I'm twice defeated. I really really need something to read.

I abandoned A Million Little Pieces. Man, did that book suck! It’s about a guy who keeps throwing up and fighting with people. Now, I’m quitting Atlas Shrugged, despite a good start.

I had forgotten: The Fountainhead had profoundly influenced the way I thought as a teenager. I read it in school at the age of 16. The Ayn Rand Institute gives free copies to high school teachers as a way to keep Rand’s philosophy top of mind. I thought it was interesting when I read this NYtimes article: that the writer hadn’t connected the lead paragraph which says Atlas Shrugged ranks 388 on the Amazon best seller list with a much lower paragraph which states that the ARI buys and distributes 400,000 copies each year. 400,000 copies would certainly up the ranking. Political organizations often buy their own books to up the ranking.

Originally, I had written about how I was enjoying Atlas Shrugged. But 600 pages later, I had to abandon it. I made it almost to page 800, and it became too laborious. It had become cumbersome about 400 pages earlier, but I wasn’t completely turned off, but now it’s too much. Her characters are so uninteresting and unhappy – she says they’re happy, but never describes them as happy. But mostly, it’s a boring story.

There were things that kept my interest early on. Some of her antagonists were familiar to me – the world is full of useless people harping on their needs, but these are mostly peers, none of them are truly needy. Also, the book is science fiction. It takes place hundreds of years in the future, as surmised to mention of technologies lost ‘generations’ ago, and the fact that every country except America is called People’s Republic of….. Also, there seems to be no threat of war. This setting makes the characters completely unrealistic behaviors and unfamiliar tropes seem part of this future world, but she really goes lord knows where with the story.

Rand seems to think need is amorphous, as though someone can ‘need’ a yacht, but I think basic needs are fairly obvious – food, shelter, safety, healthcare. I think that’s about it. A moral society can see to it that those things are available without crippling everyone. Beyond that, she seems to paint a picture that if people were all purposeful in their activities, there would be plenty to go around for everyone. In her utopia, basic goods are exceedingly inexpensive.

Someone on TAB’s blog said her followers often have a ‘piss off’ attitude towards people who are unable to take care of themselves. But Rand does mention them with pity. It’s people who are unwilling to take care of themselves who she opposes.

I'm familiar with what her followers believe, and frankly, I'm fascinated. Because, they apparently didn't read the same book I was (quit today approaching 800 pages). For example Alan Greenspan was noted as a big fan of hers. Yet, the Utopian society touched on in Atlas Shrugged ran on the gold standard. Greenspan was the head of the Federal Reserve. the Fed is the organization that the use of the gold standard was meant to criticize. He would be analagous to Robert Stadler, the physics professor who was hated by the heros of atlas shrugged (They often 'shudder' at the thought of him. ) Stadler was hated because he used his genius for a government agency rather than the private sector. Greenspan's life was dedicated to supporting an organization that was contrary to Rand's philosophy as well.

Homelessness and basic needs are clearly used as a scourge in Atlas Shrugged to illustrate how government regulations hurt society - To illustrate the greatness of free markets, she uses common social problems as examples of how the world is hurt when free markets are constricted. If one could morally say 'piss off, too bad' to people living in dilapidated or subhuman conditions the book wouldn't make any sense.

Rand barely mentions truly needy individuals, instead, focusing on manipulatively 'needy' individuals - "I 'need' price controls so my business can compete". Those are the bad guys, and their actions make life worse for the truly needy. For example, without electricity to power a town, there would be no hospitals. Most homeless guys in the book are former workers who lost their jobs when the industrialists were squeezed out.

As a reality check, all the great industrialists, J. Paul Getty, Henry Ford, et. al - the real life versions of the characters in Atlas Shrugged - used their fortunes as the engines of the country's largest philanthropic foundations, which exist to provide funds for non-market entities.

I'm not even defending her philosophy, just clarifying it because, it does seem as though Randites preach evil in her name. It is forcing people to help you in the name of 'helping others' that she objects to, not helping others on one's own. Idle chatter and purposeless behaviors are what she opposes, not trying to survive.