With Ayn Rand you have to take the good with the bad. She was a great novelist. She was a staunch defender of individual liberty, limited government, and free market capitalism-—that is all to the good.
On the other hand, she promoted atheism and selfishness and her personal life, values, and morals were perfectly atrocious.
As a teenager, I read Atlas Shrugged and The Fountainhead and enjoyed them greatly. But more recently I read Whittaker Chambers’ book Witness. I found Chambers to be much more deep. His transition from darkness into the light was quite profound. He understood man’s weaknesses and faults including his own. Miss Rand, on the other hand, was a romanticist who invented cartoon like superhuman characters who were flawless and never made mistakes or errors in judgement. IMHO, Chambers was a realist, Rand was a dreamer.
“... her personal life, values, and morals were perfectly atrocious.”
Before slandering someone, most decent people would provide evidence for their vague accusations. Of course not everyone is decent.
Hank
I don’t know what Ayn Rand was like, but somehow I imagine her to be something like Ann Coulter.
I think there is a place for this. Atlas Shrugged is essentially a Superman-style superhero comic in novel form.
As far as morality is concerned, I believe she is correct with relation to public political behavior. A principle should stand on its own basis and not on the morality of the person holding it. Private moral behavior however, should be rooted in the Bible. So while a politician who advocates and legislates for strong marriages but has an affair should not have to suffer consequences politically, privately his wife is morally correct to make him suffer a divorce.