Comment by javert | Hacker News Reader

Comment by javert | Hacker News Reader

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The characters are not meant to represent ideological extremes. Rand was a novelist primarily and a philosopher only secondarily. She got into philosophy because she wanted to figure out what humans at their best would look like and be like---so that she could put them into a novel.

In Atlas Shrugged, the characters do come across as ideological extremes and not real people, if you go into the book expecting them to be that way. The book has a lot of depth that is missed by people who go into it for the philosophy.

Within philosophy, Rand was least concerned about politics and the economy, and most concerned about man's mind and emotions and man's relationship to reality and to other men. Sure, you can read Atlas as some kind of political treatise, and the characters will come across as flat, because you are missing the point entirely and not picking up on 95% of what's in the book.

In The Fountainhead, the characters don't come across as representing ideological extremes regardless of your approach to the book, IMHO. Anyway I'd recommend The Fountainhead over Atlas for someone new to Rand.

Agreed that Rand is not a libertarian.

I'll have to admit I've never read all of Atlas Shrugged (not even close btw; I made it a bit past Dagny's introduction) but I have read Fountainhead twice and a most of her non-fiction stuff. I'm not sure if it's my age but The Fountainhead got me hooked instantly when I read it at 23. I didn't even try to read Atlas Shrugged until 10 years later but it felt like such a slog and I can't manage to read it.

My view of the characters has evolved into considering them ideological extremes because of how common it is for people to dismiss her on the basis that the characters do things no normal person would do.

So I've just given up on considering the characters people you can _be_. Like you said, the characters are people at their best. IMO that means the characters are meant to be perfect and by accepting the characters are perfect people, and that nobody is perfect, I'm ok considering the characters are extremes of their ideologies their meant to represent. So when the "not real people!!" arguments come out it's just "they're not supposed to be, they're ideologies and a person can't be an ideology".

btw I think we mostly agree and I'm enjoying reading your other comments in this thread. I also recommend The Fountainhead and then using the Ayn Rand Lexicon or her non-fiction to learn more. The nice thing about those is there's quotes from Atlas Shrugged and as long as you know the characters and overall story you don't need the entire book.

I don't agree that the characters do things no normal person would do or that they are perfect. That just isn't the case at all. If you read the book, you will see. There is a a lot of depth and variety in the characters. All of them (heroes, villains and those that are neither) have flaws they have to cope with and false beliefs they have to overcome (or not). For instance, Rearden gives moral sanction to people who are parasites on him. Dagny keeps trying to run the railroad when the other heroes have stopped. Rand was a really good novelist, in the Romantic tradition of novelists like Victor Hugo. Which makes sense---writing novels was her primary love in life.

I also don't believe someone can get a good understanding of Rand's philosophy without reading Atlas. Atlas paints a picture of the kind of things Rand saw in the world that she used to induce (derive) her philosophy. Without that context, you lose too much.

Anyway, I'm happy we're getting to chat about Atlas, and I'm glad you've enjoyed some of my comments.

interesting background on Rand, thank you. From your descriptions, if you're right in your assertions, it seems as if her fiction has been hijacked by dismal extreme libertarians taking characters as if they are paragons of virtue, rather than problematic examples.

Not to disagree with you, but to put a finer point on it...

I feel like the characters are not "paragons of virtue" because they are not meant to be imitated. That is a common mistake by both fans and detractors of Rand. Nor are the characters meant to be representations of abstract ideas. They are just characters, complex ones. But like any good writer---say Hugo or Dostoevsky---the author is putting part of himself or herself into the characters and thus the characters have a morality to them that reflects the views of the author.

I feel like calling the characters "problematic examples" may be overstating it a bit. For example, Jean Valjean in Les Miserables is a heroic character who has a character arc where he learns from his mistakes and his character becomes more heroic over time. Rand's "good" characters are like that. Her "neutral" or "bad" characters don't learn from their mistakes. (edit: Well, some of the relatively neutral ones actually do, and have positive arcs.)

FYI, Rand hated libertarians and rejected libertarianism.

Still, a lot of libertarians claim to like her, and don't understand that their political views resemble only a small subset of her overall philosophy---and even then, it's more of a resemblance than actual agreement.

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