The Volokh Conspiracy

Ayn's novels might be OK; the problem is a sizeable portion of the people reading them.

Has anyone else written epics like Atlas Shrugged? I know Ayn Rand gave lessons in her home on how to be a writer, but apparently none of her students continued her tradition. Maybe Atlas Shrugged was just too intimidating to even try.

Someone suggested some science fiction to me (Old Man's War, and Serenity) but jeez, no comparison. Those were like "A day in the life of..." compared to Ware and Peace. A few battles, a few deaths and at the end we get nowhere. I'm looking for great battles between good (individualism, liberty) and evil (collectivism, socialism).

How about individualist children's books? I guess The Three Pigs and Little Red Hen were early classics, but any recent stuff?

Sorry, Truthseeker: If what you want are epic battles, casts of thousands, with dialog and characterizations multi-layered and rich with metaphor and allegory, you pretty much have to go with science fiction. Modern non-SF writers don't know how to handle a canvas that broad.

Here are some suggestions:

1. Lord of Light, by Roger Zelazny. On a distant planet in a distant future, humans have taken on the aspects and attributes of the Hindu gods, and lord it over their own (mortal) descendants. One man opposes them. It's a retelling of the conflict between Hinduism and Buddhism.

2. The Pliocene Exile series, by Julian May. The discovery of a one-way time portal to Earth 6 million years ago attracts romantics, scoundrels, heroes, criminals, and other eccentrics hoping to find an Edenic exile. What they find when they get there is that an alien race has colonized Earth in order to continue its own battle-religion. The alien race bears a startling resemblence to the Celtic gods. The books should be read in order: The Many-Colored Land, the Golden Torc, the Non-Born King, and The Adversary.

3. The Dragon Waiting, by John Ford. An "alternate history," in which Rome never fell, Christianity was never made the official religion of Rome, and sorcery is real. A Welsh sorcerer, a German vampire, a woman physician formerly from the Medici Court, and a Greek mercenary who could have been Emperor get involved in the War of the Roses - where Rome is backing the enemies of Richard III.

4. "Years of Rice and Salt," by Kim Stanley Robinson. Another "alt.history" novel. This one posits that the Black Plague did kill off all of Europe. Over the centuries, the Islamic, Asian, Hindu, and Native American empires battle for supremacy.

These are terrific, mind-spinning epic novels that will stay with you. I recommend them highly.

Joseph Conrad was another great english novelist whose native tongue wasn't english. Heart of Darkness is one of the shortest novels and Atlas Shrugged is one of the longest. Go figure.

For me Rand's novels are most noteworthy for their sex. Reading them, even with all the objectivism and philosophy thrown in, at bottom they're basically stories of young, thin, beautiful sexually submissive women who end up having mind blowing sex with these ubermenschen figures like Howard Roark, John Galt, Francisco D'Anconia and Hank Rearden. We The Living also features a young woman that has great sex with two hot guys.

Given that Rand herself was the definition of Frumpy I wonder how much of the books were about philosophy and how much were about living out fantasies with the objectivism thrown in.

On another Rand note, am I the only one who has read Atlas Shrugged who is worried about the prospect of there actually being a Mr. Thompson elected to the Presidency?

If he has an advisor named Mouch on the payroll, I might just have to head for Colorado and Galt's Gulch.

Although if Fred does win I wonder how long before someone hacks in to the feed of one of his oval office addresses with "Mr. Thompson will not speak with you tonight..."

It's interesting that Orin posted about Greenspan right after this post, as Greenspan was once a follower of Ayn Ran.

David,

Thanks for blogging the NYT article. You're right: it's suprisingly free of snide and condescending remarks. Disappointingly, though, some readers of this blog have made up the difference.

Ayn Rand and Objectivism are enjoying something of a renassiance right now. Atlas Shrugged is now being taught at several major universities around the country and several serious books about her philosophy have been published recently.

Liberals and socialists clearly hate Ayn Rand. The interesting phenomenon, though, is why some conservative academics hate her so much. It's not the religion issue so much as the fact that conservatives hate to think in principles. The fact of the matter is that Ayn Rand is the only philosopher to have developed a moral defense of capitalism. I guess that's why conserveratives (neocons in particular) despise her. What they mostly know and fear is that they'd lose all their students.

Banning Ayn Rand from America's college classrooms is the one thing that liberal and conservative academics seem to agree upon. (See the John Lewis case at Ashland University.)

Where is anything in any of these thick tomes she worte about reproduction, parental love, or propagation of culture and civilization?

What the NY Times article lacked in condescending sneering, Bernstein's entry certainly made up for.

Gary, FWIW, I've tried reading The Fountainhead twice, and found it too boring to finish both times. I really enjoyed Atlas years ago, but found it very tedious to reread more recently. I really enjoyed We the Living, her least famous, and least philosophical, novel. Someone should really make a movie out of it (besides the Italian version made during WWII).

Referring to "expected condescending sneering" could be viewed as condescending sneering.

But a blog isn't a New York Times news page

Peter:

Thanks for posting those passages. I had forgotten exactly how dreadful a writer she is. The last sentence in that first passage vividly brought it back.

I call myself a libertarian, and I hate Ayn Rand. After reading the comments, I realized why: I like libertarianism for purely pragmatic reasons. Free-market capitalism and libertarian politics just happen to be the best solution. I don't see any moral imperative behind them. As far as morality goes, I try to be religious and I like Kant.

Does that make me a closet neo-con? I fancy myself reasonable enough to take a very long term view of most political opinions-unlike the current administration, I'm not going to start abandoning principles (small gov.) just because it might score me a few short term points. I just see a huge separation between political/economic philosophy and morality.

Capitalism works. It doesn't need to be justified as "good". We just need to recognize that its effective.

What would Rand have thought about someone like Mother Teresa, for example? Probably disdain and contempt.

This shows how many peple don't understand what Rand was saying.

You don't ralize how selfish Mother Theresa was? If she wasn't selfish she would have pleased her parents by giving them grandchildren. She would have been a doting wife and caring mother. But she was selfish and did exactly what she wanted with her life. She became world famous for it and loved every minute of it and knew she'd be a saint in record time. Rand would have admired her.

In Rand's book the Virtues of Selfishness she explains how being selfish can actually help the world because you have to give something to the world in order to receive all you want.

In her other books she shows how some people get what they want by leeching off other people, like union leaders and politicians. They don't add anything to the world. They just skim off a percent while taking money from one group and giving it to another.

"I swear by my life and my love of it that I will never live for the sake of another man, nor ask another man to live for mine."

