***** Certainly not the most misunderstood philosopher. That'd be Max Stirner or in paticular Friedrich Nietzsche. Americans should start reading them and not believe anything was original by Ayn Rand, Sigmund Freud or Jean-Paul Sartre.

Socrates ofAthens Elaborate.

She is misunderstood by people who think she is "great" or "original". Made up name, made up personality, 100% cigarette addict, adolescent's view of the world as black and white. Real cool to read her when I was a teen. Quickly outgrown and regretted when I became a working adult. Don't waste your time. Gary Cooper is good in The Fountainhead, but it is really a fantasy movie.

S Delano Excuse me, I would love to hear your statements on why Ayn Rand isn't a feasible source of good arguments for a mature person

Because she believes in capitalism, which is associated with Republican conservatives, which is "obviously" evil, even though Rand herself would probably not even consider herself a conservative.

liked it very much

I see altruism as immoral and altruists as evil because if one good man destroys his life with altruism then he cannot continue helping others. Helping people help themselves solves this problem. In Cancun there are opportunities for the poor in the tourist business, they are not fleeing the country, but in the rest of Mexico you see they begin to lack opportunity.

@@leerman22 I would love to know how doing a kind thing as opening a door for someone without the need of a reward for doing so is self harmful. I think this is the entire problem is how people are defining altruism, elephant's are naturally altruist's and we don't see them going extinct due to slitting their throat's in order for another to live if that is how you define altruism. Human's are naturally selfish because we are smaller animals which lived as prey for a time, bigger animals such as elephant's that live in a safer world are naturally altruist's. There has been more harm in the world because of human selfishness than there has ever been done in human altruism, as selfishness is where the evil of man comes from. However those that are still wired to our natural selfish surviving trait would see altruism as evil and immoral, that's why they are not altruist's and are selfish, however like it or not, altruism is the result of a more wiser species, because fear is a very primitive and immature emotion.

@@Starnerdz Opening a door for someone doesn't destroy your wealth, no self-harm doing something of simple decency.; no self-destruction. In fact it may be more profitable to your public image, not to mention ego.

@@leerman22 Sure, it can make someone feel good for doing so, but this is the problem is definition and how people define it. When we talk about existential reward's, it show's a completely different story and that is what people define as altruism. I will grant you that doing altruist act's causes a emotional reward for doing so, but that's not really existential as there is no personal benefit they have gained, or lost. Narcissist's do good to benefit their image, and so by your logic you assume everyone is a narcissist, and everybody lack's empathy since empathy is a altruistic emotion while fear is a selfish one.

Goddamn it, you're def not wrong. :)

i was about to comment the same thing

zupergozer I agree with her in the regard, that men are stronger if they are prepared to do for themselves, instead of feeding on the efforts of others, but I do not believe compassion is evil, or a weakness.

This is just speculation as I don’t want to put words in her mouth, but I think she may have got caught in either her eureka moment or lost in translation when describing altruism as an “evil”. I think she much more meant to call direct altruism a “polarizing force” for productivity of an individual. But she does later iterate that altruistic activities are often motivated by the self in the end. So performing an altruistic activity to make oneself feel better or isn’t necessarily taxing on the self, but performing an altruistic behavior at the expense of doing things that you know won’t be fulfilling for you would be an evil/negative force towards your conviction. Hopefully her interpretation was more on a personal motivation for determining her own morality that she thinks is best for her productivity rather than a belief in an objective moral structure oriented around self-preservation or self-fulfillment. If this was the case, I’d probably mostly agree if this is the case

+Erich Richter Most just don't understand Ayn Rand's reasoning. One must read through all here stuff to understand it. This is a good starter point since it quotes from her writings and some of Leonard Peikoff's writings. aynrandlexicon.com/

The crux is though that it's in your self-interest to help your in-group. To help your out-group, however, is counterproductive. You could try to define your in-group as the entire human race, and in some contexts, that would apply (say alien invasion or crazy people like PETA placing animal welfare above human welfare). However, generally speaking, it's natural to concern yourself with your own welfare first and foremost and that depends, if at all, only on the welfare of those close to you.To go against that is, imho, unnatural and undermines the very principles that made us what we are today. Our ancestors rose from primitive single-cell organisms to the incredibly complex beings that we are today on those precepts. All animals place their own interests and that of their family or group above those of anything else.

