What other authors would you suggest for someone who enjoys Ayn Rand?
Do you recommend any specific works?
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Start with The God of the Machine by Isabella Paterson
Dr Seuss
J.K. Rowling
Stephenie Meyer
Lemony Snicket
Christopher Paolini
Dr.Leonard Peikoff—thanks for reminding me to pick one of her books back up!I could use it :))
Gee, why not? You don’t have to think to enjoy any of them, either.
@dpworkin What do you recommend that would make me think?
@dpworkin
When I saw the list I knew you were going there.
I recommend that you wait until you are mature enough to find Ayn Rand puerile, and then ask me again for a reading list.
@dpworkin but I am a child. You might as well help me out if you don’t like where I’m going.
You say you enjoy Ayn Rand in your OP. I can’t help you with that. You’ll have to outgrow it, I guess.
@gemmers
Be careful. It looks as if you have found a few leftist ideologues (above). Be aware that they are poking fun at Ayn Rand because of a political philosophy, not because of her abilities as a writer, per se.
Not so. Arthur Koestler, perhaps the foremost anti-Communist of his era, is a hero of mine. I dislike Ayn Rand because I don’t think she writes very well, nor are her ideas very well thought through. Perhaps @gememers would enjoy “Darkness at Noon”. but it is quite sophisticated in a way that Ms Rand has never been.
@dpworkin
I’ll take you at your word. Though I have heard the same thing from many on the left who simply want to distance themselves from the reality of socialism in practice; those quaint former Stalinists who, after the fact, look back fondly on “what true socialism is…like Trotsky). Interesting, that sounds curiously like Arthur Koestler.
@carolinasummers There is a broad body of literary (as opposed to political) criticism rejecting Rand for aesthetic, not ideological reasons. I am hardly alone.
Grr, not going to make an Ayn Rand dig, although I really want to.
Check out some Orwell and Brave New World by Aldous Huxley. That is real dystopian literature.
@gememers you might enjoy Kahlil Gibran (i.e. The Prophet), or Nietzsche (Thus Spoke Zarathustra).
Are you looking for fiction similar to hers or someone who thinks similarly? If you are looking for nonfiction philosophy read Leonard Peikoff. If you are looking for fiction that is a much harder one. It would be hard to find someone that I would call truly similar to Rand but I know Victor Hugo was a favorite of Rand herself so maybe that is a good place to start.
Ooh, Karl Marx would be an interesting read for any objectivist.
@dverhey I would second your vote for some balance from Orwell (Animal Farm and 1984) and Huxley’s Brave New World. Maybe The Cancer Stage of Capitalism
By John McMurtry and books about America before we put a lid on the robber barons—Perhaps Upton SInclair’s The Jungle and further back to Dickens view of England when greed and privileged was all that counted, as in A Christmas Carol which any library should have.
@gememers The problem with Ann Rand is her vision of a Gaultian revolt against big government extols the all-out virtue of unbridled selfishness and greed to the destruction of civil society. I suppose if the world were to become as dysfunctional as her vision has it becoming, this might be justified. But the USA today is far from the dystopia she lays out. And it’s important to remember, when shaking fists at the all-encompasing evils of government, what comes about when government collapses.
Somalia is a good modern-day example. No wicked, incompetent government to boss you around. You are free to do whatever you want. Piracy and kidnapping are big hits. And nearly everybody has gins—lots and lots of guns. We’re talking truck mounted 50 cals, rocket propelled grenade launchers, serious hardware. What a paradise. Just head to any airport and you are sure to see the huge lines waiting to get to Mogadishu and make their fortune without stupid gubment getting in the way.
The last time world-wide government broke down, with the collapse of the Roman Empire, look how swimmingly it went for the bright, educated class. Rand seems to forget that the handful of educated people in the Dark Ages had to retreat behind monastery walls, and roving bands of churlish barbarians raped and pillaged at will. Rand and people like her wouldn’t have done so well if she were actually plop[ped down in the world she so yearned for.
God Wants You Dead by Sean Hastings and Paul Rosenberg. you can torrent it, and, I think directly DL it, with the permission of the authors.
okay, if you want fiction…
I say any of George Orwell’s fiction.
as well, an earlier book named We by Yevgeny Zamyatin has a similar theme to Rand’s work, though I haven’t read it (I also haven’t read her fiction… have read a tiny bit of her nonfiction). no one has really written books like Rand’s, though.
you also might like Heinlein, though. similarly into the rugged man philosophizing style. though I haven’t read a lot by him, he gets more preachy (which I suppose you like) in his later stuff.
The DIspossessed by Ursula Le Guin deals with the varying merits of different cultures as represented by different Earth colonies. (I found it silly to imagine one culture per planet, though, even with that justification.)
the former book contrasts an individualistic capitalist culture versus a collectivist anarchist one. I find both societies more than a little cartoonish (not in contrast to other novels, but in contrast to real life). it comes down on the side of the latter culture, definitely.
Heinlein and Rand were both fascists, too, so that might appeal to someone.
fascism, in my definition of the word, says throw in your lot with the collective. we’ve herd you in and make you part of it. Starship Troopers I would maybe describe as fascist (years since I read it, an experience I didn’t much enjoy).
anyway, I find the Spiral Dynamics model more useful than political labels like fascist. according to the SD model, fascism falls into the Blue vMeme (with a Red vMeme or a “mean green”-style Green vMeme elite) and Rand into the Red vMeme. Heinlein probably fits into Red vMeme, though that I think that would depend on the period of his life, I suppose. to find out what those terms mean, look into Spiral Dynamics.
@ETpro Rand was not an anarchist. She did believe that the government has a proper role to play. Just a protective one and not an economic one.
@dpworkin She wasn’t a fascist either but I’m sure you know that and are just trying to smear her. She was a strong believer in individual rights for everyone.
@gememers I might be able to better suggest some fiction for you if I knew what you liked best about Rand’s work.
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