Self-review: I still like this post a lot; I went through and changed some punctuation typos, but besides that I think it’s pretty good.
There are a few things I thought this post did.
First, be an example of ‘rereading great books’, tho it feels a little controversial to call Atlas Shrugged a great book. The main thing I mean by that is that it captures some real shard of reality, in a way that looks different as your perspective changes and so is worth returning to, rather than some other feature related to aesthetics or skill or morality/politics.
Second, point at an ongoing struggle and yearn for a synthesis of two contradictory responses to it. This is where I most hoped to see followup, and don’t think I saw (or made) much.
Third, maybe make Rand more accessible to people turned off by various features of her work (or the reaction to it).
As most of the post is about 1) my reaction to 2) a fictional work, I’m not sure there’s much that can be tested. Most of the comments were from people who were already Objectivists, either drawn to LW by this post or lurkers who popped up to comment; I’d be curious to see how much of what I saw in the book other people would see, if they read through it now.
Self-review: I still like this post a lot; I went through and changed some punctuation typos, but besides that I think it’s pretty good.
There are a few things I thought this post did.
First, be an example of ‘rereading great books’, tho it feels a little controversial to call Atlas Shrugged a great book. The main thing I mean by that is that it captures some real shard of reality, in a way that looks different as your perspective changes and so is worth returning to, rather than some other feature related to aesthetics or skill or morality/politics.
Second, point at an ongoing struggle and yearn for a synthesis of two contradictory responses to it. This is where I most hoped to see followup, and don’t think I saw (or made) much.
Third, maybe make Rand more accessible to people turned off by various features of her work (or the reaction to it).
As most of the post is about 1) my reaction to 2) a fictional work, I’m not sure there’s much that can be tested. Most of the comments were from people who were already Objectivists, either drawn to LW by this post or lurkers who popped up to comment; I’d be curious to see how much of what I saw in the book other people would see, if they read through it now.