The Historic Significance of Atlas Shrugged
October 10 is the 50th anniversary of the publication of Ayn Rand's classic novel Atlas Shrugged, so in the coming week we can expect to see a flurry of articles about the novel--many of which will, unfortunately, offer highly inaccurate descriptions of its meaning and significance.
That's a shame, because Atlas Shrugged is a novel that everyone ought to discover and grapple with, because it succeeds at something too few artists and intellectuals have had the courage to do.
The purpose of art and philosophy is to show us truths about human nature, about the nature of the world and our place in it. Philosophy names these truths explicitly, in literal terms; literature dramatizes these truths in concrete terms, revealing its insights through the actions and statements of the characters created by the novelist. A philosophical novel, like Atlas Shrugged, is supposed to do both of these things.
But too often both the philosophers and the artists have simply repeated or project their own prejudices and pre-conceived notions....
The most radical aspect of Atlas Shrugged is that Ayn Rand found suspense, heroism, and profound philosophical meaning in the achievements of the entrepreneurs and industrialists who were reshaping the world.
Atlas Shrugged was written in an age of creeping global socialism. Extrapolating from the trends of the day, Ayn Rand projected a future in which most of the world's nations are collapsing into the poverty and oppression of socialist "people's states," while America itself is collapsing under the weight of an increasing government takeover of the economy.
She saw the dramatic potential in asking a single question: what would happen if the innovative entrepreneurs and businessmen--after decades of being vilified and regulated--started to disappear? The disappearance of the world's productive geniuses provides the novel's central mystery, both factually and intellectually....
Read entire article at Robert Tracinski at the website of Real Clear Politics
That's a shame, because Atlas Shrugged is a novel that everyone ought to discover and grapple with, because it succeeds at something too few artists and intellectuals have had the courage to do.
The purpose of art and philosophy is to show us truths about human nature, about the nature of the world and our place in it. Philosophy names these truths explicitly, in literal terms; literature dramatizes these truths in concrete terms, revealing its insights through the actions and statements of the characters created by the novelist. A philosophical novel, like Atlas Shrugged, is supposed to do both of these things.
But too often both the philosophers and the artists have simply repeated or project their own prejudices and pre-conceived notions....
The most radical aspect of Atlas Shrugged is that Ayn Rand found suspense, heroism, and profound philosophical meaning in the achievements of the entrepreneurs and industrialists who were reshaping the world.
Atlas Shrugged was written in an age of creeping global socialism. Extrapolating from the trends of the day, Ayn Rand projected a future in which most of the world's nations are collapsing into the poverty and oppression of socialist "people's states," while America itself is collapsing under the weight of an increasing government takeover of the economy.
She saw the dramatic potential in asking a single question: what would happen if the innovative entrepreneurs and businessmen--after decades of being vilified and regulated--started to disappear? The disappearance of the world's productive geniuses provides the novel's central mystery, both factually and intellectually....