Having an Open but Critical Mind. RE: Atlas Shrugged

[Arakasi]

One thing I've noticed over my admittedly short time on this earth is people's capacity to reject things that they have no concept of. Their rejection primarily seems to be based upon horribly incorrect second-hand knowledge, or spurred by prior bias.

Why can people not manage such a simple task as to keep an open, but objective mind?

Now I could be speaking about a number of things here; the preacher who tries to convert the atheist devil without ever understanding the meaning of 'atheist', the woman who writes-off a a program for its apparent childishness without ever watching the show or the man who rejects an idea without first checking the premises of his own.

As it turns out that I am speaking of the latter. Having just finished reading Atlas Shrugged I find myself quite highly satisfied with its use of logic to convince the reader of the Objectivist ideology. The reason I chose to pick up the book in the first place was that I could hear no source of information telling me that it any good, I heard nothing but unspecific negativity, and so I decided that I should judge it on its own merits instead of simply taking everyone's word for it. (Before we continue I should also note that reading it has not converted me to Objectivism.)

I'm not going to say it was a perfect book, it may have a little trouble with the almost straw-man like nature of the opposing characters, it's idealisation of the capacity of average human thought, the occasional apparent sexism (it was written in the 50's by a female author) and it having a basis in an outdated idea (free will).

So what I am going to say is that it is a brilliant book. It's use of philosophy as well as the characters and setting to promote the ideology is used to the greatest effect I can see being possible whilst remaining comprehensible, and it is the only good example of this technique that I can think of (not that I won't be searching for more).

So for every time I see a web comic telling the readers that one has terrible taste for liking a book, every time I hear a video-creator crack a joke about people yanking-off to a work he doesn't like, every time I hear someone tell me that they despise something and yet are unable to explain why, every time I hear someone tell me that something is wrong simply because it is, this my friends, is when I shall decide for myself.

I am left to conclude that for all the people who espouse the philosophy of not judging a book by its cover, few actually don't.

----
So, here's my question: What things have you liked or disliked that you think didn't get a fair judgement? Do you try to judge without prejudice? Can one judge without prejudice?

 

[Sknib]

As for your initial question, as a psychology student, I would say that much of our behaviour such as convincing ourselves that Atlas Shrugged is shit is purely to improve our self esteem. A lot of people talk shit about the book, so person X, without reading the book, would convince him/herself that they know enough about it to consider it a rubbish novel, thus their "objective" assessment is concurrent with common thinking, which ultimately means their "intelligent".

I've read Atlas Shrugged and like most people, I wasn't impressed. I have nothing against Rand's Objectivism, it's just her writing style in this novel is very long-winded, especially during the 70-80 page long speech nearing the end of the novel where she repeats herself several times.

I'd say if you like Atlas shrugged, good for you. Don't worry what other people think and if you tell someone you like it and they smirk, ask if they've read it. A guaranteed "no" will probably be the reply...

Also, if you haven't already read it I'd recommend The Fountainhead by Rand. A superior novel of hers in terms of the fullness of the characters and the narrative in my opinion.

 

[Frission]

Hmmm. I've read it and I can't say that I was impressed with Ayn Rand's works.
Different strokes I suppose.

Frankly, it's okay as books go, but it baffles me that some people would actually follow it in real life. The book is a fantasy, plain and simple. As you've read the book, I suppose I don't need to go on about the invention of the perpetual motion machine and "going galt".

EDIT: I found the book to be extremely immoral and unrealistic, but since I've read it, I get to parade that around without fear of being called a poser.

Hooray.

 

[Sean951]

After reading The Fountainhead, I have no desire to touch anything done by Ayn Rand ever again. As a book, it wasn't bad. I actually kind of enjoyed it. But the sheer amount of political BS I had to put up with is on par with the Ender Shadow series. Her portrayal of socialism was just wrong, on many levels, the ridiculousness of a few characters who exist only to show that socialism is bad drove me insane, and the main character was just a dick with no real redeeming qualities. So no, I haven't read Atlas Shrugged, but the idea of a "Galtopia" falls flat on its face if you think about it at all.

