Stop reading Ayn Rand

I was introduced to Ayn Rand during my undergrad days. I had read The Fountain Head and frankly had thought that it was a decent book. Later I found that several of my friends and acquaintances swore by it and labelled it as eye opening. I had begun to wonder if it really deserved all that praise. Then I got my hands on the 1100 page tome of hers, Atlas Shrugged, which actually is one the biggest English language novels of all time.

It is the toughest book I've ever read. Tough not because it was too cerebral or because of its length, but because its one of the most boring fiction novels I've laid my hands on. I finished it because it was a challenge, because I looked cool reading it during the commute to work and because I could proclaim to my friends over the coffee table that I had read it and hence was better than them. Not until somewhere near the 700 page mark did it stop being a potent soporific. After that the plot does get interesting for a few hundred pages. But then it gets carried away and ends with the most conceited and bizarre 50 page monologue ever by John Galt mofo that you just might bang your head on a wall screaming, 'Why the fuck did I start reading this shit?' Reading Atlas Shrugged converted me from an Rand agnostic into a strident Rand anti-theist.

Somehow Atlas Shrugged has developed and maintained its reputation as an eye opener, a classic that ought to be a text book instead of being labelled a boring book with crazy, bitchy lead characters who belong either in jail or in a mental asylum. When I later heard an unanimously hated manager at my office pledge his admiration for Rand and wish that he could emulate her heroes (this during an overseas work call) I smiled inside thinking no wonder people hated him. Whenever I saw someone read that book I warned them about it. And yet they all continued to read it and a tiny percentage of them managed to live through the exercise. I figured out why they do it. Its because it is intellectual masturbation. What about all those Rand worshipers who wake up early in the morning and recite verses from her work? Jerks all of them.

At this point you are probably wondering why I rant on about Rand being the individual responsible for the most number of hours wasted by humanity (OK second most, the first being Shah Rukh Khan). It is because of this. A serious wtf trend that is the most incongruous given the current hatred towards corporate greed. Why? Why are the jerks winning? I want to stymie this trend and hence this post.

First let me point out why reading Atlas Shrugged and The Fountainhead (to a lesser extent) is a waste of time:
1. Atlas Shrugged is obviously too lengthy with too many boring monologues that could have been edited out without missing on any content. I believe if the whole thing was shortened to around 500 pages its would have been a good read.

2. Some Problems with Rand's Objectivism - A meritocratic society that values creativity, integrity and innovation is undoubtedly good. But pushing capitalism to the extreme and applying techniques used at the stock market to dating and in relationships is ridiculous.

3. Superhuman/inhumane heroes: Roark, Rearden, Galt and that other guy were probably born in Krypton. I agree that it is wonderful to love and obsess about your work or creation. But to blow up a completed housing project even when the design was an obscene mockery of your original work is simply a crime. They are all egocentric maniacs without an iota of compassion. Disagreements can happen between equals without either party acknowledging the other to be on par. But if the disagreeing parties behave the way these guys do life would be impossible.

4. Bitchy Heroines: Obvious to anyone who reads it. The rationale given for the infidelities is stupid.

5. Ignorant and useless Populace: Almost all the people other than her central characters are slackers and leechers. Her lack of faith in contemporary society is staggering

6. Views on Altruism: She implies that letting her heroes thrive would ultimately help humanity more than any form of charity. This is probably true. But if charity is not highly regarded the world would be a much worse place. I am not engaging in wishful thinking here. Just think of the missionaries imparting education to remote African villages. They might do it for religious reasons but the people there benefit. Once these regions develop they might open up new markets or at least stop being a threat for existing markets there. But this might take one or more life times and hence this kind of charity might not be of interest to an objectivist. May be if the world had paid more attention to Somalia we wouldn't have pirates running amok today in the Indian Ocean. This is why I believe all forms of charity should be praised or in other words why none of them should be ridiculed.

There are several other people who share my opinion. Here are some funny ones: cracked, another rant (more extreme). Just search for Ayn Rand criticism or Ayn Rand evil to see what I mean.

Even if you dont agree with any of this it still doesn't make sense to read and praise Atlas Shrugged. Almost everyone today, especially among the young generation that makes up most of Rand's readers, recognizes the importance of meritocracy, individual rights and integrity. Do you really need to torture yourself and read this humongous book to learn what you already know?

From 'Myths and Legends of India' by JM Macfie

"But when the outsider wonders how a people, bound hand and foot, as we reckon, to an unprofitable polytheism, can be so attractive in their daily lives, governed by principles of action which never seemed to influence their gods, he will find the explanation in the fact that the Hindu has lived a double life. When he returns to his home from the temple of Krishna, the god who played tricks ..............., the Hindu has no intention in most cases at least of following the example of gods who, with the exception of Rama, are possessed of lower moral qualities than his own. In fact, some of his holy books have already warned him of the danger of doing so............. He may not have risen to the conception of a God who is both righteous and pure. ............ But God fulfills himself in many ways, and India has heard God speaking to her soul, with the result that there has been expressed for her in living parable and legend that wonderful variety of moral teaching which has helped to make her people what they are."