That is the moral crux of Rand's philosophy. Do for yourself and only for yourself, and expect the same from your neighbor, without asking anything from him or anyone else. I was disappointed with the NYT article in not explaining this crucial idea, because, like I said, this is the major moral formula of Objectivism. You will notice that the article cites two types of people: literary and philosophical critics, and capitalists and businessmen. All critics call it evil to some degree or another, and all cited capitalists laud it for the their inspired successes. I don't think the NYT article was viod of condecintion.

Also, as far is Greenspan is concerned, I read somewhere the disappointment of a number of Objectivists in Greenspan's actions as Fed Chair. Some even objected to him merely taking such as job, as the role of Fed Chair is in fact government playing a drastic role in the going-ons of our capitalistic economy.

Truth seeker, good point on Theresa. She was not, we now know, motivated by faith, but by force of will: a Randian tragic heroine, like Cherryl Taggart. And no welfare queen, either. Rumors abound that Rand had written a rebel priest into the Gulch, but was so offended at some public cleric that she scratched him out. Wouldn't THAT have shaken things up?

Rand wrote the last three-volume novel, each standing thematically on its own. Kipling refers to this as a "triple-decker" and was lamenting its passing in the 1890's. For other reading let me suggest the great American novel, Sometimes A Great Notion (certainly not the lamentable movie adaptation). Also worthy of proto-Objectivist note, if you can wade through the German irony, is Heinrich von Kleist's "Michael Kohlhaas," (rarely) available in a rip-snorting film version from a lifetime ago starring Anita Pallenberg with a cameo by Keith Richards.

Atlas Shrugged in my view is the great American novel. It's also the greatest denfense of the American idea ever written.

And, unlike some here, I think it is a literary masterpiece.

There's nothing wrong with it, but what makes the Washington Nationals my "home team?" You take a bunch of guys from all over the country (and the world) who I've never met and never will meet, slap a "Washington" uniform on them, and suddenly I'm supposed to care if they win or lose? And if they get traded to the Mets and now have a NY uniform on, they now become the "enemy?"

If you enjoy watching sports, you might as well root for the home team, because that makes it more fun. But I am bemused when people tell me I'm "supposed" to care if the Nationals, or the GMU Patriots, win because they "represent" me. I'll choose who I want to be my representatives, if any, thank you.

I have not read Rand for years--I keep thinking I should get them down and read them again--in order ("Anthem", "We The Living", "The Fountainhead", and "Atlas Shrugged".

But I am afraid to. The nightmares engendered by the "news" papers, television, and daily life (poisoned pet food, poisoned people food, poisoned toys, cars that cost more than our first house and don't last as long as the pain from one-size-fits-all shoes are bad enough just running on the memories of those books.

Charlie -- "I think, re-reading Atlas Shrugged now, 40 years or so after I first read it, I see it more as a psychological novel than as a political one: it looks to me more like a novel about becoming self-actualized, and overcoming a sense of shame."

"The most subversive political implication of 'Atlas Shrugged', is that individual freedom is possible only to those who are strong enough, psychologically and morally, to withdraw their sanction from any system that coercively thrives off their productive energies."

(Chris Matthew Sciabarra, "Ayn Rand -- The Russian Radical", 1995, pp. 301-302)

When I get into discussions with people about Rand, I'll sometimes cite, say a scientist who could make a ton of money doing research on some hot topic, but instead devotes her life to some obscure disease where she gets little money and less recognition. I say, good thing that we have people like that, despite the fact she appears to violate Rand's philosophy. (The list can go on: there are people who devote their lives to caring for the sick, or preserving art and so on)

Randists, however, counter that either that a) she is being selfish, because she gets the inner satisfaction of doing what she wants to do, or b) she's an idiot and should go for the money.

Also, what a trust fund kid who just sits around the pool drinking beer and makes nothing of his life? A Randist would say that he is being entirely selfish, which is good. Other Randists say he's not living to his full potential, which is bad.

Aren't those two opposite? Please correct me if I'm wrong.

All I know is I was 28, a pretty successful salesman, and when I finished the book I quit my job, started my own ting (Failed the first two times), and never looked back. She crystalized in those two ponderous great novels every thought I ever had about what was good, fair, and successful. I was able to distill it down into a much better life than I would have experienced.

Peter McCormack -- "'Atlas Shrugged' in my view is the great American novel. It's also the greatest denfense of the American idea ever written.

And, unlike some here, I think it is a literary masterpiece."

Emphatically agreed. I read it once about every five to seven years on average. Along the way, during the late-80's and early-90's, I was hitting Solzhenitsyn pretty hard. I began observing very remarkable similarities between the two writers in terms of tempo and passion. With further comparison to people like Dostoevsky or Pasternak, it occurred to me that Rand was very much a Russian writer in elements of style quite distinct from her explicit philosophical project, which accounted for a good deal of style on its own.

From then on, I've always laughed at bloody dolts who sneered at her work. My conviction is that we're talking about people whose literary grasp is paper-thin and whose capacity for independent thought is on a par with a fresh-weaned puppy.

You are absolutely right.

And: her epistemology -- specifically: her theory of concepts -- is the premier achievement in all of 20th century philosophy. You will not find one person in a thousand who can begin to discuss it competently.

"Also, what a trust fund kid who just sits around the pool drinking beer and makes nothing of his life?"

{laff, laff, laff}

Try Francisco d'Anconia.

Watch out for the mirrors and don't get lost.

She did not love every minute of it, and she did not care about becoming a "saint." You don't know what you are talking about.

Mother Theresa was an international celebrity since the 1970s. She was on the cover of TIME magazine, won the Nobel Peace Prize, the Albert Schweitzer International Prize, and many, many others, She met with world leaders such as Reagan, Thatcher, and all of the Popes. She ran an organization of over 600 missions in over 100 countries.

Yet, she never again visited her mother or sister since she left home at the age of 18.

Rand's rationality is no more so and no less mystical than Hubbard's E-meter.

"I'm not sure why fatuous and condescending comments like this are provoked by the subject of Ayn Rand, but they are, seemingly invariably. Something about Rand's rationality causes the insecurities of some irrational souls to come hollering out with the most brash and contentless denunciations of Rand the writer, Rand the thinker, everyone who read and appreciated Rand, and the horses they rode in on."

This is an interesting question. There is a certain soul-type that really seems to come unhinged psychologically when Ayn Rand is being discussed. I wonder if there are any psychological studies of the phenomenon. I really am rather curious.

Make it 500 top-flight literature students and you've got a deal, Peter. Else I'll grant you that Rand's literature has a nescient appeal.

This is an interesting question. There is a certain soul-type that really seems to come unhinged psychologically when Ayn Rand is being discussed. I wonder if there are any psychological studies of the phenomenon. I really am rather curious.

This is an interesting response. There is a certain soul-type that really seems to come unhinged psychologically while becoming attached to Ayn Rand. I wonder if there are any psychological studies of the phenomenon. I really am rather curious.

