Reply #62: As would I.

[Ka hrnt]

I read The Fountainhead and Atlas Shrugged in college. For me, the appeal/inspiration was that of intellect and reason, that "man can do anything" attitude of the Galts and Roarks. And yes, I agree with you 100% that Rand would be appalled by her more vocal "followers" of today. (The fact that someone so focused on the individual self would have a following is kinda humorous...)

That being said, this article is, as you wrote below, a hatchet job:

"Rather, it is the "philosophy" at the core of the novels which bears attention."

Why then is the majority** of this article about the author, not her philosophy?

** "Ayn Rand should also be considered a psychopath...Rand collected around herself...Rand was entirely textbook...certainly fit Rand...Rand is probably innocent...Rand was an...Rand's life...diagnose Rand..."

"...defence of endless greed..."

Actually, the antagonists (James Taggart, for example), were greedy too. They just weren't capable of fulfilling their greed on their own, and thus became "looters." So I don't think it's an apt description to say her philosophy was a defense of endless greed.

"who view selfishness as the only virtue"

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Objectivism_%28Ayn_Rand%29">"The primary virtue in Objectivist ethics is rationality ... Since reason is man's means of knowledge, it is also his greatest value, and its exercise his greatest virtue."

"So far as we know, there is no reason to believe she was a pathological liar"

So far as we know, she never clubbed any baby seals either, right? This smear immediately reminded me of Bertram Scudder's hatchet-job on Rearden Steel...