Yeah, I basically assume they are all the same person.
*awaits downvotes from Objectivists
Pot, kettle, incidentally. Compare parent's "I immediately lose a bit of respect" with your "you're an absolutist who [...]" The latter makes a much broader claim based on a similarly small piece of information.
But I agree that the plot and characters are shallow. The book was designed to showcase her philosophy and it does it well. I don't believe it was ever intended to be realistic, and I think it fell a little short of being entertaining a lot of the time. It was far too long. It was still far better than a lot of other fiction books I've read.
What I get out of the book (which I've read 3 times) is a different look on self-worth and self-sacrifice than all the rest of society gives. I believe people would be better off if everyone acted in a rational manner to promote their own interests. (It's not actually rational to hurt others to promote yourself. In the long run, that's a losing strategy.) I also believe that this will never actually happen, and so compromises are in order.
I believe that book has helped me form a better sense of my own worth, and was at least partially responsible for me leaving a job and getting a 40% raise at the next one. It's not the only factor, but it helped to be able to objectively assess my value to the company, as well as how much I value my own time.
Does that mean I'm a card-carrying Objectivist who doesn't give to charity? No. It means I'm a more rational person who evaluates things a little more clearly. In fact, I actually give to charity more now than before, so the book can hardly be said to have hurt that. I do give for slightly different reasons now, though. Before, I gave because it was the thing to do. Now, I give because I want that charity to work. If I give to the Red Cross, it's because I want them to help sick or hurt people. If I give to Child's Play, it's because I want sick children to find a little bit of joy in their lives. Those things may seem obvious, but they weren't.
A good example is United Way. I don't give to them. Why? Because all they do is slice off a large percent (13% apparently) and give the rest to an actual charity. Before, I had never really considered this, and just bought into their propaganda.
"Of each dollar United Way collects, over 87 cents goes directly to valuable community services. " - http://www.forsythunitedway.org/faq.cfm
They used to be very vocal about how much went to a real charity, pushing that statistic in front of you like it was a good thing. That is not good. That 13% could be going to a real charity, too, and actually helping people.
So in the end, don't lose respect for people merely because they like something. You might not be seeing the whole story.
Just a hint: there might be other reasons than "that's a losing strategy" to avoid hurting others to promote yourself.
Which is what I said.
And I lose a bit of respect because her philosophy is terrible, she's basically a sociopath; the book and her philosophy entirely lack empathy.
> What I get out of the book is a different look on self-worth and self-sacrifice than all the rest of society gives.
Because society doesn't normally promote sociopathy.
If you took something good from it and didn't come out admiring the objectivist view, good for you, you're the rare exception, but the fact is nearly everyone I've ever met who likes that book likes it because they like the objectivist view and all think they're the John Gaults of the word. Rand makes them feel good about their complete lack of empathy and this book is an excellent thermometer for me to quickly avoid wasting time getting to know people I'm very likely not going to get along with anyway.
BTW, here's my favorite comment on Atlas Shrugged, starring Bob the Angry Flower: http://www.angryflower.com/atlass.gif
That said, many people, including Rand supporters would agree that as a work of fiction it's mostly a thin structure to put forth Rand's ideas. It could almost be a collection of essays, as the book is a collection of monologues and improbable conversations with very little time devoted to character development.
That said, lots of books with big societal ideas tend to have these issues but Rand is particularly ham fisted. Reading Atlas shrugged one gets the impression that she set out to write a novel but kept meandering onto the editorial page. By way of comparison, 1984 is a book with big ideas about society that are more subtly expressed (though Orwell can get preachy as well).
To reveal my own bias, I find her point of view a rather flimsy sort of egotism. It's the internal narrative of the tortured, misunderstood genius projected out to society at large. The galling thing about Rand's writings is the complete lack of understanding or compassion wrt the structural causes of inequity in society. It's a heavy handed, hateful, and facile way to view the world once put under a lens.
This seeming swap is surely, in part, the result of me not looking very closely at the logo. But it might also be a consequence of how de-emphasized the few touches of individuality are in the Svbtle scheme. I don't think "I'm at [author]'s site" when I hit one, I think "oh another Svtble site". It could probably even be fixed pretty easily by filling the whole sidebar with the color and having the white logo float in that, thus giving the brain an actual silhouette to parse out of the corner of my eye instead of 'uh it's a circle and there's something in it I dunno hey look at all this important text over here'.
YMMV, of course.
It's a fun mental exercise to temporarily adopt an extreme viewpoint and think it through to its logical conclusion.
If that's all the guy said, you are being too judgmental too quickly.