Book's Name- Atlas Shrugged
Author- Ayn Rand
Publisher- Signet
Pages' Number- 1080
ISBN-9780451191144
Reviewer- Ravi Prakash
Rating-5/5
Pics' Credit- Google
Why
shouldn’t I start with a few quotes of Rand, I think it will clarify about all
the Whys behind this magnum opus.
Her
philosophy-
“My
philosophy, in essence, is the concept of man as a heroic being, with his own
happiness as the moral purpose of his life, with productive achievement as his
noblest activity, and reason to his only absolute.”
Miss Rand
was often asked whether she was primarily a philosopher or a novelist. To this,
she responded-
“It seemed
to be both, a theoretical philosopher and a fiction writer. But it is the last
that interests me most….Philosophical knowledge is necessary in order to define
human perfection, but I do not care to stop at the definition. I want to use
it, to apply it- in my work (in my personal life too- but the core centre and
purpose of my life, is my work…in a book of fiction, the purpose is to create,
for myself, the kind of world I want and to live in it while I am creating it,
then as a secondary consequence, to let others enjoy the world, if, and to the
extent that they can.”
Her hope-
“I trust
that no one will tell me that men such as I write about don’t exist. That this
book has been written-and published-is my proof that they do.”
And yes,
events that she faced in Russia in her childhood and teenage certainly had
tremendous effect on her thought-forms. She disgusted the socialist militarism
or ‘red terror’ of the Bolshevik Revolution. When introduced to American
History in her teenage, she immediately took America as her model of what a
nation of free country could be.
So, this is
Ayn Rand, in ninety percent cases, there is hardly a middle approach to get her
ideas expressed in Atlas Shrugged, either you abhor her or adore her. This is
the first book of Rand that I read and it is also the longest and thickest, it
took me a considerable time to complete. In the initial phase of reading, I
really enjoyed the book, but after when I had had more than the half, I became
doubtful whether I would be able to finish it or not, I think it is unnecessary
long because of the repetitive arguments in proving her philosophy right. Well,
I finished and felt no regret.
Rand’s
character-building is flawlessly committed to prove her points. Her heroic and
rational capitalistic characters who don’t give a damn to the ‘need of the
people’, they work because they love their work and want its full recognition,
credit and value to satisfy and motivate their own conscience. They hate ‘the
looters’ i.e. the bureaucrats, lobbyists and politicians who justify the regulations,
taxations, and confiscations of private property on socialistic ground of
‘public welfare’ and even more so on communist grounds of ‘need’ and/or ‘on the
point of a gun.’
Well, ‘need’
has always been prevalent since the beginning of human history, even today it
is, but supposing ‘need’ as the main basic factor to equalize the society is
like building a fort of sand, I mean snatching from the rich and giving it to
the poor isn’t a permanent solution. The permanent solution lies in providing
the ‘needy’ masses opportunity to grow, skill to work, enough education to make
them able in deciding what’s wrong and what’s right for them, giving them a
sense of self-respect and self-confidence instead of self-pity. And, taxation
for such purposes makes a sense, but not for giving jobs and lands as gifts-
this is exploitation of merit and virtue while encouragement of parasitism.
Then, free-giving is an easy way to appease the vote-bank, so more or less
every politician willing to make a long career in politics applies this trick.
I don’t
think it’s totally wrong living a life based on rationality, honesty,
integrity, justice, independence, productiveness and pride, what’s bad to be a
strong person, to stand alone against all the odds, to stick to your goal, to
not to waste your time in gossiping nonsensicalities- does this make one
inhuman? I don’t know how. I disagree though on pure abolition of altruism and
compassion, it is up to you to decide rationally if he/she to whom you are
offering your altruism/compassion is worthy of it, and in this way I am sure it
will make happy the giver and the receiver as well.
This novel
deals with many themes, among them, some important themes are like Happiness,
Love, Sex, Individualism, An Appeal For Freedom, and the most important, Objectivism in Action, and almost all the themes are represented by John Galt
in his speech. His speech is the philosophical gist of the novel, and yes, it
is boring sometimes, yet I read it.
The repeated
lines in the novel about happiness are like no one should live for other people
and other people’s happiness, happiness is the ultimate goal and sole
responsibility of each individual, but in the common life, sometimes our
happiness is because of others and sometimes others become happy because of us,
life is not so straight, thus I can’t agree with such philosophy of happiness.
In Galt’s
gulch where he unites all his friends and supporters, all kinds of love are
united there by the value-system of Objectivism, no break between different
kinds of love whether it is romantic love, brotherly love, love of work or love
of certain ideals. In the world of Atlas Shrugged, Love is a positive and
all-encompassing thing that doesn’t allow things like jealousy to screw it up.
