Up: [[Books]] Created: 2022-06-10 Updated: 2025-12-19 I absolutely adored *The Fountainhead* and especially *Atlas Shrugged* when I read them in first year university. I remember being so caught up in them, so affected by them that my cousin, in exasperation, said, *Oh I wish you’d read Mary Poppins!* Although they were [[Favourite Books]] at the time and I was sure they would never be replaced in my affections, there’s truth to the observation that Rand’s books are most appealing to adolescents and young adults. When I tried to read them again in my early 50s, I found them overwrought and tedious. I couldn’t imagine what the appeal had been just a couple of decades earlier. So I was interested today to read Teresa Jordan’s information and thoughts about Ayn Rand in Jordan’s book, *The Year of Living Virtuously*. She had reason to know a lot about Rand and her beliefs. Jordan’s parents followed Rand’s writings as their religion. Her father called *Atlas Shrugged* his Bible and read it at least once a year until his death. Rand’s philosophy is called Objectivism. I read elsewhere that Rand claimed she accepted no daytime or evening commitments for the entire thirteen years that she was writing *Atlas Shrugged*. If true, she certainly lived one of the defining virtues of Objectivism, [[Love of Solitude]]. The major appeal of Objectivism to the young person is that Rand’s world is black and white. There’s no [[Tension of Opposites]] for her. You can either be heroic by standing completely alone, or you can be dependent on others which makes you morally bankrupt. The only place for compromise is in business to negotiate a price. > [!Orbit] Teresa Jordan in *The Year of Living Virtuously* > Objectivism offers a ‘round universe,’ where the meaning of life is clearly stated and an explicit moral code extends to every aspect of human existence. Because truth is rational and absolute, even matters of the heart have right and wrong answers. (p. 167) Jordan’s last sentence really spells it out for me. I disdained [[Emotions]] for too many years.