Library of Congress on Atlas Shrugged, redux

[9thdoctor]

IMO the 1991 poll of Book of the Month Club members, where Atlas Shrugged came in a distant second to the Bible, has long been an overused, and misused talking point among Objectivist talking heads. Also there is the Modern Library poll, where the critics’ choices don’t line up very well with the public vote, Ulysses at number one, and no Rand anywhere in the top 100, then AS at number one while Ulysses is at number eleven. That’s fine, but L. Ron Hubbard’s Battlefield Earth is number three, I mean who wants to be in that company?

So, to get to the point, the Library of Congress has, in effect, another poll going now, so here’s your chance to vote for your favorites. This time it’s “Books That Shaped America”, the choices are a combination of fiction and non-fiction, and you get to pick three.

http://www.loc.gov/bookfest/books-that-shaped-america/

I’m thinking I’ll vote for Thomas Paine, Margaret Mitchell, and you know who. If I had five votes I’d sure like to add in Twain and Heller.

[9thdoctor]

BTW you get to nominate a book that you feel belongs on the list but isn't. Even though I don't like it, I think Henry Miller's Tropic of Cancer belongs, since it was so important for First Amendment reasons.

Oh, and I didn't even notice before, but Heinlein's Stranger in a Strange Land is on the list. I might have voted for it if I hadn't skimmed right past it. But did it really "Shape America"? I don't think a "fair witness" would "grok" it that way.

[syrakusos]

Atlas Shrugged

The Federalist

Riders of the Purple Sage

It was a toss-up between The Federalist and Common Sense. Common Sense was read to the troops at Valley Forge. It was copied and reprinted often - to Paine's chagrin, as he got no money from those publications. Strong choice. But I went with the Federalist because it was an open debate in the newspapers. If it had been the manifesto of a junta, the ideas would be interesting, but the process of their delivery would have cancelled the claims that a free republic can withstand internal dissention. Moreover, the book and the papers have been with us all these years, continuing to shape our understanding of ourselves.

Leaves of Grass and Walden were also close calls for me. They influenced the influence-makers more than the common folk, Walden, I believe is wholly modern, a recent retread of the anti-industrial revolution, but important nonetheless for that reason.

GWTW, Moby Dick, Horatio Alger, and many others, did not so much influence America as reflect it. Atlas Shrugged did both. It was long-anticipated. Ayn Rand was famous for The Fountainhead and close on its heals Fortune magazine for one hinted that Ayn Rand was writing a "business novel" promising the same impact. It was on that basis that I chose Riders of the Purple Sage. It did not influence intellectuals, but common people, by expressing and reflecting our own views of our own frontier virtues, the code of the West, and all that. And while it was just another "dime novel" it validated that genre to those who read and wrote for it, ultimately bringing us science fiction and comic book superheroes.

I recommended The Education of Henry Adams. "The book spoke to and for America's ruling class, validating them in their own terms."

About Atlas, for myself, not the nation, I said:

"Atlas Shrugged delivered a heroic vision of industrialism and engineering achievements. The author's explicit philosophy of rational-empiricism (which she called "Objectivism") was a secular version of the scientific method. Thus, in the form of dramatic conflict, I learned that the identification and application of moral law is only a different set of knowable, testable claims to truth. Atlas Shrugged validated my sense of self. That was when I was a teenager. Forty years later - having worked mostly as a technical writer; which I still do - completing college and university degrees in criminology and social science, I found that many of Ayn Rand's specific assertions had drifted into my cognitive distance, but that the fundamentals of rational philosophy as empirical science remained to serve me well."

[9thdoctor]

I think today's the last day for this, so if you haven't voted there's no time like the present.

[syrakusos]

I cross posted this to RoR as soon as I saw it here (with a nod to you), and got zero replies and zero sanctions. Hard to say what that means... I expected more response, both here on OL and there.

[Selene]

Can I use the Chicago rules and vote more than once?

