The “you can’t criticize something you haven’t read” argument is always a lame one. Is it really worth doing when you’re pretty sure slogging through something you already disagree with won’t actually change your opinion by the end? I doubt many Randians have read much of Marx’s corpus that they routinely savage. I don’t begrudge them, especially when it makes much more sense to rely on someone else who already read it to summarize the points and critiques.
Furthermore, just because you haven’t read something, doesn’t mean your criticisms are misrepresentations. For example, I’ve read a few of Rand’s shorter works, but not Atlas Shrugged, relying on others to summarize and critique it for me. And based on what Rand I did read, the critical summaries of the rest of her work seem to ring true. And everybody does this because it is an enormous amount of work to become well versed in one’s own political positions, let alone every competing one too.
Huffpo is a content farm, of course it’d include such clickbait.
But anyhoo, I agree that it’s best to read the work, but there are many better things one could be reading with one’s time, “ayn rand debunker” is effort with little self-betterment involved beyond zinging someone in online arguments without them being able to conceptualize how you’re zinging them.
The “you can’t criticize something you haven’t read” argument is also a good way to sell books. See also every book by every modern controversial person with a controversial assertion.
I’d also be curious how many of Rand’s book sales are due to required reading in a college course.
My personal philosophy is jamming toothpicks into your eyes. Anyone who doesn’t do that is inferior morally and intellectually to me. You’re not allowed to criticize this in any way, unless you do it first.
I’d suspect not that many. Rand isn’t widely taught in American colleges, and not taught at all outside of the US, where she is basically unknown. Based on the number of people (almost entirely Americans) I’ve encountered who subscribe to her ideas, I’d say she’s genuinely sold a lot of books to people who weren’t required to buy them. Plus she was a bestseller decades before the network of right wing think tanks arose.
Perhaps this is an unfair observation on my part, but the “you can’t criticize something you haven’t read” argument is something I’ve seen Randians rely on pretty often. Sure, reading her might clear up genuine misrepresentations, but the uninformed critic is probably never going to do that; and secondly, the criticisms of Rand I usually see this retort thrown at are usually simplistic, but rarely off the mark (eg. “Rand advocated selfishness”). I understand it takes time to rebut people, but it’s much easier still to not engage rather than reply with a non argument.
Arguably, the Randian endorsement of elitism has something to do with this. Why try to appeal to the plebs too stupid grasp Rand’s genius like you have? If the world is made by a minority of the talented, there’s no need to convince lots of people to join a mass movement to enact your political program, like say, socialists would.
There is so much great literature out there that I still haven’t read, I’m not going to waste my time on something widely regarded as tedious and preachy, just so I can have a legitimate excuse for not liking it; I haven’t tried coprophilia, but I’ll bet I wouldn’t like it.
I read Atlas Shrugged some years ago fully expecting that I would disagree with the underlying philosophy. What surprised me was just how unconvincing it was. People behaving in the most implausible manner. I remember one particular point where Railroad Tycoon (maybe it was Magic Metal Tycoon?) refused to make a deal, insisting that the other party wasn’t benefitting sufficiently, and thinking, Wait, why wouldn’t you make a deal that screws the other party if you can? Isn’t that the foundation of Objectivism?
Because it’s the kind of guy I am, I read several pages of Galt’s radio speech out loud and timed it in order to estimate the total duration of the speech. I came up with something like 6 or 7 hours. Which is not unheard-of, but ironically, the only orator I’ve heard of giving speeches of that magnitude is Fidel Castro.