NewFormofSilence So...appeal to nature?

thelol77 Yup. Ayn Rand would probably disapprove. ;) That said, it's not a baseless "it's good because it's natural" deal. Improvement through competition between individuals, groups, businesses etc. has happened without fail. I think it's rational to accept it as the premier model for improvement of the human race, especially since attempts to deviate (à la communism) have always failed.

NewForm, considered that maintaining an efficienct united cooperative human race would practically be the most singularly beneficial thing that could happen to an individual. As in, using government to successfully create situations where your in group is the entire human race would be the result of the most substantial cultural and technological Renaissance the world has ever seen, and with it corresponding decreses in world strife would be inevitable*. In addition to what i said about self-concept. I urge you to consider not promoting isolationism, the only thing scarier than the human ingenuity when it is in full competition two human ingenuity working together. Real communism has never really been tried, nor is the world anywhere near ready for her, but things as simple as global postal systems cant start working at peak efficiency until isreal lets palestine lay rail (or drive trucks or whatever things relevent to postage that makes my example work) though their nation. Cooperation, assimilation of culture, and sharing of resources is a necessary component for a more perfect world. Nessecary, not just incredibly helpful. We cannot have rougue people and nations not complying to reasonable international standards, and i genuinely and whole heatedly believe, that that can be done without violating a single civil liberty or diminishing a single spark of individuality. Any rational man would chose his most rational best option, which is socialism.

And definitely not without fail

Environmentalism requires altruism. Environmentalists MUST be willing to sacrifice their own wealth for the sake of future generations which they will never meet. Without environmentalism the human species could easily go extinct.

urdisturbing Environmentalism is a scam.

libertarianfreedom8 There are two basic reasons why people don't believe in environmentalism: they either don't believe in science or they don't believe in morality. Randriods believe in neither.

+urdisturbing Very true.

+urdisturbing Do you know the best means to combat Climate Change? It isn't government regulation, that will only very very slightly slow it down. The only means to combat climate change is technological innovation which regulation stagnates. Poverty is the natural state when born and need is not a claim on the productive. A man's mind is his means to survive, literally to be or to not to be. And stop generalizing people by calling them randroids. Faith and belief won't grow your food.

This is contrary to the common understanding of the word. Rand in my opinion is wrong wrong wrong to take a word and apply an odd definition to it.

She always uses the original strict definition. Remember her ideas were formed early last century. Today we use the word "altruism" with a more vague meaning of "kindness". So it is us who have applied an odd new definition to the word, but that is just the evolution of language. To understand her point you have to think a bit deeper to understand what she meant back then, not what someone would mean when using the same words today.

It wasn't their intention to link the two.

