At least that was my opinion after reading his defining speech. Or perhaps that speech was written for him by an angry woman who had a lot of scores to settle. It had to be someone who hated religion, labor unions, the arts, universities, scientists, college professors, people with problems, politicians and governments in general. Also, the writer of that speech had to be someone who was ineffective in control of his or her own world and life. Yet that speech is the heart of "Atlas Shrugged", written by Ayn (rhymes with "mine") Rand. It has to be what the story was all about, and it was a only a series of complaints piled on top of absurdities. I found that just that single speech was very hard to follow, even reading it all by itself over several days, and it would have been very confusing to have had to receive it over the radio in a single three-hour dose, particularly when you were expecting something else.
But there is a lot more in the book. I was stunned by the beauty of some of Ayn Rand’s writing. She has a way of expressing feeling by combining a few words that collide like cymbals and create volumes of meaning and expression that shimmer and shine and stay with you as you read on. These marvelous gems are scattered throughout her book and often they jump up and try to grab you when you are being carried along by a free-fall of some of her other descriptive adventures. She also had several passages in which she writes very powerfully of great events taking place that seem too big to actually happen, then they happen, and then they get worse and then – then it gets really bad. There are at least six of these episodes that stand out. The work is a one thousand-plus page book with about twenty-four major characters and that obviously requires a considerable amount of planning, organization and creation of events and circumstances and I am not sure that she completely mastered many of those tasks.
The tone of the book is dark, very dark, even stygian in places. She carries that tone so pervasively throughout the book that I even have to congratulate her for another superb ability, that of consistency. I wonder though, if the very process of reading it does not tend to bring unwanted circumstances drifting into the reader’s life flow.
Her story is pulled forward by miracles. Not like water into wine, but metal that is greater than any other metal by many orders of magnitude. It is not just better, not twice as good or three times as good, but a complete revolution in the art of metal making, and it was all done by one individual, and came out of his own mind. Another miracle is an amazing motor that runs far, far better than any other motor ever invented and uses virtually no “fuel”. There are incredible locks that can guard a room beyond belief, and . . . then if they are forced to open . . . well, you will just have to read the book.
These miracles are all performed by the heroes of the book, who are presented as gods. They are a handful of super-mortal individuals who penetrate beyond the limits of existence to create new horizons of possibilities. They work hard, that’s true but they also leap forward, racing beyond the world, easily accomplishing scientific magic and technological invention far ahead of academic studies or experimental prototypes.
There are no management principles depicted anywhere in the book. If you can find even one, let me know. Everything that is done is just “done”, often by Herculean effort by one of the gods. There is great work going in in several places but then it later turns out that there was really nothing there – and nobody knew it! There is apparently no education system in place anywhere. College is constantly dismissed as an evil and useless thing: ". . . those modern college-infected parasites . . ." (Universal Reference .56584). People are not learning anything unless they teach it to themselves, or perhaps already know it. There are universities, but the education of masses is not addressed. The American public seems huddled in groups like lobotomized sheep, moaning “ I don’t know”, “It’s not my job”, “I can’t help it”, and so on as they watch their families fade into starvation and destitution. The people in charge of the country seem to direct it entirely by innuendo and influence although they always provide exceedingly well for themselves. We all know that politicians and their ilk are sleazy, but Ayn Rand’s guys are stupid, dumb, obviously inept, jealous, whiney and pitifully pitiful. Collectively, they are a pathetically sad monster.
(NOTE by "Universal Reference", I mean where the instance occurs in the book. In the book I read, the First Plume Printing, August 1999, the lower middle of page 1,054 occurs .90472 of the way through its 1,165 pages.)
Rand is obviously impressed by the failures of communism, but she sees it appealing to the masses and the world is collapsing into a Marxist-induced communist coma. According to her, all the lights will go out, people will starve and be forsaken, and the country will totally collapse. The picture she paints presents a degree of dysfunction challenging the level of despair in some of the Dickens' novels – and those were pointing out the evils of capitalism!
What is Rand’s relevance today? Questions abound about those who do not contribute to the society - what should they get? How should they really be treated? Much of the monetary services the American government currently provides its people goes in several different directions and is distributed to a lot of people. Unemployment insurance and Social Security payments provide money to people who spend it in grocery stores, drug stores, filling stations, etc. Cut that off and those businesses will also feel the loss. Another question is that of “entitlements”. Many of those such as Social Security and a number of retirement programs are actually deferred payments for work already done long ago but promised and agreed to be paid in the future, and with interest. Those are not “entitlements” but “postponed wages”. When Ayn Rand died, she was a recipient of Medicare and was receiving Social Security payments.
There is also a question of “need” versus “want”. Rand seems to lump these two together and treat legitimate “needs” such as clean water, air, education and healthcare for children into things that they just “want”, and they will result in the entire nation being dragged into oblivion as those “wants” suck the life out of our country. Pollution is in the book, and it IS a problem, although not discussed or even mentioned but once, and it is simply a problem for the huddled masses. “They learned it (when a mill shut down) only on subsequent nights, when they – who had cursed (my emphasis) the mills for the smoke, the fumes, the soot and the noise – looked out and, instead of the glow pulsating with life on their familiar horizon, they saw a black void.” (UnivRef .9296824) That pollution is really unpaid costs of production, which the owner converted into profit and used for his own personal use. Who cleans up the pollution later, when it gets really bad? The government, of course.
