The Problem With Ayn Rand

[Mister Agenda]

Her objectivist philosophy is based on the false dichotomy that egoism and altruism are mutually exclusive. Sometimes what is good for others can also be good for you. Sometimes, it can be in your own self interest to think about helping others.

For example, what if I wanted to pay higher taxes for more nationalized charity? Say someone or myself needed it at the time or might need it in the future. This is being altruistic for selfish reasons, but it is altruism none the less.

Chimpanzees even exhibit said behavior. It has been studied that a chimp will give food to another chimp quite probably to prevent a fight from breaking out. Is this out of self interest or selflessness? Really, it's both. They act selfless for selfish reasons.

Thus, even in the world of chimps, Ayn Rand's philosophy is full of shit.

I'm not a follower, but Ayn Rand was a proponent of the idea of enlightened or rational self-interest, the very notion that what's good for other people can be good for you. She just thought it should be voluntary.

She's confusing to read, because although she carefully defined her terms, she used them in ways that most people wouldn't agree with the meaning of in common parlance. For example, when she said 'altruism', she meant 'sacrificing without getting anything at all out of it yourself'...even satisfaction and pride from helping people. Of course altruism sounds silly when you put it that way, but she was talking about giving out of guilt or to avoid conflict; like when you donate more than you're comfortable giving to a charity you don't really believe in because someone asked you to and you didn't want to be a dick about it.

The research showing the evolutionary origin of altruism (in the commonly used sense of helping others for no material reward) had not yet been done when Rand was writing; she might have modified her views had she been aware that it's not just a social construct. When her heroes gave in to altruism as she defined it, it was one of their flaws; but her more perfect heroes, like John Galt, start to seem like sociopaths.

Of course, psychologically, it is impossible to separate her philosophy from her history of her family being dispossessed of their business by the Soviet communists. It's understandable that she would eventually come up with something that tried to be the opposite of communism.