Final Thoughts on Atlas Shrugged

Last week I read the final page of Atlas Shrugged.  I confess it was something of a relief to be done with the book.  I enjoyed it very much, but Ms. Rand has all the subtlety of a sledgehammer and after nearly 1200 pages of being beaten about the head and shoulders with her ideas I was ready to be done and move on.  In fairness, my complaints about the book and its redundancy pale in comparison to the compliments I would pay the book.  As mentioned before, this book made me stop and think on many occasions.  It provided a challenge--I am not able to take the philosophies espoused by Rand with a grain of salt.  She had serious things to say, and I felt it worth my time to give them serious consideration.  Though I do not subscribe to all the tenets of Rand's Objectivist philosophy, I must say that I believe much of what she says is right on the money.  So, what did I like and what left me empty?  Below are a few thoughts on each.

I took notes throughout the book and finally decided to record the most intriguing aspects of the book in a sort of index at the front.  My index reads as follows:

- Consecration / paradigm shift: page 82

- Importance of Need: page 143

- Developments -> Job losses -> New Opportunities (similar to Friedman's TWIF education concept): page 290

[I covered that topic in a previous post]

- Francisco's Money speech: pages 410-415

- Purpose of Government: pages 576-577; 1062-1063

- Impacts of Socialism (consecration): pages 660-670

- John Galt story: pages 671-672

- Scorn for faith, hope and charity: page 742

[I also covered this topic in a previous post]

- Definition of happiness: page 1014

- Refutation of Original Sin: page 1026

- The reality of self loathing: page 1046

I don't have the inclination to discuss all of the above at length, but I will take the time to explore a couple of those items in more detail.  First, I though the definition of happiness on page 1014 was fantastic.  The definition was provided toward the beginning of John Galt's 60-page speech outlining Ms. Rand's premise for the novel.  He states, "Happiness is that state of consciousness which proceeds from the achievement of one's values."  I believe that is true.  If you live by the values you hold dear and are true to those values then you will have happiness.  If you live contrary to those values you will have misery.  Obviously, there is much action and work that goes behind those words, but the principle is sound.  The trick is to truly understand what you value most.  I think sometimes we confuse surface feelings and ephemeral dalliances for true values.  I certainly have at times.  I believe the world today would encourage us to sit down and think, no meditate, on our values and record them in a mission statement (thanks, Mr. Covey) so they can provide a guide for our lives.  If we spend the time, mental effort and, dare I say, spiritual resources we can arrive at our deep-seated values.  Such can them be our compass to happiness.  Achieving those values and resulting happiness is another question altogether.

At any rate, I appreciated the happiness definition because it made me ponder values and happiness and where I sit in relation to both.  Something that can cause such introspection is something to be appreciated.

Next, you will note that I mention the word consecration twice in my little index.  This is a topic of some import to active LDS such as myself.  I'm sure plenty of others consider it frequently, but I come to it with an LDS lens, and I won't try to represent my thoughts any other way.  This subject pervades Atlas Shrugged, and overtly, not in a good way.  Rand hammers home time and again the reasons we should never feel obliged to live for someone else or to provide anything to someone else without receiving value in return.  Pure evil is how she describes efforts to establish some type of society based on the principle of consecration.  In politico-speak we would simply say socialism or perhaps even communism, though that is viewed as a dirty word by many these days.  Rand certainly viewed communism as the most loathsome of evils and seeks to imbue her readers with a feeling of the same.

However, the fact of the matter is that consecration is at the heart of LDS theology.  It's not currently practiced, but it was attempted in the early days of the church and failed miserably.  Ultimately, we believe it will be the social structure that carries the day.  I, for one, have a hard time with the concept of consecration/communism.  I believe that I should be the one to choose how the rewards of my labors are disseminated.  I don't relish the thought of some governmental big brother looking over my shoulder and dictating to me what I will receive as a result of my efforts.  The fear, obviously, is that someone less deserving will be rewarded with the fruits of my labors, and I will be caught in a downward spiral of having no incentive to work hard because there is no reward for such as the rewards go to others.  When all diligent workers start to feel the same pain then overall productivity plummets and society becomes depressed, in every sense of the word.  This is what happens in Atlas Shrugged.

But, we must consider the premise on which the AS communism is constructed.  As I've said before, AS is Animal Farm on steroids.  Fraudulent and deceiving men head the government and ultimately seek not their own happiness, but the misery of others.  They disguise their motives by professing to only be interested in the good of the whole.  Rand disagrees with that philosophy on the face of it.  The only good to be considered is the individual good.  No one else matters--each should be expected to be concerned for his own good.  And, if each is so engaged then the ultimate result will be a prosperous society.  

Fine. I expect that is true, but the fact is that not all will be so engaged and, in fact, some are not capable of being so engaged.  Do we simply leave them behind?  From everything I have been taught the answer is no.  But at the same time, we should not trust their care into the hands of men represented by the AS government.  (Brief aside: thanks to my sister, Linda, for hitting me with Helaman 7:4-5.  Check those verses and you will see the type of men who ran the AS government).  

The result of all this is that I am left in a quandary.  I want to be rewarded for my work and have dispensation over how those rewards are allocated.  Generally speaking, I do not trust government to wisely allocate the rewards I have earned.  However, I do not want people to be left behind without any reward and recognize that I do not have the resources of thought or time to understand all the best ways to allocate my rewards for the best benefit of myself, my family and society.  In addition, I believe that consecration is a societal construct whose time will come.

Ultimately, I end up with two thoughts that I believe will cohabit to make consecration a reality.  One comes from my religious teachings and the other comes from Ms. Rand herself.

First, as I see it, the reason communism has failed is because the individuals at the top have been weak.  They were unable to truly implement the system and inspire the people.  Instead, they governed with fear and hatred.  No system will work in the long term with such an underlying philosophy.  Consequently, any true system of consecration must be led by someone who can truly be trusted and loved by all--not just for a week or month or year, but for eternity.  Someone who will not fall into the foibles of human nature or succumb to the temptation of power, but someone who will be true to the philosophies espoused by consecration and who can inspire others to be true to the same.  Only when such a person arrives can consecration be successfully implemented.

Second, in the end Rand believed that the Thinkers (those with the ability to save society in the AS world), would all work to their utmost abilities to derive personal rewards.  She expected those rewards to be in terms of money.  In fact, the $ would be the symbol of her society and gold would be the currency.  Strangely, I don't think she is too far off.  For consecration to work, individuals will need to work just as she envisioned--each to the best of her ability.  But, a paradigm shift will also have to take place in that money would not be the ultimate reward for such efforts.  It may be a vehicle for obtaining the reward, but it would not be the reward itself.  Instead, all would have to be willing to work to full capacity while seeking the reward that would benefit all.  In an interesting way, that is exactly what the Thinkers in AS would set out to do.  They were interdependent.  None would last long without the others.  They were a symbiotic society, and each knew that by putting forth his best efforts he would be able to enjoy the best efforts of all those around him.  

It's a paradigm shift if you will, but ultimately I don't see Rand's philosophy as opposed to the form of consecration that I expect will be successful.  The right leadership and implicit and complete trust in those around us will one day provide the society Rand envisioned . . . with consecration as its framework.