Ayn Rand

There is one person in HP fandom who detested me instinctively, and whom I detested with equal intensity, almost as soon as we became aware of each other. Now I have found out why. She is an Ayn Rand fan. I am, to begin with, too old to put up with Rand's infantile attempts at philosophy - she is one of those people who managed to remain mentally fifteen all their lives - but I also have my roots in European Socialism and Christian Democracy, of all political views in the world the most offensive to an Objectivist (as her cultists arrogantly call themselves). Rand was a disaster and a hypocrite in real life, and her doctrines are only rescued from having to be called revolting by their sheer, self-parodying stupidity. One would think that anyone over the age of sixteen would be able to see through such obiter dicta as "altruism is the root of all evil" or her praise of the dollar sign; alas, America is still full of people without enough culture or self-understanding to see through this sort of thing. One of the things that make Europe still superior to America is that there is no way that a Rand phenomenon could ever take place among us. We do have our follies, but ultra-individualism is not one of them.