• • • Ayn Rand in Uganda 
Scott Noble, Dissident Voice Altruism  Ayn Rand Institute  Atlas Shrugged  The Fountainhead  The Virtue of Selfishness  Capitalism  Personal life  Inaccurate  Rand’s philosophy represents a revolt against human nature. Not only are we hard-wired to feel emotions like empathy, it is precisely our ability to share, commiserate and act collectively that allows us to survive as a species. Moreover, recent data suggests that the great bugaboo of libertarianism – equality of outcome – is actually the single most important determinant of health and happiness in society.     Share on Facebook

• • • The Virtue of Selfishness: A New Concept of Egoism (1964) 
David Wilson, South China Morning Post The Virtue of Selfishness  Egoism  Personal life  (Requires subscription.)Nowhere in Rand's ascendant nicety-free canon is her take on politics expressed with more verve and venom than the essay collection The Virtue of Selfishness. The Neocon bible expounds Rand's philosophy, which she called "objectivist" in a foretaste of the equally dubious Fox News slogan: "The Spin stops here". About as objective as The Narnia Chronicles, Rand's gut-instinct tract exalts egotism as a rational code of ethics and slams socialism as a vice. A selfish, non-sacrificial way of life is possible and the only way to be, according to Rand, whose individualist take on how to live could be seen as an affront to Christianity, Confucianism and several other belief systems that place hope in community. Rand's Darwinian outlook, which makes Britain's Iron Lady Margaret Thatcher appear warm and fuzzy, must stem from her upbringing in Soviet Russia. [....] Rand can be so short on rigour that she resembles a crazed cult leader. Her claim that extremity equates with consistency is just one example of her borderline lunacy, which can be toxic. Elsewhere in the book, she is even more virulent. Despite Rand's fanaticism, The Virtue of Selfishness remains a compelling reflection of her spectacularly dysfunctional mind and a masterclass in the waspish art of polemic. Stinging.     Share on Facebook

• • Editors’ picks 
C. Rollyson, Choice Atlas Shrugged  The Fountainhead  The Virtue of Selfishness  We The Living  Capitalism  Egoism  Personal life  Review of Ayn Rand and the World She Made, by Anne C. Heller.Although not stinting a concern with Rand's ideas, Heller is mesmerized by Rand the novelist and the person. The biographer pores over Rand's early years in Russia with brilliant results, showing how much Rand (born Alissa Zinovievna Rosenbaum) drew on her experience in the 1920s Leninist state for her impressive novel We the Living.     Share on Facebook

• • • The Ayn Rand follies 
The New Criterion Altruism  Atlas Shrugged  The Virtue of Selfishness  Capitalism  Egoism  Inaccurate  It was always, we suspect, Rand’s effort to make a “virtue of selfishness” (as she puts it in the title of a collection of essays) that accounted for a large part of her appeal. The shocking quality of advocating something so widely deprecated guaranteed an eager audience. Most human beings do not need special encouragement to be selfish. They come by it naturally enough. How welcome, then, to stumble upon a writer of long books who, far from criticizing selfishness, as everyone from your mother on down has done, tells you that you should be as selfish as possible.     Share on Facebook

• • Apology philosophically 
Jim Smith, Naples Daily News (FL) The Virtue of Selfishness  Egoism  Objectivist author  To act selfishly means to act in your own self-interest, which includes both the short term and the long term. If [Tiger] Woods is truly “dedicated to making sure” that he helps “young people achieve their dreams through education,” then he should start by recognizing the “Virtue of Selfishness” as first identified by author philosopher Ayn Rand and available in her book of the same name.     Share on Facebook

• • • Ayn Rand, hugely popular author & inspiration to right-wing leaders, was admirer of serial killer 
Mark Ames, AlterNet Atheism  Atlas Shrugged  The Fountainhead  The Virtue of Selfishness  Capitalism  Egoism  Inaccurate  Ayn Rand is a textbook sociopath. Literally a sociopath: Ayn Rand, in her notebooks, worshiped a notorious serial murderer-dismemberer, and used this killer as an early model for the type of "ideal man" that Rand promoted in her more famous books -- ideas which were later picked up on and put into play by major right-wing figures of the past half decade, including the key architects of America's most recent economic catastrophe -- former Fed Chair Alan Greenspan and SEC Commissioner Chris Cox -- along with other notable right-wing Republicans such as Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, Rush Limbaugh, and South Carolina Gov. Mark Sanford.     Share on Facebook

