 Rand’s conviction of the vital practical importance of abstract theory may help to explain the passionately polemical nature of her philosophical writing (which some readers find inspiring and others hyperbolic and off-putting), although Nietzsche’s influence, as well as the influence of her Marxist-Leninist education also probably play a role. Rand also tended—perhaps owing in part to the same two influences—to regard philosophical errors as revelatory of the psychological flaws of their authors.