Tuesday, February 9, 2010

I used to be an Ayn Rand...

...sympathizer. Like most phases, however, I worked through it. (I found out that the real world is a bit more complicated than Rand would have you believe.) But some people never do.

Cathy Young, a contributing editor at Reason, the libertarian publication, has an article on Rand today. I figured it would be an admiring piece, but I was wrong. It's actually quite good. One of the parts that struck a chord with me was:

In pure form, Rand's philosophy would work very well if human beings were never helpless and dependent on others through no fault of their own. Unsurprisingly, many people become infatuated with her philosophy as teenagers only to leave it behind when concerns of family, children, and aging make that fantasy seem more and more implausible.

I've often wondered if having children would have softened Rand's outlook on the world.

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