• • Make the irresponsible accountable 
Mandy De Waal, ITWeb The Virtue of Selfishness  What our country seriously needs is a crash course in accountability, and globally there's no one better placed to impart profound lessons on responsibility than Ayn Rand's former lover and intellectual heir, Nathaniel Branden. A strong champion for the philosophy of objectivism, Branden is a world authority in the field of self-esteem, and has written over 20 books, including best-sellers like The Six Pillars of Self-Esteem; The Virtue of Selfishness (with Ayn Rand); Taking Responsibility; Self-Esteem at Work; and My Years with Ayn Rand.     Share on Facebook

• • • Why Ayn Rand? Some alternate answers 
Michael Huemer, Cato Unbound Atlas Shrugged  The Virtue of Selfishness  Capitalism  Egoism  The theory of “The Objectivist Ethics” is simultaneously the most distinctive and the least plausible, worst defended of all of Rand’s major ideas. [....] I do not have space to detail the flaws in the article here; they require more lengthy discussion. For now, just take as a sociological observation that few find the theory of that article plausible, even after reading the article.     Share on Facebook

• • • Why Ayn Rand? Answers and some questions for discussion 
Douglas B. Rasmussen, Cato Unbound Atheism  Atlas Shrugged  Capitalism: The Unknown Ideal  The Fountainhead  The Virtue of Selfishness  Capitalism  Egoism  It is for Rand both right and a right for individuals to live for their own sakes. The moral standard to be followed is for each individual to live as full and as complete a human life as possible. Each individual human being is an end in him- or herself and has no higher moral purpose. One is certainly not merely a means to the ends of others. This is what Rand meant by speaking of the virtue of “selfishness.” Her purpose in using a term that is normally thought of as a vice to describe her fundamental virtue was to indicate just how profound a paradigm shift is needed in order to defend liberty.     Share on Facebook

• • • Jury duty: Ayn Rand play opens at Owasso High 
Karen Shade, Tulsa World Ayn Rand Institute  Atlas Shrugged  Night of January 16th  The Fountainhead  The Virtue of Selfishness  Capitalism  Personal life  Two thoughts arise when you consider the Owasso Community Theatre's next production. Correction — first comes an exclamation and then a question: "I didn't realize Ayn Rand wrote a play. And why is Owasso Community Theatre producing it?” “I've had a lot of people who've told me, 'I didn't know she'd written any plays,' " said George Romero, the play's director. "She did not think of herself as a playwright at all. I think she was even a bit embarrassed by her playwriting skills because she thought of herself as more of a novelist and philosopher and political theorist."     Share on Facebook

• • Rand’s argument from intimidation and Obama 
Gavin Kitchens, Nolan Chart The Virtue of Selfishness  Ayn Rand wrote on what she calls the "Argument from Intimidation" in 1964 in the Objectivist Newsletter and it was republished in the 19th article in The Virtue of Selfishness. [....] The Argument from Intimidation is often composed of statements like "you can't possibly think…" or "everybody knows that…" or "that's ridiculous" or it may be inclusive of derisive labels calling people heartless, stupid, or worse.     Share on Facebook

• • • Interview with an Objectivist 
Jordan Carr, Stanford Review - Fiat Lux (Stanford U, CA) Altruism  Atheism  Ayn Rand Institute  Atlas Shrugged  Introduction to Objectivist Epistemology  The Fountainhead  The Virtue of Selfishness  Capitalism  Egoism  Elan Journo  Harry Binswanger  Leonard Peikoff  Yaron Brook  Interview with Dakin Sloss, founder and president of the Objectivists of Stanford.     Share on Facebook

• • • Queen of hearts 
Pradeep Sebastian, Businessworld Atlas Shrugged  Capitalism: The Unknown Ideal  The Fountainhead  The Virtue of Selfishness  We The Living  Personal life  Review of Ayn Rand and the World She Made, by Anne C. Heller.I came under the spell of Ayn Rand in high school. I was drawn to her natural gift for plotting and storytelling, the scale of her melodrama, her improbable characters, and most of all, her absolute, uncompromising idealism. But I was never crazy about her philosophy. But after all these years you still get a high from encountering her tormented romantics taking on the world.     Share on Facebook

