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Terry Teachout on Atlas Shrugged

Even Whittaker Chambers finally judged Atlas Shrugged to be harmless enough, comparing it to a patent medicine: “Some may like the flavor. In any case, the brew is probably without lasting ill effects. But it is not a cure for anything.” That seems to me about right — but not quite. Not only did my 16-year-old self quaff Dr. Rand’s Miracle Elixir without any lasting ill effects, but he actually grew up to be a healthy, sensible adult who knows that you don’t have to sell all the lighthouses to have a proper respect for the virtues of free minds and free markets. And therein lies the paradoxical virtue of philosophical extremism: Sometimes it can help you figure out what you really think. As the libertarian blogger Megan McArdle recently observed, “Models and thought experiments are designed to illuminate principles, not mirror the real world. We already have something that looks and works exactly like the actual world: that is, the world. However, if you want to learn much about that world beyond ‘Water is wet’ and ‘Fire burns,’ you need to simplify in order to see deep truths more clearly.”