re: #15 Obdicut

Yes, in a lot of ways she’s just an inverse Marxist. A lot of her thinking contains the same absolutism and the same twinning of the economic and moral that Marxist-Lenninism did.

As for being inspired— well, I think Atlas Shrugged is, in the end, an absolutely terrible book. As I said, the Fountainhead actually has some nuance, but Atlas Shrugged, once viewed critically, disintegrates into a hectoring, humorless, arrogant, murderous polemic.

I agree. To me, We The Living and The Fountainhead are novels, written by a human being, and written with love. As you say, Atlas Shrugged is a hectoring polemic.

Still, when I think of Atlas Shrugged, I’m amazed by how different things were in 1957: the USSR, and communism in general, looked like a plausible future for the world. So I feel a lot of sympathy for that humongous, 8-point font polemic. I’m in awe of Alan Greenspan’s book, The Age of Turbulence, where he explains how he and others visited the USSR in the 80’s and 90’s, to teach them the basics of free markets.

But yes, I agree, We The Living and The Fountainhead have something very precious, which Atlas Shrugged doesn’t come close to.