Atlas Shrugged and Objectivism

I finished “Atlas Shrugged” a couple weeks ago and was fairly impressed with it. I have mixed feelings on Objectivism. On the one hand, some of its ideas I find quite attractive, and many of the complaints against it strike me as being sour grapes by people who have decided a priori that they didn’t like Rand because of her political, economic and/or atheistic views.

At the same time, I would not call myself an Objectivist. Their dismissal of altruism, while not meritless, goes overboard I believe, and their idolatry of Saint Rand is just too cultish for me. “Randroids” also have an annoying belief that because they use rationality, then everything they do, say, decide, and believe is not only correct, but is the only correct way. Objectivists I’ve met don’t seem too keen on the concept that two perfectly rational people can still disagree.

One of the things I do find appealing about Objectivism is also one of its most misunderstood aspects. Its appeal to the concept of the Nietzschean “superman” is something I find very empowering. Despite Rand’s frequent division of people into either “supermen” or oblivious “sheeple”, I think her concept of the superman was meant as an inspiration rather than as a class division. While the Nazis used the concept as a divider to proclaim their own superiority, the superman concept in Rand’s literature seems more like a challenge to the reader to do more, think more, be more than they are now. To be in control of your own destiny. And not be bogged down by artificial, meaningless limits placed upon us by society, culture, tradition, religion, or other institutions which impress conformity upon its members.