Celebrate Atlas Shrugged!

Atlas Shrugged continues to be one of the most important books ever written.  It is definitely the most important book I ever read, especially in terms of its effects upon my life.  When I read Atlas Shrugged and The Fountainhead before it, I had the feeling that for once some of the most noble, heroic, and benevolent ideals that I held to be true and central to my character were held by someone else.

I began reading Ayn Rand as a senior in high school, beginning with The Fountainhead and then Atlas Shrugged.  That summer of 1965, while working out of Ardmore, OK and Enid, OK on oil exploration crews, I read all of Ayn Rand's non-fiction books to that time and her newsletter with all the back issues.  I thought this very good preparation for my next adventure as a freshman at Brown University.

I found a philosophy and a worldview which was similar to much of my own, but much more completely developed.  I had always thought man should be moral and heroic.  I had always thought that one should work very diligently to be rational and emotions were properly controlled by and educated by one's rational decisions.  I had understood that very limited government was the only government compatible with reason, the sovereign rights of the individual, and the ability of man to apply his rational faculty to improving life for man on Earth.  I had already understood that big government was essentially a denial of human individuality.

I had long understood that some principles were worth fighting for and, if necessary, dying for.  My father was a naval aviator and was always a heroic presence in my life.  So too were many of our nation's heroes of the French and Indian War, the American Revolution, the War with the Barbary Pirates, the Mexican War, the Civil War, some of the Indian Wars (sometimes the Indians too), WWI, WWII, and the Korean War.  Those principles worth fighting for were worthily found in our Declaration of Independence and our Constitution, which were written by wise and good men.  So too we had many heroes who were inventors and scientists.  I had already understood that the businessman was usually honorably offering goods and services to others in voluntary trade to their mutual benefit.  As such, many businessmen were heroically making human life richer, more secure, and better day after day.  One of the most important things Ayn Rand and I had in common was the fact that we were both human mind and hero worshipers.

Finally, in the summer and fall of 1964, I had realized that many of the teachings of Christianity were simply wrong.  I was not yet at the point of concluding that there was no reason to believe in God, but I was sure that any existent God was better than the Christian God. After reading Rand's non-fiction work, I came to the conclusion that I had no evidence for the existence of any god and that I really had no need for a god.

Basically, when I read Ayn Rand's The Fountainhead and Atlas Shrugged, I had found someone who thought along pathways similar enough to mine that her entire philosophy was useful to me in understanding my world.  She had thought about the issues important to me much longer than I had and she was capable of guiding me to other issues that I needed to think about.

It turns out that 2 September has a special significance for those of us who love Atlas Shrugged.  Let me repeat a post below that I wrote on 2 September 2010, while noting that it is now 66 years since she started writing it and 55 years since its publication:

On September 2, 1946, Ayn Rand began writing Atlas Shrugged and she finished her great novel in time for publication in 1957.  Throughout the novel, September 2 is the date of a number of events:

• In the opening scene of the novel, a bum asking Eddie Willers for a handout, asks "Who is John Galt?"  This and the way it was asked bother Eddie.  As he walks through NYC, he is also bothered by the gigantic calendar hanging from a public tower and announcing the date as September 2.    
• On that date, Hank Rearden and Dagny Taggart decide to take a vacation together.  On that vacation they discover an abandoned motor that should have revolutionized the use of energy in the world.
• Francisco D'Anconia makes his speech on money on September 2.  He proclaims money to be the tool of free trade and the result of noble effort, not the root of evil.  Those who call money evil choose to replace its use with the force of the gun.
• D'Anconia Copper is nationalized on 2 September, but the date on the calendar is replaced by "Brother, you asked for it!"