In the early 1950s, university and government researchers were finding that cigarette smoking caused lung cancer. Obviously the characters in this book just Shrugged that information off their backs. Ayn Rand underwent surgery for lung cancer in 1974 and died of heart failure in 1982, even though “Dr Hendricks had developed a method to end brain strokes and high blood pressure” (Pg. 703 UR.63288) . She actually smoked her last cigarette in 1974, but her book “Atlas Shrugged” still continues today to send the message to generation after generation of young people that smoking cigarettes is OK, maybe even good for you, and certainly a sign that you are sophisticated and “understand”.
“Heartbreak Hotel” and “Love me Tender” were already best sellers before this book was published in 1957. This was twelve years after the first atomic bombs were detonated, and B-52 bombers were already on alert ready to launch a retaliatory strike against Russia. Soldiers were coming back from Korea. Sputnik was orbiting the earth. Instead of looking into the future, this book was already adrift when it was first published.
John Galt worked as a track laborer for twelve years? From 1945 to 1957? Come ON! I did that job for three summers myself when I was a teen-ager in 1946, 47 and 48, and according to the book, that was when Galt began. It is a consuming job, a dirty, dangerous, mind-numbing job. We called it the “Bridges and Buildings Gang”. A lot of the work keeps you away from home for a week at a time and it pays at about the poverty level. He “kept an eye” on Dagny while doing this job? Sure! I got a bridge I can sell you – built by that old gang.
Return to the gold standard? Fine but the “gods” of the book will also have to figure out a new way to conduct business transactions. A lot of money (sorry, gold) will be spent just transporting all that gold around all over the place back and forth again and again. Obviously, a child could figure out a method of recording all those transactions and saving all that energy but – well, there we go again. We could use gold to “back up” our currency but that would come at a sacrifice to a growing economy, very tricky to do as a population explosion kicks the world down the road toward 7,000,000,000 people by 2045.
It is a story that revels in innuendo, at least in the first part. Not entirely bad for a writer, but too often it seems to carry the plot all by itself. It describes why organizations, unions, government and other entities work. But I feel that instead of creating mystery it contributes to confusion and by its continued usage constitutes a dereliction of duty by the author. The book does describe a civilization that is disintegrating, all facets of which are crumbling. America is falling apart and collapsing, Europe has already descended into chaos, the Middle East and Asia are missing from the book entirely, and there are no international aggressors. Why not? Are they broke too?
Art is mentioned occasionally, but it is "logical" art, like great music that is written by one great logical man, Richard Halley who is quoted: "I do not care to be admired by anyone's heart – only by someone's head." (UnivRef .671244). He continues, talking about an "artist" who "feels": ". . . all he has to do is feel – he feels, the flabby, loose-mouthed, shifty-eyed, drooling, shivering, uncongealed bastard!" No Picasso or John Cage there, not even Hank Williams or Elvis.
Spiritual dimensions are all encapsulated in Religions - there is no awareness anywhere in the book of spirit that is free from the monster of Religion. Galt says ". . . the mind is one's only judge of values and one's only guide of action . . . the alleged short-cut to knowledge, which is faith, is only a short-circuit destroying the mind . . . (and it) annihilates one's consciousness." (UnivRef.87451). The great prophets of the ages are called "mystic parasites". (UnivRef.87777) And even though Dagny's heart beats wildly over several different men, that is all right because she, her heart and those men are all very, very logical.
The book is all devoted to Good-Evil, Black-White, Right-Wrong. There is some "middle" intruding from time to time, but it doesn't have any chance at all. Galt sums it up "There are two sides to every issue: one side is right and the other is wrong, but the middle is always evil." He continues to point out that he has more respect for the man who is wrong, than he has for the man who took the middle course. (UnivRef.90472)
My final opinion about “Atlas Shrugged”? Those who profess to like it either have not read it, or they have read ONLY it, and nothing else. They would have to be people who like Ayn Rand have no use for science, art, spirituality, government, education, management, logic, economics, literature, medical arts or history.
If you think you might have been exposed to “Atlas Shrugged”, do not panic. Sit down for a moment. Remember that it was actually published more than fifty years ago and it has not really affected the world very much. You are probably going to be all right. Your prognosis generally depends on your age when you were exposed. If you are over 25 you have a good chance to enter remission next week . If you are 50 or over then you are probably safe, I would recommend a couple of good beers or a glass of wine with tapas. If you are 18 or younger then you may have problems over then next six or seven years. So go ahead and stomp and shout and rant and rave, and it would be good to wear a shirt proclaiming “Atlas Shrugged” or perhaps mention something about “Ayn Rand” so people will know what happened to you and understand.
