I'll explain.
As a philosophy I thought her "objectivism" pretty much just borrowed from others wherever it suited her. I thought Atlas was kind of like a Freshmen level Ethics Survey Course with different characters playing different theories with a few twists put in. The most obvious was Rand's criticism of Kant through James Taggart. The long winded speeches were kinda necessary to to club the reader over the head in what theory she's spelling out, like Francisco's "money is good" and Galt's spiel that sums up the whole objectivism.
I'm in the camp that really doesn't buy Objectivism as a philosophy as put forth in some of her works like "virtue of selfishness." But that doesn't mean I don't like her stuff. For the most part I think she's right on in some areas. I begrudgingly accept that Cantor is correct on his theorem of diagonalization. However, I never want to fucking reading a work of fiction about anti-diagonals. I did like her fiction in that it took the different philosophical theories and played them out with characters. The Fountainhead and Atlas were pretty cool in that regard.
I also really need to point out that I'm not trying to bash Rand. To do so is akin to the throwing the baby out with the bath water. There are a large number of commentators on philosophy of various types. To me Rand is one of the best commentators. You know where she's coming from, you get the idea of what she's conveying, and she puts it into perhaps the most possible interesting package.
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