Ayn Rand

AngryGerbil · May 20, 2018

Twice in two weeks I have been met with the contention that "She isn't worth reading because her characters aren't interesting."

All I can do in such a situation is smile bluntly and contentiously and wish that I hadn't brought the subject up to begin with.

So here, on FoH, I bring the subject up.

To criticize Atlas Shrugged because it 'lacks interesting characters' is like criticizing Star Wars because it 'lacks interesting shoes'.

It's retarded. And yet, if you were to try it for yourself you would find that almost everyone who hears this name, Ayn Rand, thinks that 'her characters lack depth'.

They can not speak to the characters, or the depth. They know only that both are lacking in some way. Some indescribable way.

I asked my brother in law last week if he had ever read The Fountainhead and he said, "parts of it."

I know that this was a lie. He has read parts of Fountainhead? Which parts exactly? What if that book was not intended to be taken in parts but as a whole?

'Parts of it' is what you say when talking about movies, not books. He was absolutely full of shit when he said he had 'read parts of it'. It was a kneejerk reaction on his part in a public setting, but it does illustrate the fact that there is an almost religious response when people hear her name, and many of them aren't even sure why this response exists.

Ritley · May 20, 2018

Do you bottle your own farts so you can pop them open later for a quick refill of smug?

AngryGerbil · May 20, 2018

I'm having more and more fun bringing her name up in public and watching the reactions of people and I thought maybe this could be a place people could talk about the entire phenomenon of her writing.

Or just a place to farm even more of these ignorant reactions.

wormie · May 20, 2018

My response to her name is instantly negative. But I have not read her book. Human brain truly is a shitty and useless thing.

khorum · May 20, 2018

You should read at least Fountainhead. It's a great novel about individualism and frankly little else.

Ritley · May 20, 2018

AngryGerbil said:
I'm having more and more fun bringing her name up in public and watching the reactions of people and I thought maybe this could be a place people could talk about the entire phenomenon of her writing.

Or just a place to farm even more of these ignorant reactions.

Maybe you’re a pretentious douche in real life and people think you are ridiculous for treating a work of pure fiction as something to guide your life by

wormie · May 20, 2018

khorum said:
You should read at least Fountainhead. It's a great novel about individualism and frankly little else.

I have a tough time reading books outside my interests. My opinion on Rand, after a mental pause to calm my retard brain down, is that I have none. I am just amused by how our brains are wired and how damaging and useless they can be.

chaos · May 20, 2018

wormie said:
I have a tough time reading books outside my interests. My opinion on Rand, after a mental pause to calm my retard brain down, is that I have none. I am just amused by how our brains are wired and how damaging and useless they can be.

Yeah. I have opinions on objectivism and people who idolize her, but I've never actually read her books and don't really care about her as a person or her works. I'm sure the negativity comes from her being tied to that philosophy and those people.

khorum · May 20, 2018

wormie said:
I have a tough time reading books outside my interests. My opinion on Rand, after a mental pause to calm my retard brain down, is that I have none. I am just amused by how our brains are wired and how damaging and useless they can be.

In that case reading the Fountainhead would be an interesting exercise in verifying your retard-brain response. That's my point, she wasn't von Mises or Hayek. Fountainhead's just a novel; but it's a really good example of pop culture bringing complex ideas to broader audiences.

If you're interested in the impact of that novel though, her success presenting the Austrian School's ideas to a broader audience persuaded Hayek to make a comic version and eventually a cartoon of Road To Serfdom. The comic was published by the University of Chicago lol.

wormie · May 20, 2018

khorum said:
In that case reading the Fountainhead would be an interesting exercise in verifying your retard-brain response. That's my point, she wasn't von Mises or Hayek. Fountainhead's just a novel; but it's a really good example of pop culture bringing complex ideas to broader audiences.

If you're interested in the impact of that novel though, her success presenting the Austrian School's ideas to a broader audience persuaded Hayek to make a comic version and eventually a cartoon of Road To Serfdom. The comic was published by the University of Chicago lol.

I dont really need to verify my brains response though. I am aware that it is based on a faulty heuristic and is therefore incorrect. I even know why i developed a heuristic that is as faulty as this one so fixing it is was an easy mental adjustment. As for reading the book, I just dont care enough. There are many books that I will read now and in the future and I doubt I will live long enough to get to Rand's before I finish those.

BrutulTM · May 20, 2018

I own both a paper and an electronic copy of Atlas Shrugged but have not read either of them. I mean to one day along with a lot of other books, but I have heard Atlas Shrugged criticized by people I respect as 1000 pages of ideological propaganda and not actual art, albeit very well written. All I can say about her beyond that is that I've watched a few interviews of her about her world view and while I thought she made a lot of good points, I felt like her suggestion that it's immoral to act out of motivation for anything other than pure self interest was taking it a bit far. I do think that self interest is the best and most productive motivator, but I don't see how it's immoral to do something altruistic as long as you're not forcing others to do it as well.

Melvin · May 20, 2018

AngryGerbil said:
To criticize Atlas Shrugged because it 'lacks interesting characters' is like criticizing Star Wars because it 'lacks interesting shoes'.

It's retarded. And yet, if you were to try it for yourself you would find that almost everyone who hears this name, Ayn Rand, thinks that 'her characters lack depth'.

They can not speak to the characters, or the depth. They know only that both are lacking in some way. Some indescribable way.

