@420f26f4 @3fe52772 I think, in a lot of ways, Rand is optimized to be a bit of a tar pit for precocious youths.  it has a veneer of philosophical discourse without challenging many fundamental assumptions about the world, so you feel like you're elevating yourself without being made uncomfortable.  Adults will praise you for reading it.  And it centers the ego at a time when ego development and individuation are part of one's cultural arc of development. 

 @3840abd4 @3fe52772 honestly? I might assign it myself if I was a HS teacher. It's like baby's first philosophy. But I would assign it with context. And then they'd read Aristotle, maybe John Stuart Mill and David Hume, probably Nietsche.