A fantastic essay. Txs for posting. Definitely +1. I found much to like, but my favorite quote from the essay:

"Much of Rand’s work, I said, was about the moral status of the individual human soul in an age of mediocrity. What turned individuals away from Ayn Rand was not her atheism, not her defense of laissez-faire capitalism or even her rational demolition of altruism. It was something more visceral. It was their complicity in the destruction of the noblest and most idealistic sense of life that lay within their own souls. Somewhere along the way they told themselves that they had grown up. What they had done, though, tragically, was to annihilate the capacity to hold steadily to a vision of life’s better possibilities and their ability to be the chief engines of change within their own lives.

They had become disillusioned with life largely because they had bought into a cult of appeasement that seduced them into accepting the false idea that to get ahead required compromises, while Rand advocated an unbreachable commitment to one’s values and an equal commitment to the morally unimpeachable character that is required to uphold and preserve such values."

Most of us have had a Rand awakening, either by reading, or listening or both. As a kid, I saw the movie of The Fountainhead before I read the book. The film turned out to be the appetizer which prepared me for the feast the book provided. It wasn't until ten years later that I read Atlas and went into Ayn Rand overdrive and read everything that had her name on it or the names of those in her circle that she humorously called "The Collective." At one time or another, I met them all, at lectures and book signings. Then came marriage, kids, and career. The roller-coaster called life threw lots of curves but the philosophy of Objectivism backed me up and my 2nd son based his very successful career inspired by her writing.

I only read the first few paragraphs.
I'll read the rest later.

But, why in the world would the author even bother submitting this to Salon?

Great article, very inspiring!

Excellent article! We need more of these kinds of guys to bring reason to the mainstream.

Yeah, that's an excellent and nicely in-depth article. I'm overjoyed to learn that someone with his breadth of knowledge and his dedication to Objectivism is a seated philosophy professor, not to mention the fact that it's in one of the most freedom-hostile cities in America.

Gay is not my orientation, but it is truly a shame that the religiosity of conservatives has driven most gays into the fold of the neo-collectivists.

Another interesting article - albeit much shorter - on that narrower subject: Rand's philosophy as the rational ideological choice for gays - is one that an acquaintance wrote for the New Zealand periodical "The Free Radical" back in the '90s.

It's titled "Rand Among the 'Queers'" and is located here:
http://www.freeradical.co.nz/content/33/...

Cheers!

Helo RMP,
Thank you for posting this excellent article. I am astounded that it found its way on to Salon...
Truly astounded.
Regards,
O.A.

wonderful article, thank you for posting it. I know nothing of the salon web site, but I do know that it is fantastic when an article of this nature appears on the internet for potentially millions to read. 3 cheers rocky!