Book of The Month Recommendation - June 10
'The Virtue of Selfishness' by Ayn Rand
This book is co-written by the same author who wrote Atlas Shrugged, one of the most influential books in the US in the twentieth century and, like Atlas Shrugged, is a series of essays on the subject of Objectivism and its associated philosophy. Rand, along with her erstwhile associate, Nathaniel Branden, has written a series of essays setting out her philosophy and the moral principles of Objectivism which at first sight seem at odds with everything and everyone being neutral but, on reflection, I don’t believe there is a conflict.
- The first essay is ‘The Objectivist Ethics' and here’s a quote from it to give you a taste of Ayn Rand’s thinking: ‘The basic social principal of the Objectivist ethics is that just as life is an end in itself, so every living human being is and end in himself not the means to ends or the welfare of others – and that therefore, that man must live for his own sake, neither sacrificing himself to others nor sacrificing others to himself. To live for his own sake means that the achievement of his own happiness is man’s highest moral purpose’.
- Again, from the book: ‘Happiness is that state of consciousness that proceeds from the achievement of one’s values’ – thought provoking stuff.
- The chapter on the 'Ethics of Emergencies' I found quite challenging; the author says that sacrifice is the surrender of a greater value for a lesser one, but that is impossible as each act we perform gives us the greatest emotional payoff at that moment, and is therefore of the highest value to us. I think some of you might question some of the ideas in this chapter as they run counter to the culture in which we are brought up. For instance, Rand says that we should only help others in emergency situations as long as it is not at the expense of our own life.
- I found myself disagreeing with the ideas in the chapter entitled ‘Isn’t everyone selfish’ and I think , if you have attended The Winning Edge, you will understand why, but it is probably a matter of semantics as Rand’s definition of selfish is different from Mancroft’s.
- Ayn Rand’s style of writing is quite challenging in itself; people seem to fall into two camps, either the absolute goodies or absolute baddies. I sense some of the anger she felt at the communist state of the USSR in which she was brought up, the politics and philosophy of which were completely opposed to her own. Many of her ideas seem counter-intuitive but that is only because many of us have been brought to believe the opposite of what she postulates.
- Rand believes in pure laisser-faire capitalism which, as she agrees, has never been practised by any government to date and it would be fascinating to see how it would work in reality. Her chapter on Racism is notable for a wonderful contradiction in her philosophy, or so it seems to me. Whilst abhorring those who consider themselves to be superior to others, she says: ‘observe also that racism is much more prevalent among the poor white trash than among her intellectual betters’!
- I found this book a great way of provoking me into thinking about the way I think about such things as values, perception, emotions and ethics and I very strongly recommend it to you as a great workout for your thought processes!
- Richard Jackson, co-founder of Mancroft