Evolutionary Philosophy
  • Home
  • Worldview
    • Epistemology
    • Metaphysics
    • Logic
    • Ethics
    • Politics
    • Aesthetics
  • Applied
    • Know Thyself
    • 10 Tenets
    • Survival of the Fittest Philosophers >
      • Ancient Philosophy (Pre 450 CE)
      • Medieval Philosophy (450-1600 CE)
      • Modern Philosophy (1600-1920 CE)
      • Contemporary Philosophy (Post 1920 CE)
    • 100 Thought Experiments
    • Elsewhere
  • Fiction
    • Draining the Swamp >
      • Further Q&A
    • Short Stories
    • The Vitanauts
  • Blog
  • Store
  • About
    • Purpose
    • My Evolution
    • Evolution 101
    • Philosophy 101

Turns Out Atlas Can Hug Too

12/13/2020

3 Comments

 
Once upon a time...a long, long time ago...I was a fan of Ayn Rand. She spoke of nothing but being rational. Her characters lived principled heroic lives. And there was plenty of evidence (if you wanted to see it) that free markets and invisible hands were what defeated Communism and made the world great. Hooray!

But then — as I noted in my post about Rand during my series on the Survival of the Fittest Philosophers (where she came #52 out of 60) — I read more. Quite a lot more. I became More Objective Than An Objectivist and I saw through it all. What did I see exactly? I said:
​
"You had to take electives with a dozen crunchy granola types to learn about limits to growth and The Ecology of Commerce. You had to seek out indie documentaries about The Corporation to see why its behaviour mimicked those of psychopaths. You had to go visit small, local businesses to find Companies that Choose to Be Great Instead of Big. You had to read about The Jungle of unbridled capitalism at the turn of the 20th century that literally ground immigrants into dust. You had to listen to Joel Salatin talk about how faster, fatter, bigger, cheaper, was a poor food product of our mechanistic, Greco-Roman, western, reductionist, linear, fragmented, compartmentalised, disconnected, democratised, individualised, parts-oriented thought process. And you had to read much more about evolution and biology to see the immense picture of life that truly selfish businessmen are only just a tiny virus within. Once I did all that, though, Rand's rational self-interest became the most irrational thing I had heard. Now when I read her thoughts on capitalism and ethics, she sounds like a two year old throwing a temper tantrum. Me, me, me, me!"

I became so disenchanted with Rand that arguing against her became a central theme of my fist novel. Even the Kirkus Review of Draining the Swamp noticed. They called my book, "A philosophically charged critique of government, couched in the form of a novel." And they noted:
​

This novel doubles as a sort of American civics textbook, explaining the functions of each agency while adding the spice of insider knowledge. It’s bookended with references to Ayn Rand’s brand of libertarianism, which provides philosophical power to the concluding moral.

Earlier this year, I got into a private conversation with the famous David Sloan Wilson about evolutionary epistemology (more on that soon!) and he asked me about my background. I said:
​
My favorite novels come from authors with a strong philosophical element in their work like Dostoyevsky, Sartre, Camus, Rebecca Newberger Goldstein, and Irvin Yalom. I’ve also been very inspired by science writers like Carl Sagan, Richard Dawkins, E.O. Wilson, and of course yourself. Together, these built dreams for me of writing fiction and philosophy in the influential combination that Ayn Rand achieved, but instead of championing selfishness as she did, I feel much more inspired to explore the prosocial stories that are actually successful in evolution.
​
​I didn't know it at the time, but David was just about to release his very first novel, which also happened to have the same inspiration. His book was written as a sequel and antidote to Ayn Rand’s iconic novel Atlas Shrugged, but it was going to be called Atlas Hugged instead. When he saw what I said about my own writing, he let me have an advance copy of his book. And boy is it good! I would definitely add it to the list above of things to read if you want to see through the childish brand of Rand-ian selfishness that has infected so much of America and the world.

I sent David a short review after I finished reading Atlas Hugged, and I'm flattered that he's turned it into a feature blurb on his website. (My first blurb!) He even created this marketing picture, which has been shared on Twitter (with the likes of Dan Dennett, Richard Dawkins, Sam Harris, Barbara Ehrenreich, and Barbara King no less!):
Picture
 

Atlas Hugged is now on sale using an innovative pay what you can model for an eBook or paperback version. He's developing a reader's club with a newsletter too that have both provided interesting companion material for the fascinating ideas he's exploring. If you like my brand of thinking and fiction-writing, you are pretty much guaranteed to like David's novel too. Check it out today! Here's my full review:

​This is an incredibly ambitious novel from one of the finest scientific minds on the planet (who just happens to be the son of a great American novelist too). The goal of Atlas Hugged is nothing short of changing the world by uniting humanity and eliminating suffering. As a reimagined sequel of sorts to Ayn Rand’s famous and influential novel Atlas Shrugged, Wilson’s work is similarly full of philosophical ideas and illustrative parables. It’s didactic in the best sense of that word since it comes from a very fine professor who has clearly honed his teaching over decades of lecturing. In Atlas Hugged, Wilson extols the virtues of cooperation rather than the selfishness that Rand did, and for that alone he ought to be cheered on. Even if you don’t agree with everything Wilson asserts, there is so much to chew on and learn from (in a very easily digested format) that Atlas Hugged deserves a wide readership—certainly wider than the shrug Ayn Rand gave us.