Randy R.

"Selfishness" of Rand's sort is definitely not about money or trampling the rights of others. That's quite evident in the hero of The Fountainhead. He could have made money but chose not to conform. It was the supposedly selfless voice of the masses, a shady journalist, who used power to try to pull down achievers. Perhaps people would be less likely to misrepresent or misunderstand her views if they were described (more accurately I suspect) as about nonconformity and conviction rather than selfishness.

RL,

Rand was a woman, you know... I've had a few shrewish vegetarian socialist mystic girlfriends in my day, but it didn't put me off to tofu. Well, it did probably put me off to socialism and mysticism, though. And humanities majors.

Ditto the "Incredibles" and "Ratatouille" suggestions.

I enjoyed reading Fountainhead (never made it through Atlas Shrugged), but I remember recognizing that I shouldn't take her too seriously. Her heroes were selfish and self-absorbed to an extreme, and I didn't see the virtue in that.

Atlas is much better than Fountainhead. The characters in the latter are neurotic in the extreme; the Atlas ones are sane, rational creatures.

Duffy,

That is quite a fascinating contrast. These are as substantial as the Rand passages, and are written in much the same soul-searching way. What is different about them is not so much the style as the content or the conclusion. The soul described in both passages you quote is arguably the opposite of Rand's. A rejection of meaning, self-worth, even aspiration as necessarily fraudulent could be said to be the worldview being expressed in them. Since Rand writes in opposition to that (predominant) 20th century trend in thinking, it is not surprising that you loathe her writing, I would suggest. She is aiming to blow the legs out from under that very worldview.

But these are powerfully written passages that quite ably express the opposite of what Rand was expressing, and thanks for supplying them. For me, I could only enjoy the style of the writer -- the worldview, or substance of what is being said, I disagree with and would not be enjoyable to me. Both writers unpack the substance of what they're saying in ways that resonate with the worldview of their readers. Rand's style, I submit, is merely appropriate to her worldview. It would be inappropriate to express a sense of hopelessness or meaninglessness or self-loathing with ruthlessly clear, perfectly reasoned and reverential language, just as it would be inappropriate to express a worldview of rational efficaciousness, knowable reality and self-reverence with ambiguous syntax, distorted thought processes, and self-loathing language. Substance demands the right style, and I think both authors meet that requirement exceptionally well.

I thought there was a very interesting comment earlier about Rand's fiction being perfect for those who don't enjoy fiction. In a way, I'm one of them, in that I only enjoy reading fiction that somehow informs my understanding of reality -- I love Twain, but he didn't write a single sentence that didn't have an arched eyebrow of mischief, and a bank of wisdom behind that. So I don't have to read about riverrafting for the pure fictional escape of it when reading Huck Finn. I like fiction that isn't escapist, in that way, but is important to my life and my understanding of it. I know some who plow through every single "Wheel of Time" book like hamsters who want it to keep on rolling with no end in sight. I shudder at that kind of waste of time. Just the way I am. But I loved LOTR and wept when Sam said, "Well, I'm back."

Anyway, the disagreement may well be one of substance and not style, although if one hates the substance and the author has followed through with it in the style chosen to express it, one might well hate the style, as well.

all talk of liberal university aside, Rand was simply off the radar for my philosophy professors.

As she is for most literature professors. It is no coincidence that the NYT article appeared in the business section and that it referred to Atlas Shrugged as "[o]ne of the most influential business books ever written." Whatever high regard and utility her works may still hold in other realms, Rand's influence and utility in literature and philosophy is, at best and deservedly, de minimis.

e: ""Selfishness" of Rand's sort is definitely not about money or trampling the rights of others. He could have made money but chose not to conform."

Then Mother Theresa is a perfect Randian hero, right? She could have made money, or become a wife, or a queit nun, but chose not to conform to others' view.

But we have a situation here where two devotees of Rand sharply disagree about Mother Theresa. One says she's the perfect Randian hero, the other says the exact opposite.

What good is a philosophy where everyone meets the standard, and no one -- simultaneously?

Please, someone, give me a real life example of the perfect Randian hero, and the perfect anti-hero. Then we can compare notes.

Ayn Rand would have regarded Mother Theresa as a tragic hypocrit. To the extent she did what she did for self-gratification, what she preached was hypocrisy. To the extent she sacrificed herself for a belief she did not really even possess, her life was an abomination. To the extent Mother Theresa knew it, her life was a tragedy. To the extent that she was hailed as a saint for denying her mind and herself as worthy of existing for her own sake, she would have regarded the culture of the world still blighted by mysticism and altruism.

Rand regarded mysticism and altruism, even when claimed as a selfish pursuit, as a kind of treason to the nature of man, since man must use reason above all and is, in fact, not a collective but an individual with requirements for survival and happiness.

Rational self-interest does not mean hedonism, either, or sacrificing others to oneself.

These are all common strawmen objections which she was very specific and not ambiguous about refuting.

A new book published by Cambridge University Press, "Ayn Rand's Normative Ethics: The Virtuous Egoist" clarifies all of these issues. Probably a better place to start than "It Usually Starts With Ayn Rand." It's nice to see, as a bonus, academia finally acknowledging what Rand herself actually said about these topics rather than resorting to the usual ad hominem attacks.

And it's nice to the NY Times back off a little bit with the sarcasm. Still, I wonder if a retrospective of "The Sun Also Rises" would talk about how badly old Hem treated his wives. That honor still seems to be reserved for the likes of Rand retrospectives, even though it has far less merit in her case.

RL wins the bizarre comment on the thread award. How does a complain about people, sex unmentioned, who become unhinged when Rand is discussed become about women wronged by fans of Rand, with an obscure reference to the OP?

I would recommend Edward Cline's Sparrowhawk series. Cline is an Objectivist who can write.

His series set against the backdrop of the decades leading up to the American Revolution is an excellent interweaving of history with larger than life fictional heroes.

Randy:

But we have a situation here where two devotees of Rand sharply disagree about Mother Theresa. One says she's the perfect Randian hero, the other says the exact opposite.
What good is a philosophy where everyone meets the standard, and no one -- simultaneously?
Please, someone, give me a real life example of the perfect Randian hero, and the perfect anti-hero. Then we can compare notes.

Rand is not alone in having devotees who disagree on her views, or perfect hero. Is it necessary for ones perspective to be so easily reducible? That difficulty hardly means there aren't valid points. Rand might admire Bill Gates, but also see some flaws to the extent that he's seen to have taken from others. Rand might detest Kim Jung Il for various reasons. You overstate with "the complete opposite" and suggest that other philosophies don't allow room for internal debate. Maybe very simple philosophies, or caricatures of philosophies. The kind of descriptions I've heard of Rand or Marx by people who've never bothered to give them any serious consideration.

