"Objectivism: the spongy white bread at the Great Buffet of Human Ideas" – John Scalzi, in his screedtastic bloggings on the topic of Ayn Rand's Atlas Shrugged. I would add: spongy white bread is delicious and comforting, but not good for you, and may contribute to health problems if not to an early death.
Perhaps this is what Scalzi has in mind. I think I can agree with a large proportion of what he's saying, which is hard for me to find among people who actually enjoy Rand's writing. His main insight: Rand writes "nerd revenge porn" – which is why fans of Rand are mostly to be found somewhere on the Aspergers spectrum. I will not be so proud as to deny I might be along there somewhere, myself.
My main thought on being a nerd: being a nerd is like being an acoholic or a drug addict – you cannot be cured, but you can be recovering. I am a recovering nerd. As long as I accept this, I can make progress. Rand's writing is a different approach: it says that being a nerd is holy, and there's nothing to recover from. In essence, it denies the normality of human collective social experience. Rand is to being a nerd as William S. Burroughs is to being a herion addict. Personally, I think both are wonderful writers. But I don't think they're offering viable life-philosophies. It's fantasy.
