Time will not be able to give me the time that I lost back in my hometown lugging this book around. Man this was such a painful read. And honestly, I didn’t entirely hate the book. There were bits and pieces where the book absolutely shines and if you can stomach the concept of pure capitalism, it does make for some interesting conversations over beer. The issue lies in the packaging — in how the ideas are presented. Atlas Shrugged is perhaps one of the most opinionated novels I’ve ever read. Because of this, it is also one of the most (if not the most) pretentious books I’ve ever read. I will oblige Rand that I should either embrace or reject the idea outright and therefore give her one star instead of five.
Truth be told, I’ve never met anybody who had read the book, and I can’t imagine if anybody actually liking this book except if your name is Steve Jobs. I wasn’t surprised to find out at all that according to Steve Wozniak that Atlas Shrugged was one of Steve’s “one of his guides in life”. And like the characters in the book, I can see that Steve saw himself as one of the hero figures in the story. It is an intimidating thought that as Apple has shaped the world as we know it, this book may have been influential to shape the course of the tech world as we know it.
Nowadays, Rand has gathered plenty of followers that there is a foundation named after her so that her ideas can be shaped to fruition. The values of objectivism — that your own happiness is sacred, that to achieve happiness you need fulfilment through success. Oftentimes, individuals and groups will attain happiness in the pursuit of money — provided that money represents the fair value of work that we put in. I’m not sure how effective these foundations are in disseminating these ideas.
For a long time, even if you read a lot, Ayn Rand is a name that you barely want to touch. It’s like hearing about Andrew Tate and watching his Tik Tok videos now and then, but you don’t really get to meet the guy — they’re almost like a mythical creature. Maybe I have put off reading Atlas Shrugged for a while due to the combination of the size of the thing, and the reputation of the author.
And at the beginning, I actually quite liked the book. I love defiant characters because they put a spice in the story — that perhaps I see a little of that in me. These are cold-hearted characters whose objective is to get shit done without any emotional distractions. And this is the intention, to make these moguls as role models. I really liked reading the novel up to the point where Dagny Taggart and Hank Rearden test drove Rearden Steel for the first time. There is something liberating in reading defiance and proving doubters wrong.
But in many ways, these characters become caricatures as they are one-dimensional. And one-dimensional characters are boring. Likewise, the socialist characters in the novel are portrayed as mediocre, mumbling idiots who exploit the strong. Parasites. And this is the main flaw of the book. It is a one-sided, one-dimensional, my-way-or-your-highway sort of book. And my pet hate is anybody who’s shoving their opinions down my throat. The book stinks of arrogance. Take Francisco D’Anconia’s argument for the value of money — that it is not the root of evil, and in fact quite the opposite. It greys out the argument, which puts the blame on the proprietor of the money than the money itself (the same argument can be made with guns). Though snippets of the argument may make some sense, it is the method of delivery that is offputting, as Francisco dares anybody to counter his argument.
Atlas Shrugged is a barely readable novel, and I dare say anybody who’s favourited the book probably has megalomaniac tendencies themselves. But are some of the book’s arguments valid? Can we defy A is A? That human existence is to fulfil one’s self and not to be a slave to the rule of law, which is designed to exploit the creativity and efforts of the strong. Thus, that the weak do not need protection and that man has all the ability to create value? That any individual or group striving to achieve monetary success will in turn achieve that elusive happiness?
The latter is a profound thought that I have discussed many times over with a relative. Though I disagree with the idea at first, I agree that the idea has a lot of merit. Money offers sustenance for those who strive for it, that the efforts to generate money can lead to fulfilment as you are extending your skillsets while being rewarded for it. But ask the average McDonald’s or Walmart employees if they can embrace this idea. Rand would argue that no, because the resources are misplaced, that the employees must be working on something that they are passionate for, but then who has the money to pay for tuitions to do what they truly want to do? Atlas Shrugged reeks of elitism that doesn’t take into account the common man. From what I understand from Rand, the common man is not strong enough and therefore not worth saving.
The book is perhaps closer to Nietzsche’s Thus Spoke Zarathustra — that the protagonists of the book are supermen (and woman), as they reject the current reality and create their own. The concept of existence is to create a reality of your own. And I have those feels when I finished Atlas Shrugged as I did after reading Nietzsche. It puts a knot in your stomach. The reality is that not everybody can be superman lest we have conflicting realities where the strongest personalities can assert their realities to others. The rest are no better than those abiding the laws created by the Mouches and the Meigs. Rand’s ideals lead to no better perhaps, than the world we already have.