TheChatterbox1991 Actually no. Ayn Rand's argument against Altruism is far more well thought out than that and far more important than simply talking in extremes of selfishness vs. altruism, I'll try to break it down for you, since her criticism against altruism, is why she's so hated, and also why her philosophy is so important. To understand Rand and her critique of Altruism, you have to go back to the Enlightenment. In Europe at the time: when the enlightenment was occurring, Christianity was under attack, and many people were rejecting religion. Since science was showing that man could understand nature primarily through reason, there was a revolution against the authority of church and supernatural powers of every kind. This led to a moral crisis, because if Christianity is B.S., whether it's protestant or catholic, why should anyone abide by it or it's rules? Certain people started taking this to heart, and it lead to a ton of debauchery in Europe, where a lot of people took advantage of this moral relativism (kind of like in the new age movement in the 60's and 70's). Many of the top figures in religion and philosophy saw this, and believed in some way shape or form, the morality of Christianity had to be defended, even if Science contradicted the theology, and it was the French Revolution and all the craziness that was the Reign of Terror, that made this become a far greater emergency. The philosopher, who provided the rationale, the path, and the way to dealing with this problem was Immanuel Kant. He basically convinced people that reason was limited, and that there were certain things that could only be understood by our emotions alone i.e. morality. After the horrors of the french revolution, which were blamed on the enlightenment, reason lost it's appeal, and there was a great surge in religion all through out the West including America. His philosophy, set the grounds not for just a resurgence of religion (that wasn't his ultimate goal), but the intellectual defense for emotionalism as a form of higher thought, where it was in Romanticism, Transcendentalism or even the modern day Evangelical Christians. You see Christianity is Altruism, and nowhere is this made more so obvious than in the example of Jesus Christ. He is the greatest of all the great moral people, and he is great because he sacrificed himself for all sinners. He is also the one who told us that it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God. He is also the same one in the bible who praised a woman who was poor, but still insisted of giving half her wealth away as an offering, as being the prime example of an ideal Christian. Implicit in Christianity, and the love of Jesus is a love of altruism. This way of viewing morality, is incompatible with Capitalism - one has to eventually give and bow out to the other. When Ayn Rand came to the U.S., she could see that Socialism was gaining prominence over American Culture, just as it had in the Soviet Union, and she saw how it was coming through, by the class of intellectuals, like many of the Conservatives of the times saw it too. The Conservatives, thought it was due to a conspiracy or some kind or a desire for a New World Order, Ayn Rand saw it differently: she saw the Socialists taking the ideas of Jesus far more seriously than the Christians did. After all, America is the richest country in the world, and over half of the 1% live in America (you are in the global 1% if you make over 30K a year), and she realized that the conservatives could uphold their love for capitalism and maintain their moral foundation of Christianity only by evading the contradiction, which to her meant there was very little hope for them. This is why Ayn Rand initially appealed to the left, but the leftist intellectuals rejected her, so she ended up pretty much by herself. The libertarians liked her, but had problems with her philosophy, because they were way more into moral relativism and didn't want to deal with her rejection of the supernatural and the primacy of philosophy over economics. Ayn Rand understood that morality is the driving force of where men decide to go in life despite their flaws (as America, in the pursuit of the ideal of liberty for all, was able to show from it's inception); that behind every ideal is the motivation of self-improvement towards moral perfection, whether it is achieved or not. If the ideal was Jesus, and that was the measure of perfection, then socialism would eventually win out, regardless of how many times it failed in practice, since it always had the moral high ground: "Why not build heaven on Earth, if all the technology and wealth created by Capitalism, makes it possible?" That is why Ayn Rand advocated Selfishness. Selfishness, being the working towards of one's moral perfection that has been built and worked towards to by reason. You could help others, but the desire to make yourself into the best person you could ever be is to be the measure of morality, not how much you do it in the name of other people. This is also why Ayn Rand relied heavily on Aristotle as the foundation of her philosophy: he was the first to attempt to establish a moral system based on reason; Ayn Rand's built her philosophy to make adjustments to it, and take out any reference to the supernatural, which she believed Aristotle received from Plato. Before arriving at Aristotle, and not understanding their could be a morality defended on the grounds of reason, she had embraced Nietzsche, who basically advocated for the Will to Power, as replacing the morality of Christianity. Once she discovered Aristotle, she rejected Nietzsche (Gail Wynand in the Fountainhead symbolizes him, he commits suicide in the end, by shooting himself in the head...so yeah), and was able to systematize her philosophy. If you can understand this insight by Ayn Rand, you'll probably be able to understand everything else she says, regardless of what the critics say or those who simply memorized and spit out her ideas but don't really understand the context in which they were developed.

Jevioso Orishas Wow, very informative and well thought out comment rather than reactionary vitriol. I learned something. It's a refreshing change from the kind of stuff you usually see in KZfaq comments, y'know the ones that make you question your faith in humanity.. keep up the good work!!

TheChatterbox1991 well put, your final sentence makes it very clear for me, I think this is a good way to see the concept

+Jevioso Orishas Hello, I have a question. I've been getting into these kinds of things and it seems extremely interesting. In fact, I first truly started to understand the term altruism....from an anime I watched (haha... I'm still young). Although it might seem a little childish, the anime (called Parasyte) talked about altruism and animosity and things like that, and it was extremely interesting to me. By defining altruism as "selfishness in disguise", isn't it possible to have altruistic behavior even without realizing and not for your own benefit? Or does it not matter, because it might be an unconscious realization that it could benefit you in a selfish way. Like someone taking a risk and trying to fight a man with knife just to protect some random strangers. What if that someone did it on instinct, not even realizing his deed could make him a hero? Or is it all one decision, even person isn't aware of it? Could altruism completely be applied to a mother and her child? And how often, a mother would take risk her whole life for her child, even though ( in a very cold-hearted thought) she could just make a new one? I think this is found in not only humans, but almost every animal. In the anime (called Parasyte; I actually recommend watching it), it even showed a parasite monster protecting it's child (which wasn't of the same species. It was a human baby). And one more thing: Isn't altruistic behavior when you know that you will benefit from the deed, and know it will not hurt you much in any way considered extremely selfish? Like a man fighting a guy to protect a girl, when the man is 10x stronger and faster? I, personally, have no problem with these actions. Us humans are a bit selfish in some ways, and maybe we do things that are extremely hard to comprehend. But that's why we're human. And I'm okay with that. Hopefully you can read all of this. Thanks (and sorry for any typos).