 

[Happiness Assassin]

I read Atlas Shrugged a few years ago and hated it so much. I got the logic she was trying to put forth but found it morally repugnant. I think that has to with the fact that she presents all the capitalists as geniuses and everyone else as a complete idiot. The government is takes socialism to its most extreme without any sense of logic and decides to BUILD A SUPERWEAPON IN THE CENTER OF THE COUNTRY TO BULLY THE OTHER COUNTRIES INTO GIVING THEM MONEY! If that weren't the height of retarded, the person who is put in charge of it gets drunk and destroys everything in a 100 mile radius. I just couldn't take seriously a book where everyone except the 4 "heroes" appear to be a pack of complete and utter imbeciles.

 

[Dr. Cakey]

I read Anthem once. It's a very good parody of Objectivism [http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/PoesLaw].

Do I try to judge without prejudice? Yes. Do I think it's possible? Probably. I can't, though.

 

[Anachronism]

I have nothing against Rand's Objectivism, it's just her writing style in this novel is very long-winded, especially during the 70-80 page long speech nearing the end of the novel where she repeats herself several times.

This is more or less my view. I think Objectivist philosophy is very interesting; I don't agree with it per se, but I can definitely get behind certain ideas in it. For instance, I quite like the idea of letting the best and brightest do what they do best without governmental interference and oversight. And I really like its message about how people have a profound, inalienable right to be happy, and that they should do whatever it takes to achieve that happiness.

But, as a novel, I think it was pretty terrible, to be perfectly honest. Mostly because it's a philosophical tract disguised as a novel, so what you get out of it will depend on your perceptions going in. Like I said, the philosophy is interesting, but as a piece of fiction it just isn't very good; so if you only want the philosophy, you'll probably enjoy it, but if you want a novel, you probably won't. The characters are archetypes, existing only to espouse a particular philosophical point of view. John Galt's massive 80-page speech, which is basically just another summary of Objectivism, is a complete failure to understand how novels work: the author shouldn't just bold-facedly tell us what their beliefs are, they should allow them to become apparent naturally through the characters' personalities and actions. And the whole thing is ridiculously over-long and poorly paced with it.

So yes, in brief: interesting ideas, bad novel. Still definitely worth a read, though.

 

[TheDoctor455]

Is it possible to judge without prejudice? No. You can try as hard as you like, but there is no such thing as a truly objective source. Just read any article in any newspaper anywhere, and, in the better written ones, you'll find subtle hints of the various reporters' personal beliefs and opinions. Badly written articles make it more... obvious. (the exceptions being the columnists, the critics, and those who write for the opinions section)

Our prejudices, whatever they are, can be thoroughly ingrained in us, to the point of being on a subconscious level. Can't exactly control that very well. But, its still possible to do your best.

As for trying? Yes, I do try. But I also don't hesitate to state and defend my opinion on something when it is relevant or appropriate.

Haven't read Atlas Shrugged, but I have read Anthem (well, part of it). Rand's just... not a very good writer to begin with... and addon to that the fact that she's a nutbar... oh, don't believe me? Try looking up some interviews with her on youtube. In one, she says that there shouldn't be a female U.S. President. Why? Because then women wouldn't have a man to look up to. What the fuck?

Anyway... hmm...

I was initially on board with everyone else in the... somewhat overzealous reaction to the ME3 endings. But... after not having touched the game in almost a year... playing through Citadel and the Extended Cut... ehh... I'm prepared to forgive Bioware. No one really reacted well during that fiasco. Are there still plot holes you could drive the Destiny Ascension through? YES. (why did Sovereign have to hack the Citadel in ME1 if the Catalyst was already a part of the Citadel? Why Does it still make the game more about the situation rather than Shepard? YES, to a rather troubling degree. I rather thought the whole point of an RPG with actual role-playing was to show the PLAYER CHARACTER a situation, and give them options for how to deal with and react to it... so what's with all the auto-dialog? Also, I know Bioware wanted to make 'sacrifice' a theme, but the thing is, you can't force a sacrifice and still be able to call it one. A sacrifice, by definition, has to be an actual choice, otherwise... its just killing off a character rather arbitrarily.

