One should read Ayn Rand in a library. I'd like to think that's my own original thought-- At a recent lunch however, two people independently came up with this quip.
Even though I am a rationalist who believes strongly in individual liberty, Rand puzzles me. She got much right, but when I look at what she got wrong, it boggles me how people could obsess with her and how her philosophy thrives.
I don't think she understood the difference between communism, socialism and teamwork. her ideas were so... uh... objectivist that she lost nuance and failed to realize that two people can collaborate to create something greater than two individuals and both of them would be happier for the experience.
She was naive about elitism and the nature of invention. Her elites could do no wrong, only be oppressed or held back by the socialists. How different would Atlas Shrugged be if it was discovered that the new steel was radioactive, or rusted out after two years? What would have happened if some of Roark's buildings had structural problems and leaky roofs? (See Lloyd Write and Gehry) But no! These are elites! Everything they create must be perfect.
The unintended moral I always get from her books is perfect people should lead us and we should just respect them. I can't accept that. I don't believe in perfection. I believe in elites that makes mistakes. How they handle their mistakes is as much a marker of there status as any innate perfection.
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