# Ayn Rand **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [June 24, 2000, 5:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ayn-rand/23412 "2000-06-24T17:49:49Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Boris\_B](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/fbc32d/32.png) [@Boris\_B](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Boris_B)\ **Post date:** [June 27, 2000, 3:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ayn-rand/23412/21 "2000-06-27T15:51:00Z")
_1984_ and THX-1138. They’re pretty obvious but I guess I ignored them since it never occurred to me to compare Rand to anyone else. Except Nietzsche. She doesn’t fair well under that comparison. But anyway, here’s my list of stuff I want y’all to compare: _Anthem_, Ayn Rand _1984_, George Orwell _THX-1138_, Jar-Jar Lucas _Fahrenheit 451_, Ray Bradbury _Brave New World_, Aldous Huxley _The Time Machine_, H.G. Wells _2112_, Rush (one of these sides is a theme-half-album … side 1 IIRC) Anyway, it looks like H.G. Wells gets a prize for being flattered a lot. But maybe it’s all just a metaphor for the life of Socrates. Anyway, in order to get your _Anthem_ name, just distill your state’s motto down to one word, and follow it up with your birth day and year in four-digit form. So, if you were born on April 14, 1980, and you live in New Hampshire, your _Anthem_ name is Liberty 1380. ---
**Author:** ![Edward\_The\_Head](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/ce73a5/32.png) [@Edward\_The\_Head](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Edward_The_Head)\ **Post date:** [June 27, 2000, 7:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ayn-rand/23412/22 "2000-06-27T19:38:17Z")
jayron 32 wrote: “Read 1984 instead of this blatant ripoff” opps Anthem was written in 38 while 1984 was written in 49. at least by the websites that I looked at for original dates. Anthem was published much later in the US though because US publishers wouldn’t publish it. I personally wouldn’t watch “the fountainhead” the movie again as it really didn’t pull the best parts out of the book. My personally favs are Anthem, The Fountainhead, Atlas Shrugged then We the Living, in that order. Since I seem to be in the minority here, go figure, I’ll give my little spur on Rand. I first read her after I graduated from college and it was pretty much the same philosiphy that I had but it was the first time that I had ever heard or read anyone who had anywhere near the same thoughts. I never agreed with all of her thoughts or beliefs but I did with most of them and still do. Unlike what I’ve seen with the rest of the responces here who either read the cliff notes or skimmed her books I take what I like and forget the rest. what would happen though if Atlas Shruged now? what whould happen if Gates closed up shop because he was so pissed. you’d be stuck with what you have now. or if the tobacco said fine you don’t like tobacco well just shut down then. I’d think it’d be pretty intersting then. ---
**Author:** ![FreakFreely](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/48db29/32.png) [@FreakFreely](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FreakFreely)\ **Post date:** [June 27, 2000, 8:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ayn-rand/23412/23 "2000-06-27T20:10:54Z")
I think anybody who likes Kurt Vonnegut Jr. (as I do) pretty much **has** to hate Ayn Rand. Otherwise you’re just not paying attention! ---
**Author:** ![Kakkerlak](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/bb73d2/32.png) [@Kakkerlak](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kakkerlak)\ **Post date:** [June 28, 2000, 8:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ayn-rand/23412/24 "2000-06-28T08:03:22Z")
IMHO, folks who dismiss Rand as juvenile aren’t reading very hard. True, I read it first as a 17-year-old steelworker and immediately started picking fights with the union leadman. But if you don’t hear her echoes of the “second-raters” echoing through the modern Justice Department, you’re not listening. Sure, she’s over the top. Sure, she’s black and white. Rememeber the Bolsheviks stole everything her family had. But if you don’t feel a stirring of indignation when Orren Boyle strongarms the government into making Hank Rearden sign a “Gift Declaration” turning over his invention to the national interest, you’ve never created anything of your own and had somebody else take the credit. She’s an important thinker. Don’t dismiss her just because you can see past her plot devices. And yes, I read Vonnegut and Robbins. Roachman ---