This is a lively thread -- and contrary to my expectations when I read the OP's first line, that the snarkiness would be supplied here -- it hasn't been. Although that's probably got something to do with the fact that the OP isn't Ilya Somin.

Billy Beck just about covers anything I'd care to add; I'll just add two links for VC readers' convenience in support of his heretofore unechoed point about Mother Teresa's recently published letters.

Mother Theresa's Crisis of Faith

Mother Teresa's Letters Reveal Doubts

Looking at the top ten selections, the ascension of Atlas Shrugged mostly reflects the titanic struggle of the Randites against the Friends of Elron for dominance of the Internet Readers' List of the 100 Best Novels.

If you don't like Joyce, you might also not like Steinbeck: "Cannery Row in Monterey in California is a poem, a stink, a grating noise, a quality of light, a habit, a nostalgia, a dream. Cannery Row is the gathered and scattered, tin and iron and rust and splintered wood, chipped pavement and weedy lots and junk heaps, sardine canneries of corrugated iron, honky-tonks, restaurants and whore houses, and little crowded groceries and laboratories and flophouses."

To me it's obvious that Joyce (as well as Steinbeck) is literature, and Rand reads more like a self-published novel.

"Looking at the top ten selections, the ascension of Atlas Shrugged mostly reflects the titanic struggle of the Randites against the Friends of Elron for dominance of the Internet Readers' List of the 100 Best Novels."

...which naturally accounts for Rand's sales figures.

{cackle}

Is Joyce "Grant Richards" of London?

I've read self-published novels -- they're very cheap at used bookstores.

For those who criticize her work, she had her social problems, and her philosophy was not perfectly worked out, but she had a deeper intellect, wrote more profitable material and will endure much longer than anyone reading this blog. She was born in 1905 Russia and came to America with no credentials. What's your excuse?

And just how did people come to join Hubbard's church? Having read the works of all the writers in the top ten, it's clear that people voted for Hubbard's novels because they liked his belief system, and people voted for Rand's novels because they liked her belief system. The other books are well-written and interesting. Moreover, people voted for Lee and Tolkien because, in the end, good triumphs over evil, and for Orwell, because, in the end, evil triumphs over good.

I think Rand's novels are combinations of a story and philosophy.

They're much longer than they need to be.

That said, they have sold well, been influential, are still being discussed, etc...

Her novels are also products of their time. To read them now isn't to understand their impact or what they meant in the context of 1943 and 1957 and the collectivist mentality that was ascendant and the Cold War etc...

For such long books they read rather fast and I found them enjoyable.

To add an anecdote about her influence, and in relation to the legal focus of this blog, it's been reported in various places that Justice Thomas requires his clerks to read The Fountainhead over the summber before the start of the new term

As someone said above, not bad for a girl born in St. Petersburg in 1905 who came to the US with nothing.

question123-

What would Rand have thought about someone like Mother Teresa, for example? Probably disdain and contempt. Yet I think hers was a noble life.

Ah yes - libertarians and Randians, as believers in laissez faire capitalism, all yearn to have a sweatshop in their basement. And they don't even like music, they prefer to listen to recordings of the cries of anguished workers being exploited by capitalist slave masters....

I haven't read Rand yet, but from what I know about Mother Teresa she does not conflict with libertarianism. Libertarians have no problem with charity and volunteerism, and in most cases appreciate, respect, and applaud it, as long as those engaging in it are doing it with their own time and money or time and money freely given to them. When you take other people's time or money through fraud or coercion it is not charity, it is theft. I don't know of Mother Teresa taking money from people unwillingly or knowingly accepting stolen property as a "donation", so she likely would not conflict with libertarianism, or from what I know of Randism.

All those words, and nothing about human motivations and what drives human action, the Daemonic. As people refer to the great pieces of literature in the several languages, and from the several cultures, does no one pick up on the essential themes of motivations?

It is generally accepted that most individual human conduct (including that classified as social and economic) is "motivated" by internal and external stimuli (or "causes) in active and reactive responses.

R. Richard Schweitzer
s24rrs@aol.com

Atlas Shrugged is a wishfulfillment fantasy in which heroes drawn from imagination defeat villains drawn from real life. Ayn Rand is an interesting figure because she went to University in Russia in the aftermath of the 1917 revolution and saw through the popular self-deceptions of the time. Readers focus on her heroes, but it is her villains who are drawn from life and it is in her villains that artistic truth is to be found.

Look at Zimbabwe today. What is Mugabe thinking of? He never intended for the economy to collapse. There is an easy analysis in terms of policy errors that explains the collapse of the economy, but it is unsatisfying precisely because it is so easy. Surely leaders ruin their countries by making subtle errors, not stupid ones.

So one looks to psychology. What darker self-deceptions and denials let a man become what Rand calls a "looter" without ever quite seeing the fate that lies in front of his face? Rand attempts to describe the psychology of the looters based on her real life experience.

She also fashions a philosophy in opposition to looting. but there is no John Galt at work in Zimbabwe. If her novel is more than entertainment we should be asking if her villains are true to life. Perhaps her philosophy serves as an innoculation against or antidote to the psychology of the looters. Perhaps it doesn't. If she has succeeded in nailing the psychology of the looters that is enough to make her reputation.

I'm not a psychologist, so I can't and won't attempt to understand or explain the motives of some people on this thread. For those of independent judgment, make up your own mind as to what does and does not constitute good literature.

From James Joyce's Ulysses:

“He kissed the plump mellow yellow smellow melons of her rump, on each plump melonous hemisphere, in their mellow yellow furrow, with obscure prolonged provocative melonsmellonous osculation.
The visible signs of postsatisfaction?
A silent contemplation: a tentative velation: a gradual abasement: a solicitous aversion: a proximate erection.”


From Ayn Rand's Atlas Shrugged:

“She sat listening to the music. It was a symphony of triumph. The notes flowed up, they spoke of rising and they were the rising itself, they were the essence and the form of upward motion, they seemed to embody every human act and thought that had ascent as its motive. It was a sunburst of sound, breaking out of hiding and spreading open. It had the freedom of release and the tension of purpose. It swept space clean and left nothing but the joy of an unobstructed effort. Only a faint echo within the sounds spoke of that from which the music escaped, but spoke in laughing astonishment at the discovery that there was no ugliness or pain, and there never had to be. It was the song of an immense deliverance.”

The good news is that the future of American culture will be settled less by the people here and more by the hundreds of thousands of people who buy Atlas Shrugged on a yearly basis, which is why I'm willing to trust the first 100 names in the phonebook for political wisdom than I'm willing to trust the literature faculty at Yale.

You're not doing yourself any good, Peter.


