Drunken Proletariat said... Twenty years ago I went through an Ayn Rand phase that lasted a couple of years. I read all of her books (except We The Living) I read the Objectivist Forum, Newsletter, etc. I got audio tapes of her and Binswanger, Pleikoff, etc. I got "Debate 84." In other words I plunged right in. I think I can claim that I've forgotten more about AR than most people will ever know. I even went to a meeting of like minded people-once. I slowly began to realise, because I was reading many other types of things as well, that her Objectivist "Truth" was merely the opinion of one person, and that she was no where near as "rational" as she made herself out to be. Twenty years of hindsight and further learning have clearly disabused me of the folly of following this (or any) cult-like belief system. Like many second-rate thinkers, AR became a domineering, imperious tyrant who excersized way too much power over her disciples, who regarded her as some kind of "prophet." Any belief system that traps you and prevents you from improving you own ideas and beliefs, is, well-stupid. Selfishness is no virtue, as her own hypocritical personal life can clearly demonstrate. I don't believe that she is a person to be emulated, or even admired. She was certainly no "philosopher," I think that she believed in herself and her own ideas beyond all reason, and perhaps believed the flattery of her coterie of sycophants, who became unable to think for themselves. That is a danger of following a doctrinaire cult that tolerates no dissent. You must believe in the Leader and all the Official Pronouncements, or risk excommunication, in this case, the shame of being branded an irrational, Kantian, statist, gasp-Altruist! I think that more good has been done in the world by Altruism, (dictionary def.-not Rands') than by all the selfish, ego-driven, exploiters and destroyers that the world continuously produces, and I think that you would do well to move on to the better ideas that you can form on your own, perhaps a balance of selfishness and altruism? Whatever the case, a mature mind cannot be lead as she would've had it. Keep reading other points of view. http://osgay.blogspot.com/2004/08/selfish-rand.html
That's not surprising: "We the living" = writing based on something she experienced and witnessed first-hand. All the rest of Ayn Rand = abstract metaphysical theorising based on unverifiable personal opinions, or didactic poorly-written fiction based on the same.
Some unusual sarcasm from me. I'm suffering from Global Cooling. It's got to be the longest winter that I can remember. I encountered a law that does not require criminal intent to be presumed guilty, more like an unavoidable result of life and living. As Rand says, "...pass the kind of laws that can neither be observed nor enforced or objectively interpreted and you create a nation of law-breakers..." and then "...it becomes impossible for men to live without breaking laws....