There was a period in the seventies when her influence was great and many of her readers said she had changed their life. When you hear her today, 33 years after her death, she still holds your attention. She is Ayn Rand.
“Look at the state of the world today…you cannot be harsh enough on those who created it. It was created by philosophers of altruism who preached self-sacrifice, selflessness, self-obligation, all the anti-self- theories which are anti man…Look at Russia; communism is based on altruism, the Nazis were more explicit than even the Russians in preaching altruism, altruism for the state…every dictatorship is based on altruism…If you do it by your own choice, and if it is not your primary aim in life and if you do not regard it as a moral virtue, then it is fine to help people. If not, it means, you preach altruism which means not merely kindness but self-sacrifice. It means you place the welfare of others above your own. That you live for others, for the sake of helping them and that justifies your life; that is immoral according to my morality,” says Ayn Rand.
Ayn Rand asserts that if each of us looked after our own interest, “There wouldn’t be any horror in the world, we would be more benevolent towards other people if we are rationally selfish. By that I mean a selfishness we can justify rationally not the kind of ‘whim-worship’, as I call it, which consists of just indulging in your own desires, or just of the moment.”
Would that not lead to a very lopsided selfish society? Replies Rand, “…all this is economic fallacies. To begin with, nobody in a free society…free market… in which the government doesn’t interfere…nobody can become a monopolist. All monopolies are created by a special privilege from government. It’s only by an act of government that you can keep competitors out of your field. Therefore, you could not become that kind of monopoly. The power you hold as an industrialist is not the power to use force; it’s the power of producing something of value. And it’s the people who literally control you because every purchase is a vote in the favour of some businessman and in a way against others. It’s the public who decides what they want to buy and what they pass up…All leftists ideas and misinterpretation of capitalism comes from less liberal professors so universities are the real villains in the picture…”
Moving on to Rand’s atheist beliefs, she says, “I can’t nor can anyone else prove that there is a God.” But you cannot prove there is no God either? Replies Rand, “You are never called upon to prove a negative, that is logic. You can’t accept even as a hypothesis unless there is some evidence…What’s the concept of order In the Universe? If they clash with each other, if there were contradictions, they wouldn’t exist. There is no such thing as a disorderly Universe. Our whole concept of order comes from observing reality. And, the reality has to be orderly because it’s the standard of what exists…But, the real issue here, as far as man’s concerned, is that when you accept such an important issue as the creation of the Universe, you’re destroying your confidence and the validity of your own mind. I am against God for the reason that I don’t want to destroy reason…Because then it gives man permission to function irrationally, to accept something above and outside the power of reason, and superior to reason.”
Rand goes one, “…If we have no self-esteem, any demagogue can order us about because we wouldn’t consider ourselves valuable enough to be free. You would be anxious to follow anyone because you don’t trust yourself. So, self-esteem is a precondition of freedom. Life should be a celebration…if we were not here we would not be. There is a virtue in selfishness…”
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