Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

The majority of people are not geniuses, though there are plenty of people out there who think they are geniuses but are mistaken. That the rest of the world should genuflect in front of all genius is an idea that belongs in a Marvel comic book or other superhero story publication for juveniles. How you treat others matters-- if you disagree, go beat up one of your friends for no good reason, in the company of all your other friends, and see how many you have left afterwards. This book takes you into a parallel universe. Not as if you were in a world where everyone is either "hero" producer or "devil" looter, but as if Nietzsche was translated from the German by Mickey Spillane. No, I'm being too kind. "Turgid" is an adjective often connected with Rand, and "philosophy" a noun, but sadly, Rand is neither Spillane nor Nietzsche with respect to those terms. The Perils of Pauline where the hero is an arrogant megalomaniac is perhaps a better approximation. That said, there is a lot of entertainment value in the Atlas Shrugged reviews here. A lot of the negative reviews seem to be rubber stamped with a completely canned response or two from the true believers. Well, I guess Rand demonstrates it amply in Atlas Shrugged, her definition of "productivity," does in fact appear to be incessant repetition. And of course, most of the acolytes here proclaim (repeatedly, of course) how the rest of us just don't understand Rand. It's pretty ironic given the repetition with which she attempts to hammer out her ideas. She says the same thing over and over, yet we still don't, "get it?" Yes, Rand must be properly interpreted by the faithful, accompanied by the proper apologetics and usual accusations of ad hominem. What the believers seem unable to recognize, is the main reason Rand is so hard to "get" by the rest of us is that her philosophical message is just so unbelievably banal. That she could actually be serious simply stretches credulity too far, such that we must look further for a deeper message which, as it turns out, just doesn't exist. What you see is what you get, and that ain't much. Atlas Shrugged could be considered a Litmus test for those who can think for themselves. This is because there is only one set of ideas presented therein which are astonishingly simple minded. That simple minded ideas are often the most popular is obvious. "For every complex problem, there is a solution that is simple, neat, and wrong." -- H. L. Mencken