Sammy Wilson The essence of altruism is self-sacrifice. You're doing it because you are sacrificing yourself, the results don't matter. The guy who fights the man 10X his strength doesn't care if he wins or not, he just cares that he's sacrificing his life under altruism. Like Jesus, he wants to die. The essence of Rand's criticism of Altruism, is that it obscures a blatantly obvious part of what it means to survive and be human: producing more than we consume. If humans don't produce more than they consume, they die quickly...and if we're all dead, of what significance is altruism? Eventually, you run out of bodies to sacrifice. In Atlas Shrugged, Ayn Rand explores this pretty thoroughly. It's a book that explores what happens when productive people stop producing, and those who constantly seek to redistribute wealth and organize others in the name of the common good don't have any more fuel to run their plans.

felicia Covington I agree.. and think. ...if we all took care of ourselves we would be much more fit and in better position to help others. when we please.

@Shit that what everyone else is doing any way.

+horeballa you maybe on the threshold of an amazing, but counter-intuitive insight. Keep following your nose.

+fzqlcs Using your logic there is no objective reason any person should try to save your two year old child from a Burning Car is it?

+mrgetrealpeople There would be an objective reason for me, the child's mother or anyone who valued the child so highly they would risk their own lives to save the two year old. Others may have reasons as well, such as wanting credit for being the rescuer or avoiding discredit for having done nothing while witnessing an avoidable death. Beyond that, there are few objective reasons to put one's own life at risk to save a stranger. It is a question of value. Few people value a stranger's life above their own.

You don't understand Rand do you?

+horeballa the thing is that, in that instance, you're not being totally selfless, but partially selfless. To act selflessly is to hold no regard for your own welfare. Now, personally I don't think that's evil, I think that's stupid. Then again, I believe Rand has a different definition of evil because she has different values. I may hold some contempt for altruism as the secular remnant of religiosity, but I haven't totally adopted the Objectivist ethic because I haven't done enough research. The question I still have is: is it altruistic to be charitable under any circumstances, even if you gain happiness from it? Personally I like to help people close to me and I even gain some happiness from helping those that don't know me as well, but is that altruism? Is the definition of altruism dependent on what we gain happiness from?

+Zac How?? What course were you taking?

Read the Sermon on the Mount. German National Socialists certainly read it.

6C1 Perhaps, but I do not believe that such a truly selfless being could exist. At least not a normal human being. which I think negates this argument. It reminds me of an argument I have often used against communism, which is that I do not believe true communism could exist, except for in a hive mind community. That said, I do not necessarily entirely agree with Ayn Rand either. I do not think it is a bad thing for the strong to pull up the weak. It is when those who you are pulling up, have no intention of giving anything to society in return, that there is an issue. When they refuse to do for them self, because they feel they are entitled to a free ride.

david boell I think you have made a very good point there, inequity in society causes greater harm the bigger it is, this is obvious when you consider few in power with immense wealth while the masses are in abject poverty. We all benefit when we are not so strongly stratified, when there is not such a gap between the haves and have-nots, and so with the strong and the weak, it is good to help those who cannot help themselves, to rehabilitate, to help them be strong again. And, with support and education, I'm sure that those who would otherwise refuse or feel entitled will, instead, be willing and able to give back and help rehabilitate the remaining weak