But, did the EC at least make for a more emotionally satisfying ending? Yes... sort of. Still would've been better had they scrapped the starchild entirely, but ehh... I guess they salvaged the mess that Casey Hudson made as best they could.

Hmm... anyway...

more on topic...

I like Alpha Protocol. Sure its buggy as hell, and sure, a lot of the levels and boss fights could have been designed much better than they were, but the story and characters were well-written and a lot of fun to pursue. Which reminds me... remember when Bioware promised not to do an 'A,B, or C', ending? Umm... Alpha Protocol DELIVERED on that one. How? By having a number of your choices throughout the game affect the ending and end-game level in a number of different ways. Sure, there were a few last choices to make at the end, but whether or not they were even available at that point or were simply less palatable were up to a number of previous interactions with characters. What was one of the main determining factors in all of the endings? How much each character liked or hated you by that point. It was awesome.

 

[Arakasi]

I read Atlas Shrugged a few years ago and hated it so much. I got the logic she was trying to put forth but found it morally repugnant.

Fair enough, I'd like to know why though.

I think that has to with the fact that she presents all the capitalists as geniuses and everyone else as a complete idiot.

She really doesn't though, there were numerous examples of people who, while capitalists, were not particularly intelligent, such as Eddie Willers and Cheryl Brooks, or if you're also talking about industrialists, there were plenty of bad ones, like Orren Boyle.

The government is takes socialism to its most extreme without any sense of logic and decides to BUILD A SUPERWEAPON IN THE CENTER OF THE COUNTRY TO BULLY THE OTHER COUNTRIES INTO GIVING THEM MONEY!

I was under the impression the super weapon only had a radius limited to within the country and was to be used for civilian control. I'm almost certain it couldn't reach other countries.

If that weren't the height of retarded, the person who is put in charge of it gets drunk and destroys everything in a 100 mile radius.

He wasn't put in charge of it, he took the thing over with a militia. Though he did get drunk and destroy everything like you said, but that was just meant to show what an incompetent mind can do at the controls of such a machine.

I just couldn't take seriously a book where everyone except the 4 "heroes" appear to be a pack of complete and utter imbeciles.

I don't know. I think that there's more to it than that, like I said the book did seem to have a problem with making straw men, but there were intermediate characters also.

 

[In Search of Username]

One thing I've noticed over my admittedly short time on this earth is people's capacity to reject things that they have no concept of. Their rejection primarily seems to be based upon horribly incorrect second-hand knowledge, or spurred by prior bias.

Why can people not manage such a simple task as to keep an open, but objective mind?

Now I could be speaking about a number of things here; the preacher who tries to convert the atheist devil without ever understanding the meaning of 'atheist', the woman who writes-off a a program for its apparent childishness without ever watching the show or the man who rejects an idea without first checking the premises of his own.

As it turns out that I am speaking of the latter. Having just finished reading Atlas Shrugged I find myself quite highly satisfied with its use of logic to convince the reader of the Objectivist ideology. The reason I chose to pick up the book in the first place was that I could hear no source of information telling me that it any good, I heard nothing but unspecific negativity, and so I decided that I should judge it on its own merits instead of simply taking everyone's word for it. (Before we continue I should also note that reading it has not converted me to Objectivism.)

I'm not going to say it was a perfect book, it may have a little trouble with the almost straw-man like nature of the opposing characters, it's idealisation of the capacity of average human thought, the occasional apparent sexism (it was written in the 50's by a female author) and it having a basis in an outdated idea (free will).