Given the fact that you seem to be coming unhinged, I'd say I've hit the bulls eye. I think I could do this all day.

From the moment I opened Atlas Shrugged (after, admittedly, it sat on my bookshelf for over three years), I couldn't put it down. Now, I'm an avid reader, but I don't usually have that reaction to books.

I did not feel that way about The Fountainhead, and in fact struggled to get through it. I haven't read Anthem yet, and We the Living has been sitting half-read on my bedside table for over six months now.

Not only was it well-written, but its message was incredibly powerful. I can't say it changed things for me, as I was an Objectivist before I knew what the term meant, but it certainly articulated many of my as-yet-unarticulated feelings. This passage in particular immediately stopped my EVER procrastinating on a work project again:

"So you think that money is the root of all evil?" said Francisco d'Aconia. "Have you ever asked what is the root of money? Money is a tool of exchange, which can't exist unless there are goods produced and men able to produce them. Money is the material shape of the principle that men who wish to deal with one another must deal by trade and give value for value. Money is not the tool of the moochers, who claim your product by tears, or of the looters, who take it from you by force. Money is made possible only by the men who produce. Is this what you consider evil?"

Has anyone visited Ouray, Colorado, which was said to have inspired Galt's Gulch? I want to spend a few days there within the next year or so, for curiosity's sake.

I should have addressed my comment to McGuffin for clarity's sake.

If you're talking about Frank Lloyd Wright, you're wrong. He was not the inspiration for the book. He proclaimed The Fountainhead magnificent. He still had the book next to his bed when he died -- go see it at Taliesen West. And he was the parsimonious one who wanted an exorbitant fee to do Roark's designs for the movie version. Get your facts straight.

As for the rest, piff.

It is a matter of historical record that F. L. Wright worshipped both Rand and The Fountainhead, and he never seems to have changed his mind about these things.

Wrong. Both Wright's opinion of Rand and Rand's opinion of Wright changed greatly after their falling out.

To me it's obvious that Joyce (as well as Steinbeck) is literature, and Rand reads more like a self-published novel.

Heh. Why is it obvious? I guess I'm just not smart or something, cause Joyce seems like the opposite of literature to me. While Rand's writing style is not my favorite (it reads to me like bad writing) her ideas are powerful and she has transformed many minds. To me that is good literature.

Rand throws darts and cherry bombs; Hugo bombs and missiles; Hayek nukes.

In a sense this is true, in that Hayek (and Mises) really got the core of the economics of the problem in a scientific methodical way, while Rand did not-- but that is because she wasn't not an economist, she wrote as a writer and a moral philosopher. But, she also did get to some of the core economic problems in a way everyone can understand, which is invaluable. And clearly she did drop a bomb because she has been a major influence-- often THE major influence in a lot of people's thinking.

Oh, I forgot my footnote:

* Wal-Mart today does do some lobbying and politiking, such as for a minimum wage, to hurt their competition, however that is after Sam Walton I think. I am under the (perhaps false) impression that he didn't use those tactics. I could be wrong.

But, in any case, I think its pretty easy to know what characteristics make up her hero and which her anti-hero. The fact that its so damn easy to find anti-heroes and so hard to find pure heroes is pretty sad. But there are at least contenders in America.

Amusing thread. My personal view is that Rand, as a novelist, is all but unreadable. She needed an editor far more badly than Kerouac ever did. I did read The Fountainhead, but couldn't make it through Atlas. As a philosopher, moral or otherwise, she's a complete lightweight, repackaging a bunch of fairly obvious things that others said much better in a romantic bundle and selling it to horny highschool students looking for a reason for self respect and slightly kinky sex. And yes, once you get to the "A=A" sillyness, it really isn't much different than L. Ron Hubbard, or for that matter a late night buy-my-tapes-and-succeed-in-business! infomercial.

If that works for you, great. Some of my best friends are religious, too.

"In short, there has yet to be a critic of Rand's philosophy who can claim to have also accurately described it."

I have to disagree with that. I maintain that Roy Childs was right about the disconnect between her ethics and politics, despite the fact that he recanted that position shortly before he died.

"So, the attack always degenerates into the sort that we see here - an ad hominem vacuum of substance. Rand's fans, it seems, don't even like music. Of course, wasn't one of Rand's fictional heroes a composer?"

Yes. That's Richard Halley.

At page 643 of her "Letters", you can find a nice note of appreciation that she wrote to Duane Eddy in 1967.

Childs was an anarchist who - toward the end of his life - realized that some of his thinking was half-baked. At one point, at least, he believed that Rand's non-initiation of force principle required anarchism, but Rand's ideal government requires no initiation of force, as Childs assumed it did, as others have observed.

He's a good example of what I mean: he never grasped Rand's critique of anarchism, or her conception of an ethical government, in the first place.

Wright's exalted opinion of Rand and her work is well-known, and it is something that has gone unchallenged by his biographers.

Wrong again.

MacGuffin, put up or shut up. What are you talking about?

Rand's egoism is not of the cynical exploitation variety like Hobbes' and so many others'. It isn't Spinoza's sort, as well, either in its methodology or ultimate conclusions. Nietzsche is the philosopher to whom Rand is most often compared, but he rejected logical, principled ethics altogether and probably would have been - fundamentally - horrified at Rand's "virtue ethics." What he would have made of her doctrine of individual rights one can also easily guess. Yes, Aristotle is still the closest fit, but Rand provided a metaethical foundation not to be found in that giant's work, either. Rand's answer to the "Is/Ought" problem is post-Humean, so, again, there's no existing analogy.

Warren F.

Well said. I think that I like her work in part for that- I don't like a lot of wordy descriptive stuff, I really like conceptual books with ideas, and Atlas was the epitome of that. Also I read slowly and like to absorb every word-- that is just how I like to read. Her books reward that, like good literature should. Also, someone said above that people who don't like fiction like Rand-- that also describes me. I have read one complete work of fiction (and it was really short) in the past year or few years. I read maybe one a year. But I read a lot of non-fiction, for enjoyment.

Still, I don't like her writing "style" that much, but it was quite a revelation to see The Fountainhead movie and realize that it was from the "romantic" tradition. That really explained a lot. I'd missed that.

The "right of radical dissent against the existence of the state" is, of course, implied in her system - as it is under the U.S. Bill of Rights - that is, the "dissent" part. If you mean, "Can someone 'opt-out' of Rand's state?" Well, so long as he or she doesn't initiate force against anybody, he or she will have no problem with Rand's state, since it will never initiate force, either.

"If you mean, Can someone 'opt-out' of Rand's state?"

Yes, ma'am. That's what that "radical" bit means.

"The Bill of Rights" is summarily dismissed as metaphysically, ethically and politically incompetent.

