> Atlas Shrugged has horrific writing, separate from what I feel about the politics.

Following the tangent: I read the book "blind", when I was mind-numbling bored for a couple pre-dialup weeks at a relative's house. Eventually I decided to finish it purely out of spite so that I could confidently denounce it as trash in the future. (And today it pays off?)

In short, it's a book of incredible hypocrisy which also disrespects the reader's intelligence and time.

Hypocrisy, because Rand asserts that certain appeals to emotion or outcome are evil tools of fictional villains, while simultaneously doing the exact same thing in the real world to the audience. The difference is that instead of "think of the starving children", it's "think of the Marty Stu [0] corporate executive üermenschen", the characters the author has been playing up for a couple hundred pages already.

This is compounded by the manifesto chapter where Marty Stu does nothing but monologue. The jarring transition reveals how the story was really just an afterthought, a kind of necessary deceit to get people ready to swallow a pompous diatribe without looking at it too closely.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mary_Sue

1984 has fear and pain for the white collar set like the protagonist, but it's implied mass media, telescreens, and propaganda do for the working class there, which is similar to BNW's style and of course has overlap with Animal Farm.

A pretty good study of different flavors when taken together, though?

Honestly though, they're not all that prophetic. I mean, you can find widespread instances of each means used throughout human history. Although I would happen to agree that the methods that feed complacency and ignorance are the most effective.

You have to defend your freedom from all angles of attack.

That was kind of the theme of the suggestions, control. I’m kind of stoked you identified it.

This quote would be more meaningful if Atlas Shrugged critics were able to actually criticize it, not the straw-man. Unfortunately, orcs didn’t show them how to do it.

It's a fun quote. On the other hand, while no one should accuse Rand of being a good writer of fiction, I don't find what's depicted in Atlas Shrugged all that fantastical.

For what it’s worth I read Lotr when I was 8 and atlas shrugged when I was 12. I’m must be stupid naive about the discourse over shrugged around here. The meta-story made sense to me as much as the hero journey of frodo(and gollum) made sense to me.

I mean this sincerely, I don’t understand the beef with shrugged. The idea of “a small population owns the world” not only made sense as a theme, but it what is happening in the world today. I must be too stupid to have realized the political bits.

The villains in Atlas Shrugged are other rich people who achieved their power with corruption and mysticism. I do not want to enact the morality of Atlas Shrugged, but its also wildly misunderstood by almost everyone for some reason. Its mostly just supposed to be competency porn.