) depicted, this kind of temporary paralysis is simply to be expected. I’ve seen its equivalent with my own eyes and more than once.
As I have indicated Rand’s eerie warning to America is, in a number of ways, far more relevant to America today, and in its concrete particulars, than Orwell’s work — evade them all you like.
Orwell, alas, was no Rand — and the reverse still hasn’t been shown, only emotionally asserted with unnecessary personal venom.
That earlier question about the deeply held (and over-the-top) anger and hostility against admirers of Rand might be reiterated ’bout now, I think…
I, too, must sign off for various reasons, but thank you all for a most stimulating conversation!
BTW, for those not familiar with ‘Atlas,’ Rand’s intentional and organized strike IS meant to compare to the results of the draining motivations, the inverted incentives and its subconscious equivalent, under socialism or the Dark Ages.