"Well, so long as he or she doesn't initiate force against anybody, he or she will have no problem with Rand's state, since it will never initiate force, either."

That isn't all there is to it, Carol, by a long shot. Her stand on a claim of a "monopoly of the use of force" is a necessarily implicit arbitrary and unilateral threat against individual defense, and that's only the start of it.

every character a romantic good or evil

Then how do you explain Gail Wynand? Or even Peter Keating, who showed flashes of good towards the end? Or the Wet Nurse, who changed his path? Or the people who worked at the Twentieth Century Motors, who did not realise the full evil of the plan but went along with it for years?

That aside, most people hate Ayn Rand because she is utterly uncompromising in her ethics and morals.

Funny thing: not one of the CEOs interviewed for the NYTs article that got this thread going is a teenager.

Misrepresenting my point, or missing it? When did they first read her works? I know several fans of hers, and all of them were introduced to her before their 20s. Contrapositively, everyone I know who first read her in their 30s (a smaller sample, to be sure) finds it to be dreck.

"Misrepresenting my point, or missing it?"

Neither. Just rejecting it.

I know people who read Atlas Shrugged in their teens and now reject it, and I know people who read it in their 60s and have subsequently rejected their old-time religion and embraced Rand's philosophy.

Appreciating or rejecting Objectivism (or any other philosophy for that matter) has nothing to do with age. To suggest otherwise, is to insult both the young and the old.

Marina-

"So you think that money is the root of all evil?" said Francisco d'Aconia. "Have you ever asked what is the root of money? Money is a tool of exchange, which can't exist unless there are goods produced and men able to produce them. Money is the material shape of the principle that men who wish to deal with one another must deal by trade and give value for value. Money is not the tool of the moochers, who claim your product by tears, or of the looters, who take it from you by force. Money is made possible only by the men who produce. Is this what you consider evil?"

This poses an interesting dilemma. I wonder what the typical Randian producer would do if he were faced with a combined group of looters and moochers who abused him and stold everything he produced? My guess is he wouldn't tolerate the situation - he would resist it until he could put an end to it and collect what was his. And he certainly wouldn't produce more for them to steal.

Again, let me stress I haven't read Rand yet, just posing a hypothetical question.

Mr. Beck, you claim, "Her stand on a claim of a 'monopoly of the use of force' is a necessarily implicit arbitrary and unilateral threat against individual defense..."

How so? She would not permit anyone - including the state - to refrain from initiating force.

It seems to me that the "arbitrary" would be individual determinations of when force should be applied.

That aside, most people hate Ayn Rand because she is utterly uncompromising in her ethics and morals.

Ayn Rand behaved unethically by breaching the compact between novelist and reader, because she was preachy, pedantic, and long-winded, and because she created cardboard characters who lived as no human beings ever have.

If I want to read a good Russian emigre novel, with well-drawn characters behaving believably, if not admirably, in which every word advances the story, I'll read Nabokov.

I like Mabokov too, but if you have read Ada, I hardly think you would stick with the idea that every word advances the story.

I said earlier that the passage quoted reminded me how dreadful a writer Rand is. Let me explain a little more. First, there is the almost endless parallelisms, which for me simply do not work. Worse, in describing the kids she says

"they looked as if, should they encounter malevolence, they would reject it contemptuously, not as dangerous, but as stupid,"

Maybe someone out there knows what this "look" is. But I haven't got a look. I hate when writers pretend to be giving descriptions, but are actually doing something else. For those who insist that its important to look at the "larger" picture, it seems clear to me that in the larger picture that Rand is pretending to write a novel when it is really a canvas for her rants about individualism and the evils of collectivism. I find those rants boring and tedious. I prefer novelists to write novels, philosophers to do philosophy, and ranters to flame each other on the internet. If she were alive today, she would no doubt have a controversial blog with a large audience. It's a medium that is perfect for her. But I doubt I would ever visit it.

BTW, I enjoyed The Fountainhead when I was in 10th grade. I tried to read Atlas Shrugged in my late 20s and couldn't get past 20 pages or so. So I picked up The Fountainhead again, and couldn't read it either.

Rand is not "preachy, pedantic," or "long winded." Nothing of her theme is not also found in her plot, in the logic of the events of her story. This is a rare thing to find in any literature. Her purpose was not propaganda or instruction, but contemplation and enjoyment. For a great many readers, her novels are exciting fun. She is also the most economical writer and the tightest novelist you can find. Her characters are much richer than Dickens's and far more pleasant to contemplate than most of Nabokov's. They behave more "believably" than many people I've actually known in reality - and, the heroes, far more logically. The same outcomes from the behaviors involved are to be found in both reality and Rand's work.

This points to the "unreality" of naturalism - reality does play out logical outcomes - the moral, properly understood, is the practical.

I've never read either Ulysses or Atlas Shrugged, but I think the yellow smellow passage totally wins that contest. Joyce is having fun, he's playing with the sound of the words, rhymes and echoes and little jokes; I love the way the silly rhyming nonsense turns into exaggerated technical-sounding language, and you hear how similar the two things are.
The Rand passage, by contrast, seems to me a pretty unsurprising rolling out of the standard modern author's bag of tricks.

I used to write poetry with a lot of rhyming and alliteration too -- in my teens! Joyce is rubbish for the elite to feel superior about. Just my opinion. Perhaps you disagree.

Rand is about ideas. I don't think her writing is amazing either stylistically - although its far more readable than Joyce. I had trouble getting started with it (Atlas Shrugged, at age 25 or so) because of that, but pushed on because I'd been promised that it was worthwhile-- and it was! For the ideas. Again, I wanted to stop reading it later in the book because I knew that I had gotten her point and it was just going on and on, but I made myself finish it and I'm glad that I did. I will probably reread it at some point, as well. There is a lot in it.

I did not like her sex scenes at all though. Ugh. Please, too much information. Lets get back to the plot. I do not agree with everything she says, with her absolutism about ego and morality and so forth. And her private choices, cutting friendships and all that. I don't feel that she had much compassion, etc. But really the private lives of many great thinkers and artists and so forth are checkered.

Another book I can recommend to some of the Rand fans is The True Believer, by Eric Hoffer

The Cabbage: Capitalism works. It doesn't need to be justified as "good". We just need to recognize that its effective.

I'll half agree with that. Capitalism, with some limiting constraints, works better and is more effective that any other system anyone has tested; and while effectiveness is not sufficient for a system to be good, it is necessary.

On the other hand, I just got through (at a pseudo-Objectivists prodding) her non-fiction essays in the collection "Capitalism: The Unknown Ideal". It strikes me as a massively flawed analysis throughout. There are two big problems she fails to address. First: information — EG, information costs, and asymmetric market information; her stance on patent is effectively incoherent, in light of its omission of trade secrets and reverse engineering and her stance on the products of labor. The other is the effects of time: birth, development, mortality. She also neglects to express in light of those, why she expects people at any level of economic strata will limit themselves to moral means to gain and maintain wealth.