The only Rand I've ever read is Anthem, once, because I like dystopian scifi. The only thing I remember about it is that afterwards I decided that I did not want to read anything else she'd written. So obviously I can't say anything specific about the characters in Atlas Shrugged that I know nothing about.

I will say in general that a writer being unable to write plausible characters is a critique that should be made more often. If the characters can be described as lifeless, hollow, unnatural, contrived, etc, if their motivations seem entirely unbelievable, if the dialog is stilted, and the author didn't do those things deliberately and with specific intent, then I'll call a shit writer a shit writer no problem.

So back to Rand and Atlas Shrugged. In my limited "research" it looks like the main theme Rand was attempting to write about was human nature, in general. If a common criticism is that "the characters are uninteresting because they're unrealistic," then that sounds like pretty reasonable evidence that the ideas about human nature that form the core of Atlas Shrugged shouldn't be taken entirely seriously. Maybe there is a little truth mixed in with the mostly unrealistic fiction? Idk, Idc, the topic of human behavior and motivation isn't something I'll ever read a 1000+ page opinion piece about. That's the kind of subject that scientists tend to do a better job of describing with more accuracy than authors of fiction.

khorum · May 20, 2018

Anthem isn't her strongest book, though it's the shortest lol. It's mostly remarkable for preceding 1984 by over a decade.

Calling Atlas Shrugged a 1,000-page opinion piece is fairly shallow, though. You don't need to "research" it, it's a pretty quick read. It's shorter than most GRRM or Stephen King books and probably a bit more entertaining. It's not gonna convert you or anything. No more than reading Derrida or Chomsky would convert you.

She's a gifted writer and novelist, that's why we're still talking about her 80+ years onwards. If Atlas Shrugged is too long to entertain forming your own opinion on her work, try Fountainhead----it's the better novel anyway, and way less "political", if at all.

AngryGerbil · May 20, 2018

wormie said:
My response to her name is instantly negative. But I have not read her book. Human brain truly is a shitty and useless thing.

This is literally the exact phenomenon I am talking about. Thank you for being honest wormie.

AngryGerbil · May 20, 2018

Ritley said:
Maybe you’re a pretentious douche in real life and people think you are ridiculous for treating a work of pure fiction as something to guide your life by

Huh?

Who says a work of fiction is guiding my life?

AngryGerbil · May 20, 2018

BrutulTM said:
I own both a paper and an electronic copy of Atlas Shrugged but have not read either of them. I mean to one day along with a lot of other books, but I have heard Atlas Shrugged criticized by people I respect as 1000 pages of ideological propaganda.

What is the nature of her propaganda? Can they describe or articulate it in any way shape or form?

AngryGerbil · May 20, 2018

Melvin said:
The only Rand I've ever read is Anthem, once, because I like dystopian scifi. The only thing I remember about it is that afterwards I decided that I did not want to read anything else she'd written. So obviously I can't say anything specific about the characters in Atlas Shrugged that I know nothing about.

I will say in general that a writer being unable to write plausible characters is a critique that should be made more often. If the characters can be described as lifeless, hollow, unnatural, contrived, etc, if their motivations seem entirely unbelievable, if the dialog is stilted, and the author didn't do those things deliberately and with specific intent, then I'll call a shit writer a shit writer no problem.

So back to Rand and Atlas Shrugged. In my limited "research" it looks like the main theme Rand was attempting to write about was human nature, in general. If a common criticism is that "the characters are uninteresting because they're unrealistic," then that sounds like pretty reasonable evidence that the ideas about human nature that form the core of Atlas Shrugged shouldn't be taken entirely seriously. Maybe there is a little truth mixed in with the mostly unrealistic fiction? Idk, Idc, the topic of human behavior and motivation isn't something I'll ever read a 1000+ page opinion piece about. That's the kind of subject that scientists tend to do a better job of describing with more accuracy than authors of fiction.

Here it is again.

We see that he can not describe what is dull or lifeless about the characters or why they suck. Merely that he has heard that they are and thus, at least one of her books isn't worth reading.

He also uses the term 'authors of fiction' at the very end to deride and belittle her ideas.

There are no great authors of fiction and none of them have ever taught us anything. Dostoyevsky, Shakespeare, and Hemmingway are all retarded cunts in Melvin-World.

She was a philosopher who suffered under the Bolsheviks, but Melvin doesn't know this because she is taught to everyone, including him, that her characters are boring and she is merely nothing more than a novelist.

You should have seen the look on my wife's aunt's husband's face last night at their neice's wedding when I said her name to him in conversation. He's a Professor of South American history. He had a momentary look of laughter in his eyes and then explained to me that she is not a very good writer. When I asked him why he thought so, he tried to change the subject to Paul Manafort.

Nobody discusses her ideas because nobody knows them because nobody reads them because they have all been warned off against her.

Why the warning? I ask everyone who hasn't read her. Why do you suppose they caution you so strongly against her?

khorum · May 20, 2018

Well, be grateful they responded in good faith and admitted they didn't read them bro.

Real cunts would've pretended they've read them and pronounced righteous indignity from a place of utter ignorance.

AngryGerbil · May 20, 2018

I just wanted to see if what I thought was true, was actually true. The only way to find out was to decide to talk about her in both my family life and here with my mates at my online pub.

Tuco · May 20, 2018

I regret having read Atlas Shrugged. Waste of time even if I agree with most of the premise.

It has the same philosophical merit of a teenage girl retelling an argument she had where everyone she disagrees with speaks in a retarded voice and says retarded things while the girl is the soul of reason and understanding.

Ayn Rand

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