david boell hello there. Yes, I very much agree with you. The way I see it is that Ayn used the word "altruism" instead of "self-sacrifice", and it's partially a play of words which causes disagreements, and confuses a commoner. But I also believe she used "altruism" in her speeches to gain a greater response in public, and perhaps also in attempt to warn of the detremental commoner definition of "altruism = self sacrifice + act of benevolence" (so from my viewpoint, we can either remove "self-sacrifice" from the equation, or remove "benevolence" from the equation, and she removed the latter, hence defining "altruism = self sacrifice") So... having taken this confusion of definitions into consideration, I choose to avoid the word 'altruism' in non-philosophical conversations, and instead use the word 'benevolence' or 'welfare'. But more importantly, the word 'selfishness' causes more confusion! The way I see it is common people define selfishiness it as "Selfishness = 0% Self sacrifice + 100% inconsideration", IMHO, Ayn tried to remove the "100% inconsideration" from the equation, and therefore she called it "Selfishiness = 0% Self sacrifice". Instead, I use my personal definition as "Selfishness = Being Inconsiderate", such as when doing something at others' expense, and I'm not an advocate for this kind of selfshiness. Instead, I do advocate (in most cases) and am willing to 'publicly' stand up for what I personally call "mindful selfishness", meaning that I take others into consideration, but am not necessarily willing to self-sacrifice or be a "true altruist" which Ayn desribes. (therefore "Mindful selfishness = No True Altruism + Being Considerate") By the way, from her responses in some vids I sensed that Ayn is perhaps overthinking altruism, as in "hmm If I do this, would I then be an altruist?" whereas a common person would be more spontaneous, which I find is more true to your self.. Like I'm not gonna overthink some things and strictly not do it coz it disagrees with my philosophy ; instead I'll follow my heart and intuition at that moment (but followin ur intuition isnt infallable, and I think she desperately tried to avoid the fallacies, but I also think the price she had to pay in life with that attitude might have been greater than if she hadn't been overthinking it). Maybe that was her defense mode, because she felt in the past that people wanted her to be self sacrificial, then later she avoided it at all cost? Who knows, life is complex, we're all just want some loving affection and assurance not be hurt. Side (half-)joke: writing this long text down wasnt an act of altruism or to alter the mind of others who reads, but instead a mindfully selfish act, which allows me to restructure my thoughts, share ideas, be challenged by the other, and grow. Very selifsh, jst like Ayn would approve of :)

> We all benefit when we are not so strongly stratified, Oil firms need vastly more wealth than average people to provide gasoline to them. Even a socialist govt which owns oil firms would need that.

+Jump Jump By your reasoning so are you.

+Jump Jump Great argument. You just rebutted everything she said. Good job!

+Jump Jump You mean the Soviet Union that she fled? The petty dictatorship that made her early years horrible? In the sense that she stood against it, then yes. Yes she is.

Oh so like literally everyone and everything else? How the fuck else do you get where you are?

and you are not you

That's a total contradiction. Selfishness requires the achievement of values. Selflessness demands the sacrifice of values. Check your premises.

>selfishness is selflessness. In your imagination but not in the concrete, material universe as known by man's mind. Man is a living organism, facing the constant alternative of life and death. Man's actions either further or threaten his life. Selflessness is a rationalization of the desire to be self-destructive without being destroyed, to be consciousness without existence. This is mysticism.

What a pessimistic and irrational way of looking at the world :v

You are talking about altruism in the casual way the word is used today. Rand was talking about "the philosophy of" altruism, which uses its original meaning of holding others as higher value than yourself. Thats very different to simply making others happy.

Altruism IS a survival trait, you are overtaken by dogma... How do you think the cycle of birth, life death is replenished? Selfishness is also a survival trait. Neither can be fully extended they need to be balanced. It is hypocritical to discount your entire first 16 years of life during which you were a beneficiary of altruism. Even basic laws you rely on for survival are based on altruism, for example, why is robbery illegal, or mugging.. any person who is physically stronger than you can overpower you and take everything you have including your life... however you rely on societal altruistic rules to save your life... and the list goes on

Granting of individual rights IS altruism - why the hell should society grant you individual rights which you have not fought for, and if you fight you would lose to a stronger person.. you guys are not thinking holistically.. also you're benefitting from altruism while lashing out at that thing you rely on for survival

the human race is not built on individual selfishness, in fact individuals enter life and are nurtured using the altruistic urges - whe they leave this life they cease to exist and their worth is measured by what they left behing for others, whether useful items, wealth or even inventions and art etc from their creative minds - measuring a person's worth from what they personally gain is not their value to society, that's what they are able to TAKE from society.. you measure a person's worth by what they GIVE to society...

in fact, even the financial system is designed to reward you when you SHARE or GIVE a product or service to the customer which is beneficial to them...ie selfishness is used to serve altruism in a holistic sense - the net effect is humans all doing things for each other using financial hypnotism (money has no real intrinsic value, its value is derived from YOUR value added to the process)

Lucky Slavic me who speaks English with the same one and understands her perfectly