In 1998, the Modern Library published two lists of the 100 best novels in English. One list was chosen by the Modern Library board, the other by readers. The board’s list starts off predictably: Ulysses, The Great Gatsby, A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, Lolita. It goes on just as predictably, overwhelmingly white, male, and published by Modern Library. But that’s a separate essay; this one is about the readers’ list, which starts off with Atlas Shrugged, The Fountainhead, and Battlefield Earth. In fact, of the top ten, four novels are by Ayn Rand and three by L. Ron Hubbard. What’s going on here?

Obviously, ballot-stuffing campaigns by Scientologists and objectivists. But to what end? Was it intended as propaganda, or was it simply a thoughtless game of one-upmanship?  Whether intentional or not, it is propaganda, and though it is crude, amounting to little more than vandalism, it has an effect. The Wikipedia entry on Ayn Rand currently states, without qualification, “In 1998, Modern Library readers voted Atlas Shrugged the 20th century’s finest work of fiction, followed by The Fountainhead in second place, Anthem in seventh, and We the Living eighth…” And an article on Rand at Mental Floss stated, “Rand’s ability to write for a general audience is certainly one of the reasons Atlas Shrugged landed the No. 1 spot on Modern Library’s readers’ poll of ‘100 Best Novels of the 20th Century.’”

Who is really responsible for propagating the notion that Atlas Shrugged is widely considered the best novel of the 20th century? You can certainly blame the people who orchestrated the ballot-stuffing, but what about the Modern Library, who failed to put a big asterisk on the readers’ list, or the writers who didn’t question the list?

Well, what was the Modern Library to do? They asked for a list and got one. Yes, they could have been more careful with the voting process, but challenging the results would have probably led to more criticism than they bargained for. As for the writers of the Wikipedia and Mental Floss articles, it’s doubtful that either was being maliciously deceptive. More likely they were looking for an easy way to bolster the point that Rand is popular. Does it matter that she is not that popular? Not to the arguments they are making, perhaps, and not to the Modern Library. But in a larger sense, yes it does matter. This is how propaganda becomes fact, then history. The Modern Library list still exists online, and a reasonable reader can immediately see that there has been some manipulation. But original documents disappear. The original source is forgotten, and the half-truth of the reference becomes the thing we learn.

One line in Wikipedia is small potatoes compared to the barrage of false information we find on the Internet today, but it’s a reminder that the danger is not only in the big lie, but in small, lazy compromises we make with the truth. In one way those compromises might be more dangerous: the big lies are challenged while the small ones go unnoticed, and they do add up.