**Author:** ![JeffB](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jeffb/32/188_2.png) [@JeffB](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JeffB)\ **Post date:** [June 28, 2000, 1:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ayn-rand/23412/25 "2000-06-28T13:04:43Z")
I have to agree with Roachman not to dismiss Rand to quickly. Even though I may not agree with her on a lot of issues, she has been an important influence in 20th century thinking. Reading a wide range of opinions, evens ones your think are idiotic, can be a valuable experience. I read _The Fountainhead_ first, and I think this is the best place to start. _Atlas Shrugged_ is much more difficult to get through, especially the “John Galt Speaks” diatribe. As **aseymayo** says, feel free to skip it. I enjoyed _Anthem_, but then I’m a big fan of dystopia literature. [slight hijack] **Boris B** posted a good list of dystopia books. One more I want to add is _We_ by Yvegeny Zamyatin, written in 1920-21. [end slight hijack] ---
**Author:** ![August\_West](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/august_west/32/18069_2.png) [@August\_West](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/August_West)\ **Post date:** [June 29, 2000, 3:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ayn-rand/23412/26 "2000-06-29T03:04:19Z")
When I was young I read Marx and Engels…then I grew up. _Atlas Shrugged_ changed my life, even if I did skip most of John Galt Speaks the first time I read it. I would recommend reading The Fountainhead first. A great story with great characters. Anyone that compares Ayn Rand’s work to Jackie Collins is delusional, Ayn Rand does not write smarmy,low-brow,tittilating fluff. ---
**Author:** ![Olentzero](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/90ced4/32.png) [@Olentzero](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Olentzero)\ **Post date:** [June 29, 2000, 2:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ayn-rand/23412/27 "2000-06-29T14:36:39Z")
Read plenty of Marx and Engels, Lenin and Trotsky, never touched Rand. Guess I haven’t grown up yet. From what I understand of her writing, however, and this is extremely nebulous, is that she confuses social planning, coordination, and effort with peer pressure. [/end pithy comments] You want a glimpse into how the real world works, go find _Teamster Rebellion_ by Farrell Dobbs. 1934 Minneapolis Truckers’ strike. Great stuff. ---
**Author:** ![ren](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/ed655f/32.png) [@ren](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ren)\ **Post date:** [June 29, 2000, 9:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ayn-rand/23412/28 "2000-06-29T21:53:32Z")
Novels: _A Prayer for Leibowitz_ (sp?) by Walter M. Miller Jr. Novellas, short stories: _The Machine Stops_ E.M. Forster (truly amazing) _Twilight_ John Campbell _E For Effort_ T.L. Sherred (sp?) Collections: Lots of stories in _Dangerous Visions_ and _Again, Dangerous Visions_ edited by Harlan Ellison As for Rand, ever since the Simpson’s episode with the Objectivist School (Alphabet Primer: “A is for A. B is for B.” I can’t think of her and not laugh. ---
**Author:** ![tracer](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tracer/32/20578_2.png) [@tracer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tracer)\ **Post date:** [June 30, 2000, 1:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ayn-rand/23412/29 "2000-06-30T01:26:26Z")
ren wrote: > [@](#): > > _A Prayer for Leibowitz_ (sp?) by Walter M. Miller Jr. Close. It’s _A **Canticle** for Leibowitz_. Since it’s a post-nuclear-war novel, my undergraduate Science Fiction Literature professor put it on par with another book he was ga-ga over, Russel J. Hoban’s _Riddley Walker_. (At least _A Canticle for Leibowitz_ is written in modern English. _Riddley Walker_ is written in a language the author **thinks** English will evolve into in 2400 years.) > [@](#): > > As for Rand, ever since the Simpson’s episode with the Objectivist School (Alphabet Primer: “A is for A. B is for B.” I can’t think of her and not laugh. Actually, the alphabet-primer quote on the wall read, simply, “A is A.” Which was the central tenet of John Galt’s speech. I also remember the schoolmarm saying, “The babies get no bottles. We believe in nurturing the bottle within.” I subsequently read both _Atlas Shrugged_ and _The Fountainhead_, and I still don’t know where that notion is from. ---
