The Virtue of Selfishness

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Summary: This is a book that will make you think!
Review: I picked up this book because I liked the title, although I had no real idea why. It just appealed to me. The summary of the book hooked me, and I read it.

This is a real philosophy book, not just someone airing opinions in dime-store language and calling it intellectual discourse. Even so, it is not that hard to read and moves very quickly through its ideas. I was very impressed with the way the writers back up what they say with logic and examples.

I was constantly thinking, as I read the book, "Yeah! That's right!" Other times, I found myself, for the first time, questioning some real basic beliefs I had. Ultimately, this book has had a great positive influence on me and helped me to lead a life that is more productive and happy.

Just beware that if you accept this philosophy and want to remain objective, that it may be best to avoid some people who call themselves Objectivists. I've found that many are less interested in ideas than they are in agreeing with everything Ayn Rand wrote and said. They seem incapable of questioning even her most off-the-cuff remarks even when they are obviously in direct conflict with her formally stated views or are obbviously based on old/dated information.

For instance, the discussion of love in this book describes it as a manifestation of deeply held values and would therefore have little to say against a same sex relationship - as long as the relationship was based on proper values. Despite this, many objectivists continue to blast same-sex relationships. When asked why, they quote things Ayn Rand wrote in a letter to someone or whatever and don't seem able to discuss the issue - or many others - with their own independent thinking.

Don't let the "born-again" Objectivists or the shrill detractors of this philosophy (most of whom clearly don't understand it in the least!) sway you from reading this book. It's an excellent book, very enjoyable, and as corny as it sounds, it can really change your life for the better.

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Summary: Sheer demagoguery
Review: No, nobody ever found the dictionary that Rand used to define "selfishness" - because it never existed. She didn't redefine it at all; she meant by it exactly what everybody else means by it, and it's not a virtue.

All she did in this series of "philosophical" essays was try to rationalize self-absorption by "proving" that it wasn't really harmful after all. But she couldn't even accomplish *that* task competently; if it's true, as she argues in the essay another reviewer cites, that there aren't any real conflicts of interest among rational people, then why bother to distinguish "selfish" from "unselfish"?

No, Rand's "ethics" is just a thinly disguised rationalization of her own utter inability to care about anyone other than herself. She was exactly like her fictional "hero," Howard Roark: other people just weren't *real* to her, except as props for her own vastly overinflated and terminally unhealthy EGO. And this book is supposed to explain why that's okay.

It isn't.

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Summary: People are afraid of this kind of stuff
Review: It seems to me that this person who has reviewed several Rand books (claiming to be Swedish or from "Atlas," etc.) is really writing angry reviews of Rand herself. She may indeed have been something of a megalomaniac, but if we were to do that about all books, we would merely be judging them as psychological profiles of the authors! It is literature like this which scares the politically correct people of today who hail Marx and whine about how human nature is kind and giving. Well, Rand is not saying that we are EVIL, but rather that society is run by people who have a personal vision, and she offers ideas on how to do some of that yourself (regardless of whatever her personal inclinations for power may have been). Selfishness, says Rand is not at all about putting yourself over loved ones, it's only- as I take it- supposed to mean that we need to assert ourselves to succeed, and not be trampled upon. If one is willing to put politically correct rhetoric aside, this book is eye-opening.

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Summary: Dogmatic? Bitter? Not in this book (well, not much, anyway).
Review: Nobody has ever managed to find the mysterious dictionary that supposedly misled Ayn Rand about the standard meaning of "selfishness." Nor, to my knowledge, has anyone been able to reconcile this volume's essay opposing the "argument from intimidation" with Rand's own opening statement that she is using the term "selfishness" "for the reason that makes you afraid of it."

In fact what she is reclaiming in this volume is the morality of rational self-interest, which is far from "selfishness" as ordinarily understood (and as defined in everyone's dictionary but Rand's).

But she does a damn fine job of this reclamation. I call particular attention to a neglected essay: "The 'Conflicts' of Men's Interests." The thesis of this essay is that there are no ultimate conflicts of legitimate interest among rational people, and this thesis really should be more central to Objectivist ethics than it has been to date. It is crucial to Rand's entire concept of "selfishness" that not only does one's self-interest not require the sacrifice of others' interests, but indeed it is positively served through the promotion of others' well-being. (In fact I'd recommend reading this essay in conjunction with "Causality vs. Duty" in _Philosophy: Who Needs It_.)

As I've suggested in a review that has now scrolled off the page, "The Objectivist Ethics" really could stand a good deal more emphasis on the virtue of benevolence and the rational propriety of directly seeking the good of people other than oneself. But fundamentally, all that is needed here is a straightforward recognition that human beings are social by nature and that the pursuit of eudaimonia is not a zero-sum game. So when Rand writes "man's life qua man," read "other people" as included in such a life and you won't go astray.

And if you read this book, do read _Capitalism: The Unknown Ideal_ as well. The two volumes belong together, and in my own view the latter is a better book.

