"isn't even worth getting drunk during" should be your new catch-phrase!

I read Anthem several times in high school, going to such Randy lengths as actually stealing it from my high school library (you know, because I was selfish and smart enough to think of stealing it). No one ever talks about Anthem, but it's basically Cliff's Notes for Ayn Rand.

I think a lot of people growing up have the same experience, where they're convinced everything is BS, so they'll latch on to any cohesive alternative explanation, and if that alternative explanation EXTREMELY flatters them and their teenaged ego/self-centeredness, why, all the better.

What's crazy is that some people fail to discard Rand after high school.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anthem_%28nov…

*I* Shrugged.

2112 is still a great album. If you're baked, anyway.

I need to modify my dating site to include Ayn Rand, Whiskey, and hash to filter out more people like Smirk.

My Howard Roark-like personality dovetails perfectly with that Rand dating site.

My dates need only consist of emotionless glances into each other's objectivist eyes, decrying the stultifying dullards around us and breaking rocks with a pick-axe for me to get mega-laid.

"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." -- "Rogers" at the Kung Fu Monkey blog, 19 Mar 2009

PASS!

I think Machiavelli had it right when he argued that societies should be built to keep in mind how human nature is rather than how we would like for them to be. I think Rand builds upon this idea with AS. To say that those that observe this are selfish is a tad idealistic, and falls short of the point of the work. Rand is for selfish people... show me an unselfish society and you will show me a conquered people.