**Author:** ![ren](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/ed655f/32.png) [@ren](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ren)\ **Post date:** [June 30, 2000, 1:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ayn-rand/23412/30 "2000-06-30T01:54:13Z")
> [@](#): > > Close. It’s _A **Canticle** for Leibowitz_. Doh! I own the freakin’ book, you’d think I could remember that. Guess the parts need oilin’. ---
**Author:** ![Boris\_B](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/fbc32d/32.png) [@Boris\_B](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Boris_B)\ **Post date:** [June 30, 2000, 3:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ayn-rand/23412/31 "2000-06-30T15:46:48Z")
I am amused that Bill Gates’ name came up in this thread. As distant as I am from Rand’s philosophy, I don’t believe that she considered money-making to be synonymous with talent. Do you people really believe that Bill Gates is good at anything other than filling his own pockets? Have you ever used any of his products? I should probably let this one go, but it’s still hard for me to believe that anyone who had been exposed to a reasonable _variety_ of software would consider Gates to be good at what he ostensibly does (Money Maker not being his official job title). Millions of computer operators pray every day that he will shrug. Poor little Bill. ---
**Author:** ![Phobos](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/3d9bf3/32.png) [@Phobos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Phobos)\ **Post date:** [June 30, 2000, 5:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ayn-rand/23412/32 "2000-06-30T17:40:26Z")
Anthem is a quick read…if you like that, then try The Fountainhead. These were good novels. Atlas Shrugged was ok, but it was more of a philosophical discussion in the guise of a fiction novel (and I didn’t like the story or characters as much as in the Fountainhead). You can get a better view of the Objectivist philosophy from her non-fiction books. Like others here, I was into this during college but have since moved on. ---
**Author:** ![Nika](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/ba9def/32.png) [@Nika](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nika)\ **Post date:** [June 30, 2000, 6:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ayn-rand/23412/33 "2000-06-30T18:20:29Z")
I would definately suggest you read her. But be aware of what you are reading. She has a lot of very opinionated ideas, and you need to be ready for them. I would suggest The Fountainhead. Atlas Shrugged was good, but it takes a long time to get into. Good luck with it. ---
**Author:** ![Hello\_Again](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/85e7bf/32.png) [@Hello\_Again](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hello_Again)\ **Post date:** [June 30, 2000, 9:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ayn-rand/23412/34 "2000-06-30T21:22:54Z")
Stay away from “We the Living.” It is absurdly lurid, vapid bloated prose. example: (If I recall correctly) 2 characters get decapitated or dismembered by the tram (aiiiii). And this she calls a plot? in my high school lit class many moons ago we nicknamed it “Passion and the Proletariat” and took turned imagining bodice-ripper covers for it. bleh. I was too burned by that experience to ever take up one of her books again… but from what I understand, “The Fountainhead” is considered her most worthy book. ---
**Author:** ![frodosteve](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/e19adc/32.png) [@frodosteve](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/frodosteve)\ **Post date:** [July 5, 2000, 1:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ayn-rand/23412/35 "2000-07-05T01:03:28Z")
I would like to thank everyone who submitted advice. I will check back again periodically to see if there are any additional posts. I was surprised to hear so many negative comments, but I certainly appreciate the info. Also, I did not know about Anthem. I assumed it was a choice between The Fountainhead and Atlas Shrugged. I might just give a shot at Anthem and see if I like it. ``` - Stephen ``` ---