• • • Ayn Rand and Christianity 
Reginald Firehammer, Independent Individualist Altruism  Atheism  Capitalism: The Unknown Ideal  The Virtue of Selfishness  Egoism  Leonard Peikoff  Critique of John Piper’s The Ethics of Ayn Rand.Ayn Rand was no more anti-Christian or anti-religion than protestants are anti-Catholic or Catholics are anti-protestant. Just as they disagree with each other, she disagreed with them both. She wrote a little in opposition to those specific teachings of religion she found rationally untenable, but as far as I know, she never wrote a work or made a speech strictly against religion. It just was not important enough to her to oppose everything she did not agree with, of which religion was only one.     Share on Facebook

• • • Ayn Rand—back from the dead and still dead wrong 
Marc Acito, Walletpop Ayn Rand Institute  Atlas Shrugged  The Virtue of Selfishness  Capitalism  I know the answer to the question, "Who is John Galt?" He's a pompous, misguided bloviator. In other words, Glenn Beck. For those of you who aren't familiar with Rand's theories, let me give you the Twitter version: She also wrote a book called The Virtue of Selfishness. 'Nuff said.     Share on Facebook

• • • Ayn Rand and the tea party movement 
Bruce Maiman, The Examiner Altruism  Atheism  Atlas Shrugged  The Virtue of Selfishness  Capitalism  Egoism  Image  There is no real world application of Ayn Rand's objectivist philosophy --it doesn't work. It's not consistent with human ambition; it's not consistent with human drive; it's not consistent with human impulse. The libertarian movement proved that. And where did the libertarian movement fall flat on its face? The very area that Ayn Rand leaves untouched, the social area, where she would say there's no need to care about your neighbor, or any need to care about your fellow human beings. Your job is to be selfish. Make your way, produce, make money and live well. Don't ever apologize for your wealth, your status, your good luck or your station in life and let the devil take the hind most. And those who can't cut it --they're left by the wayside. We can't worry about them, we have to keep going forward.     Share on Facebook

• • • Odd couple: Ayn Rand and Karl Marx 
Don Jarvis, Daily Herald (Provo, UT) Atheism  The Virtue of Selfishness  Capitalism  Egoism  Rand failed to see that Social Security and reasonable economic regulation would preserve equality of opportunity both for talented poor families and for the thinking business class that she so ardently worshipped. Marx held a fatefully naive faith in government to solve all problems of humanity, while Rand had a no less dangerous belief that unchained capitalism could solve all those same world problems by itself.     Share on Facebook

• • • Capitalism’s wicked witch 
Allen Barra, Daily Beast Alex Epstein  Anthem  The Virtue of Selfishness  We The Living  Onkar Ghate  Audio  Reviews of Ayn Rand and the World She Made, by Anne C. Heller and Goddess of the Market: Ayn Rand and the American Right, by Jennifer Burns.Was Rand even a philosopher? Beyond claiming Aristotle as an influence, glibly dismissing Plato as the “father of communism,” and alleging inspiration from Nietzsche, there is little evidence that Rand knew much about philosophy. She became one of the most popular pundits of the 20th century by throwing all other philosophy out the window and redefining terms to suit herself. Surely the term that suits her is not philosopher but ideologue.     Share on Facebook

• • • A Rand occasion: on Thanksgiving & black friday, be thankful for the producers 
Allen Barton, Pajamas Media Ayn Rand Center  The Virtue of Selfishness  Capitalism  Egoism  Yaron Brook  Video  Yaron Brook on Ayn Rand’s views of Thanksgiving.     Share on Facebook

• • • Why conservatives love Ayn Rand 
KPFK - Uprising (Los Angeles) Ayn Rand Institute  Atlas Shrugged  The Virtue of Selfishness  Capitalism  Personal life  Yaron Brook  Audio  Inaccurate  Interview with Johann Hari.Anyone who can read Ayn Rand and feel a sense of admiration is, on a very basic level, not a democrat. She explicitly did not believe that human beings were equal. In fact, she said there should be a democracy of superiors, that the supermen should have a vote, people like her, but not the lice, the disgusting people, the people like you and me, presumably, who believe in slightly higher taxes on rich people and so on. [....] I think everyone should read Ayn Rand because it really gives you an x-ray of the subconscious of the kind of Rush Limbaugh right, of how they view ordinary people. [....] These are people who believe that only the rich are fully human, and Ayn Rand is very clear about that. She literally describes the people who aren’t rich as subhuman. [....] [In Atlas Shrugged] she describes with glee how people are dying in the streets.     Share on Facebook