[9thdoctor]

I cross posted this to RoR as soon as I saw it here (with a nod to you), and got zero replies and zero sanctions. Hard to say what that means... I expected more response, both here on OL and there.

I suspect there's a backchannel list that we haven't been invited to join, where everyone, regardless of affiliation (ARIans, TASians, Hsiehkistanis, Speicherlanders, SLOP-troughinians and so on) gets secret marching orders. "They" try to keep the fact that we Rand-fans coordinate together to skew such polls a secret. Not a bad idea, actually. But you know about the first rule of Fight Club...

Can I use the Chicago rules and vote more than once?

I think their system records IP addresses, because it wouldn't let me vote more than once, even to this day. I clear out my cookies pretty often, so I don't think they're tracking it that way.

I did, however, vote a second time using my Iphone via 4G. I nominated Elements of Style by Strunk and White for my "not on the list" choice, and answered why with the following, more or less: "Learned me to write real goodly."

[Selene]

Nicely done! lol

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

I just took this poll. Here are my answers.

The three books from their list I believed most influenced America:

Atlas Shrugged, Ayn Rand (1957)

Common Sense, Thomas Paine (1776)

Uncle Tom’s Cabin, Harriet Beecher Stowe (1852)

The one book that most influenced me:

Atlas Shrugged, Ayn Rand (1957)

The reason:

It prompted me to look up to the stars instead of down at the mudhole as a guide for my life.

One book I believe should have been on the list but was not:

Think and Grow Rich by Napoleon Hill

The reason:

America's essential spirit is a dream of rising to personal and financial independence through self-effort. From the 20th century up to now, this dream has been increasingly undermined by the abundance provided by capitalism allied to collectivist ideas. This combination has seduced Americans with a play-it-safe-and-let-others-provide-for-you vision. More than any single book, Think and Grow Rich has helped keep the essential American spirit alive in the hearts of simple everyday people. It is a book that could not have been authored anywhere else on earth and achieved the overwhelming popularity it did. It is a quintessentially American happening.

Michael

[caroljane]

ARIans, TASians, Hsiehkistanis, Speicherlanders, SLOP-troughinians....

lolol/ Hsiehkistan, Speicherland et al are great places to visit, as they so profoundly increase your appreciation of where you live.

PS do the TASians live in TASrationalmania? Are they ever called TASers?

[Guyau]

Too hard for me to choose three. Michael, you are very likely right about Paine and Stowe in their influence on the country. (Paine – "But where says some is the King of America? I'll tell you Friend, he reigns above, and doth not make havock of mankind like the Royal _____ of Britain."

Big ones for me and associates:

Walden

Adventures of Huckleberry Finn

The Call of the Wild

The Grapes of Wrath

Atlas Shrugged

To Kill a Mockingbird

Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee

Not on list:

Little House on the Prairie . . .

East of Eden

Another Country

[caroljane]

Too hard for me to choose three. Michael, you are very likely right about Paine and Stowe in their influence on the country. (Paine – "But where says some is the King of America? I'll tell you Friend, he reigns above, and doth not make havock of mankind like the Royal _____ of Britain."

Big ones for me and associates:

Walden

Adventures of Huckleberry Finn

The Call of the Wild

The Grapes of Wrath

Atlas Shrugged

To Kill a Mockingbird

Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee

Not on list:

Little House on the Prairie . . .

East of Eden

Another Country

Stephen, you are the only person I ever met who has read Another Country! I read it, also the Fire Next Time, when I was probably to young to understand them, but I remember how powerful they were. Fine choice.

I am pretty sure I also read Giovanni's Room but I don't remember anything about it.

[Selene]

Carol...now you can add me to the list.

[caroljane]

Carol...now you can add me to the list.

If you were wandering around New York reading Baldwin and Malcolm X you must have made a lot of interesting acquaintances.

[Selene]

Carol...now you can add me to the list.

If you were wandering around New York reading Baldwin and Malcolm X you must have made a lot of interesting acquaintances.

Yep.