<\/p>\n\n\n\n
How many copies of Ayn Rand\u2019s Atlas Shrugged<\/em>, first published in 1957, have been sold is hard to determine. It doesn\u2019t appear on Wikipedia\u2019s list of best-selling books, which ranges from 10 to 200 million copies. But surely it has sold in the millions, and its influence is clearly much stronger than many of the books on the Wikipedia list (Valley of the Dolls, God\u2019s Little Acre, etc.).<\/p>\n\n\n\n Atlas Shrugged<\/em> resembles a nineteenth century Russian novel (and Rand was born and educated in Russia): dozens and dozens of characters, a plot that sprawls over with epochal (albeit fictional) events, a long philosophical speech as its centrepiece.<\/p>\n\n\n\n But Atlas<\/em> contains science fictional elements absent in its Russian predecessors: Rearden metal, a strong and reliable but mysterious alloy; Galt\u2019s motor, which runs on static electricity; the government\u2019s Project X. <\/p>\n\n\n\n However, the storyline of Rand\u2019s book does not follow typical science fiction, which introduces mysterious beings or artifacts, and whose plot revolves around revealing the properties of these things. The typical science fiction story tantalizes the audience with some wondrous or horrific entity (a blob from outer space has come to earth, say), inducing audience curiosity about its properties (what can it do? how can we stop it?); and the storyline is largely a revelation of those properties. In Rand\u2019s novel, Rearden metal and Galt\u2019s motor mainly serve as McGuffins for the human conflicts that are the book\u2019s principal subject.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Atlas Shrugged<\/em> may not fit the formula of science fiction, though there is another pattern from mass art it does exemplify. This is a certain Christian end-of-times story, the best known of which is the \u201cLeft Behind<\/em>\u201d series by Tim LaHaye and Jerry Jenkins \u2013 16 books published from 1995-2007.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Let me quote the Wikipedia plot summary: \u201cBased on dispensationalist interpretation of prophecies in the Biblical books of Revelation, Daniel, Isaiah and Ezekiel, Left Behind tells the story of the end times, in which many have been \u2018raptured,\u2019 leaving the world shattered and chaotic. As people scramble for answers, a Romanian politician named Nicolae Jetty Carpathia rises to become secretary-general of the United Nations, promising to restore peace and stability to all nations. What most of the world does not realize is that Carpathia is actually the Antichrist foretold from the Bible. Coming to grips with the truth and becoming born-again Christians, Rayford Steele, his daughter Chloe, their pastor Bruce Barnes, and young journalist Cameron \u2018Buck\u2019 Williams begin their quest as the Tribulation Force to help save the lost and prepare for the coming Tribulation, in which God will rain down judgment on the world for seven years.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n And, also from Wikipedia, the plot summary of Atlas Shrugged<\/em>: \u201cThe book explores a dystopian United States where leading innovators, ranging from industrialists to artists, refuse to be exploited by society. The protagonist, Dagny Taggart, sees society collapse around her as the government increasingly asserts control over all industry (including Taggart Transcontinental, the once mighty transcontinental railroad for which she serves as the Vice President of Operations), while society’s most productive citizens, led by the mysterious John Galt, progressively disappear. Galt describes the strike as \u2018stopping the motor of the world\u2019 by withdrawing the \u2018minds\u2019 that drive society’s growth and productivity. In their efforts, these people \u2018of the mind\u2019 hope to demonstrate that a world in which the individual is not free to create is doomed, that civilization cannot exist where people are slaves to society and government, and that the destruction of the profit motive leads to the collapse of society.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n In Left Behind<\/em>, many (not all) true Christians are raptured into heaven, leaving a small number to form the \u201cTribulation Force\u201d to oppose the unbelievers and especially the \u201cAntichrist\u201d (not the pope this time, but the secretary-general of the UN). Chaos reigns; and things blow up. In Atlas Shrugged<\/em>, the best minds secretly migrate to \u201cGalt\u2019s Gulch,\u201d leaving Dagney Taggart and some allies behind to fight the socialists. Chaos reigns; and things blow up. In both Left Behind<\/em> and Atlas Shrugged<\/em> the populace is divided along clearly-marked lines of good and bad \u2013 Christian versus nonchristian in the former, creative capitalists versus \u201dlooters\u201d and \u201cmoochers\u201d in the latter.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Atlas Shrugged<\/em> and Left Behind<\/em> are not simply stories of good versus evil. They are stories in which armies of good face off against armies of evil. In this, they resemble Star Wars<\/em> and Lord of the Rings<\/em>, and Paradise Lost<\/em>. <\/p>\n\n\n\n But what makes me want to join Atlas Shrugged<\/em> with Left Behind<\/em> and to separate these two from other armies-of-good-face-armies-of-evil stories is the \u201crapture\u201d elements in both works: the good simply disappear, with a few exceptions, leaving the evil to suffer in their own self-created messes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The popularity of both Atlas Shrugged<\/em> and Left Behind<\/em> is partly explainable, I think, as an appeal to the believers\u2019 desire for revenge on the unbelievers. However, the revenge in these books is a specific kind in which evil-doing unbelievers suffer from self-inflicted wounds: they became collectivists (wrong) or refused to accept Jesus as their saviour (really wrong). Whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap. And, boy, do these evil doers reap. As the Objectivist or Christian makes his way through these books, waves of self-justification wash over him. See how right I am! Randians, in fantasy, see themselves as the creative producers of society. The Left Behind<\/em> crowd see themselves as true believers in Jesus. Both Atlas<\/em> and Left Behind<\/em> end in apocalypse.<\/p>\n\n\n\n This is not to deny that Objectivism and Christianity have an appeal on their own, as philosophies in their own right.<\/p>\n\n\n\n I suspect there is a Venn diagram intersection of readers of Atlas Shrugged and readers of Left Behind. I wonder if readers at the intersection know there is an inconsistency between Rand\u2019s free-sex-and-atheism and Christian puritanism-and-theism. Possibly not; \u201csuch is the sweet influence which [mimetic art] by nature has\u201d (Plato).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" How many copies of Ayn Rand\u2019s Atlas Shrugged, first published in 1957, have been sold is hard to determine. It doesn\u2019t appear on Wikipedia\u2019s list of best-selling books, which ranges from 10 to 200 million copies. But surely it has sold in the millions, and its influence is clearly much stronger than many of the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":53,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[8,30],"tags":[38,39],"class_list":["post-52","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-philosophy","category-politics","tag-ayn-rand","tag-left-behind"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"http:\/\/bobyanal.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/12\/AdobeStock_14646443-1200x400-1.webp","_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/bobyanal.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/52","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/bobyanal.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/bobyanal.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/bobyanal.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/bobyanal.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=52"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/bobyanal.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/52\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":144,"href":"http:\/\/bobyanal.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/52\/revisions\/144"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/bobyanal.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/53"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/bobyanal.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=52"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/bobyanal.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=52"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/bobyanal.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=52"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}