Relevant comment from John Carmack a couple weeks ago:
Atlas Shrugged popped up in a trend, reminding me of the remarkable level of vitriol against it. It is obviously grinding an anti-collectivist axe, and it can fairly be called cartoonish, but if you can't see its archetypes in the world around you, you aren't paying attention.
I can easily understand people not liking the book, but the level of loathing that some show for it is odd, as if someone could go off on a rant and redline judge everyone who enjoyed the movie Wall Street as obviously terrible people.
“There are two novels that can change a bookish fourteen-year old’s life: The Lord of the Rings and Atlas Shrugged. One is a childish fantasy that often engenders a lifelong obsession with its unbelievable heroes, leading to an emotionally stunted, socially crippled adulthood, unable to deal with the real world. The other, of course, involves orcs."
[Kung Fu Monkey -- Ephemera, blog post, March 19, 2009]”
>if you can't see its archetypes in the world around you, you aren't paying attention.
The archetype of a glorious manager who goes on strike which makes everybody very very sorry they ever doubted them isn't one that I'm super familiar with.
I wonder if Carmack has ever looked at a graph of US wealth inequality.
IMO anyone who is sympathetic to AR is doing a disservice by introducing her to people with Atlas. Fountainhead is far more entertaining, main character is better written, and it just gets the point across better.
Respectfully, it's horrible writing. Literally no redeeming quality. The fact that it places people into cliche archetypes and misrepresents everything about them is the exact problem with the book.
If you see those archetypes around you then you seriously need to learn some empathy which Rand clearly lacked. Let me sum up the book:
"There are people who are so smart, if they left the world would collapse and everyone will die. Let's do that."
The ego of thinking that the whole world depends on you and your big brain is something a lot of people in tech need to grow out of. It's toxic and so is Rand.
> I can easily understand people not liking the book, but the level of loathing that some show for it is odd,
I had a similar reaction when I read Battlefield Earth a few years ago. It struck me as an overly-long, painfully generic scifi novel. It wasn't unique enough on any level to justify either love or hate.
Ayn Rend was a closet communist, besides the obvious point of her living on social security, and food stamps, ideas she voiced were very close to what Leninist communism — bolshevism was, to the point some say she was a communist agent in disguise.
Now, a question to HN: who here actually read Lenin, and works of his original party mates?
A picture far from a hippie paradise they draw. The Strong subjugate the Weak through natural right, and those weak are not your poor workers, but your idle intellectuals, nobility, aristocrats, social democrats, and much of white collar workforce, which would've included you.
Muscular proletarians band together to build a dictatorial regime, and go crushing "weakling classes" just because they can.
Most writers at the New Yorker are going to be the product of expensive liberal arts educations, and in those circles making fun of a strawman a of someone like Ayn Rand is as in-group as it gets. This is just social validation/click-seeking for a writer.
Rephrasing: "It should be obvious to anyone who looks that rich, productive people deserve to be worshipped as innately superior god-like humans by the stupid, lazy, and innately inferior under-classes." -- A rich, productive, and lucky person. Lots of respect for John Carmack and what he's done, but I'm pretty sick of the kind of person who's born to a television reporter and given access to computers in the mid 70s having the attitude that everyone who is poor deserves it. If they're so poor, why doesn't their daddy just do another movie? Sometimes kids must be very stern with their daddies. "Please daddy, please! It's 20 million dollars daddy!" And so daddy does the picture.
The ideas espoused by Ayn Rand are absolutely unconscionable and I'd argue anyone who doesn't see the "Atlas Shrugged" effect, where impressionable readers tend to become hyper-assholes for months (or the rest of their lives) after reading it, they are paying less attention than those who don't notice all the John Galts around them. Of course that upper-middle-class white male whose parents are paying for his college tuition is a John Galt, and of course all those Hispanic sons of migrant workers are stupid dirty lazy nobodies who should worship him. Aren't you paying attention!?