I've no objection to larger than life Science Fiction heroes. Bujold's Miles Vorkosigan, E.E. "Doc" Smith's Lensmen, Phil and Kaja Foglio's Agatha Heterodyne, Orson Scott Card's Andrew Wiggin, Roger Zelazny's "Sam" Mahasamatman, Terry Pratchet's Carrot Ironfoundersson and Havelock Vetenari — my bookshelves are full of them. The best, however, do so by overcoming their tangible human limitations, or despite them. (I'm also partial to GRRM's Song of Ice and Fire.)

Yes, Rand's books can inspire one to strive to achieve more. However, I believe there are more useful tools for the function, capable of conveying more subtle ideas in the process.

"Uh, Carol, about that tight writing of Rand--you must have missed the 150 page John Galt speech near the end."

You have never read the book, Connie. I can tell.

Duffy,

"they looked as if, should they encounter malevolence, they would reject it contemptuously, not as dangerous, but as stupid," I know PRECISELY what kind of demeanor this implies about children. Some children have a hollow-eyed expectation of cruelty and a meak, broken fear written all over their faces and actions. Some kids run around with no expectation that they will get into unexpected trouble and be exposed to inexplicable cruelty. Kids are weathervains for their family life -- their spirits are either innocent and expressive or crushed and wary. Happy kids whose spirits aren't crushed quite naturally see mean-spiritedness as nothing more than a waste of time and no threat to them -- they see it as nothing more than "stupid," since having a good time without all the baggage many adults carry is so much more fun and joyous. There are kids, on the other hand, who already bear the sad wisdom that happiness doesn't stand a chance. Kids are more expressive of their reaction to evil -- whether it is potent or impotent in their lives -- than adults are. You must have noticed this. Rand is tying that universally observable trait in children to the IDEAS that have been applied in rearing them.

You say you want novelists to write novels and philosophers to do philosophy, etc. But Rand's novels are about the role of ideas in human life. Her point is that they are inescapably a part of human life, that ideas are the foundation of human psychology and character, that the wrong ideas will lead to misery, the right ones to success, and all of the subtle interactions between philosophical conclusions and the kind of life people will lead as a result. That is the entire point she is making, and it is a revolutionary point.

You think she would have made a good blogger -- but she obviously, in terms of affecting people's lives and selling books, is a FAR more successful novelist than Nabokov or Joyce could ever me, precisely because she does not shy away from the vital role of ideas in human existence, whether at the individual or the social level. For that reason alone there is a very justified place on the shelf of novels and in the company of other novelists for Rand's work.

Actually, I read Atlas Shrugged about 5 years ago when I was 40. Despite being a liberal, I liked its economic philosophy a great deal at the time, just not its application to families and religion. OK, maybe JG's radio address near the end isn't 150 pages, but it's not a "tight" use of language.

Rand is foremost a thinker.

This always seemed to be the crux of it to me, too, but so many Rand fans insist on her primacy as a writer.

Galt's speech is the tightest part of the whole book. Rand covers more material in that speech than most philosophers do in three books. In contrast to writers like Thomas Mann, Rand's speeches explicate her plot - something many readers here seem to need more of - and are not merely attached like a donkey's tail.

The mythology runs pretty thick around this subject, doesn't it? I have known and met many people who found her books to be "great reads" but who, by their own confession, never really understood her philosophy. In such a condition, they will obviously not stump for Rand - but several have often reread her just for pleasure. Some people in my own family are the very sort of Rand fans you think don't exist.

Yes, Mr. Beck, I agree. Let's spare our host what seems to be turning into a word salad.

Is the opposition to Ayn Rand really so shallow and hysterical that it must always eventually resort to these tactics?

Yes.

Carol: You've done an admirable job in defending Ayn Rand from these nattering nabobs of discontent. As I've suggested earlier in this thread, the issue is clearly psychological for some of these people. To watch them come unbottoned psychologically by the attempt to have a serious conversation about Ayn Rand is, well, predictably sad. The degree of their snideness is almost certainly connected directly to their fear of Ayn Rand's ideas in the broader culture.

The real truth is that everyone who claims that Rand was a lousy writer also disagrees with her philosophy.

I am aware of only two points of disagreement with the Randian philosophy: a little decoration never hurt any building (I'm planning to add gargoyles to my house, in fact), and, even non-capitalists can have satisfying orgasms.

"There are no Howard Roarks, John Galts, or Hank Reardens in the world? Pray tell, then, how have we managed to live in a world that has skyscrapers, green buildings, combustion engines, nanocomposites, or mag-lev trains?"

And how many of those skyscrapers etc. would have survived Rand's (or the fictional Roark's) critiques? Not everyone is a Frank Lloyd Wright, and many modern skyscrapers have decorative elements that Roark/Rand would have abhorred. Furthermore, to design and create a skyscraper you usually need the work of more than one person - sometimes you even need a committee! (But that doesn't compute to Randians.)

The real truth is that everyone who claims that Rand was a lousy writer also disagrees with her philosophy.

That's not even really true within this thread of discussion.

So be mature, serious, and rigorous in your thinking. Cheat on your spouse and damn the consequences.
I wonder if that leader of Hillsdale College was a Randian.

Way to go Carol: Ayn Rand did not cheat on her husband.

It's interesting that you trot out something so obviously false as some sort of knowledgable dismissal of Rand, though.

The fact is, you don't know what you're talking about. But STILL you have a need to dismiss Rand. THAT is pretty bizarre. I wonder why that is?

It was suggested that Rand's literary fans were only those who shared her ideas. This is demonstrable nonsense.

Go ahead and demonstrate it, then. Show us the examples of those who love Rand's writing but dislike her ideas.

Do you mean, Pig, apart from the fact that most of the positive reviews of Rand's novels are of this character - e.g., The New York Times review of The Fountainhead? Or, my own experience with family members?

No, Liberty, Rand wasn't "perfect" by the standard definition of the term.

What an ad hominem distraction that is!

Note: For Rand many things of this world could be (and often were) "perfect." In consequence, her adherents are often misunderstood.

However, I have yet to read a defense of Rand's "perfection." Even her strongest defenders, e.g., Leonard Peikoff, have had their criticisms.

Rand taught that nobody, including herself, was either omniscient or infallible. She said that she hadn't said the last word in philosophy. Her novels are all about individualism - her heroes standing alone against the world, relying on their own judgment, etc. Her philosophy extols reason above all. No one - not one writer that I can identify - claims that Rand never made mistakes.

