Please share books that affected your worldview or changed your thoughts.
For me, it’s A People’s History of the World by Chris Harman. I studied business and work in finance, and before reading it, I never questioned the idea that capitalism was just the natural way of things. This book made me realize that capitalism is man made. It had a beginning and it can have an end. Wealth and poverty are not just inevitable, they are created by human decisions. That perspective really shook me.
Do you have a book that had a similar impact on you?
Atlas Shrugged… But not in the way most people would think. I was raised very conservative. Growing up people always talked about how great of an author Ayn Rand was. But when I finally read some of her books, they made me sick. It kind of opened my eyes to how the political beliefs I was given as child clashed with my own personal values.
I read Fountainhead and really enjoyed it. I started to think I might be interested in her philosophy. I had an older coworker when I was an intern who was VERY into Ayn Rand and Objectivism, and we were having conversations about the philosophy.
Then I read Atlas Shrugged. Holy shit did I hate it. That book made it quite clear how stupid and unrealistic her philosophy was, and also made me rethink my opinion of that coworker who was really into her.
In my defense, I was raised by a cookie cutter Atlas Shrugged villain dad - gaslighter, business cheat and mooch, womanizer - so Atlas Shrugged’s heroes were the fantasy I needed when I read it. I knew I wasn’t a “John Galt” so I tinkered with a dutiful Eddie Willers identity for a bit. Some good still came out of it - I got interested in philosophy as a respectable formal academic topic, and outgrew the fantasy.
It’s a funny thing, I was never politically aligned with Rand to begin with, but I really enjoyed Atlas Shrugged as a science fiction book. The dystopia led by incompetent and ideologically empty boobs was an interesting take. From the way Rand portrayed her characters and presented the ideas of her opponents made me think she might have been autistic. Her politics made me think she was insane. It’s a fun book.
I thought it was a terrible book, even regardless of her wild-ass philosophy. Her characters were flat, and their dialogue was not remotely realistic. The book was overly long and said the same thing a thousand different ways to hammer home her point. I similarly didn’t enjoy Catch 22, since he made the same joke over and over again (kind of the point, I know, but I just didn’t enjoy the repetition). I did enjoy Fountainhead, though. I thought it was a much better book.
Hey, I don’t even disagree with that criticism. And maybe I’ll check out The Fountainhead later.
I similarly found Ayn Rand sickening when I read it. After reading The Fountainhead and Anthem, I decided it was a moral imperative to bully and ostracize the shit outta anyone who found her writing admirable.
Still like Rush, tho, I guess, so we’re all fulla contradictions.
FWIW, Neil Peart was embarrassed of his Ayn Rand phase, too.