This is yet another case of yet another rich person saying we should all be deeply grateful they're bestowing their diving Jobs upon us and we should all worship them and not get angry when they don't pay taxes.
The level of vitriol is proportional to the harms. Ayn Rand's childish philosophy has adherents who have caused significant harm to society. Similarly, if Mein Kampf or Das Kapital had not gained a following, we might not have such vitriol for those books, and we might spend more time discussing if we see their archetypes in the world around us, but they did, and that discussion is rightly not as prominent as the criticism.
Here's the thing though: Obviously terrible people (imo) cite Ayn Rand as a pivotal influence so much that I don't know if I could ever give her work an unbiased read.
Conversely, my favorite people have called her "one of the most evil figures of modern intellectual history", and the like.
Funny, but Rand would review some of them differently
[Babe / Charlotte’s Web]
Ingenious farmers find new ways to market their farms and products with innovative marketing.
[Snow White]
Seven dwarves give room and board in exchange for house keeping. They save her from a dangerous, overreaching government. It later translates into future potential political favors.
[Beauty and the Beast]
A woman rightfully chooses a man with more resources.
[Up]
Politically persecuted man overcomes adversity and claims a flying fortress of intelligent dogs.
[The Muppets Take Manhattan]
A capitalist Cinderella story with puppets minus the fairy tale magic.
Although, in general Im puzzled by the cliche portrayal of A.R.'s views as somewhat cold or inhumane. Though I did not read all her essays and works, Im familiar with the several ones which warrant no such trivialized characterization. On the contrary, she explicitly and implicitly said that "...reason and emotions are not contradictory or in opposition. It is only when we do not understand our emotions that such dichotomy appears". Any thinking individual can sign his name under this. And, that is why we have psychiatry industry, billion dollar self-help book industry, etc. On the other hand we have also recreational drugs and alcohol abuse, etc -- which is the point in case, when emotions take over faculty of reason to govern our decisions/life that ... destruction, destruction, destruction...
Agreed. I will say Ayn Rand's philosophy doesn't really have any room for parents/children in it, people are just fully realized individuals suddenly and without any childhood/adolescence/schooling. None of her characters have any interest in raising children. Children are dependents, and parents (or the state if you want to go that route) need to raise them if you want a society to continue, it's a pretty huge blind spot imo. I thought this was gonna point this out, but this is just tired "lol capitalists" jokes.
The Ayn Rand school for tots joke from the Simpsons is a million times funnier and incisive imo as it targets this weakness of her philosophy and it's just a throwaway joke.
That's not in contradiction of coldness or inhumanity. You can be an utter sociopath, and reason accordingly. The view of Rand comes from the certainly implied lack of empathy with the lesser fortunate. There's a quote where she expresses appreciation of a serial killer, because of this.
Had read AR as a teen and while I have strong disagreements I do notice a pattern of shallow understanding when she's being discussed in Liberal sphere. It's easier for leftists to attack her character than critique her ideas in good faith (and it's not like there's a lack of kookiness to address). The fringe vocal groups (who leave nothing untouched) also reserve similar treatment for some rationalists, which tells you a lot about their approach and worldview. Anything that doesn't necessarily embrace wholesale collectivism at the door, or is skeptical of Socialism, is treated as a threat. Rand is more explicitly hostile to it.
steelstraw|4 years ago
Atlas Shrugged popped up in a trend, reminding me of the remarkable level of vitriol against it. It is obviously grinding an anti-collectivist axe, and it can fairly be called cartoonish, but if you can't see its archetypes in the world around you, you aren't paying attention.
I can easily understand people not liking the book, but the level of loathing that some show for it is odd, as if someone could go off on a rant and redline judge everyone who enjoyed the movie Wall Street as obviously terrible people.
https://twitter.com/ID_AA_Carmack/status/1478389565094256642
hindsightbias|4 years ago
[Kung Fu Monkey -- Ephemera, blog post, March 19, 2009]”
pydry|4 years ago
The archetype of a glorious manager who goes on strike which makes everybody very very sorry they ever doubted them isn't one that I'm super familiar with.
