Ayn Rand and Her Brand of Selfishness

              'The man who does not value himself, cannot value anything or anyone.'

Much is being spoken about these days- that we have to be selfless, devoted to the cause of others and their upliftment. It is the most spiritually attainable goal in one’s life. Anyone who works towards making his life better is looked down upon because he is not human if he cannot shell out his hard earned money for food and blankets for the beggars. He cannot drive his car daily if he cannot be empathetic towards the poor living on the pavements.  However, we forget that if we are selfish then and only then there can be a change. Ayn Rand has been criticized for too long for upholding this simple truth.

That selfishness can be a virtue has been condemned by the people who think that helping others and devoting their life for others is the only fulfilling task of man on earth. If anyone reads through the novels of Ayn Rand, he or she might think of her rotting in hell – like her protagonists who create chaos in a seemingly functional world.

Ayn Rand is probably the best example of a person way ahead of her time, a martyr to the collective hypocrisy of a society. When she argued that man should live to promote only his happiness, it was received with utmost derision. People claimed that the society would become decadent and hedonistic in its pursuit of individual happiness. They did not understand the superiority of the virtue of selfishness- To be thoughtless and harm others cannot be in your self- interest. That was not the selfishness that Ms. Rand was speaking about. To be selfish, she urged people to devote oneself completely to reason- not faith, not moral and societal obligations- to achieve the highest in one’s life and to make all sorts of sacrifice needed to achieve that- that was her philosophy- “Every man builds his world in his own image. He has the power to choose, but no power to escape the necessity of choice.”

Many people have interpreted her ideas to suit their selfish purposes. She never endorsed anarchism and contrary to popular belief, she was not against the government also. She accepted the government for what it should be- providing and creating best possible environment to achieve individual perfection. And individual perfection was her idea of selfishness- created and fostered by creativity, and as applications of the role of reason as man's basic tool of survival: rationality, honesty, justice, independence, integrity, productiveness, and pride. “Do not ever say that the desire to 'do good' by force is a good motive. Neither power-lust nor stupidity are good motives.”

 Yes, she was against the standard of values dictated by man and society- Here too her reason was that ethics that is forced on a man can never promote and prosper ultimate good in society because it is forced upon the free will. She was the modern advocate of Aristotle’s concept of “Free will”. Any knowledge other than that perceived by your sense perception is a knowledge forced on you by the society for its own purpose. She did not believe in the concept of emotions, intuitions and ethics as a source of knowledge. Existence of one’s own self is a reality- it cannot be bound by irrational ideals and thoughts.  That is why, she vehemently opposed the idea of modern altruism as coined by Comte. Greater good cannot be achieved in a society ruled by mob mentality- for a cannibal society, this would tantamount to one individual’s protest against eating human flesh. So a person going against that tenet would be looked upon as a nonconformist and creator of chaos. If we think deeper, this chaos is needed in a society to shift from its selfish motives towards collective good ultimately. Modern altruism finds fault with the money system- they see it as a creator of divide and class system. But Rand says money is the necessary tool to bring change- to what end you wish to bring the change is your purpose in life. Again, to reiterate Rand, harming others and selfish acts of destruction cannot be in the self interest of individuals- without going into the morals, ethics, value system provided to a person, simple reason and rationality will force the person not to do it. Because if he does that, he will not be able to exist himself.

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 ‘Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day; Teach a man to fish and you feed him for a lifetime.” If according to modern altruism, we believe in donating and devoting for the cause of others, not to have a desire for self-fulfillment, I dread that we remain slaves to the first part of this proverb… It cannot lead to greater good since we have not ignited the spirit of selfishness in him- we have not taught him to achieve anything, to take pride in his work, to question, to create something intrinsic to his nature in the face of opposition.

So the virtue of selfishness as promoted by Rand is the highest virtue that can be achieved in life. A life should be completely devoted to reason and its choices- ideals and principles should not be coated in words and standards of evil and good. The evil of the society is that it has, through stories, legends, actions handed down by parents that doing anything good for your own self is evil while giving money and blankets to others is good. Any reasonable man would agree that to sacrifice his life for some strangers’ well being cannot be the be all and end all of his existence. Altruists will argue that without this moral code, there cannot be any global consciousness. But to quote Rand, reason, purpose and self-esteem should suffice to promote universal good- you do not need to sugar-coat it by moral codes, ethics. Because ethics itself is spawned by the hypocrisy of society- it is a servant to the greed and power of society- a hegemonic rule over the power of reason and egoism of individual.  The question is whether a man should live life according to standards set by another individual- whether his existence is subservient to the whims and conduct of others. If it is only reason that we answer with, the answer will be no- irrespective of time, society and emotions. “Man—every man—is an end in himself, not a means to the ends of others; he must live for his own sake, neither sacrificing himself to others nor sacrificing others to himself; he must work for his rational self-interest, with the achievement of his own happiness as the highest moral purpose of his life.”