How (not) to (re)view Atlas Shrugged, The Movie
A friend and colleague of mine inquires as to my reactions to David Brin's review of Atlas Shrugged, the movie. Unhappily, Brin's criticism of Ayn Rand is totally off-mark, and tells much more about Brin than about Rand. But if the misconceptions Brin authoritatively and dishonestly spews as facts are shared in any way, my here response will perhaps help dispel them in some of my readers.
I'll address first the most important point of Brin's essay, that he brings up "last but not least" in his hard to read screed, and to which my friend attracts my attention: “Elsewhere, I've revealed the biggest and most telling red flag about Ayn Rand - one that I've not seen mentioned elsewhere. It is that none of her über role-model characters, at any level or in any way, ever indulge in the most basic human project - bearing and raising and loving and teaching children.”
That's so totally unfair. In the book Atlas Shrugged (why does Brin have to capitalize its title in his review?), Rand includes flashback scenes where some of the main protagonists are kids, and other scenes when they were students. The novel involves the stories of two dynasties of tycoons, the founders of which have great love affairs, marry, and issue a line of descendants. The heroin's intent of marriage is discussed in the novel, and while I don't remember whether or not future children are explicitly mentioned, they are not explicitly rejected, and the assumption of a future continuation is implicit in the dynastic background. Therefore, while the main protagonists aren't raising children during the "current" events of the novel proper, the novel emphatically isn't one that altogether blanks out on the issue of children, it's just that children don't fit the plot of these "current" events. Brin's criterion thus looks like but an excessive ad hoc argument by which he uses a double standard to judge Rand's novel; if his argument is not ad hoc, pray tell what other philosophically-bent novels is that criterion to apply to, and how would these other novels fare?
The real underlying criticism is Brin claiming Rand's philosophy is damned because it neglects the important issue of progeny, and sees individuals as coming from nothing and going to nothing. But Ayn Rand has written essays several about education: that I have read and remember of, she notably wrote favorably of Montessori schools, and discussed concept formation in children based on the story of Helen Keller. Her first novel, We The Living, has plenty of family stories with parent-children relationships (admittedly those children are young adults, but I don't see how that diminishes the point). The claim that progeny, posterity and dynasty are altogether absent from Rand's works in general or Atlas Shrugged in particular is easily disproved. Certainly, Miss Rand isn't the most motherly figure in philosophy, and raising children isn't one of her main topics; indeed, she didn't have first hand experience about it and we should be thankful that she did not make herself a figure of authority on such a topic. At another point in his review of sorts, Brin derides Rand for being ignorant of biology, which she was indeed. And there again, she was careful to reserve her judgment when asked questions of biology, which is exactly what a person with intellectual integrity should do: know her limits and admit ignorance; for no one should be held to a standard of omniscience. Now, if we are to criticize her for topics she didn't claim to have authority on, then I accuse her of having written NOTHING, NOTHING, I repeat, ZILCH, on how to grow strawberries in the German Black Forest; now THAT's damning! (Neither has Brin, BTW.)
My friend insists that the essence of Brin's objection is "Rand's reluctance to explore the topic of heirs borne with a platinum spoon in their mouth and getting the fruits of Galt's labor without so much as scratching their pampered asses." Yet explore this topic she emphatically does! Her dynastic stories precisely cover this point. Her idealized model (Francisco d'Anconia) is the heir who forgoes parental support, starts working at the bottom of the ladder before going to college, and builds his own fortune long before he inherits anything. Her most loathed anti-model (James Taggart, brother to the heroin) is the guy who not only lives "second hand" on what he did nothing to deserve, but uses his fortune to become a member of the aristocracy of "pull", all the while cultivating an ideology of guilt about unearned riches. In between, the heroin (Dagny Taggart) does inherit, but keeps the family business running despite her brother's botchery. Also possibly deserving a mention, the wife of the brother, whose life is empty, who was married out of the brother's guilt, precisely because she held not only no fortune but no value, and who ends up committing suicide upon the realization. In the novel, Rand explicitly loathes those who are not "up to" their inherited money, and tells how they are a sorry thing to contemplate, and unlikely to remain rich very indefinitely, there again with a counter-model in the story in the heirs of the factory that once employed Galt. She claims that giving resources to those one values (whether children or not) is the prerogative of the creator or otherwise owner of resources, as well as one's curse if one doesn't use one's prerogative wisely. And so, far from being neglected, the question of inheritance is addressed, at length, in Rand's works in general, and in Atlas Shrugged in particular. Brin's criticism is once again totally unfounded.
