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?

Past Positive, Present Hedonist and Future Oriented

Earlier today I watched this talk by Philip Zimbardo Professor Emeritus at Stanford. He gives us a unique viewpoint on how we view time and how it affects our life along with statistical evidence. Some part of it might seem intuitively evident but naming the different states and showing us how much our time perception influences our life is a great achievement. One interesting part of the talk was about how people near the equator are present hedonist (too much of that is not good) while people away from it are future oriented on account of the stable weather and the wildly varying weather in the two areas.

Scientology, Stupidity

When I was a fresh graduate after my undergrad studies I used to believe that education would cure most of world's problems. In retrospect I see how naive it was of me. I had the notion that the US is a rich country with an educated population where things are close to prefect barring a few exceptions. I thought people here would not be easily swayed by false idealogies. Then two incidents changed my mind. First was Tom Cruise's Scientology inspired psycho rants. Here was an educated, successful man who was somehow subverted by this nasty religion. It is a powerful religion with several celebrities (and lawyers) enrolled. How could this happen? Second was the evolution vs intelligent design debate which was even worse. It was a sad day when established scientists had to oblige to debate with religious zealots who thought they were qualified after a few hours of reading on the net. The best answer to these morons is here.

From what I know, the first time the truth about Scientology was revealed was in South Park season 9 episode 12. It is an amazing episode and I suggest you watch it at www.southparkstudios.com. Scientology spreads by preying on peoples' insecurities. I have myself seen their special meter when I was in Tampa. They seemed innocuous and I believe the first trial is free. Once they get someone hooked on to it they start asking for money. They frame charges against anyone who opposes them and discredit any former followers who reveal their secrets. Sounds like it does not have any ideals of justice like other religions. According to this article they regularly engage in violence and are more fraudulent than I had thought.

Education is obviously not enlightenment, only a means to it. Though literacy is becoming widespread don't think that stupidity central, the dark force that turns unsuspecting people stupid, is taking it lying down. It constantly reinvents itself and mutates into disguises that dupe the masses into taking it for wisdom. Think of the global warming disbelievers, intelligent design proponents and most troubling, the republicans. This is ofcourse not limited to the US. The ongoing Hindutva movement that has hit the educated Indian middle class is IMHO an example (not equating hindutva and scientology here). The richest Indians are probably outside the country. They are highly educated and very succesful people. And they do selective abortions in us and uk even after living for generations in cultures where a girl child is not viewed as a burden.

So where is all this going? To the Dilbert principle ofcourse. People are stupid. You, me, all of us. Its just that some of us are not stupid all the time.

The Frivolity of Evil

http://www.city-journal.org/html/14_4_oh_to_be.html

This is an excellent essay by Theodore Dalrymple. In my opinion man is inherently evil, but society is not. Each new outbreak of evil is met with rejigged notions of virtue, new stigmas and taboos while older ones are discarded. Under these new constraints men behave humanely untill some new form of wickedness catches on. The more alike an individual's notion of goodness is to that of society the less evil he is.

This is why there is no invariant definition of evil. For example if we take a good man from the 19th century and set him in a contemporary society he would quickly be outcast for mistreating women and children. May be in the future after being severely deprived of natural resources and suffering from ubiquitous pollution, even lighting a fire, the fire that is hailed to have started human civilization and is sometimes worshipped, will be considered a vice.

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?