What you need, obviously, is an *Objectivist Guide to Parenting*, right? Trouble is, there’s no such thing. But there might soon be. At least that was the discussion happening a row in front of me at an event I attended today.

(And, yes, I’m aware that passing along overheard conversations can be kind of uncool, but this was a great one, I won’t mention names or affiliations, and, besides, they were speaking relatively loudly in an auditorium. So, for any proceeding uncouthness, I can ask only that you forgive me.)

Back to the Randian tots: The discussion was about the glaring omission of a guide, the unstated desire of objectivists parents everywhere, and what the book might include. My first thought was “horrors unending,” but I imagine the discussants were more sympathetic to the moral teachings of Ayn than I. Anyway, among the suggestions was that strict property rights be assigned in *every* item in the house. That Optimus Prime action figure belongs to Billy, while the jar of mayonnaise is clearly mom’s.

So far, so good. You see, the problem with non-objectivists is that they so often indoctrinate their children into the dogma of *sharing*. This is irrational. A good objectivist kid doesn’t share, he barters. He exchanges. He *trades*.

And this is exactly what the guide would demand, these two Randians seemed to agree. If Billy wants mayo on his ham sandwich, he needs to be willing to give mom that Optimus Prime. Or some such thing. And if Jenny wants to use Billy’s crayons, she must trade him two of her colored pencils.

To me–a classical liberal but not objectivist parent–the idea of a free market and property rights in the accoutrements of the home sounds not rational but *exhausting*. But it must work, because it is the system one of the speakers practices. (I can only imagine how endearing this must be for his children’s school teachers.)

Still, I welcome the eventual emergence of the *Objectivist Guide to Parenting*. It sounds like a thrilling read.

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I have to give Ayn Rand credit for knowing how to make a collectivist look foolish.  While her writing is generally pretty bland and her dialog stiff, the novel comes to life–in a peculiar, risen dead sort of way–when she portrays the upper class academics and hangers on of the collectivist variety: the college professors and politicians who claim everyone should live for the good of everyone else and all personal earnings are to be tolerated only insofar as they can be used to improve the lot of “society.”

The passages remind me of the scene in Cryptonomicon when Neal Stepenson so skillfully pokes fun at liberal arts scholars by comparing them to Tolkien’s hobbits.  I imagine that, if it weren’t for the give away of Ayn Rand’s name on the spine and cover, many of the intellectuals I’ve met would nod along with these characters, feeling right at home in their banter.  There’s clever pseudo-profundity in what they have to say.

So, while the discussions between her businessmen characters don’t do a lot for me–not because they’re outright wrong but because they just aren’t terribly interesting–the party scenes are a hoot.

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What else comes to mind, a mere 200 pages into this monstrous novel? Well, I can’t imagine wanting to hang out with any of these people. Her good guys are, without exception, awful human beings. They display no compassion and evidence no empathy. A world filled with such super men would be a terrible place, indeed. Her bad guys, on the other hand–her collectivists and leftists and academics–are ugly little toads who snivel and beg from the arch-capitalists we’re all supposed to look up to when we aren’t looking for an excuse to leave. Objectivism, at least as presented in this seminal text, affords no nuance.

None of this precludes the worthiness of Rand’s ideas, however. I have not encountered enough of those in the fist sixth of the book to adequately judge them, so such critique will have to wait until future posts.  While I imagine there will be a great deal throughout Atlas Shrugged I disagree with, and a great deal I am sympathetic towards, the fact remains that, except for my knowledge that this is a novel of ideas, one read for its philosophy and arguments and intellectual importance, I’d have put it down long ago.

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