As of the moment I write this blog, I am just about half of the way through Ayn Rand’s literary monolith called Atlas Shrugged – a novel which has taken me years to discover, and months to read. It has taken so long to read, not because I find it uninteresting – quite the opposite in fact – but rather because it is a work of such breadth that I can only digest a few pages at a time. Nearly every section of the novel gives me something new to think about, and/or a new way of viewing the world around me.
The initial reason for picking up the novel was not because I just had to have something to read (though nothing else seemed interesting to me) but because I could not escape the references in numerous and varied places – from the real world, to more obscure allusions such as video games and comic books.
The current political and economic situation has brought the novel back into the public conscious, with bloggers, journalists, t-shirt designers, and others pointing to parallels between 2009 America and the fictional time of Shrugged. Bloggers write posts connecting current policies with “Directive 10-289″ (in a nutshell, the bill that is passed in the novel whereby the U.S. government nationalizes all industries). Articles question not “who” but “Where is John Galt?” Rep. John Campbell (R-CA) reportedly gifts a copy of the novel to his interns upon completing their tenure. Needless to say, due to these very parallels, Atlas Shrugged has seen a boost in sales in the past few months. (as of this writing the novel has been in the top 100 on amazon.com for 176 days.)
Apart from the real-world connections to the book, my interest was piqued via two less-likely sources: the 2007 video game BioShock, and the 2009 film Watchmen.
In BioShock, the references to Shrugged are many, and have been highly publicized. The setting of the game – an underwater city called Rapture – was founded by an idealist, not unlike the Novel’s famed Galt. The name of this character, Andrew Ryan, is an intentional anagram of Ayn Rand. There is a character called Atlas, and signs strewn about asking “Who is Atlas?” The city presented in the game is nothing less than a visual characterization of Rand’s Objectivist philosophy – albeit a representation of how such a utopia can go violently awry.
The connection to the Watchmen is a little less obvious, but has everything to do with the character of Rorschach. Alan Moore created Rorshach as sort of an amalgam of two separate-but-similar comic book characters: Mr. A and the Question (the latter hero being one of my all-time favorite DC Comics characters) both created by Steve Ditko – a follower of the Rand’s philosophy. All three characters are in a sense, Objectivism personified.
Ditko created Mr. A as a hero who’s only super power is his strong moral code. His sometimes brutal form of justice comes from the belief that there is good and evil and nothing in between. If he must let a criminal fall off of a roof, he will do so with a clear conscience. Visually, Mr. A is seen dressed in an all-white suit with a white fedora and a metal, expressionless face mask. He leaves behind a card with two equal-sized squares in black and white.
The Question was created as sort of a “softer” version of Mr. A. His style of justice is based on the same ideology, however, what sets him apart, however, is that if the criminal were dangling from the roof, the Question might pull the guy up, before leaving him for the authorities. The Question also wears the suit and fedora, but has a flesh-colored faceless mask. His calling card depicts a question mark.
Rorschach’s style resembles Mr. A’s more than the Question’s – he is quite possibly the most brutal of the lot – but he is nonetheless driven by the same principles of good vs. evil. Alan Moore has stated that though his political leanings are contrary to Ditko’s, he nonetheless admired him for incorporating his politics into his comic books. Rorschach looks almost identical to his cousin the Question, however the face mask is white with ever-changing inkblots. His card is little more than a scrap of paper with two R’s resembling inkblots.
The point of this whole blog is that Atlas Shrugged and the other mediums with which I was introduced to Rand’s Objectivist philosophy has made me realize how much that way of thinking is analogous to my view of the world. Small government. Individual liberties. Laissez-faire capitalism. These are all things which I see as important in a social system. Things which I feel we Americans are losing.
