I loved Atlas Shrugged but now hate it.

A look at the book I devoured in my twenties, and how I see it three decades later as having small dick energy.

First, some accolades for the artist.

Whatever I think of philosophies of the book today, I still admit that my reading of AS at the time, in my 20s, was the most consuming novel-reading experience in memory.

It sept into my pours and took over my brain. Gripping and entertaining and deeply riveting, the work of art functioned on a couple levels.

On the first, obvious level, a theme about capitalism.

Rand’s unique style of reductionism and expressionism sought to show us the valor, beauty, and necessity of the kind of meritocracy that fuel progress, and the craven, dishonest, thievery of more socialistic impulses.

Fine. I was never a big fan of stealing, and thou shalt not steal, and all that, so I get it.

Honestly that’s not the part that had much of a shelf life for me.

Another facet is the ongoing critique of wanton irrationality versus crisp critical thinking.

The tension between science and fairy tales, specificity versus deflection, truth versus lies. This is what made the book extra beguiling for me. If you ever feel like too much of the world is not willing or able to think critically and communicate with sincerity and courage, well, AS is the rhetorical motherlode of vicarious thrills for you.

For a few years afterwards, I’d often talk in terse geometric perfection. I outgrew the smugness about it, but I’d retain my love for cogent argumentation, and disdain for fallacies, although in my old age I’ve replaced disdain with concern; we get more forgiving with age, how can we not?

The story has it all: adventure, action, romance, science fiction, war, mystery, suspense, and deep philosophy about life, truth, justice. It’s uncanny, atmospheric and relentless. And all these years later, even after for whatever reason losing my taste for laissez faire capitalism and economic libertarianism in the context of our current society in the U.S., I still like the books depiction of sense-making, at least from a stylistic standpoint, foreshadowing the kind of relentless clarity and cadence of a cogent Sam Harris or matter-of-fact Jack Reacher.

We have problems today.

AS may be valuable to take a look at, for what it gets right and what it gets wrong. This may matter now more than ever, thanks to all the factions for whom less critical thinking works in their favor.

This cohort probably includes the far left and the far right, both sides have people with facile ideas and they refuse to discuss them in a sincere and reasoned way, whether by outright shaming and canceling from the bad left, who likely seeks something akin to a dystopian communism, to the relentless deflection, strategically weaponized rhetoric and downright conniving insincerity of the bad right, who seem hellbent on the perverse goal of “saving democracy” by means of subverting it, quite the oxymoron.

Now may be a good time to dust off AS and take it for a mind-walk. It’s also just a fun read. At work back in the 1990s, I’d have the paperback with me, close my office door, and for some reason listen to a track called “Decenter” by Brian Eno, a meandering, melancholic, seeking piece of music that for me, captured the mood and pacing of the world Rand created on the page.

The philosophy at the time hit me so hard that I got a tattoo of a dollar sign. This was in the 90s — before everyone had tattoos. It was the only one I’d ever get and I still have it. I read every book Rand wrote, fiction and non. I joined the Objectivist movement, whatever that means, I think I sent in a check once.

But it wasn’t long before I began to see cracks in Rand’s ideas that didn’t work for me. Mainly, I had been treating people in that same wooden, surgically logical way Dagny would treat idiots in the book, and it was making me a “worse person.”

I stopped seeing people as either worthy for Galt’s Gulch or not, this all or none thing, it just doesn’t hold up long term. People are complex, everyone feels pain, fear, and guilt, at least sometimes. Libertarian free will is likely a myth and Rand never adequately addresses this.

There is a dark side to “market competence” and I have the battle scars to show it, having been hammered by the Great Recession just when I was truly arriving as a success in life, only to have it unapologetically sideline me in ways from which I’ve yet to recover.

There’s also a bright side to being deliciously generous and empathetic to the have-nots. Rand was not exactly into exploring this bright side.

There is an animalistic coldness to her ethic, depriving the world of a machine that can generate energy infinitely, and there’s a sweetness and wisdom in seeing inherent value in every human life whether they contribute to the marketplace or not; this sentiment is almost completely absent in AS.

Rand needed a hug, I think. No, a REAL hug. From someone who could stand up to her intimidation and pugilistic discourse.

She was a very smart lady who was wise to point out the dangers in communistic thinking run amok.

But also, she was a little too extremist about its opposite, at least in practice; you’ll only agree with this point if you think, like me, that laissez-faire capitalism in extremis is not fair and doesn’t work.

In any case, the time calls for a reread; go see for yourself. Don’t be afraid; AS is as big as a toaster but it’s not a tedious assignment, it can be enjoyed like a popcorn movie.

Rand is not subtle in her depictions, and it’s great fun.

The genius and danger of such a book is how it can inspire us to be more confident, sincere and productive in life, but risks giving energy to some of our lesser instincts.

It reinforces a just-world fallacy and loots away things that make people whole. In the words of Walt Whitman, we contradict ourselves; we contain multitudes. And the characters in AS don’t.

People may be harmed by seeing AS an instructive statement to define their life, morality and ethics. But the fact that the book even CAN do this is a testament to its enduring quality.

After you read AS, take on two more whoppers: the soulful Lonesome Dove is an American epic about self-reliance but it captures the messiness and poetry of human life, and Infinite Jest, a mind bending densely packed trip into American loneliness, the kind of book that inoculates one from ever being too dogmatic about this or that.

Like AS, these thousand-plus novels will rivet and change your brain forever.

War and Peace, too.

Definitely triangulate your truth. Rand is an ingredient in the stew for sure, and what a delightful ingredient it is, as long as it’s merely that.

In the end, Rand’s ideas, and much of fiscally conservative thinking, resembles a religious morality.

She suffers from avoidance or denial of hard determinism. Like religious and laissez faire acolytes, her unwillingness to confront the possibility that libertarian free will is an illusion hobbles her philosophy in both theory and practice.

Rand failed to find new ways to conceptualize meaning, morality, and responsibility in light of hard determinism. She championed meritocracy and just desert, when all that’s pragmatically called for are deterrents and incentives. And even this, only to a point. Once we have Galt’s machine, the incentives must change; assuming we find it within ourselves to share our productive capacities as a birthright, and not use it as a cudgel for oppression.

Will we do the right thing? I hope. Because it will suggest we are really more than just animals. Plus, sharing the abundance is the path that for me, anyway, has the least cognitive dissonance.

Whether we share the imminent abundance afforded by AI, or horde it indefinitely to create perverse new levels of fiefdoms and oppression, or permanent marginalization, is the primary question of our time.

AS issues its answer. But what’s yours?

The story unfolds in real life, like a popcorn movie, and we are all characters.

Which character are you?