So what I am going to say is that it is a brilliant book. It's use of philosophy as well as the characters and setting to promote the ideology is used to the greatest effect I can see being possible whilst remaining comprehensible, and it is the only good example of this technique that I can think of (not that I won't be searching for more).

So for every time I see a web comic telling the readers that one has terrible taste for liking a book, every time I hear a video-creator crack a joke about people yanking-off to a work he doesn't like, every time I hear someone tell me that they despise something and yet are unable to explain why, every time I hear someone tell me that something is wrong simply because it is, this my friends, is when I shall decide for myself.

I am left to conclude that for all the people who espouse the philosophy of not judging a book by its cover, few actually don't.

----
So, here's my question: What things have you liked or disliked that you think didn't get a fair judgement? Do you try to judge without prejudice? Can one judge without prejudice?

Personally my reasons for not reading books that I nevertheless assume I would hate are that there are a LOT of books out there I want to read because I imagine I would like them. Now while it would be better if everyone opposed to objectivist philosophy had read the, I guess, 'key texts' regarding that philosophy, I imagine most people would much rather spend their time and money on books they consider themselves likely to enjoy and gain something more from than the ability to better understand their opponents in arguments.

I mean, if I was going to go on about objectivism the whole time and dedicate a large portion of my life to opposing it OR if there were really no other books out there on my 'to-read' list, I would obviously read it. As it is I just passively disagree with objectivism, and have enough knowledge of that philosophy to know I'd be very unlikely to care for the content of a book dedicated to it. I don't dispute whether it's well-written because I have no clue whether it's well-written - but I can still oppose objectivism without reading it in much the same way as I can reject Christianity without reading the Bible.

 

[Arakasi]

One thing I've noticed over my admittedly short time on this earth is people's capacity to reject things that they have no concept of. Their rejection primarily seems to be based upon horribly incorrect second-hand knowledge, or spurred by prior bias.

Why can people not manage such a simple task as to keep an open, but objective mind?

Now I could be speaking about a number of things here; the preacher who tries to convert the atheist devil without ever understanding the meaning of 'atheist', the woman who writes-off a a program for its apparent childishness without ever watching the show or the man who rejects an idea without first checking the premises of his own.

As it turns out that I am speaking of the latter. Having just finished reading Atlas Shrugged I find myself quite highly satisfied with its use of logic to convince the reader of the Objectivist ideology. The reason I chose to pick up the book in the first place was that I could hear no source of information telling me that it any good, I heard nothing but unspecific negativity, and so I decided that I should judge it on its own merits instead of simply taking everyone's word for it. (Before we continue I should also note that reading it has not converted me to Objectivism.)

I'm not going to say it was a perfect book, it may have a little trouble with the almost straw-man like nature of the opposing characters, it's idealisation of the capacity of average human thought, the occasional apparent sexism (it was written in the 50's by a female author) and it having a basis in an outdated idea (free will).

So what I am going to say is that it is a brilliant book. It's use of philosophy as well as the characters and setting to promote the ideology is used to the greatest effect I can see being possible whilst remaining comprehensible, and it is the only good example of this technique that I can think of (not that I won't be searching for more).

So for every time I see a web comic telling the readers that one has terrible taste for liking a book, every time I hear a video-creator crack a joke about people yanking-off to a work he doesn't like, every time I hear someone tell me that they despise something and yet are unable to explain why, every time I hear someone tell me that something is wrong simply because it is, this my friends, is when I shall decide for myself.

I am left to conclude that for all the people who espouse the philosophy of not judging a book by its cover, few actually don't.

----
So, here's my question: What things have you liked or disliked that you think didn't get a fair judgement? Do you try to judge without prejudice? Can one judge without prejudice?

Personally my reasons for not reading books that I nevertheless assume I would hate are that there are a LOT of books out there I want to read because I imagine I would like them. Now while it would be better if everyone opposed to objectivist philosophy had read the, I guess, 'key texts' regarding that philosophy, I imagine most people would much rather spend their time and money on books they consider themselves likely to enjoy and gain something more from than the ability to better understand their opponents in arguments.

