>
> On Fri, Aug 13, 2010 at 12:28 PM, <123hop at comcast.net> wrote:
>
> > Actually, every one of you should read Ayn Rand.
> > Fountainhead is the better book, but Atlas Shrugged
> > is the full demented ball of wax.
> >
> > You should read it to understand the whole phenomenon,
> > which is not going away any time soon.
>
> I read AS at a young age, and I did get several advantages
> from it, not the least of which was inoculation. But it
> seems to me that it wasn't worth the opportunity cost. The
> Bible is even more sociologically important and of far
> greater literary merit; Hayek presents the libertarian
> case in a far more succinct and challenging form.
However, in terms of "understanding the phenomenon," that is, getting inside the heads of those Tea Party cranks, neither is as useful as reading Rand's two big SF/bodice-ripper novels. Reading either Hayek or the Bible will do no good if you want to understand the people of the "phenomenon." You could read the Bible a thousand times yet never guess the wacky ways they will interpret selected bits and pieces of its "guidance"; you'll have to listen to their preachers to learn that. And Hayek may "present the libertarian case in a far more succinct and challenging form," but does he present it as a mortal combat of righteous moral superiority vs. deliberate demonic evil? besides which those folks will never read Hayek at all.
Whereas quite a few Rand fans have actually read her crap cover to cover, even including John Galt's interminable radio address. For many it was clearly the most arduous task of book-reading they have ever finished or will ever finish. These fans take her wild-eyed fiction seriously as a reflection of how the real world works, which is as good as reading _Catch-22_ as a history of World War II, or _Lolita_ as a guide for how to pick up chicks.
yrs wdk