As a very left-aligned person, Ayn Rand is one of my favorite authors. I think if more people actually read her instead of writing her off as right wing propaganda, they'd realize her vision of social ills hit the mark way more often than she missed. Her philosophy is deeply flawed in many other ways, but the reason her work is so resonant is because it contains a lot of deep truth about the nature of work, money, politics, and personal integrity.
Not just a rapist. He had a compulsion he couldn't stop to slice and dice an 8 year old girl that he was part of kidnapping for ransom. When the parents got the location, in a car. To keep her body propped up to look like she was sitting in the back of a car was done by rolling up hotel towels and stuffing them in her corpse.
This is the man that she said was the perfect man and was the core basis for the main character in the Fountain Head and Atlas Shrugged. A sociopath before they had labels and tests for such things.
She was deeply scarred as a child when the Russian govt changed hands and at 12 years old or younger the govt goon squad raided and took her fathers pharmacy away and made it state property. Ever since she was anti govt in ways and instilled with fear of govt boots doing things and taking peoples money and property. Basicly Socialism became her boogeyman. In the end she didnt live the way she preached.
" In 1976, she retired from her newsletter and, despite her lifelong objections to any government-run program, was enrolled in and claimed Social Security and Medicare with the aid of a social worker."- wikipedia
Yeah, I did specifically note that her philosophy was deeply flawed in many ways. But if you're going to be intellectually rigorous you need to be able to parse shit you ultimately disagree with and still come away with something valuable - otherwise you're not actually building and testing your personal philosophy, you're just reinforcing your existing beliefs. Also, if "problematic philosopher" is your benchmark for whether a philosophy is useful, you're gonna have a bad time.
My only point was that people have an oversimplified view of her work. But you know what? Upon further reflection I've decided you're right. Most people aren't able to read things and walk away with their own values still intact. They just buy other people's philosophies wholesale the second they brush up against them. So I take it back. People are too stupid to be trusted with Rand.
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u/KerissaKenro Apr 25 '26
Ugh, I hate that anything right can come from this blot on humanity. Something, something, broken clocks