Clarified her views - don't agree with her though.

I think it is very possible to hold this philosophy without being considered too much of a revolutionary today...not that I agree with Objectivism fully, but I do think there were better words for Ayn to choose to represent her ideas that didn't tear so much at the fabric of other constructs.

What an interesting woman. I wonder what events or experiences in her life took her down this road. She certainly has the courage of her convictions.

Fascinating interview. Anyone who forces us to stand back and re-examine our fundamental assumptions about the world deserves to be taken seriously. No wonder Ayn Rand has been so influential among her readers.

I liked this video as an artifact of media culture, i.e. "Gallery of Colorful People", early Mike Wallace tv interview style. It is interesting to note how language has changed. It was also very compelling to hear Ayn Rand speak of her convictions...not that I agree with them.

Denise wrote: "What an interesting woman. I wonder what events or experiences in her life took her down this road. She certainly has the courage of her convictions."

Well if you look on her small biography on this site, she grew up during the times of the Russian Revolution. Her father, I think, was a pharmacist, and her family suffered a great deal during these times. If you read her book "Capitalism", it is obvious what lead her down this rout. Although, being a capitalist herself, she points out in the introduction of the book that she is not a conservative, because often it is mistaken that if you are a capitalist you are a conservative; so she stresses the key differences too. She is quiet interesting I'm an avid reader of her work, despite the many pitfalls of her philosophy, I tend to agree with her 85% of the time.

Her ethos is lost because she ended up giving up names during the McCarthy era. There is altruism on one end, and she has the individual right to eschew it altogether, but to collaborate with evil?

No, I'm sorry, her philosophy leads to a dangerous end-game which was played out with Keynesian economics, with social darwinism to borrow a 19th century term. This legitimizes egotism.

I couldn't agree more with you Chaz. And thank you for writing "ethos" instead of the over-used term--zeitgeist.

And there was never much at all new or interesting in her views about any subject.