Initial Impact
Rand's ideas were not exactly the most popular at the time she expressed them. Atheism was not a common belief, especially in the era of McCarthyism and anti-communist sentiments, because Atheism was often associated with communism.
In 1961, Gore Vidal wrote an article about Rand in Esquire magazine. He says,
In 1961, Gore Vidal wrote an article about Rand in Esquire magazine. He says,
"This odd little woman is attempting to give a moral sanction to greed and self interest, and to pull it off she must at times indulge in purest Orwellian newspeak of the “freedom is slavery” sort. What interests me most about her is not the absurdity of her “philosophy,” but the size of her audience (in my campaign for the House she was the one writer people knew and talked about). She has a great attraction for simple people who are puzzled by organized society, who object to paying taxes, who dislike the “welfare” state, who feel guilt at the thought of the suffering of others but who would like to harden their hearts. For them, she has an enticing prescription: altruism is the root of all evil, self-interest is the only good, and if you’re dumb or incompetent that’s your lookout.
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Despite the negative opinions of her philosophy, she always stuck to her beliefs. In the About the Author section of Atlas Shrugged, Rand said she stood by what she believed. "My personal life is a postscript to my novels. It consists of the sentence: 'And I mean it.' I have always lived by the philosophy I present in my books--it has worked for me, as it has worked for my characters. The concretes differ, the abstractions are the same." (Rand)
Some people were very supportive of the ideas Rand presented in her novel. In her biography Ayn Rand and the World She Made, author Anne C. Heller notes she received fan mail for decades. "Fan mail was pouring in to Bobbs-Merrill, coming from lawyers, teachers, librarians, bookstore owners, chemists, engineers, housewives, active-duty military personnel, artists, and musicians. The letters would continue to come for as long as she lived. Soldiers wrote from battle zones to say that they had been reading parts of the book to one another as a way of bolstering morale. Many readers thanked her for giving them the courage and inspiration to flout the stultifying expectations of their families and communities and to act according to their hopes and dreams..." (Heller, 167).
Some people were very supportive of the ideas Rand presented in her novel. In her biography Ayn Rand and the World She Made, author Anne C. Heller notes she received fan mail for decades. "Fan mail was pouring in to Bobbs-Merrill, coming from lawyers, teachers, librarians, bookstore owners, chemists, engineers, housewives, active-duty military personnel, artists, and musicians. The letters would continue to come for as long as she lived. Soldiers wrote from battle zones to say that they had been reading parts of the book to one another as a way of bolstering morale. Many readers thanked her for giving them the courage and inspiration to flout the stultifying expectations of their families and communities and to act according to their hopes and dreams..." (Heller, 167).