**Author:** ![Derleth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b9e5f3/32.png) [@Derleth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Derleth)\ **Post date:** [July 10, 2000, 7:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ayn-rand/23412/36 "2000-07-10T07:18:38Z")
Don’t read Rand looking for fiction, _per se_. She is, foremost, a philosopher and a political thinker. Her views are worth explaining here. [ul] [li]“Nature, to be commanded, must be obeyed.”[/li][li]“You can’t eat your cake and have it, too.”[/li][li]“Man is an end in himself.”[/li][li]“Give me liberty or give me death.”[/li][/ul] What all this means is that reality _is_ and that no amount of whining and whimpering can make it _not be_. It says that individuals must live life knowing that there is no external being to pin responsibility on. It is an atheistic philosophy, as it emphasizes reality over wishes. Reality holds sway even when we don’t want it to, even when it would be morally wrong for it to. Objectivism is, really, about living life without excuses or whining. Go here to get some good views on Objectivism: [http://www.aynrand.org/objectivism/essentials.html](http://www.aynrand.org/objectivism/essentials.html) Perhaps so many people here don’t like Rand because the internet, and American media as a whole, tends to default to a kind of ‘limosine liberalism’ that depicts conservatives or realists as either cornball or dangerous and advocates mindless social reforms with no long-term planning. I’ll get off my soapbox now and let the debte continue. ---
**Author:** ![oldscratch](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/ed655f/32.png) [@oldscratch](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/oldscratch)\ **Post date:** [July 12, 2000, 5:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ayn-rand/23412/37 "2000-07-12T17:54:32Z")
Did anyone see the ChickenFucker south park episode? It had one of the funniest Ayn Rand momments. After Officer Barbrady learns to read he is given a copy of Atlas Shrugged. At the end of the show he gives this speech about how he learned to read and then he wa given this pile of crap and he will never read again. Reading sucks. It’s pretty funny for all the Ayn Rand dislikers out there. ---
**Author:** ![Maeglin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/8baadc/32.png) [@Maeglin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Maeglin)\ **Post date:** [July 12, 2000, 8:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ayn-rand/23412/38 "2000-07-12T20:44:07Z")
**SuaSponte** summed it up perfectly. I guess I was a Randroid growing up. I loved her vitriol and the way she dispensed with the idiotic dogmatism of others. But Objectivists tended to be as dogmatic as their foes. Anyway, she does exert tremendous influence nowadays. I think it is a little-known fact that Alan Greenspan was a member of her philosophical inner circle some thirty years ago. Anyone think he has changed? \ MR ---
**Author:** ![hansel](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/6bbea6/32.png) [@hansel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/hansel)\ **Post date:** [July 12, 2000, 11:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ayn-rand/23412/39 "2000-07-12T23:59:57Z")
In defense of Rand’s ridiculously radical individualist/objectivist writings, she was publishing at the time when communism was a fashionable cause, even though the atrocities of Stalin’s Russia were coming to be known. She’d be dismissed as a complete loon today (I doubt she’s still as influential as Maeglin thinks - I’d think that Greenspan’s role in the economy would be almost antithetical to objectivism, not to mention working under a democratic administration). ---
**Author:** ![wevets](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/e9a140/32.png) [@wevets](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wevets)\ **Post date:** [July 13, 2000, 12:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ayn-rand/23412/40 "2000-07-13T00:25:04Z")
I read _The Fountainhead_ first and rather liked it, aside from all the melodrama and poorly made wicker men (even less sturdy than the more famous straw men). A couple years later I had to make a long drive, so I decided I’d listen to the audio version of _Atlas Shrugged_… Aargh! It was 7 or 8 hours of listening! (and keep in mind that audio versions are usually abridged) I don’t think I’ll ever pick up anything by Rand again. My advice: don’t start with _Atlas Shrugged_ unless you also want to end with it. Derleth is right. Although I’m not a supporter of Rand’s ideas by any stretch, she should be read as philosophy and not as fiction. The novels are just another vehicle for her philosophy. I guess you either love Rand or hate it. Just don’t let anyone else make up your mind about it for you. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ayn-rand/23412.md?page=1)