I went into reading Atlas Shrugged with my eyes wide open, knowing that it was Ayn Rand’s epistle for her coined philosophical view called Objectivism, ”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 as his only absolute.”
A quote from the book does a pretty good job of summarizing.
“For centuries, the battle of morality was fought between those who claimed that your life belongs to God and those who claimed that it belongs to your neighbors–between those who preached that the good is self-sacrifice for the sake of ghosts in heaven and those who preached that the good is self-sacrifice for the sake of incompetents on earth. And no one came to say that your life belongs to you and that the good is to live it.” – From Atlas Shrugged
As a Christian it’s not a world-view or a philosophy I agree with, but there are some remarkable insights that do ring true as commentary on our current culture and state of affairs. I wrote about this in a previous blog post.
Even though the book is a monster (1100 pages) the story itself is pretty compelling. What happens when the “creators” in the world get tired of being vilified and taken advantage of by the “moochers” and decide they had enough? What happens when those holding up the world, society, and progress (Atlas) decide they are done, just stop (shrug) and disappear?
As a piece of literature I found the writing to be fluid and lively except for the pages and pages of speeches given by the protagonist, John Gault. Although I did read every word of the speeches I found myself wishing that the speaker would just get on with it. Those bits are like reading Leviticus and Numbers from the Bible. You kind of want to skip them but you know you shouldn’t and feel like you may miss something if you do.
In a nutshell this book will challenge your view of God, humanity, entitlements, and whatever other beliefs you already hold. Like most literature that shapes ideas, you have to enter this book with your critical thinking and reasoning skills on high alert. Why? There is a lot of rational thought in Rand’s magnum opus. Who can argue that “The most depraved type of human being … (is) the man without a purpose.”
Be warned, this book will affect your presumptions, your mood for a few weeks (yes, you will likely be grumpy while reading), and your world-view.
So, why did I read this book when I knew it would challenge so much of what I believe? Well, I’m tired of people who ascribe to my worldview (Christianity) and literally have no clue what other worldviews exist. I realized that I have purposefully sheltered myself because of fear that my faith will not hold up. That my wordview is not strong enough against all the others in the world. Instead of sitting in a posture of fear I decided I truly want to know what shapes thought of my fellow-man. (For myself, I can happily say that my faith in Jesus Christ was not swayed. My worldview is firm. I have not adopted Objectivism as my philosophy on the purpose of life and man. So, yeah me!)
Conclusion? Although painful at times, it was certainly fun wrestling and plowing through Atlas Shrugged. It’s not for everyone. If you do choose to pick it up give yourself about three months for the reading. Also, go in with your eyes wide open. If you don’t it will shake you up and possibly leave you a bit dazed and confused. It’s heady stuff.
The Inarticulate Man
