Ayn Rand

She had a play produced on Broadway in 1935 and 1936. After two early novels that were initially unsuccessful, she achieved fame with her 1943 novel, The Fountainhead. In 1957, Rand published her best-known work, the novel Atlas Shrugged. Afterward, she turned to non-fiction to promote her philosophy, publishing her own periodicals and releasing several collections of essays until her death in 1982.

Ayn Rand wrote volumes urging people to be selfish.

What? Aren’t people already too selfish? Just do whatever you feel like, be a thoughtless jerk, and exploit people to get ahead. Easy, right? Except that acting thoughtlessly and victimizing others, Rand claims, is not in your self-interest.

What Rand advocates is a new approach.

Selfishness, in her philosophy, means:

Follow reason, not whims or faith.

Work hard to achieve a life of purpose and productiveness.

Earn genuine self-esteem.

Pursue your own happiness as your highest moral aim.

Prosper by treating others as individuals, trading value for value.

At the dawn of our lives, writes Rand, we “seek a noble vision of man’s nature and of life’s potential.” Objectivism is a philosophy for living on earth. (Ayn Rand Institute)

“WISHING WON’T MAKE IT SO”

Objectivism, begins by embracing the basic fact that existence exists. Reality is, and in the quest to live we must discover what reality is like and learn to act successfully in it. In other words, if you want to win the game, you have to first understand it is a game and then learn the rules.

To exist is to be something, to possess a specific identity. This is the Law of Identity: A is A. Facts are facts. There aren’t “my facts/truth” and “your facts/truth”. There is only Truth. 

You cannot escape Truth by wishing it otherwise. Instead you must solemnly and proudly face it. One of her favorite sayings is Francis Bacon’s: “Nature, to be commanded, must be obeyed.”

Reality — that which exists — has no alternatives, no competitors, nothing higher than or “transcending” it. To embrace existence is to reject all notions of the supernatural and the mystical, including God.