In 1959, Mike Wallace did an interview with best-selling author Ayn Rand, who wrote The Fountainhead and Atlas Shrugged. She termed her philosophy “objectivism” and said a society built upon the ideals of individualism and objectivism tended to be the strongest and most successful. I watched most of the interview a couple months ago, although I’d caught parts of it years prior. I’ve always admired Rand’s economic philosophies, and I believe they are more important today than ever before especially in light of what our government is doing with its financial goals. My personal belief is that the government right now is attempting to rescue us from a disaster that they caused.

Rand has some very good points about what makes a society work well, especially her views on a welfare state vs. laissez-faire economics. But I think she is wrong in her assessment of self-sacrifice and love. I believe self-sacrifice is a virtue and that loving some people first might be the only thing that will make them worthy of it. As well, I believe that even as a spiritual duty, self-sacrifice is only valuable if it is done of one’s own free will. It is no longer self-sacrifice if it is coerced. Rand splits hairs on self-sacrifice because she admits to helping her husband but prefers to call it selfish because she derives benefit from helping him. Others who are altruistic could parse their reasons the same way—it’s that proverbial “good feeling inside”. Upon reflection, it’s almost better to say that being self-less has “selfish” benefits. I think that even Rand would admit that one of the primary foundations of economic and social progress has to do with delayed gratification. Selfishness has nothing to do with merely looking out for your own self interests. Its quality goes much further. It must have its way immediately even if it severely injures others. To love another is to defer oneself to bring benefit to the one loved. Parents do it for their children, friends do it for each other. Rand wants to maintain consistency about things like rewarding hard work, which I understand, but I think loving people only when they deserve it severely diminishes the very substance and value of love. Making love conditional robs it of the only quality that makes it beautiful. Some people simply can’t become worthy of love unless love itself comes to their rescue. Gangbangers who commit murder and mayhem, drug addicted pregnant women who keep using even after finding out they are pregnant—these are people who are difficult to love. And in their bitter or helpless state, they must be loved if they are ever to change. Everyone needs that kind of help to varying degrees. I think if Rand believed in at least some version of unconditional love, her logic—which holds together remarkably well and for such an incredibly long time on this issue of what motivates goodness in us—wouldn’t eventually fall apart.

Filed under: Life
by The Hipster