Atlas Shrugged... But not in the way most people would think. I was raised very conservative. Growing up people always talked about how great of an author Ayn Rand was. But when I finally read some of her books, they made me sick. It kind of opened my eyes to how the political beliefs I was given as child clashed with my own personal values.
this post was submitted on 26 Mar 2025
32 points (97.1% liked)
Books
11552 readers
125 users here now
Book reader community.
founded 5 years ago
MODERATORS
I similarly found Ayn Rand sickening when I read it. After reading The Fountainhead and Anthem, I decided it was a moral imperative to bully and ostracize the shit outta anyone who found her writing admirable.
Still like Rush, tho, I guess, so we're all fulla contradictions.
FWIW, Neil Peart was embarrassed of his Ayn Rand phase, too.
It's a funny thing, I was never politically aligned with Rand to begin with, but I really enjoyed Atlas Shrugged as a science fiction book. The dystopia led by incompetent and ideologically empty boobs was an interesting take. From the way Rand portrayed her characters and presented the ideas of her opponents made me think she might have been autistic. Her politics made me think she was insane. It's a fun book.
I thought it was a terrible book, even regardless of her wild-ass philosophy. Her characters were flat, and their dialogue was not remotely realistic. The book was overly long and said the same thing a thousand different ways to hammer home her point. I similarly didn't enjoy Catch 22, since he made the same joke over and over again (kind of the point, I know, but I just didn't enjoy the repetition). I did enjoy Fountainhead, though. I thought it was a much better book.
Hey, I don't even disagree with that criticism. And maybe I'll check out The Fountainhead later.
In my defense, my family of origin revolved around a cookie cutter Atlas Shrugged minor villain dad - gaslighter, business cheat and mooch, compulsive womanizer - so Atlas Shrugged's heroes were the fantasy I needed when I read it. I knew I wasn't a "John Galt" so I tinkered with a dutiful Eddie Willers identity for a bit. Some good still came out of it - I got interested in philosophy as a respectable formal academic topic, and outgrew the fantasy.
I read Fountainhead and really enjoyed it. I started to think I might be interested in her philosophy. I had an older coworker when I was an intern who was VERY into Ayn Rand and Objectivism, and we were having conversations about the philosophy.
Then I read Atlas Shrugged. Holy shit did I hate it. That book made it quite clear how stupid and unrealistic her philosophy was, and also made me rethink my opinion of that coworker who was really into her.
Blackshirts and Reds made the biggest difference on me regarding how I view Socialist states, also called AES, in that it helped me see them in a more sympathetic light and debunked a lot of Red Scare mythology.
As far as personal thought process is concerned, the big 3 works that made a big impact on me are Socialism: Utopian and Scientific for outlining the why of Marxism, Elementary Principles of Philosophy for clearly and simply explaining what Dialectical and Historical Materialism are and how they came to be, and Imperialism, the Highest Stage of Capitalism, for explaining the primary obstacle in the way of Socialism worldwide.
Honorary mention to Capital, I am not finished with it yet but at the midpoint, it has helped flesh out parts of Marx's Law of Value that are only briefly touched on in works like Wage Labor and Capital and Wages, Price and Profit.
I read Lenin's The State and Revolution and followed it with a chaser of Parenti's Blackshirts and Reds a couple years ago. A fine pairing.
Both are excellent! The State and Revolution in particular is a surprisingly enjoyable read for its age, and is nevertheless exceedingly relevant. Also a big fan of Parenti's 1986 speech.
Hope I don't get flak for this one, but:
Jurassic Park. Of everything in this book only one thing really stuck with me. The park was overrun with dinos because the computer counted the ones it meeded to, then just stopped counting. It found its target of, say, 2 raptors. I didnt need to keep count of the others because it located its expected two. Good enough.
I'm on mobile so its a little hard to write out my thoughts and find accurate quotes and notes, but I think you'll get what I'm saying.
That's the earliest idea of a confirmational bias I can remeber when I was much younger, and I think helped me with critical thinking moving on.
The Bible after really reading it book by book at church camp of all places. It made me question my faith and sent me on a journey of reading and study of a lot of different religions to end up believing in none of them but fascinated by all of them as a social phenomenon.
Reading the Bible and apologetics are Christianity’s worst nightmare for followers. I had similar experiences, now in religious studies
I used to be a semi-devout christian, but at 15 I started reading the bible while on a basically mandatory bible camp of sorts. So the bible changed that.
Jakarta Method
Blackshirts and Reds
Jakarta Method is a good one!
1984
I know it's a typical answer. But there's a reason for that.
