The "Return" of Ayn Rand?
I was reading in The Week about how sales of Ayn Rand's books are experiencing another spike as they have been known to do in times of leftish leanings of the federal government. I have dipped briefly in the poisonous waters of her Objectivism and so of course such news is chilling to my soul.
The philosophy is based on the synthesis of an ( Read more... )
The philosophy is based on the synthesis of an ( Read more... )
Sam Walton was the richest man in America when he died. He did more to raise the standard of living of America's poorest than all of the government programs and charities that existed during his lifetime. Self sacrifice is the poorest benefactor of all and degrading to the beneficiary to boot.
In an Objectivist style radical capitalist system in which all coercion by physical force is removed from human interaction and exchanges of values, the only way to acquire wealth is to offer ever greater values for ever lower prices. It is greed in the good sense of the word - the quest for earned wealth - in such a society that creates the most wealth for those least able to fend for themselves.
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"My beef with what I know of Objectivism so far is that by it, you justify not living for the sake of others by an insistence that nobody has ever lived or will live for you.
You never read anything like that by Rand or any Objectivist, so I suspect you have fallen prey to blogosphere hearsay. The quote from Atlas Shrugged at the top of your reply certainly does not say that. It says that consistency demands that claiming the right to live for one's own sake entails the obligation to grant the same right to all others.
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"I always give back some of what I get, because the way I see it, it is not mine to keep in the first place."
Note for the record that this is an entirely selfish act.
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"I suspect that's what Objectivism boils down to, trying to make a claim of ownership on stuff that isn't yours, because of a fear that if you don't somebody else will...
This is exactly the opposite of what Objectivism boils down to. Our ethics is based on a definition of the fundamental nature of human beings. As a result, every rule and right that we hold applicable to ourselves is ipso facto applicable equally to all other human beings.
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Just based on your attitude and approach in responding to some of my points, you seem to think that the only way I could have arrived at some of my conclusions is to have them given to me by other people. This is not the case; I read The Fountainhead for the first time in high school (back before blogs existed!) having heard only that in it Ayn Rand paints a picture of the ideal man according to Objectivism. I didn't know what Objectivism was and I didn't have any value judgments about it at all going into it, but I did read the book with a critical eye. When I quote Rand and say what I think it means, that is just what it looks like to one thoughtful person (I don't think it's too conceited to call myself that) encountering it for the first time. It's not an unexamined assertion of received wisdom.
In future you'll have better luck battling these views if you keep in mind that they may be original and not necessarily "spoon-fed". There are legitimate criticisms of Objectivism, as of any philosophical scheme, and they need to be dealt with as such and not dismissed out of hand as incoherent. Raging against what you perceive as naive recycled pabulum might feel good, but it won't convince anybody who thinks they have a good reason for saying it.
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