I wonder if Carmack has ever looked at a graph of US wealth inequality.
Or played Bioshock.
pram|4 years ago
Atlas is a punchline for a reason.
invalidname|4 years ago
If you see those archetypes around you then you seriously need to learn some empathy which Rand clearly lacked. Let me sum up the book: "There are people who are so smart, if they left the world would collapse and everyone will die. Let's do that."
The ego of thinking that the whole world depends on you and your big brain is something a lot of people in tech need to grow out of. It's toxic and so is Rand.
mmcdermott|4 years ago
I had a similar reaction when I read Battlefield Earth a few years ago. It struck me as an overly-long, painfully generic scifi novel. It wasn't unique enough on any level to justify either love or hate.
refurb|4 years ago
Sure, you may not like grammar or the wordiness or the characters but the ideas - those are what you’re reacting to.
baybal2|4 years ago
Now, a question to HN: who here actually read Lenin, and works of his original party mates?
A picture far from a hippie paradise they draw. The Strong subjugate the Weak through natural right, and those weak are not your poor workers, but your idle intellectuals, nobility, aristocrats, social democrats, and much of white collar workforce, which would've included you.
Muscular proletarians band together to build a dictatorial regime, and go crushing "weakling classes" just because they can.
horns4lyfe|4 years ago
mipsi|4 years ago
feoren|4 years ago
The ideas espoused by Ayn Rand are absolutely unconscionable and I'd argue anyone who doesn't see the "Atlas Shrugged" effect, where impressionable readers tend to become hyper-assholes for months (or the rest of their lives) after reading it, they are paying less attention than those who don't notice all the John Galts around them. Of course that upper-middle-class white male whose parents are paying for his college tuition is a John Galt, and of course all those Hispanic sons of migrant workers are stupid dirty lazy nobodies who should worship him. Aren't you paying attention!?
This is yet another case of yet another rich person saying we should all be deeply grateful they're bestowing their diving Jobs upon us and we should all worship them and not get angry when they don't pay taxes.
lern_too_spel|4 years ago
mandmandam|4 years ago
Conversely, my favorite people have called her "one of the most evil figures of modern intellectual history", and the like.
And she was clearly a massive, massive hypocrite.
chaostheory|4 years ago
[Babe / Charlotte’s Web]
Ingenious farmers find new ways to market their farms and products with innovative marketing.
[Snow White]
Seven dwarves give room and board in exchange for house keeping. They save her from a dangerous, overreaching government. It later translates into future potential political favors.
[Beauty and the Beast]
A woman rightfully chooses a man with more resources.
[Up]
Politically persecuted man overcomes adversity and claims a flying fortress of intelligent dogs.
[The Muppets Take Manhattan]
A capitalist Cinderella story with puppets minus the fairy tale magic.
satisfice|4 years ago
goatsneez|4 years ago
Although, in general Im puzzled by the cliche portrayal of A.R.'s views as somewhat cold or inhumane. Though I did not read all her essays and works, Im familiar with the several ones which warrant no such trivialized characterization. On the contrary, she explicitly and implicitly said that "...reason and emotions are not contradictory or in opposition. It is only when we do not understand our emotions that such dichotomy appears". Any thinking individual can sign his name under this. And, that is why we have psychiatry industry, billion dollar self-help book industry, etc. On the other hand we have also recreational drugs and alcohol abuse, etc -- which is the point in case, when emotions take over faculty of reason to govern our decisions/life that ... destruction, destruction, destruction...
nerdponx|4 years ago
fullshark|4 years ago
The Ayn Rand school for tots joke from the Simpsons is a million times funnier and incisive imo as it targets this weakness of her philosophy and it's just a throwaway joke.
tgv|4 years ago
lanfeust6|4 years ago