Earlier quoted context omitted.
So to clarify here, you don’t know what the book is about — but you are confident enough in your knowledge of the Correct Feelings a person should have about it — that you hang the futures of your social interactions on that calculus? Of course Rand lovers don’t have a monopoly over freedom of association. That said, doing something that looks antisocial and silly from the outside and then responding to the lightest…
Dude I read it in 8th grade. That was close to 30 years ago. All I remember about the book was the rant about cigarette brands at the train station and some notions about selfishness being a moral good or some such nonsense. It didn't speak to me then, and every time I've been dared to read it I've been bored to sleep. Now as for why I do this? This book creates such a wild reaction in people that it's an effective t…
That is a yes to my question, then. You do not know what the book is about but you do know the Correct Feelings that others should have about it.
You’ve clarified that you do not lie to strangers because you need them to feel a particular way about Ayn Rand. It seems that you have voluntarily posted in the book thread, unprompted, that you lie to strangers about something arbitrary as a test to suss out who will and will not be adequately deferential to you.
It is an odd thing to post and then vociferously defend, and it reminds me of a post I saw, “People willingly share things online that you couldn’t waterboard out of me”. That being said, I don’t think anyone is clutching pearls here unless you define literally any criticism at all as such.
You must forgive me for pointing out that it seems like Atlas Shrugged is actually your favorite book. It is simply everything you said before and after our initial interaction that made it seem that way, and you have made it clear that it provides you a crucial value that no other book does, after all .