Wednesday, October 06, 2010

Ayn Rand and Atlas Shrugged: A Critique

John Scalzi has written one of the best reviews (and one of the most hilarious) of Ayn Rand's magnus opus that I have seen to date. At least it's one of the best reviews that loosely reflects some of my own criticisms (which are albeit more seriously-expressed criticisms). I have to say I just fell out of my chair in stiches when I read this one paragraph summary of that long, long, long book:

That said, it’s a totally ridiculous book which can be summed up as Sociopathic idealized nerds collapse society because they don’t get enough hugs. (This is, incidentally, where you can start your popcorn munching.) Indeed, the enduring popularity of Atlas Shrugged lies in the fact that it is nerd revenge porn — if you’re an nerd of an engineering-ish stripe who remembers all too well being slammed into your locker by a bunch of football dickheads, then the idea that people like you could make all those dickheads suffer by “going Galt” has a direct line to the pleasure centers of your brain. I’ll show you! the nerds imagine themselves crying. I’ll show you all! And then they disappear into a crevasse that Google Maps will not show because the Google people are our kind of people, and a year later they come out and everyone who was ever mean to them will have starved. Then these nerds can begin again, presumably with the help of robots, because any child in the post-Atlas Shrugged world who can’t figure out how to run a smelter within ten minutes of being pushed through the birth canal will be left out for the coyotes. Which if nothing else solves the problem of day care.
He then goes on to call the John Galt character a "genocidal prick" (and this is a more trenchant and pointed way of making the point that undergirds a bit of my criticism about the book and the philosophy behind it):
All of this is fine, if one recognizes that the idealized world Ayn Rand has created to facilitate her wishful theorizing has no more logical connection to our real one than a world in which an author has imagined humanity ruled by intelligent cups of yogurt. This is most obviously revealed by the fact that in Ayn Rand’s world, a man who self-righteously instigates the collapse of society, thereby inevitably killing millions if not billions of people, is portrayed as a messiah figure rather than as a genocidal prick, which is what he’d be anywhere else. Yes, he’s a genocidal prick with excellent engineering skills. Good for him. He’s still a genocidal prick. Indeed, if John Galt were portrayed as an intelligent cup of yogurt rather than poured into human form, this would be obvious. Oh my god, that cup of yogurt wants to kill most of humanity to make a philosophical point! Somebody eat him quick! And that would be that.
Hilarious! And rather on the money, if you ask me. You have to read the whole thing.

11 comments:

Maitri said...

If one actually manages to read Atlas Shrugged all the way to the last third which describes life in Galt's Gulch, it very much resembles an intellectually-liberated commune where folks operate on the barter system. I give you veggies in return for fish and then I trade that for services. It's not a bad way of life and actually what happens in many parts of rural America.

eric said...

But let us not forget, out of the entire catalouge of books that have been published in the history of the world, Mr. Huck put Atlas Shrugged as #9 on his list of "10 Books Girls Should Read Before Age 18".

http://huckupchuck.blogspot.com/2009/08/10-books-girls-should-read-before-age.html

So it can't be all bad.
;-)

Huck said...

True, true, Eric. And I stand by that. Even in my critique of the book, I recognized that there are some positive messages about individual initiative and resourcefulness that are worth hearing. And especially for young women, the character of Dagny Taggart offers a strong female role model that I think has much merit. But that does nothing to diminish my overall criticism of the "Objectivist" philosophy undergirding the book; and it certainly doesn't diminish the clever and side-splitting hilarity of Scalzi's review. You have to admit that the "nerd revenge porn" and "cup of yogurt" bits are pure comic genius! :)

Huck said...

Maitri - Good point! But we maybe need to keep this hippie barter "communalism" interpretation (if not "communism" interpretation) on the Galt's Gulch representation quiet. It might give aneurysms to Randian Objectivist true believers! And we wouldn't want to sacrifice our altrustic compassion even for the lives of the true believers, now, would we? :)

eric said...

As for Scalzi's review, it was pretty funny but also bereft of intellectually engaging critique.... sort of the kind of review you'd expect from John Stewart.

