2.5/5
I adore Rand's novels, but I've neglected to dive deeply into her philosophy and after this primer, my feelings about her have been solidified.
A brilliant writer of fiction, but a less than stellar philosopher, and by extension, human being.

Ayn Rand adeptly and unknowingly conveys the proof that man is fallen. While her rejection of traditional religion is nothing new, at least she had the honesty of rejecting Christian morality, particularly of altruism and self-sacrifice, and not merely the supernatural aspects. She constantly commits the fallacy of begging the question, such as her redefining selfishness and sacrifice to fit within her own philosophy of Objectivism. On the rare occasion that she is correct about a subject, it turns out she was correct only accidentally and/or for the wrong reasons. Her fierce objection to any form of collectivism, including any notion of the Common Good, stems from her background growing up under Soviet communism whence comes her extrapolation from one form of collectivism to all forms of it which she viewed as evil.

The two primary focuses of her critique she refers to as the “thugs” and the “mystics,” representing excessive materialism and spiritualism respectively. One denies the mind and seeks to force men to sacrifice themselves for the good of the collective (society). The other condemns the world and seeks to force men to sacrifice themselves to the unknown “zero” of God. Man should instead live for himself, not sacrificing his mind (something she held as of the utmost importance) to anything. He should use his mind to act in his own rational self-interest: to build rather than to destroy, and not to dominate the mind’s of others. The businessman, the philosopher, and the artist (all professions of the mind) are held as critical roles in society. No person, government, or entity should ever subdue man’s mind for some collective goal, or common good, as the thugs and the mystics desire. For her, morality was a choice one makes, not something that can be imposed. To impose a moral edict by force was not moral, but brutish.

Of course, one of her errors is in claiming that all instances of the common good are inherently evil. A materialistic vision of a utopian heaven on earth is not the same as the the Common Good of the “mystics” who pursue a Common Good through the use of reason AND revelation for the proper layout of society conducive to human flourishing, not an empty, hollow rendering of the common good.

Ayn Rand claimed to be an atheist, but I don’t believe she was as atheistic as she claimed. She certainly seemed to offer up sacrifices on the altars of reason and the mind, which became a sort of god to her. In effect, her Rand’s ideology turns man and the self into a god through his ability to use reason and rationality.

An excerpt from "Atlas Shrugged" perhaps expresses one of the more abrasive aspects of Objectivism. She believed that we owe kindness and love only to those who deserve it, and to help one without the virtues we have, “Be it only a penny you will not miss or a kindly smile he has not earned, a tribute to a zero is treason to life and to all those who struggle to maintain it. It is of such pennies and smiles that the desolation of your world was made.”

All of this can be put more succinctly (and I think she would agree): Ayn Rand long windingly describes the sin of pride. That man, in his fallen state, is most virtuous.

No wonder people don't like her work. She hits hard. And she does not relent.

I don't subscribe to her extreme philosophy, but I do admire the writing skill behind her brutally powerful narrative. Ended up buying the dvds as well.

Read it with an open mind and try to understand her philosophy outside of the narrow strictures of modern illiberal education models.

5.7/10 included excerpts from all of her most influential works. It was a very good way to get the gist of Ayn Rand without wasting 40 reading hours. I thought it was okay, but I didn’t agree with a lot of her philosophy. Though, glad I read it because I can now argue and have context against my dad. It was well written and everything, I just hated it so much.

I am tired of Ayn Rand's self promoting of her books in philosophy works - she is such a seller, I admire it, however it deminishes the worth of her work. Objectivism and rationality in every single life aspect has its flaws.