Frankly, if that's the best Brin has to say about her, that's pretty slim. Brin in this review is just being pompous, self-important, and doesn't even bother to know what he's talking about.
After addressing Brin's main point, I'll now address some other point he raises in his piece that most irked me. I'll leave many more unaddressed, for I am already giving Brin's essay more attention than it deserves; if any of them raises your interest, I invite you to check its premises rather than take Brin's word.
Brin claims a work should be judged by its intent, and then mocks Atlas Shrugged for its one-dimensional characters. Yet, as Rand made very clear in subsequent commentary, characters of the novel are INTENDED to be philosophical prototypes: Rand has a philosophical purpose with this book, and is precisely trying to isolate concepts so they can be examined independently and discussed clearly. Is the device sound at all? Is she successful at using it? These questions are up to discussion; I'd argue positively in both cases. But Brin not only fails to criticize this aspect of the novel, he misses the point entirely.
Brin describes (his very personal (mis)understanding of) Rand's philosophy as a degenerate version of Marxism, taking from him the notions of class struggle and historical progress, but just stopping one step before Marx in his eschatology. Did Rand take ideas from Marx? Having suffered Soviet propaganda, she certainly knew everything of Marx's ideas. But are these ideas original to Marx to begin with? The idea of social progress is nothing new; the ancient Greeks knew the concept, and there are articulate modern expositions of it in the 18th century (for instance by A.R.J. Turgot), possibly earlier. Class theory? There again, the notion of exploitation is not foreign to thinkers from antiquity, and a modern theory of it was already articulated in the 18th century by the likes of Adam Ferguson, or popularized by pamphleteers like Tom Paine, who in Rights of Man concisely quipped "There are two distinct classes of men in the Nation, those who pay taxes and those who receive and live upon the taxes." So yes, Rand is informed of the ideas of Marxism, but her thought is much closer to those of an earlier school of philosophy, classical liberalism. To call her a degenerate Marxist is just ad hominem ignorance. Why not rather call Marx a degenerate Fergusonist or Painiac, distorting the accurate views of these venerable authors with his own mass-criminal socialist lunacies?
Then Brin attacks Rand for wanting to "get rid of constitutional-enlightenment government". I don't know what Brin is smoking, but that's precisely one thing Rand never advocated: she had harsh words against free-market anarchists (such as I am). Rather, Brin is doing what Rand would call a "package-deal": implicitly collating many concepts under his own arbitrary term, and trying to sell us his term as a whole, identifying any rejection of any of the concepts in it as a rejection of the term, and thus of all the other associated concepts. But no, just because she rejects the welfare-state or whatever Brin likes in whatever he calls "constitutional-enlightenment government" doesn't entail any rejection (or endorsement) of any other aspect of what Brin not only assumes is a coherent whole, but seems to assume anyone could only consider but as a coherent whole. I admit I don't know what exactly Brin means by "constitutional-enlightenment government", but I bet it will not exactly match what either you or I, or anyone but Brin for that matter, would put under this over-qualified noun. By its implicit standard, Brin's curse extends to everyone but Brin; and since it's not clear that Brin himself implies any well-identified meaning behind these terms that he could consistently agree to, he might not be exempt from his own curse. Of course the point of Brin is precisely to avoid the identification of concepts and thus any possible rational analytic discussion, and instead arouse irrational emotion through word association and name-calling. Interestingly, Ayn Rand wrote an essay on exactly that, "The Anti-Conceptual Mentality".
Brin mocks that Rand should write a long novel that includes long rants only incidental to the action. Yet, this places her square in the tradition of Tolstoy, Dostoyevsky and other celebrated Russian novelists. As for integrating her philosophical rants to the main body of the novel, did she do better or worse than her predecessors? I can't say for sure, since I haven't read any of her predecessor's books from cover to cover (indeed, I have read but short excerpts from them); but Rand's rants are definitely key parts of the plot rather than mere digressions, which is more than I can say of Dostoyevsky's or Tolstoy's equivalent. And her discourses have a lot of enthusiastic readers eager to spread them even separately from the rest of the novel, which despite the biased sample I have encountered, I bet is much larger than the cohorts of fans of the digressions of Tolstoy or Dostoyevsky (of which I have met members indeed).
