Oh, Ms. Rand…
I am on page 154 of your book thus far, and here are a few comments. I will lay them out in the form of an email I typed to a fellow blogger, Sarah of Two-Headed Blog, who blogged her way through Atlas in 2008, just as I am doing now. Here is a link to the first entry Sarah wrote while reading the book. It’s called Blogging the Atlas.
After reading to almost the point in Atlas Shrugged that Sarah was at when she wrote the entry above, I decided to read her detailed thoughts on the book thus far. Afterward, I sent her the following email, which sums up my thoughts as concisely as possible (I could write so much more):
Sarah,
I just read your first blog entry on Atlas Shrugged where you were about as far in the book as I am now (I don’t want to read your thoughts ahead of my own while wading through the book), I have to say that I find hardly anything I disagree with you on. I think your analysis was very well written and I greatly appreciated the brutal honesty that came with reevaluating your own views in light of Rand’s ideas.
I, too, think that Rand brings some very good points to light in the book so far. The biggest impact to me so far has actually been that the book has been really inspiring. I mean in the sense that it makes me actually want to ascribe to her Nietzsche-esque “uberman/superman/hero” ideal and go out and PRODUCE SOMETHING. I find something inspiring in her exultation of the highly achieving individual. It makes me want to try to BE more of that myself.
My main critique comes from the fact that the people and situations in her invented world DO NOT exist in reality. She writes straw man arguments and characters and then tears them down with the utmost of ease. She writes wooden caricatures, not characters. No one exists like that in real life — either on the extreme idol-worship “producer” side, or on the bumbling bureaucratic “everything is for the public good” moocher/looter type. Her black and white categorical morality gets really old really fast. In her world there is no room for gray areas, utilitarianism (of even the most modest kind), democracy, compromise, or even complexities. She sees everything as very simple.
But that’s just not how the *real* world works.
Despite myself, I really enjoy the book as a work of thoughtful fiction. However, I still can not comprehend why so many people find this thing to be soooooo freaking compelling that they would change their entire worldview based on one reading. The dialogue reads like it was written by a robot. One wonders if she ever had a conversation with an actual human being in her life. But perhaps the wooden caricatures and dialogue can partially be explained by her acquisition of English as a second language???
Plus the rampant misogyny bothers me… a lot. Ayn Rand… a self loathing woman? I vote yes. She REALLY had a thing for being dominated. She was obsessed with the inherent “superiority” (not just her preference) of male domination in the sex act and in relationships in general. It’s a little unnerving.
I look forward to reading your subsequent posts as I plow my way through this behemoth of a book.
Faithfully trudging along,
Kathy
A part of Sarah’s reply to me was as follows:
I’m the same way…I hate to read what other people have written about something before I’ve read it myself.I had the same reaction you describe (feeling “inspired”). It really boosted my work ethic for awhile, and made me want to feel joy in the act of working and being productive. I also agree with your straw man criticism. She is very black and white, and I remember having the thought that in a perfect world, she may be right about some of this stuff…but it’s soooo not that perfect world.
Weirdly though, I don’t recall being quite so struck by the misogyny. I may have cut her some slack, and chalked it up to her being a product of her time. Although, since you’ve mentioned it, I agree it’s appalling.
I’m anxious to hear your thoughts as you read on.
Regarding Ayn Rand and her warped sense of superiority/inferiority as it relates to the male/female sex act, I don’t think I could say it better than Robert M. Slade did in 1998:
Both family and sexuality are rather hideously portrayed. First, is it ridiculous to call a woman a misogynist? Rand seems to rail against the “keep ‘em barefoot, pregnant, and in the kitchen” mentality, but also manages to put women very firmly in a subordinate position. Sexual activity (tame as it is) seems to be more of an “acquiescence to rape” than any kind of romance. (One also suspects that Rand was into bondage, considering a great many of the descriptions and comments.)
Marriage vows in an objectivist church would probably run along the lines of “Do you promise to attempt to dominate and subdue this woman until such time as you grow bored?” “Maybe.” “Close enough. And do you promise to applaud this man`s production until such time as you find someone with a bigger … corporation?” “Whatever.” “By the power vested in me by having scammed you guys out of a marriage license fee, I now pronounce you man and appendage. May you be unencumbered by small persons.”
There are many quotes throughout Atlas Shrugged along those lines:
Hank Reardon (a hero protagonist) reflecting on his wife, “She seemed to be a woman who expected and deserved a pedestal; this made him want to drag her down to his bed. To drag her down, were the words in his mind; they gave him a dark pleasure, the sense of a victory worth winning … He felt – a profound pride at the thought of granting to a woman the title of his wife … almost as if he felt that he wished to honor a woman by the act of possessing her.”
Yes, posessing her. As in owning her.
And perhaps the most telling quote of all so far comes from another hero protagonist:
Francisco d’Anconia, speaking to Dagny Taggart: “I wish I could tell you what a relief it is to see a face that’s intelligent though a woman’s.”
That statement is rampant with subtext! I suppose Rand believes intelligent women are so few and far between that it is worth commenting on. I could forgive Rand for this due to the time she was writing in, but she created an entire world right out of thin air for her books. Rand’s New York City never existed. People like the characters in her novels never existed. Thus she could have written anything she wanted regarding the roles and propensities of women in her made up world. It simply appears that Ms. Rand had such a low opinion of women in the real world that this animosity naturally bled over into her writing. In The Fountainhead and Atlas Shrugged both, the “strong” intelligent female protagonist desires nothing more sexually than to be violently dominated by (and even subservient to) “the right kind of man.” At one point in Atlas, Dagny tells her mocking brother that the reason she hasn’t shined Francisco d’Anconia’s shoes is simply because he hasn’t asked her to.
