[tokenadult]

"There are two novels that can change a bookish fourteen-year old's life: The Lord of the Rings and Atlas Shrugged. One is a childish fantasy that often engenders a lifelong obsession with its unbelievable heroes, leading to an emotionally stunted, socially crippled adulthood, unable to deal with the real world. The other, of course, involves orcs."

http://kfmonkey.blogspot.com/2009/03/ephemera-2009-7.html

[_lc1i]

Those kinds of condescending and trite dismissals are just not interesting. Rand draws more than her fair share of them and I don't think an honest debate can be held over her (good) philosophies because of their prevalence.

[Estragon]

Ayn Rand (and in my experience, most Objectivists) didn't want an honest debate "I am not looking for intelligent disagreement any longer.... What I am looking for is intelligent agreement."[1] (I recommend the whole essay.)

[1] http://www.mclemee.com/id39.html

[_lc1i]

Thanks for the essay. It's unfortunate Rand and Objectivism are so uncompromising. I guess that leaves the debating and exploration of ideas to us laymen, and we all know that won't go anywhere productive or intelligent :)

[jbooth]

Actually, her points are so black-and-white, oversimplified, childish, naive, take your pick.. that, yeah.

What do you think America was built by? A bunch of man-babies who took their toys and went home when someone else wanted help?