There is so much valid criticism to raise against Rand: her lack of empathy, of humility, of patience for contradiction; her heavy-handed governmental approach to dealing with communism and other forms of barbarianism at the gates of Civilization; her strange brand of minarchism, whereby she believes in a tax-less monopoly government, against both big-government statists and free-market anarchists; her sexual fantasies with male domination of the female; her taking many of her personal preferences for universal judgments of good taste; the fact that though she has a knack for painting the big conceptual picture, she uses a big brush that glosses over finer details (which, as far as understanding big philosophical questions and making life decisions, is infinitely better than the opposite vice so cultivated in modern academia). But having escaped Soviet Russia in its bloody beginnings can explain - and, to me at least, excuse - a lot of neuroticism. Most of those who appreciate Rand do it for the main points she makes, and not for these easily identifiable and separable quirks of her personality (though once again, I have indeed met a few "Randroids", unconditional supporters even of her most misguided opinions, which makes me confident by contrast that I, and most libertarians, can read and appreciate Rand without loss of a critical mind).
If anything, the most structuring defect in her philosophy is her irrational belief in Intellectual Property. One sorry consequence of that belief is her denial of her sources of inspiration: wouldn't she have read or at least been told about Garret Garrett's "The Driver" as partial inspiration for "Atlas Shrugged", or Zamyatin's "We" as partial inspiration for "Anthem"? It would have been more honest and saner to admit it than to claim absolute originality. More importantly perhaps, we could decry a consequent defect in her literary works, the weakness of the fictional science in Atlas Shrugged, and especially her ignorance of the importance of network effects in science and technology, which brings us back to her myth of the lone, "atomic" creator of an entire free-standing idea, versus the incremental aspect of intellectual creation and scientific research. Stefan Kinsella wrote (or linked to?) a nice piece on that, but an easy Google search won't dig it out.
While there is a lot of pertinent criticism of Rand floating around, Brin's piece is none of it. It only demonstrates how big a gas bag Brin is. Instead of addressing what she does say, he makes then demolishes straw men of what he fantasizes she said or failed to say. He's a fraud, and those who would take his word at face value are fools.
I could rant on and on, but all these points, real or imaginary, about Rand's work, are beside the real point. Rand's novel is meant as science/philosophical fiction, not historical realism. Whatever inspiration Rand had from however many acknowledged and unacknowledged sources and as many traditions, her novel is singular in its attempt, and success, at expounding and extolling a philosophy and a sense of life based on rational individualism. How "unique" it is or isn't in this or that wider or narrower genre, I don't know; and of course any concept of "uniqueness" in a genre is relative to how much we can stretch and restrict the concept of "genre". I admit to never having read any of the authors of novels immediately preceding hers in the tradition of individual liberty, such as Garet Garrett, Rose Wilder Lane or Isabel Paterson. Maybe you dear reader have recommendations? Since then, that tradition, in the science fiction subgenre, has counted great novels written by Robert Heinlein or Vernor Vinge, as well as many others. Being part of a tradition is neither a defect, nor an evidence of plagiarism; it is the sign that you're part of something greater, and alive.
As for the movie itself, what could I say? I found it to be a very good movie, though not an immortal chef-d'oeuvre. What matters most probably, it does rather faithfully convey Rand's philosophy and sense of life. The pace is good, and the storytelling is quite alright, though at times you can feel some awkwardness due to how they had to cut and squeeze the original thousand-page material: notably, with its limited and sometimes stilted repetitions in the movie, the "Who is John Galt?" motto fails to become the joke then un-joke that it is in the novel. I deplore that the movie lacks the atmosphere of mystery and confusion that increases in the first part of Rand's book, to be explained in the second part; but I have no idea how it could have been done in a movie, so I won't count that against them; instead I'll reckon their take of explicitly showing the Galt character without showing his face as rather clever. The scene where they read the blueprint of the invention was almost ridiculous; but that's hard to pull off, as that's also a part where the book is rather weak: that's a definite case where no explanation at all would have been better than these bullshit explanations; future science, whether fictional or not, by definition cannot be adequately explained in terms of current science. Actor-wise, Grant Bowler is great. Taylor Schilling is excellent most of the time. The supporting cast is quite good. I particularly liked the performances of Paul Fischler and Rebecca Wisocky, but I thought Jsu Garcia was a notch under his (there again tricky) role.