Has anyone in DU actually read 'Atlas Shrugged' by Ayn Rand?

[Shankapotomus]

53. +1

I've read most of Ayn Rand's titles as well as works about her (being a voracious reader through most of my 20's) and I feel better equipped to counter Objectivist philosophy in a debate than maybe I would have been otherwise. Part of the perniciousness of Objectivist philosophy is that it can throw people off balance who have never encountered it before because it makes these weird pronouncements (like selfishness is a virtue) and its practitioners emit this false, pseudo confidence. One of Objectivisms' first founders, Barbara Branden (who was later excommunicated), touched upon this in her autobiography about the Ayn Rand cult.