On the other side, people who speak of ‘brotherly love’, sacrifice, pity but
end up causing destruction. In this sense, I really favor Rand’s quote, “Love,
friendship, respect, admiration are the emotional response of one man to the
virtues of another, the spiritual payment given in exchange for the personal,
selfish pleasure which one man derives from the virtue of another man’s
character…”
The
celebration of Sex in Atlas Shrugged is a mean to individual happiness and the
unification of mind and body. Sex is not a sin between two persons who love and
admire each other. Characters described as ‘looters’ take a negative view of
Sex, treats it as tawdry and shameful, while Francisco and Dagny defend sexuality, in one of the speeches made by Francisco, there is the most
important thematic statement about Sex, “The man who is proudly certain of his
value, will want the highest type of woman he can find, the woman he
admires…because only the possession of a heroine will give him a sense of
achievement, not the possession of a brainless slut…He doesn’t seek to gain his
value, he seeks to express it. There is no conflict between the standard of his
mind and the desire of his body.”
Well, I
support Individualism at a moderate level, but Atlas Shrugged is an impassioned
defense of Individualism, and to understand Rand’s sense of urgency, we need to
have a look on the context in which the book was written and the events of her
early life which I have described in the beginning of this text. Twentieth-
century era exhibited the most tyrannical dictatorship in the human history.
The Fascist in Italy, the National Socialist (Nazis) in Germany, and the
Communist- first in Russia and later in China and elsewhere- seriously
threatened individual freedom on the earth. Rand had the firsthand experience
of this terrifying historical period. When she started writing Atlas Shrugged
in 1946, the West had just achieved victory on the Nazis, but at an enormous
cost of human life. However, it left the threat of communism unabated.
Even after her escape from the Soviet Union,
she kept in touch with her family members, but when the murderous policies of
Joseph Stalin swallowed the Soviet Union, she lost the track. She had
experienced the brutality of communist tyranny.
Communism
had expanded its legs in considerable large portion of the world during the
last days of WW2 and in the immediate after years. Soviet armies first rolled
through the countries of Eastern Europe (East Germany, Poland, Hungry, Romania
and elsewhere) setting up Russian ‘satellite’ nations , then it came to power
in China and North Korea and launched an invasion on South Korea. Shortly
thereafter, Communism was also dominant in Cuba, at America’s doorstep. It was
an expanding military power during 1940s and 1950s, threatening to engulf the
free world, and it was also the peak-time of the Cold War. The Soviet Union had
ruled its empire in Eastern Europe brutally suppressing an uprising by
Hungarian freedom fighters in 1956, after developing the atomic bomb, Russians
amassed huge armies in Eastern Europe, threatening the free nations of the West.
Foreign
military power wasn’t the only way by which communism threatened America’s
freedom, but Collectivism also, the political philosophy of national socialists
and communists which was embraced by innumerable American intellectuals during
1930s, but when the full horror of Nazism revealed during WW2, support for
national socialism diminished gradually, but communism survived in the form of
Marxist Political Ideology. By the time when Rand was writing Atlas shrugged,
many American intellectuals believed that government should have the power to
coercively redistribute the income and regulate the industry. The belief that
an individual has a right to live his own life replaced by the collectivist
idea that individuals must work and live in service of others.
So, I
conclude from all these that Rand’s extreme eulogy of Individualism was just a
revenge for the brutal communism-the juxtaposition.
Experiencing
nineteenth century full of inventors and entrepreneurs who created such things
which raised man’s standard of living, according to Rand, freedom of American
society was responsible for these achievements. Economic freedom led to these
inventors and entrepreneurs (Samuel Morse, Thomas Edison, John Roebling, Henry Ford,
Graham Bell, Andrew Carnegie, John D Rockfeller etc) to put new ideas and
methods into practice, but what would happen if the economic freedom were lost?
To answer this question, Rand projects the culmination of America’s twentieth-century
socialist trend- heavy taxation, massive social welfare programs, tight
governmental regulation of industry and anti-trust action against successful
companies are heightened in the imaginary universe of her novel. So under the
increasing yoke of tyranny, the most independent minds, like her heroes (John
Galt, Francisco, Ragner Danneskjold, Ellis Wyatt, Hank Reardan etc) choose to
defend their liberty in the most effective manner-they strike-withdraw from
society. I hope the picture shown by Rand must be a little different from the then real
world’s, and then, it’s a fiction representing Utopian and/or Dystopian biases
of the author.
Now Objectivism-a
philosophy, I think, that is hard to apply fully in present days’ common
life-way too selfish, an uncompromising defense of mind, of individualism and
of Capitalism (I don’t support pure Capitalism, but Mixed Economy). But Rand
has dramatized her philosophy with the help of her extraordinary heroes, made
it convincing and appealing to the youth in her magnum opus. Well, what’s good
for you in this book-it’s up to you to choose wisely.
Atlas
Shrugged has been controversial since its publication in 1957, intellectuals
and critics denounce it. I am of the view that it is written out of hate and as
a revenge for communism, still I liked this book- first of all for, “In The
Name of The Best Within Us”, for an interesting story mingled with good
romance, suspense for “Who is John Galt”, its inspiration to think more
rationally, integrity of character, and for its seductiveness (I never found
any novel so compelling). There are many things to dislike as well.
Nevertheless, Atlas Shrugged has influenced and made a difference in million
people’s life. Its impact on contemporary libertarian thought has been
considerable.
Rating- 5/5
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