Rating:
Summary: One of the best books I've ever read...
Review: When I first read this book, my reaction was " I am selfish and there's nothing wrong with me". I never understood why some people hate Ayn Rand. Is it because her books force you to look deep inside yourself? And what you find there might not always be pleasant? I've never been comfortable with the idea that the more you "sacrifice", the better person you become. Ayn Rand advocates quite the opposite. She simply says every person should be selfish. However, the careful reader will know that her philosophy goes beyond just childish anti-socialism. She redefines selfishness. To be without an ego is to be dead. I agree 100%. Kudos to her.

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Summary: I don¿t subscribe to her point of view.
Review: Ayn Rand delivers a boatload of B.S. If you ever wanted a list of reason's to justify selfish acts. Then this book is for you. Put yourself above your family your friends and your god (unless your god is Ayn Rand). Rand gives you plenty of reason's why you should do what's good for you, regardless of the outcome.

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Summary: Outstanding; incredibly lucid. Ayn Rand was wide awake.
Review: The experiences of my life validate the truth and value of this book. As I have grown, learned, and achieved, my views have come closer and closer to what I have recently found in the philosophy of Ayn Rand's Objectivism. I wouldn't listen to negative reviews of this book without reading it yourself first.

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Summary: Dogmatic teachings of a bitter woman
Review: A militant and dogmatic atheist, Rand preached a version of unmitigated individualism and what she called the "Virtue of Selfishness," an ethic that glorifies egoism and the material gratifications of Economic Man. At her funeral in 1982 an immense dollar sign stood beside her casket, and the characters in her books are always sketching the symbol in the air like early Christians sketching the sign of the cross.

For all her hatred of religion, Rand managed to turn herself and her ideas into her own private church, and her intolerance of dissent rivaled that of the Ayatollah Khomeini. One story, about Murray Rothbard, shows how far she carried it and how seriously she took herself.

Murray, one of the world's leading free market economists and libertarian thinkers, was a lifelong agnostic, but his wife, Joey, was and is a Christian. When they were younger, they had some truck with Rand and her circle of worshippers, but then the Great One found out about Joey's faith.

Rand gave Joey six months to soak herself in Rand's own screeds against religion. If, at the end of that period, Joey abandoned her beliefs, she and Murray could sign up with the Source of All Truth Herself. If not, Murray would have to divorce Joey, or else they would be exiled to the outer dark. Murray, quite properly, told Rand to go take a flying jump up in the lake (or words to that effect). He kept his wife, and his wife kept her faith, and somehow they managed to live happily without the benefit of Ayn Rand's wisdom.

Murray was not the only thinker who penetrated Rand's buncombe and saw that she was in fact a dangerous enemy of the very liberty she championed. Whittaker Chambers wrote a withering review of her novel Atlas Shrugged in National Review. Calling it a "ferro-concrete fairy tale," Chambers noticed that despite "the impromptu and surprisingly gymnastic matings of the heroine and three of the heroes," no children ever seem to result. "The strenuously sterile world of Atlas Shrugged," he wrote, "is scarcely a place for children."

Actually it could be argued that there are nothing but children in her novels. Howard Roark, one of Rand's heroes says in The Fountainhead: "This country," he intones, "was not based on selfless service, sacrifice, renunciation or any precept of altruism. It was based on man's right to the pursuit of happiness. His own happiness. Not anyone else's." Really?

It is typical of Rand and her self-obsessed followers that they conveniently ignore every sacrifice on which this and every other human society is based -- men who die in wars, women who die in childbirth, parents who do without so their children may prosper, leaders who surrender privacy and wealth for service, and whole communities that stand together against a common enemy. Men who died at Valley Forge and the Alamo, with a courtesy unknown to the Virtue of Selfishness, would have politely asked Ayn Rand to take her false and solemn platitudes somewhere else.

The "Virtue of Selfishness" offers you phony but plausible reasons to avoid doing things you know you ought to do but don't want to do. You can cheat on your wife or husband, desert your family, abandon your religion, neglect your work, and betray your country, and Miss Rand could give you 50 different reasons why it's all right.

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Summary: Love is Selfish
Review: Rand used the term altruism, in its original meaning (as used by philosopher August Comte who coined the term): self-sacrifice.

To Rand, to sacrifice a greater value (say your beloved child), for the sake of a lesser value (some strangers you did not know) was wrong. (I agree).

To save your beloved wife from drowning would be selfish--because you loved her; to let her die to save some other stranger--when you loved your wife--would be unselfish.

Selfish, as Rand uses the term, means to act in ones own LONG-TERM rational self-interest.

It does not mean that one cannot have friends--only that "friends" who stab you in the back are not really your friends.

In fact, if you think about it: love IS selfish. To paraphrase Rand, before one can say 'I love you', one must first learn to say the word 'I'.

Of course, if one actually READ the book, one would know this. If one reads the book, and still holds these distorted views of Rand's work, then one is either stupid or dishonest.

This does not mean one may still not disagree--there are some things I disagree with Rand on; but, one should not stoop to dishonest smears, name-calling, and outright lies about her work.

Rating:
Summary: The root of ALL good.
Review: I have read this book; and l have come to the conclusion that if everybody understood what this book preaches, this world would be a better place. Any person searching for answers in his own personal life, will find them here. A book like this is needed by EVERYBODY in this world. People who criticize this book's ideas are afraid of the truth because it hits close to home.