Ayn Rand - Objectivism

Its time I spoke about Objectivism and Ayn Rand. I read Fountainhead 3 years ago. To be frank, at that time I never knew anything about Ayn Rand or Objectivism. The book was written pretty well given the author is from Russia. In the coming years, I learnt about objectivism through internet. I recently saw a documentary about (Gautam is gonna kill me for this, but I saw it even before you could warn me). The title of the documentary is "Ayn Rand - A sense of Life". After watching it , I decided to write about this topic someday and I think I have the time to write it now.

Ayn Rand was short and precise about her philosophy. This is what she asked people to do, "Be Selfish!!!” .She should be absolute nuts to say that people should be selfish. She defies all Religion in this world. It also had some archive footage about Ms. Rand talking about how everyone should be selfish and she was supportive of capitalism. I thought Ayn Rand was utter rubbish, I know I may get the ire of some of the readers, but How can one live without helping others. The irony is Cecile B. Demille helped Ayn Rand to get a job in his studio and that kick started her writing career. I found it foolish when someone else helps you create a career; you say that you must be selfish. I think Ms. Rand missed the whole point.

Every religion in this world preaches that we have to help others in some way or the other. Feynman says that the moral part of a religion is the only thing that he accepts from a religion. Ms. Rand is an atheist that does not mean that she can say whatever she thinks. I think she missed the whole point, and in the documentary she was taking her characters in her book for her philosophy.

I thought that Ms. Rand missed the whole point. Each and every action that a man takes is to satisfy his conscience. For e.g., when a guy offers something to a beggar, he is happy that he has helped a poor guy. Inherently, he does that because it gives him satisfaction, otherwise he would not have offered anything to that beggar. Even if he is a miser and doesn’t give anything to that beggar, he does that because that makes him happy. So every action that a man does is for his satisfy his inner greediness. By satisfying his inner self, he also helps another person. Is this wrong? Ms. Rand says it is wrong and I say Ms. Rand is wrong. She staunchly opposes Socialism. What a joke?

In a particular interview she was caught unawares by the host, the guy asked her she felt when her husband died. She thought that she wished that she can be with him when he meets St.Peter in heaven in support of him. So the host told her that it was against objectivism (he was right). She said something and escaped that question. If she wants to help his husband, doesn’t that action goes against her philosophy? Every philosophy has some flaws, but Ms. Rand’s philosophy is full of flaws. How can a selfish person write about Love? In Ms. Rand stories, love plays a major part. A selfish guy cannot love. A guy loves a girl and will do anything to make her happy which in turn makes him happy.

I was also angry that she was supporting the capitalist policy of America and she started to campaign for it. We can see what selfishness and capitalism (of US and UK) has brought to this world. We have numerous example, Iraq, Afghanisthan , etc…. They wont go and fight the militants in Africa, because there is nothing in Africa. Their sole interest is the oil rich countries and that’s why they went for Iraq , when there is no sign of WMD in there, get control of all the oil resource and start a civil war and devastate the whole country. Their next target could be Iran. During time when people need care and peace, I thought that documentary to be piece of s*** and Ayn Rand’s philosophy to be utter crap.