The Fourth Place

I just finished reading Atlas Shrugged interspersed with the first few chapters of Jamie Whytes Bad Thoughts, which is another book that is already coming in useful.

I loved Atlas Shrugged. Probably this means I’m both mad and an ass hole by the reckoning of most people, but never mind. I’m not going to be put off because a book and an author I admire is disliked by lots of other people, this is an appeal to the authority of the people, not even to experts, and rests neither on logic or on facts. If I’m to desist from admiring Ayn Rand it will be because she’s wrong and for no other reason.

Trying to follow up a reading of Atlas Shrugged by conscientiously googling for Ayn’s Rand  critics is a painful experience. There is so much garbage said about the book. I’ve identified some broad categories of criticism:

1. She’s wrong – without any justification – often the critic admits to having not actually read the book or only skimmed it, and gets details wrong.
2. She’s wrong due to some X, where X is an argument adequately discussed in the pages of Atlas Shrugged. Inherited wealth for example, is dealt with in a speech by Francisco d’Anconia. Or the criticism that to survive we all draw from society the means of our survival – this is exactly the premise of the book, she is mostly having a go at the destruction of those means by the moochers and enslavers who do not draw out those means in exchange for some value.
3. She’s wrong due to some Y which she forgot to mention, but its actually easy to guess what she’d say. A Y might be old people, there is Hank Rearden’s mother in the book, who is looked after despite giving nothing, including love, to her son and Hank is described as wrong for doing so. I’d guess that a different Mrs Rearden that did offer some value to her son, say Wisdom, should indeed be looked after as there is something in that for all parties. Children came up as well, but there is loads about children and childhood in the book. Somebody wasn’t paying attention.
4. She’s wrong because some  Z is implausible and essential, where Z is a prop in the book that is not necessary to the plot or which is easily replaced by something more plausible. A motor powering a whole town by converting static electricity in the air, is no different from a town powered by a hydroelectric power plant. In fact, anything remotely technological, would have done since the point she was making is that its the mind that powers civilisation – try replacing that. Sheep farming and candles made of animal fat, would actually have enhanced the plot value of the valley – since both require a mind -  but would have been inconsistent with the valley as it would be near to the end of the strike.
5. She’s wrong or the book is bad because thing N in the book is clearly wrong, but N is not in the book. A strawman argument. A country could not be and isn’t powered by a handful of intellectual elites say the critics, but this is not described in the book. The book describes a spectrum of secretaries, dispatchers, foremen, engineers, industrialists and inventors with different levels of talent and a tactically selected few hundred of the most talented go on strike in the valley, hundreds of thousands strike in other ways both before and after the pivotal speech by Galt telling them to strike. Somebody wasn’t paying attention.
6. Her book is M where M is a feature of books normally held to be bad, long boring, having 2D characters etc fair enough I guess!

I enjoyed the book because it granted me a sanction to discard contradictory moralities, and encouraged me to value that which is an achievement and to take joy in achievements around me, including competence in people. Since I live in London suddenly there was a lot to take joy in, I was giddy for days even as I continued to finish the book.  I found it useful because it enumerated some virtues – reason, courage, honesty, pride, productivity – which I went straight ahead to use as a check list to evaluate those around me – which lead to some useful observations about some people in my life.

For all that, however, the book is in fact rather too long and boring on account of repeating itself a bit too much. Some of the characters are a bit flat e.g. Wesley Mouch, Eugene Lawson, John Galt but developing them in more depth would only serve to make the book longer. I guess its a matter of what you value, if you want a fun read this is not the book, try Pratchett, but if you value the philosophical content as well then there it is.

Then there is this overlap between the philosophy and the plot of the book which is hard to separate and works both ways. I believe Ayn Rand has compromised the expression of her philosophy for the plot of the book, which necessarily has a focus on striking, but I don’t think she is actually advocating going on strike for real. In the other direction, the critics can of course say stuff like the characters acted as a collective set of strikers or the hidden valley is a communist utopia, and use that as evidence of a contradiction in the philosophy.

I need to be careful as well.  If I’m to use this philosophy to some extent to make decisions then I must know it accurately – living according to a plot device is stupid. This is why some non-fiction Objectivist material is on my wish list. Living by a creed is widely recognised as useful and is widespread practice that helps a lot of people to make decisions and live better – I’ve seen that with my own eyes. Usually the creed is irrational and its dignified by the term “religion”, strangely I can’t think of a similar word for rational creeds so that’ll do.

So  yeah I might be about to be sucked into the Objectivist “religion” and become a complete ass by most people’s definition – perhaps that’s not even new – but if I do it’ll be because its right. I won’t be describing myself as Objectivist any time soon, not until I’ve read a lot more about it and heard from competent critics. So far I have no reason to suspect its wrong, but there is no need to hurry.