That book will put the fear of fascism in you in a way that even actual history doesn't. That book caused me to take historic examples of fascism more seriously and personally.
Apparently not enough of my fellow Americans have read it.
Grapes of Wrath. Until I read that I never thought of the human side and impact of the industrial revolution. Eye opening.
Interesting, my experience was that it was more a critique of capitalism than about industrialization itself ...
It was both. Industrialization cuts out a lot of need for human workers. Capitalism cuts out the needs of humans in the drive for profit.
sure, of course - I just meant my memory of the book wasn't that it emphasized industrialization in particular - I remember the evils of poverty, and of company towns, and so on ... automation wasn't a theme I particularly remember from the book, even if it is certainly related. That said, I read the book decades ago, lol
Reading East of Eden right now and need to get to Grapes soon.
most books I read impact and change me, lol
With regards to politics, reading Marx (especially the 1844 Manuscripts) and Chomsky initiated a major change in my ideological thinking, and from there it was mostly history books helping fill in the details.
Born in Blood and Fire: A Concise History of Latin America, for example, was a history book that really impacted my way of thinking.
Confessions of an Economic Hitman.
While it was overly dramatic and questionably factual, it opened my eyes to how foreign governments are manipulated by the US to benefit corporations. I don't know how much it "changed" my views, but it definitely changed how I saw the world and how I interpreted specific news stories.
Tess of d'Urbervilles -Thomas Hardy, it's still quite relevant in my country. Not perhaps the more extreme
(though that still happens in some places) but the overall tone the book takes with mocking religion, the double standards Tess faces, and above all, her internalised misogyny was something I really resonated with. To be fair, my parents were relatively liberal but people pick up subtle sexism in the household nevertheless. So I grew up with some internalised misogyny. I was never very religious either because sexism inherent in nearly all religions made me uncomfortable (though, of course, some people interpret their holy books differently and are welcome to do so - I am not criticising them). So I really liked the book and read it several times just before college, years ago.spoiler
rape victim blaming stuff
Hardy is also a sensitive and deeply emotional writer. I think he really gets women because he has empathy. Most men I know who call themselves feminists take it to be a purely a matter of intellect and common sense, but they show the same curious lack of empathy men usually reserve for women. But Hardy is a feminist because he cares for women, and that makes all the difference. The only other man in literature who I can think of who actually understood women was Sahir Ludhianvi, the Urdu poet, and I like him too.
Some of Sahir Ludhianvi's poetry too. When I was younger I didn't have words for it but when I grew up I realised that I've always kind of been socialist, or at least anti-capitalist without realising it because his poetry and music were common in our house and my values were shaped by his humanism.
frantz fanon's the wretched of the earth, and caio prado júnior's the colonial background of modern brazil.
In the Spirit of Crazy Horse was a pretty radicalizing read for me. It's ostensibly about the injustice suffered by Leonard Peltier after two FBI agents were killed on Oglala land in 1975. But what it really tells the story of is the complete pillaging of a land where people already existed and how treaties have never been worth the paper they were inked on to the US government.
Marx Weber The Protestant Ethic. Great book that I feel is quite perceptive about how Protestantism led to capitalism and installed a culture of work for the sake of work
Sophie's world by Josvein Gaarder and unbearable lightness of being by Milan Kundera.
Read these in my late teen rebellious age, made me introspective and really emo (read: pretentious and annoying) and gave me a philosophical lens and human psychological lens in my relationships with others and with the world.
May not be typically mind-blowing books as they are, but coming in that time in my life, it shaped my world view.
Harry Potter and the methods of rationality. Helped me foster a drive to self critique my ways of thinking frequently and gave me tools to do so better.
Love that series.
Just started significant digits. Very invested.
The Hunger Games turned out to be an accurate representation of the modern world.
I can't remember the name or figure out what to search to find it, but there was a book I picked up in early high school that really changed the way I think about protests.
Most of the main characters were LGBT, which was incredibly refreshing to me, and were actively being oppressed by their school staff and local police force. It was the first time I'd ever heard about zip-tie handcuffs and tear gas being used against peaceful protesters. It wasn't the most well written book but demonstrated all types of discrimination and oppression that I'd never even thought about before at that point in my life
Edit: Anger is a Gift was the name of it
The War of Art by Steven Pressfield
Inspiration exists, but it has to find you working. ― Pablo Picasso
Thinking, Fast and Slow by Daniel Kahneman. Awesome book on how our brains balance intuition and critical thinking. I think it should be a required read, especially in today's fast-paced social media dominated society.