Reply #43: The basic idea was... [View All]

that creative and productive people "defect" from civilization to start their own little Objectivist utopia somewhere in the mountains. In Rand's view, "creative and productive" refers to people (at one end of the spectrum) like Isaac Newton, Mozart, Ben Franklin, Picaso, Louis Pasteur, etc. At the other end of the spectrum are anti-creative parasites, like George Bush or Ken Lay. People who do nothing but tear down what others have built, and who live by sowing confusion, apathy, etc.

In Rand's view, a person should strive to fill their potential, whatever that potential was. Clearly, most people are never going to be Isaac Newton. Mostly, what she dreamed of was a society where average Joes knew enough to get the hell out of Isaac's way and let him be a genius, without, say, dragging him down or attempting to burn him at the stake, etc.

As a fiction writer, Rand had all the subtlety of an atom bomb.