The thing I find most interesting about his review is that after he chides Rand for creating a world with a false metaphorical moral dichotomy, he immediately makes an argument for John Galt having chosen the wrong side. Even though he wants to deny that Rand was describing a real socio-political phenomenon, he can't help but to make an argument that John Galt was wrong for with-holding his talent from people who wanted to lay claim to it without his permission, which of course was the very conundrum Rand was trying to illustrate.
Intellectually, Scalzi comes off sounding a lot like one of Rand's hollow-headed villians from Atlas Shrugged!

eric said...

There is an actual phenomenon of objectivist minded people dropping out of greater society and forming communities loosely based on Galt's Gulch. These folks are known as Gulchers. I have talked to some of them before (a group actually approached me because their community was looking for a computer network administrator) and you'd be surprised (or maybe not) by just how much they come off like commune hippies. It was actually their rules about contact w/ the outside world that turned me off from their sales pitch. Very authoritarian in that regard, but mostly because I'm pretty sure they are breaking about 100 different tax laws.

Huck said...

I mostly agree, Eric, that the review comes across in the way you note. I think Scalzi intended it to be that way. But I don't think it was completely devoid of an intellectually engaging critique. If you read between the snarky humor, there is the very solid (in my mind, at least) criticism of the binary nature of good versus evil without any consideration of the fact that Galt's essentially "anti-social" call for withdrawing his talent not just from those who would take it without his permission, but without even a consideration of its impact on the lives of those honest, hard-working, but less talented or competent than he, demonstrates a less-than-heroic selfishness that is posed as virtuous. The knowing sacrifice of millions of innocent lives as part of what Scalzi calls a "nerd revenge" against the blood-sucking meanies is not truly virtuous. How can it be?

Huck said...

"It was actually their rules about contact w/ the outside world that turned me off from their sales pitch."

Bingo! It's the anti-social (and authoritarian, as you point out) nature of the movement that is problematic for me. The Galters' idea of be Nietzschean individualist supermen presents its own problems. Fact is, they can't do it on their own (hence they need other supermen), which conflicts with what is a very egocentric philosophy. Forget having Galters live around average or even below average fellow human beings.

Eric said...

"The knowing sacrifice of millions of innocent lives as part of what Scalzi calls a "nerd revenge" against the blood-sucking meanies is not truly virtuous. How can it be?"

But it is virtuous, in the exact same way it would have been virtuous for plantation slaves to cast off their chains and run away from their opressors, even though the resulting lack of cotton production would have meant people went without clothes. In context to Atlas Shrugged, you might be able to say, "Well, but look at the cushy lives these slaves were leading! They had nothing to complain about!", but ultimately you can't escape the fact that Rand revealed their role in society to be that of a slave.

At some point the people in a society are responsible for what that society does, and this is especially true in a democracy.
The government that was elected by the people in Rand's book tortured John Galt, pointed a gun at him (both literally and figuratively), and threatened to kill him and his loved ones if he refused to think for them. Morally, in the face of such threats, his actions weren't just virtuous, they were heroic.

Galt's goal was never for the people outside his little utopian community to suffer and die. His goal was for them to think, to live, but mostly to understand the real implications of the moral and political ideas they were espousing.

What Scalzi seems to be saying, by painting Galt as a sociopath, is not that Rand created a false choice for Galt and the Strikers (in some ways she did, but Scalzi doesn't touch on it), but that in his opinion Galt and the Strikers chose wrongly, that they had a moral duty to stay on the plantation if leaving meant people might die from the cold due to lack of clothing. His very characterization of Galt legitimizes Rand's argument, and reveals which side of it he is on.

Huck said...