I mean, if I was going to go on about objectivism the whole time and dedicate a large portion of my life to opposing it OR if there were really no other books out there on my 'to-read' list, I would obviously read it. As it is I just passively disagree with objectivism, and have enough knowledge of that philosophy to know I'd be very unlikely to care for the content of a book dedicated to it. I don't dispute whether it's well-written because I have no clue whether it's well-written - but I can still oppose objectivism without reading it in much the same way as I can reject Christianity without reading the Bible.

I think that is exactly the problem people have, they go into a reading of x material thinking that 'this is the opponent' instead of being open minded but critical, and that really taints their judgement. I understand that people would prefer to spend their time reading things they agree with, though I don't practice it I can see the appeal, but to do that and then demonise every viewpoint that isn't yours is abhorrent.

As for your second paragraph, that's fine. There probably is no point reading a book if you either don't feel passionately on the subject or don't think you can get anything out of it. But I wouldn't relate it to Christianity, you can immediately rule out Christian teachings with obvious logical arguments, but I'm not so sure about Objectivist ones.

 

[In Search of Username]

I think that is exactly the problem people have, they go into a reading of x material thinking that 'this is the opponent' instead of being open minded but critical, and that really taints their judgement. I understand that people would prefer to spend their time reading things they agree with, though I don't practice it I can see the appeal, but to do that and then demonise every viewpoint that isn't yours is abhorrent.

As for your second paragraph, that's fine. There probably is no point reading a book if you either don't feel passionately on the subject or don't think you can get anything out of it. But I wouldn't relate it to Christianity, you can immediately rule out Christian teachings with obvious logical arguments, but I'm not so sure about Objectivist ones.

But you can know enough about objectivism to despise it without ever touching a Rand book, can't you? It's not like not having read the book means you're just blindly opposing something you don't understand. You can find out enough about the philosophy from the Wikipedia article unless you intend to professionally debate it, so the book is really just for people who are actually interested in the philosophy and want to understand all its nuances.

They're both philosophies, what's the difference that means you need so much more information on objectivism to understand it than Christianity?

 

[Arakasi]

I think that is exactly the problem people have, they go into a reading of x material thinking that 'this is the opponent' instead of being open minded but critical, and that really taints their judgement. I understand that people would prefer to spend their time reading things they agree with, though I don't practice it I can see the appeal, but to do that and then demonise every viewpoint that isn't yours is abhorrent.

As for your second paragraph, that's fine. There probably is no point reading a book if you either don't feel passionately on the subject or don't think you can get anything out of it. But I wouldn't relate it to Christianity, you can immediately rule out Christian teachings with obvious logical arguments, but I'm not so sure about Objectivist ones.

But you can know enough about objectivism to despise it without ever touching a Rand book, can't you? It's not like not having read the book means you're just blindly opposing something you don't understand. You can find out enough about the philosophy from the Wikipedia article unless you intend to professionally debate it, so the book is really just for people who are actually interested in the philosophy and want to understand all its nuances.

I wouldn't say you could know enough to despise it based upon a simple summary. You could know enough to refute it, to disagree with it, but hatred for me is only reserved for the well understood evils.

They're both philosophies, what's the difference that means you need so much more information on objectivism to understand it than Christianity?

One asks for faith and the other asks for reason.

 

[Berithil]

I've never read any of her books, though after this thread, I guess I should. Anyways, as someone who read all 4 Twilight books before formulating my opinion of the series (spoilers: It's not a positive one...), I kinda pride myself for having a bit of an open mind when it comes to, well... anything really. There's nothing more embarrassing than ranting about a book/movie only to come up blank when someone asks you a basic question about it.