Unregulated capitalism, unmitigated individualism, explicit anti-altruism - these three phrases will tell you whether you love or hate Rand.
Although some strands of For the New Intellectual's reasoning resemble anarchist (especially Chomsky-ish) ideas on the primacy of the individual in economy and politics as well as the strict challenging of all organizational power, these ideologies stem from vastly different seeds. Chomsky's ideas on anarchism derive from a love for equitable democracy "from the individual up, not the institution down", while Rand's objectivism comes from love for the strictest and most hierarchical form of capitalism with no thought given to the draw backs of a system that historically and methodically favors certain groups over others, consumes the environment, and ushers in powerful corporations in the vacuum of an unregulated system of commodification. Instead of answering these pressing questions, Rand instead turns to the all-too-easy target of Soviet Russia - while certainly the poster child nemesis of individual rights and liberties during the depths of the Cold War - and uses its piss-poor implementation of socialism as the only evidence needed to demonstrate the evils of collectivist behavior, including - in her words, not mine - altruism, charity and any welfare state.
Like many others, I have fond memories of reading Rand's still powerful novelette Anthem. However, For the New Intellectual's amalgamation of her repetitive bibliography (the majority of its pages are block quotes from her novels) lays bare the crazed nature of Rand's ultimately one-note ego.
That said, I was thoroughly entertained. Her visualization of history as a series of conflicts and negotiations between the "Attila" and "witch-doctor" figures of humanity certainly strikes at some truth. But her questionable or dead wrong conceptions of Zen Buddhism, Kant, Marx and other philosophers/schools of thought are precisely why biographer Anne Heller describes the work as "madcap fairy tale". It could even be laughable if, of course, many contemporary US Republicans did not share many of the same extremist tendencies.

Made up almost entirely of excerpts from her novels. Who is this "New Intellectual"? Only Ayn Rand and those who are willing to adhere to her philosophy. As far as her philosophy - she actually has me agreeing with her most of the time, but to a point. In order for her views to be plausible to the point of implementation, every child in America must be born with equal opportunity and privilege. I submit to you that this is hardly the case. I confess to socialistic tendencies, but I think if Rand's utopia = everyman for himself, I think we should at least even the playing field. But that would be fair, wouldn't it?

Perhaps the book had is value in the sixties. But I did not find anything more than an eloquent lecture about the same ideal as the lecture by John Galt in “Atlas Shrugged”. Today, such ideal sounds over-simplified. Therefore, I don’t find this book very helpful in affirming my conservative beliefs. I find it hard to call such ideal a philosophy.

Most of the good points in this book were ruined by taking things to the extremes. I also feel like any of the 3 good points in this book could have been derived from some general common sense. I also feel that many of the points made in this book could be easily discredited with some common sense. Overall an aggressive book with seemingly not-well-supported claims. Also used a lot of “those people” kinds of language and binary ways of thinking about the world which are just never helpful.

“Evading the difference between production and looting, they called the businessman a robber. Evading the difference between freedom and compulsion, they called him a slave driver. Evading the difference between reward and terror, they called him an exploiter. Evading the difference between pay checks and guns, they called him an autocrat. Evading the difference between trade and force, they called him a tyrant. The most crucial issue they had to evade was the difference between the earned and the unearned.”

“Who are to be the New Intellectuals? Any man or woman who is willing to think. All those who know that man’s life must be guided by reason, those who value their own life and are not willing to surrender it to the cult of despair in the modern jungle of cynical impotence, just as they are not willing to surrender the world to the Dark Ages and the rule of the brutes.”

“The New Intellectual will be a reunion of the twins who should never have been separated: the intellectual and the businessman. [...] The businessmen need to discover the intellect; the intellectuals need to discover reality. Let the intellectuals understand the nature and the function of a free market in order to offer the businessmen, as well as the public at large, the guidance of an intelligible theoretical framework for dealing with men, with society, with politics, with economics. Let the businessmen learn the basic issues and principles of philosophy in order to know how to judge ideas, then let them assume full responsibility for the kind of ideologies they choose to finance and support.”

I suggest reading the title essay at the end, even though it's printed at the beginning.

Note: If you haven't studied History of Philosophy before, or if you haven't studied it in-depth from am Objectivist perspective, you may need more context in order to understand Ayn Rand's evaluation of several philosophers in the title essay may. The following is a great supplement for this purpose.

History of Philosophy by Leonard Peikoff
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list...

Unfortunately, Volume 2 of the course isn't available for free. If you're interested in going through Volume 2 after finishing the above course, send me a message and I'll share the details.