I beg to differ, Eric. The circumstances of the Galt situation is not really an apt comparison to slavery. First, Galt was never forced at gunpoint to participate in the social contract as slaves were. Galt, of his own volition, developed his potential within the context of the social contract. Slaves were captured and forced onto the plantation without even being given a choice initially in the matter. Folks like John Galt, Hank Rearden, and Dagny Taggart, as individually bright and hardworking as they were, are all presented as people whose success is completely devoid of the context in which their lives evolved and the specific choices they themselves made -- of their own free will. Furthermore, they are presented as successful independent of the other individuals in society who work for them and work with them, also of their own free will. Then there's the conscious choice of Galt not only just to leave and go into hiding; but also his campaign to convince others to do the same. And the intentionality behind his decision must also factor into the decision. The Gulchers didn't just choose to leave the "plantation" (i.e. society and the social contract), they chose to undermine it and destroy it -- after having extracted from it all the things that made them who they were. Remember, Galt didn't just walk away and let others arrive at their own conclusions after having "thought for themselves" -- he sought to shape thinking and condition choice, and surreptitiously, too. He had his own little superhero grievance propaganda campaign going on, too. Tell me, Eric, when in the novel did the superheroes begin to disappear? It usually followed some stealth visit (or a series of visits) by Galt. Tell me if that's indicative of "thinking for yourself." Perhaps you might think of this as acceptable, but it calls into question the notion that the Gulchers really are independent thinkers. Of course, I think that the outcome of destroying civilization by having the real superheroes of society form their own league of justice in a hidden gulch is truly impossible, but since Rand posits it as possible and the subject of a willful choice, I treat it as such. So, let's take a cold, hard look at the choice the Gulchers made. Was it to escape bondage, and a bondage that they had no small part in setting up and supporting as long as it served them? Perhaps at one level. But was it also intentionally punitive? I don't think there is any doubt on that front, too. As absurd as it is to think that the Gulchers had such power to make or break civilization, the fact that they apparently did have such power, that they knew they did, and that they chose not to work within a social contract to preserve civilization, but to undermine it and destroy it just because they could, that is where the genocidal sociopath charge comes into play. That's not heroic. In fact, I think it's cowardice masked in a self-righteousness conditioned by a sense of victimization.

eric said...

"First, Galt was never forced at gunpoint to participate in the social contract as slaves were."

Sure he was. He was even tortured for his refusal to do so. He just wasn't born into it (as many slaves weren't). He became a slave once society decided he had an ability they wanted to lay claim to regardless of his willingness to cede it to them.

"Furthermore, they are presented as successful independent of the other individuals in society who work for them and work with them, also of their own free will."

Not at all. The theme is actually just the opposite, that even these great producers and genius intellects cannot produce and succeed without help. In fact, there were multiple times when Dagny Taggart flat-out told suppliers and even low-level employees that her railroad would fail if they couldn't come through for her, as it ulimately did. One of the themes of the novel is that even a super-heroine like Dagny Taggart couldn't run the railroad alone, without the cooperation of competent and rational individuals. In spite of her best efforts, the railroad continues to degenerate and fall apart on her throughought the entire story.
Rand's argument doesn't hinge on indepence vs. interdependence, she would freely grant that we live in an interdependent society... her concern is about the most moral and ethical way for those interdependent relations to be managed.

"Tell me, Eric, when in the novel did the superheroes begin to disappear?"

In each case, it was after Galt revealed to them the nature of the chains they were bound in, and offered them an alternative. Again, reason vs. coersion. He never forced anyone to do anything.

"Perhaps you might think of this as acceptable, but it calls into question the notion that the Gulchers really are independent thinkers."

Again, Rand's ultimate argument was not that they were completely independent of one another (if so, Galt would have rationally been content to live in Galt's Gulch by himself), but that in order to be sustainable their interdependence must be governed by rational cooperation instead of coersive manipulation or force.

I think you misidentify the basis for the "I swear to never live for the sake of another man" oath. It wasn't meant to make the participant independant of all humanity, but to to declare his liberation from a debt that he had never agreed to assume, and announce his intention to never assume it. Dependancy and debt are not the same things.

"the fact that they apparently did have such power [to destroy civilization], that they knew they did, and that they chose not to work within a social contract to preserve civilization, but to undermine it and destroy it just because they could, that is where the genocidal sociopath charge comes into play."

But they did decide to work within a social contract to preserve civilization, and unlike our modern social contract it was one that each person had an opportuntiy to explicitly agree to or refuse. And unlike most movements to renogotiate the social contract, the Gulchers didn't employ a violent revolution to secure their own terms, but simply refused to accept the terms of a social contract they had been born into (one that made them slaves) and never consented to. By the end of the novel, "society" had confiscated entitlement to almost all the natural resources and means of production away from private ownership, so it was "society's" to do with as "society" pleased. The Gulchers simply weren't willing to lend a hand (or, more approriately, a brain), and for that they are being called sociopaths here.