 

[In Search of Username]

But you can know enough about objectivism to despise it without ever touching a Rand book, can't you? It's not like not having read the book means you're just blindly opposing something you don't understand. You can find out enough about the philosophy from the Wikipedia article unless you intend to professionally debate it, so the book is really just for people who are actually interested in the philosophy and want to understand all its nuances.

I wouldn't say you could know enough to despise it based upon a simple summary. You could know enough to refute it, to disagree with it, but hatred for me is only reserved for the well understood evils.

I dunno, how much do you need to know about, say, Nazism? Do you have to have read Mein Kampf before you can say it's bad?

They're both philosophies, what's the difference that means you need so much more information on objectivism to understand it than Christianity?

One asks for faith and the other asks for reason.

Objectivism asks for faith in reason, then, if reason is something you have to rely on entirely in objectivism. It's beside the point anyway - both have their own basic internal logic that you need to understand in order to refute them, so it's a fair analogy.

 

[Arakasi]

But you can know enough about objectivism to despise it without ever touching a Rand book, can't you? It's not like not having read the book means you're just blindly opposing something you don't understand. You can find out enough about the philosophy from the Wikipedia article unless you intend to professionally debate it, so the book is really just for people who are actually interested in the philosophy and want to understand all its nuances.

I wouldn't say you could know enough to despise it based upon a simple summary. You could know enough to refute it, to disagree with it, but hatred for me is only reserved for the well understood evils.

I dunno, how much do you need to know about, say, Nazism? Do you have to have read Mein Kampf before you can say it's bad?

Having seen the founder of Nazism do his thing, and the effects it produced I'd say I can know enough about it to say that it's bad. Not that I don't know quite a bit about Nazism, because I do. If I thought for a second that it could be a reasonable philosophy, I would suspend judgement to read the texts in support.

They're both philosophies, what's the difference that means you need so much more information on objectivism to understand it than Christianity?

One asks for faith and the other asks for reason.

Objectivism asks for faith in reason, then, if reason is something you have to rely on entirely in objectivism. It's beside the point anyway - both have their own basic internal logic that you need to understand in order to refute them, so it's a fair analogy.

Odd way of looking at it. Faith is belief despite evidence, and as near as I can tell one of the only things we really have empirical evidence for is reason. I still have to disagree about the Christianity example, all one needs to know about that to refute it is that they believe something based on faith.

 

[Scarecrow]

I would say it's very important to approach everything with an open mind. I haven't read Atlas, but I've just read through The Satanic Bible by Anton Szador LaVey. The title would put a lot of people off, but if a person was to actually read it, they would see what a well thought out book it was. They may not agree with all the ideas of LaVey Satanism (The idea of being your own god, being kind to the worthy and cruel to the unworthy, and to be ruthless to those who wrong you), but it's not what many would suspect.

I bring this up in detail because LaVey used some of Ayn Rand's Objectivist ideas, so they are kinda connected. But I think I can say I enjoyed and got a lot more out of The Satanic Bible than I might her work.

 

[Mylinkay Asdara]

So for every time I see a web comic telling the readers that one has terrible taste for liking a book, every time I hear a video-creator crack a joke about people yanking-off to a work he doesn't like, every time I hear someone tell me that they despise something and yet are unable to explain why, every time I hear someone tell me that something is wrong simply because it is, this my friends, is when I shall decide for myself.

Just a little note, I think Yahtzee used the "too tired to wank to Atlas Shrugged" zip in because the society in Bioshock is supposedly - and I admit in advance to having only watched someone play half the game, not actually playing it myself - built around the ideas of that work and other works of that author. They - the people in the game, well not IN the game but who had been there - clearly took it to an unhealthy place, as evinced by the state of their society when you the player comes along. I'm not sure it's a comment on the book itself in any way, which, incidentally I have read and wasn't terribly impressed with but neither did I hate it. That tends to be the case for me and some of the "great controversial works" of the modern writing tradition though: I didn't care for Catcher in the Rye either. /shrug.