This passage is from the preface of the book mentioned in the title. It struck me that this in a sense reflects an attribute of a motif in Hindu scriptures. All the parables and moral lessons are presented in such an exaggerated form that the follower has to understand the essence of the teachings before applying it. Whether it is about a demon who got too proud for his own good or a god who committed a terrible crime, he need only imbibe the moral maxims in them. By sometimes forcing this of the believer (at least some of them), I feel it gives them some leeway to be spiritually at peace. Even people who cannot agree to the basic tenets of the religion (like me) should be able to appreciate this fact about it. None of it seems to have been meant to be followed to the word and this is what contributes to the harmonious environment of the region. But as always there are the bad apples who take it upon themselves to be enforcers of their own (or their leader's) interpretations. We can always claim that as being characteristic of Kali Yuga, that is a very handy escape route.

Another excerpt that interested me, "The Indian, even the well- educated Indian, is only too often ignorant of his own treasures. They lie hidden in a mass of puerile and sometimes repulsive rubbish, while the practice of treating everything as equally inspired leads him, as it has led people of other countries, to reckon the jewel and the paste, the false and the true, as of equal worth." Very true. But only a non-believing scholar would make the above mentioned distinction. I mean, which believer is going to judge his faith?

Stanislaw Lem

"We all know that we are material creatures, subject to the laws of physiology and physics, and not even the power of all our feelings combined can defeat those laws. All we can do is detest them. The age-old faith of lovers and poets in the power of love, stronger than death, that finis vitae sed non amoris, is a lie, useless and not even funny. So must one be resigned to being a clock that measures the passage of time, now out of order, now repaired, and whose mechanism generates despair and love as soon as its maker sets it going? Are we to grow used to the idea that every man relives ancient torments, which are all the more profound because they grow comic with repetition? That human existence should repeat itself, well and good, but that it should repeat itself like a hackneyed tune, or a record a drunkard keeps playing as he feeds coins into the jukebox"

I just now finished reading Solaris by Stanislaw Lem and this is my favourite passage from the book. It is an amazing novel. The story probes into the innards of the human psyche and is almost spiritual. There are a few portions when it gets too self absorbed and drags on about minute details of the subject matter that no reader can possibly be interested in. But otherwise it is very interesting especially the first half and the ending. The book is very different from the movie screenplay, but I guess that is expected.

Very few people know about this author. He is a polish author and the only sci-fi writer I know of from the erst while soviet block. There is a strange symmetry in that when in the 40's to 70's science fiction gained popularity among readers in the US and its allies, basically the English speaking world, there was a similar proliferation of sci-fi literature in the communist block. I had tried to get my hands on Lem's works when I was in India, but couldn't find it anywhere. I plan to read his other famous book The Cyberiad soon. But first I will read The Collected Stories by the titan among writers Arthur C Clarke who passed away earlier this week.

Vertigo according to Milan Kundera

"She longed to do something that would prevent her from turning back to Tomas. She longed to destroy brutally the past seven years of her life. It was vertigo. A heady, insuperable longing to fall.

We might also call vertigo the intoxication of the weak. Aware of his weakness, a man decides to give in rather than stand up to it. He is drunk with weakness, wishes to grow even weaker, wishes to fall down in the middle of the main square in front of everybody, wishes to be down, lower than down." - The unbearable lightness of being.

Our lives would be much more gratifying if we know that each moment is earned by not succumbing to this vertigo.

Arctor's choice

"But then one day, ................ Arctor had hit his head on the corner of a kitchen cabinet directly above him. The pain, the cut in his scalp, so unexpected and undeserved, had for some reason cleared away the cobwebs. It flashed on him instantly that he didn't hate the kitchen cabinet: he hated his life, his wife, his two daughters, his whole house, the back yard with its power mower, the whole fucking place and everyone in it.

Nothing would ever change. Nothing new could ever be expected. It was like, he had once thought, a little plastic boat that would sail on forever, without incident, until it finally sank, which would be a secret relief to all. It had to end and it did. But in this dark world where he now dwelt, ugly things and surprising things and once in a long while tiny wondrous thing spilled out at him constantly; he could count on nothing." - from A scanner darkly

Bob Arctor had made an unsual choice in life. He had abandoned his ordinary, seemingly normal life and instead chose chaos and excitement. Clinging on to a meaningless existence for the sake of conformity might be a crime against oneself.
Change is imperative. The question should be: What needs to change?