Ayn Rand as feminist? Um, no. Ayn Rand as misogynist? I’m leaning heavily that way.
February 5, 2010 at 11:30 pm
As someone else who has read works of Rand, I can’t say I disagree too much with what you have written, but I have a few addenda, so to speak.
One is that I think (especially after a marathon viewing of the first 3 seasons of Mad Men) that her view of women was largely a product of her time. To draw a parallel to that show, it starts out seeming grossly misogynistic, but it evolves into more of a “making the best of the world they’re in” situation or perhaps taking small steps rather than trying to flip society in one fell swoop. This argument definitely applies MUCH more to Mad Men than to Atlas Shrugged, but it’s really difficult to see how radical it would be back then to make assertions that seem very tame or even downright backward now. In those days, being “taken” by a man was still the way to describe having a passionate experience, regardless of the context. I’ll try not to spoil anything, but later in the book you can see the same language being used in a different context with a more positive connotation. I can definitely say as a relatively intellectual male these days, the idea of a “victory worth winning” is still very real in terms of dating. It’s the difference between being with someone you respect versus someone you can con into sleeping with you. I don’t think she’s really gotten to it at the point you’re at, but she’ll distinguish that more later. The ideas of Rand being into BDSM on at least some level are spot on, though.
Also, Reardon is actually saying all those things about his wife in a derogatory (but not really misogynistic) way, though. Rand’s point in explaining it as such, in my opinion, is that his wife is the trophy wife of that time. His pride in “dragging her down” is actually orthogonal to his objectivism; he is getting pride out of impressing her with his success despite his disrespect for society’s (and her) way of life. He feels she is one of the members of society that is standing in the way of his (and Rand’s) ideal, so his only joy in their relationship is related to his relative ease of securing her as somewhat of a cover to allow him to actually do his business without being bothered as much by trivial society.
With all that said, The Fountainhead is much better. It gives you the same sense of inspiration and makes all of her points in 3-400 fewer pages than Atlas Shrugged, and I feel that the underlying story is more compelling as well (architects vs. trains, but that’s mostly inconsequential). I read The Fountainhead first, and I found Atlas Shrugged to be mostly unbearable comparatively, but I would definitely recommend The Fountainhead to anyone who finds anything remotely interesting in Atlas Shrugged.
February 6, 2010 at 5:50 am
Interesting. Thanks so much for your comments! I definitely look forward to later in the book where the same language is used in a more positive connotation. I’m nearly halfway through now, and I wrote this post at about the 1/4 point. However, just a few pages ago, I read a line where Dagny says explicitly, almost word for word, that her most proud achievement in life is to have been made into a luxury item for Hank’s enjoyment. I’m reading very slowly, as I now have schoolwork to balance as well.
Additionally, in an Ayn Rand Q&A book, I recall her specifically answering the question that she believes males to be the superior sex (her words), at least sexually… that was the little caveat she added to make her comments sound less detestable. From reading multiple books by her now, and from watching multiple interviews of her, I have found that she had an extreme obsession with a sort of superior/inferior dichotomy… even going so far as to apply it to people. Some people are just, well, elite, by virtue of their superior minds, competency, and producing capabilities. Everyone else (the “masses/moochers/looters”) could just go to some sort of metaphorical hell.
I did read The Fountainhead in full, about 3-4 years ago. I found it to have a much more narrow scope, where it was focused more on the triumph of the truly radically individualized hero… Whereas Atlas Shrugged focuses more on broad-scale economic and philosophical issues. Yes, both books were her attempts at putting her “philosophy” of objectivism into fictionalized form, but Atlas Shrugged is the more broader-scoped book considered to be her magnum opus. It is the book that has been strongly recommended to me by objectivists, libertarians, and anarcho-capitalists innumerable… time and time again. And unfortunately I know a lot of these people. (A.R.A.s would be the more derogatory term for them, but I’m not going to go there).
I really appreciate your insight.
February 6, 2010 at 10:31 pm
I’ve also heard many people (including Rand herself) say that Atlas Shrugged is the pinnacle of her work to which everything else she wrote was leading. While I enjoyed reading both novels (and various other essays of hers), I’m definitely not completely onboard with objectivism, and I have most of the same criticisms you mention about it. Maybe that’s why I thought The Fountainhead was much, much better than Atlas Shrugged, but most of the people I’m actually close to that have read at least some of each also agree that The Fountainhead is superior.
I also think that both still ultimately have the same overall thesis tying back to objectivism as a whole, and while Atlas Shrugged has a bit more of a grandiose scope, it’s still essentially the elite few individuals doing things in contrast to the rest of society, so the difference in scope felt more like a narrative choice rather than an actually different point to get across.
As far as the misogyny/domination issues, I may be giving her more benefit of the doubt than I should, but it seems reasonable to me that the scope of the “superior sex” business is limited to sexuality. I would actually think it would be in stark contrast (but not impossible, definitely) to objectivism if she thought there was some inherent difference in worth based solely on the gender you were born.
March 8, 2011 at 10:34 pm
You know what people – instead of branding Ayn as a proponent lecturing on impracticality in the ‘real world’ and as a misogynist, take a look at your world. Reality is what you make out of life, not what any x, y, z tells you OR what others live as! What she explains in the books is ‘HOW a MAN should LIVE’, not ‘how men live’! Because you do not have the courage to live life on those strict ‘white’ terms, you cast life into grey shades. And for that ‘beautiful’ marriage vow ceremony, I must applaud: Because you did not have any idea on what was being explained in Readen’s thought process and Francisco’s declaration, ‘misogamy’ popped into your heads. This is the way people of virtues respect ‘LOVE’ and ‘SEX’: a thing to be owned, conquered, lived; not a worthless emotional expenditure OR the drudgery of meaningless motions and fake orgasms.