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Personally, I read it and half-agreed, half-disagreed. Her ideals are powerful and moving. It would be great if people could be like that, but they aren't. Plus
by orib 18y ago
Personally, I read it and half-agreed, half-disagreed. Her ideals are powerful and moving. It would be great if people could be like that, but they aren't. Plus, her characters seem to have a few too many tantrums and blow up buildings ;-)
Overall, I ended up incorporating elements of her philosophy into my world view, but rejecting other parts. I'd still highly recommmend her books to anyone, but really, if you're not willing to think about what the books say and blindly follow what she outlines as her philosophy... well. you've just become one of the sheep that she heaps so much contempt on in her books.
- gunderson 18y agoThe point of a novel of ideas is not that you agree with every single idea within, but that the novel presents the ideas in a way that brings out their power in a concrete way. Ayn Rand didn't want people to form a religion, so please don't feel that you have to apologize for "agreeing" with some aspects of her fiction. Those who try to paint Rand's philosophy that way are looking at it through the timid, dark-ages lens of their religion, in which everything is black and white, the way George W. Bush's "good vs evil" nonsense is.
- orib 18y agoI think we're in agreement on that, and you just repeated my point =)