          —Ed Gibney, Author and Evolutionary Philosopher
3 Comments
SelfAwarePatterns link
12/14/2020 01:00:39 am

Sounds like an interesting book!

I was lucky enough to have never read any of Rand's stuff as a teenager, when I think I might have been susceptible to it. But the copies I saw in the bookstore weren't enticing, so I never really read her. But I did read some objectivist articles as an adult, and saw the Gary Cooper / Fountainhead movie, but by then I was old and wary enough to recognize how superficial it was.

Personally, I'm not really onboard with either accounts that deify business people or vilify them. Most of them are just people. They do want to make money, but most want to do it honestly. That doesn't mean we should give them a free hand. Some are grifters and need to be regulated and policed. But the reality doesn't lend itself to simple accounts.

Reply
Ed Gibney link
12/14/2020 09:35:52 am

Lucky you!

I should say that you don't need to have read Atlas Shrugged in order to read and enjoy Atlas Hugged. The opening kind of recaps what happened in Rand's work, but also twists it a little to place Rand *in* her world rather than just *author* of that world. That gives David some more license to treat her as an invented character, and it makes his story a little more straightforward too.

I know Rand wrote in reaction to the terrors of Communism that she experienced growing up in Russia before moving the US. She was 12 at the time of the 1917 revolution, and she moved to the US 9 years later at age 21. Perfect teenage timing for simplified rebellious thinking!

I came to Rand right at the tail end of me removing myself from my vigorously religious and Republican upbringing. So she definitely felt like a reactionary step in the right direction for me at the time. Was her cold rational atheism a *necessary* bridge for me? Probably not. But it was one of the bridges I used. Like I said, lucky you if you already got to the other side without her. She does have a unique influence on America though so in some ways I'm glad I experienced it. Makes it easier to "know thine enemy."

Which of course shows they aren't always enemies. Just like you said about businessmen. They're people. And I often say that everyone thinks of themselves as the good heroes in their own stories. I think David does a good job of humanising everyone that way in Atlas Hugged. He's a very compassionate thinker.

Reply
SelfAwarePatterns link
12/14/2020 02:55:04 pm

Interestingly enough, Rand's atheism would actually have been an obstacle when I was a teenager. Not that I knew her views included it. I leaned libertarian back then, but was still a religious believer. By the time I wasn't, I was an overall skeptic and not inclined to buy her type of ideology.

Thanks for the additional info on David's book. I'll check it out.

Reply



Leave a Reply.

    Subscribe to Help Shape This Evolution

    SUBSCRIBE

    RSS Feed


    Blog Philosophy

    This is where ideas mate to form new and better ones. Please share yours respectfully...or they will suffer the fate of extinction!


    Archives

    January 2023
    August 2022
    July 2022
    June 2022
    March 2022
    February 2022
    January 2022
    December 2021
    November 2021
    October 2021
    August 2021
    June 2021
    April 2021
    March 2021
    February 2021
    January 2021
    December 2020
    November 2020
    September 2020
    August 2020
    July 2020
    June 2020
    May 2020
    April 2020
    March 2020
    February 2020
    January 2020
    May 2019
    March 2019
    December 2018
    July 2018
    March 2018
    February 2018
    January 2018
    December 2017
    November 2017
    October 2017
    August 2017
    July 2017
    June 2017
    May 2017
    April 2017
    March 2017
    February 2017
    January 2017
    December 2016
    November 2016
    October 2016
    September 2016
    August 2016
    July 2016
    June 2016
    May 2016
    April 2016
    March 2016
    February 2016
    January 2016
    December 2015
    November 2015
    October 2015
    September 2015
    August 2015
    July 2015
    June 2015
    May 2015
    April 2015
    March 2015
    February 2015
    January 2015
    December 2014
    November 2014
    October 2014
    September 2014
    August 2014
    July 2014
    June 2014
    May 2014
    April 2014
    March 2014
    February 2014
    January 2014
    December 2013
    November 2013
    October 2013
    September 2013
    August 2013
    July 2013
    May 2013
    April 2013
    March 2013
    February 2013
    January 2013
    December 2012
    November 2012
    October 2012
    September 2012
    August 2012
    July 2012
    April 2012


    Click to set custom HTML
Powered by Create your own unique website with customizable templates.