The whole "true believer"/"cult" charge is just grossly unfair.

theobromophile-

I've known a couple of people who worship her and are not productive, moral people of uncompromising integrity.

Production is not the end-all, be-all. If one knows their production is going to be stolen, used to hurt other people, used to perpetuate a criminal, dishonest, racist, and/or immoral system, etc. - then it is quite justified to cease producing.

Do you mean, Pig, apart from the fact that most of the positive reviews of Rand's novels are of this character - e.g., The New York Times review of The Fountainhead? Or, my own experience with family members?

No, I meant for you to actually demonstrate the claim that you said was demonstrable, not to reiterate and extend an unsupported or unverifiable assertion or to accompany it with falsehood. Lorine Pruette's 1943 review of The Fountainhead in The New York Times in no way demonstrates that Preuette loved Rand's writing while disapproving of her ideas. On the contrary, in a review otherwise praising both Rand's writing and ideas, the closest Pruette comes to disapproving of Rand's ideas is rhetorical indifference:

She has written a hymn in praise of the individual and has said things worth saying in these days. Whether her antithesis between altruism and selfishness is logically correct or not, she has written a powerful indictment.

many who disagree with Rand will use just about any tactic (calling her an inferior writer, ...) to avoid trying to refute or debate her IDEAS in an honest way.

See, this is how Rand fans come across as people who have drunk the Rand Kool-Aid. I deal with Rand as a reader to a writer. This role requires me neither to accept nor reject Objectivism. Just as my opinion of Scientology would not influence my opinion of a Hubbard short story, my opinion of Rand's ideas does not influence my opinion of her writing. Criticizing his writing (and frankly, Hubbard is a much better writer than Rand) would not an attempt to avoid debating the merits of Dianetics.

Clearly, Pruit [sic] is an example of someone who is not entirely sympathetic with Rand's ideas but acknowledges her power and brilliance as a writer. You lost this one, Pig.

How do you figure? As I wrote above, there is nothing in Pruette's review that indicates that she opposed any of Rand's ideas, and there is much that indicates that she approved of them. The closest Pruette comes to disapproving any of Rand's ideas is one instance of a rhetorical device that does not resolve a single issue of Rand's argument one way or the other before continuing on to approve of Rand's conclusion regardless.

No, it indicates that regardless of whether Rand's argument leading up to her conclusion is precisely correct, Pruette agrees with Rand's indictment of altruism. Most relevant to the current discussion, it most certainly does not indicate that Pruette disapproved of Rand's ideas. Were that the case, one would expect Pruette to write something like "she fails to persuade in her indictment."

Production is not the end-all, be-all. If one knows their production is going to be stolen, used to hurt other people, used to perpetuate a criminal, dishonest, racist, and/or immoral system, etc. - then it is quite justified to cease producing.

True, that being one of the points of Atlas Shrugged. However, I did not say "people who produce for the good of society," rather, "productive people." Many of Rand's heros were, at their core, productive: even on strike, they did not loaf but created a fully-functioning, independent village in the Rockies. Their nature is to work and produce, as they have no desire to live in caves.

Furthermore, my point was pretty obvious: there are some very lazy people who claim to love Ayn Rand and follow her religiously. They are people who simply do not like the actions of working and producing; it has nothing to do with the uses to which society will put the products of their minds.

Ah, yes. So now those who wrote approvingly of Rand didn't really approve of Rand, but rather disapproved of her ideas because they didn't approve in the right way. How absurd is all of this?

If you're done with the irrelevant tangents and unsupported assertions, please demonstrate that which you were asked to: examples of those who love Rand's writing but dislike her ideas. All we've got so far is Warren claiming that Pruette liked Rand's ideas as well as her writing, and you claiming that Pruette actually disapproved of Rand's ideas even while she was writing positively about both them and Rand's writing.

The math is easy.

Unsupported assertions: lots

Examples of those who love Rand's writing but dislike her ideas: none

If the history you assert is so clear, then you should have no trouble finding examples to back it up. Perhaps you could start by showing us where Pruette recanted her approval of Rand's ideas -- preferably whilst retaining her admiration for Rand's writing.

Yeah, so? That is a nod toward the richness and strangeness of the ideas "inside of her head," not toward the quality of her writing. At most, the reviewer disagrees with the criticism of Rand's characterizations; but "characters are not as thin as many critics say" hardly qualifies as approval of Rand's writing style, just disagreement with some elements of the criticism leveled against her novels.

Pig seems to have forgotten why this question was raised in the first place - indeed, what little relevance it ever had.

Here's one, Pig: Raquel Welch. When asked on 'Larry King Live' if Rand had influenced her politics, she said, "No." Asked what she did like about Rand, she said, "Her writing - and its romantic sense of life." I doubt that she admires Rand for still deeper unmentioned topics in philosophy than politics, so does she count?

I've got to also believe that actress Angelina Jolie's admiration for Rand is of the same kind. The same is probably true for the many other actors who have stated an admiration for Rand's work - even as they proclaim their mystical and socialist beliefs in other contexts.

To what extent this is true for the athletes who have said that they admire Rand - from Billie Jean King to Cal Ripkin, Jr. - isn't clear, but it can hardly be her epistemology.

Right. Obviously, when Christopher Hitchens, Penn Jillette, and Dennis Miller say they admire Rand, as they all recently have, it's Ayn Rand's ideas that attract them, but Hollywood Lefties?

I've got to also believe that actress Angelina Jolie's admiration for Rand is of the same kind.

Please don't remind me that she is playing Dagny Taggart. Jolie would be a good Dominique Francon, but the thought of her playing Dagny saddens me. Think of how many untold millions of people will see the movie without having read the book and miss what makes it all so great.

Then, of course, there's H. L. Mencken, who helped Rand's first novel, We the Living, see the light of day.

Thanks to Volokh Conspiracy for hosting this. It's been very informative!

It is worth noting that there are a number of fiction writers who have also been significantly influenced by Rand's philosophy, along with her writing. Among these are: Andrew Bernstein (Heart of a Pagan), Kay Nolte Smith, and Erika Holzer, who has written a literary memoir of Rand called, Ayn Rand: My Fiction-Writing Teacher..

The astonishing range of Rand's influence is also noteworthy. From a Jewish kid growing up in New York City's Washington Heights like Alan Greenspan to an African-American girl from the South like sociologist Ann Wortham, the author of The Other Side of Racism - from one of the foremost academic scholars of Aristotle, Professor Allan Gotthelf, to numerous corporate CEOs - from novelists to computer engineers - from comic book artist Steve Ditko to a list a major psychotherapists - from beautiful actresses to leading policy-makers like Martin Anderson - from brilliant investigative journalists like Edith Efron to rock and roll musicians like Rush - the scope of Rand's impact is simply astonishing.