I finished Atlas Shrugged today. 1168 pages of pure brilliance. Having not read Ayn Rand previously, I am a huge fan and totally impressed. Here’s but one reason why:
He thought of all the living species that train their young in the art of survival, the cats who teach their kittens to hunt, the birds who spend such strident effort on teaching their fledglings to fly–yet man, whose tool of survival is the mind, does not merely fail to teach a child to think, but devotes the child’s education to the purpose of destroying his brain, of convincing him that thought is futile and evil, before he has started to think.
From the first catch-phrases flung at a child to the last, it is like a series of shocks to freeze his motor, to undercut the power of his consciousness. “Don’t ask so many questions, children should be seen and not heard!”–”Who are you to think? It’s so, because I say so!”–”Don’t argue, obey!”–”Don’t try to understand, believe!”–”Don’t rebel, adjust!”–”Don’t stand out, belong!”–”Don’t struggle, compromise!”–”Your heart is more important than your mind!”–”Who are you to know? Your parents know best!”–”Who are you to know? Society knows best!”–”Who are you to know? The bureaucrats know best!”–”Who are you to object? All values are relative!”–”Who are you to want to escape a thug’s bullet? That’s only a personal prejudice!”
Men would shudder, he thought, if they saw a mother bird plucking the feathers from the wings of her young, then pushing him out of the nest to struggle for survival–yet that was what they did to their children.
Hard to read, yes, but so incredibly worthy of thought, consideration, questions, time. Set within a particular fictional context yes, but no less applicable in our own. Making a particular statement about particular ideology in the 50′s yes, but ideology that remains far too familiar even today, 50+ years later. The mark of a great writer: words that are timeless, beautiful, brilliant, profound, significant, worthy, applicable, familiar, and provoking.
I have often wondered why I (and many others) do not have a similar response to scripture. It should be all these things, shouldn’t it? Timeless, beautiful, brilliant, profound, significant, worthy, applicable, familiar, and provoking. And of course, it is, right? But something/many things have happened to scripture over the centuries that have kept me and so many from reading it as such. Why? I have an answer (undoubtedly one of many): we’ve made it sacred.
I’m not saying it’s not sacred, but in our making it so sacred, we’ve lost the ability to appreciate it anew, spontaneously, freshly, for its literary qualities; for, in fact, it’s timelessness, beauty, brilliance, profundity, significance, worth, familiarity, and ability to provoke. We quickly react and say it is, indeed, all this, but that quick response is often defensive and wrapped up so tightly in our simultaneously aligned application, theology, and apologetics that we don’t really enjoy and experience it for what is is…or maybe better stated, what it could be.
What if we read scripture like we read Ayn Rand? What if we were stunned by the language, the imagery, the complexity of the characters, the plot, the author’s unmatched skill? What if? I’m somewhat doubtful it can be done. As I’ve stated, this was my first Ayn Rand reading. But I’ve read the Bible lots and lots of times – not the whole thing, all the way through (OK…once or twice), but passages, stories, books, verses. I look for something. I hope for something. I’m on some kind of quest or hunt. I didn’t bring any of those expectations to Atlas Shrugged. I got lost in the story and found myself swimming in words that had the power to reach me, touch, me, change me.
Ayn Rand, unwittingly, invites me to appreciate the written word; hers, others’, even my own. It was gratifying and excruciating to turn the last page of her epic novel. And, unwittingly, she invites me to at least wonder what it would be like to have that experience with a text even longer and more “epic” than Atlas Shrugged. I do wonder. And that’s a start.
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Wow! This reminds me of what a great thinker, writer and speaker you are Ronna. I loved your discussions and lectures at church on modern Christianity. Thanks for the good thoughts on Ann Rand. I will let Jeff take a look as well. Keep on strong lady!