So, on this day of 2 September 2010, let us give thanks to Ayn Rand for her incredibly dedicated effort in writing this path-breaking novel we are finding so important in our lives 53 years after its publication date and 64 years after she started it on 2 September 1946.  This should be a day celebrated much as Thanksgiving Day is celebrated, but without any religious overtones, as a day to respect the creativity and productivity of all the heroic men and women that Ayn Rand's heroic novel commemorates.  At the top of our list of respected heroes and heroines, we should recognize Ayn Rand herself.

Jim Powell -- Rose Wilder Lane, Isabel Paterson, and Ayn Rand: Three Women Who Inspired the Modern Libertarian Movement

I recently read an excellent and remarkably inexpensive book about the Great Depression called FDR's Folly by Jim Powell.  This book is well-organized and really focuses on the essentials of how FDR deepened and lengthened the Great Depression.  There are other books on the Great Depression, but none of those I have read manage to give the scope of the problems as concisely and clearly as this book does.  I intend to obtain more of his books and read them.  Jim Powell is a Senior Fellow at the CATO Institute, whose website just directed me to this interesting article by Jim Powell on the critical roles of three women in greatly slowing the American slide into the morass of socialism.  The article was published by The Freeman and called Rose Wilder Lane, Isabel Paterson, and Ayn Rand: Three Women Who Inspired the Modern Libertarian Movement and was written in 1996.  He starts out:

Liberty was in full retreat in the early 1940s. Tyrants oppressed or threatened people on every continent. Western intellectuals whitewashed mass murderers like Joseph Stalin, and Western governments expanded their power with Soviet-style central planning. Fifty million people were killed in the war that raged in Europe, Africa, and Asia. The United States, seemingly the last hope for liberty, was drawn into it.

Established American authors who defended liberty were a dying breed. H.L. Mencken had turned away from bitter politics to write his memoirs, while others like Albert Jay Nock and Garet Garrett were mired in pessimism.

Amidst the worst of times, three bold women banished fear. They dared to declare that collectivism was evil. They stood up for natural rights, the only philosophy which provided a moral basis for opposing tyranny everywhere. They celebrated old-fashioned rugged individualism. They envisioned a future when people could again be free. They expressed a buoyant optimism which was to inspire millions.

All were outsiders who transcended difficult beginnings. Two were immigrants. One was born in frontier territory not yet part of the United States. They struggled to earn money as writers in commercial markets dominated by ideological adversaries. All were broke at one time or another. They endured heartaches with men—one stayed in a marriage which became sterile, and two became divorced and never remarried.

These women who had such humble beginnings—Rose Wilder Lane, Isabel Paterson, and Ayn Rand—published major books during the same year, 1943: The Discovery of Freedom, The God of the Machine, and The Fountainhead, respectively. The women, recalled journalist John Chamberlain, “with scornful side glances at the male business community, had decided to rekindle a faith in an older American philosophy. There wasn’t an economist among them. And none of them was a Ph.D.” Albert Jay Nock declared that, “They make all of us male writers look like Confederate money. They don’t fumble and fiddle around—every shot goes straight to the centre.”

If you have read this introduction, I am sure you are now hooked.  Read the rest of  Rose Wilder Lane, Isabel Paterson, and Ayn Rand: Three Women Who Inspired the Modern Libertarian Movement and enjoy yourself.

I am less a fan of Lane's The Discovery of Freedom, Man's Struggle Against Authority (13 customer reviews on Amazon), than I am of Isabel Paterson's God of the Machine (6 customer reviews on Amazon) and, of course, Ayn Rand's The Fountainhead (with 1,012 reader reviews on Amazon) and Atlas Shrugged (2,028 reviews on Amazon!).  The latter three books are great reads and fascinating books.  I find Lane's The Discovery of Freedom interesting for its historical role, useful for some information on a period of time in Europe and the U.S., but strained in the recurring analogy of freedom with energy.  The analogy is useful and true, but its overuse throughout the book bore a weight on me that was just a bit too much about half way through the book.  She is also less clear-minded about many issues than Paterson or Rand and she is too religious in her thinking to be as satisfying.