Objectivist Philosophy to Cope with the Irrational in Contemporary Life Posted on 07/18/2010
In Objectivism, personal responsibility, individualism, reason, self-sufficiency, integrity to one's vision and one's self interests, unadulterated Capitalistic principles of production and trade, property rights, and personal standards are primary virtues. Coerced sacrifice for others, altruism, and government demands that others help others who show only need for help, enforced by law, are antithetical to independence, freedom, and liberty.
Ayn Rand, founder of the Objectivist philosophy, demanded complete conformance and adherence to Objectivist principles, dismissing Libertarians for selectively appropriating Objectivist principles, thereby diluting their collective power and irrevocably tarnishing Objectivism as a serious force in guiding people's lives and influencing politicians to reform government.
Ayn Rand Brief Bio
Posted on 07/18/2010
Two biographies of Ayn Rand, novelist/essayist and founder of
Objectivism, were published in 2009: Ayn Rand and the World She Made,
Ref by Anne Heller and Goddess of the Market: Ayn Rand and the
American Right, Ref by
Jennifer Burns. The following is a summary of Rand’s life based primarily on material from
these sources. (See also the biographers’
book release interviews sponsored by the Cato Institute.)
Ayn Rand was born Alissa Zinov'ievna Rosenbaum to Jewish
parents, Zinovy (“Z.Z.”) and Anna in St. Petersburg, Russia on February 2, 1905,
during a time when Russian Jews were persecuted by government authorities for
promoting modern industry and capitalist economic practices. The political
atmosphere was tense, with Marxist Mensheviks and Bolsheviks battling for
ideological supremacy. Rand’s father was a successful pharmacist and her mother,
Anna, was a homemaker who would later become a teacher out of survival
necessity. Ayn had two younger sisters, and the girls were privileged
to be schooled at the respected and progressive primary school, Stoiunin, in St.
Petersburg (a city later renamed Petrograd and then Leningrad), where Ayn
learned French, music and art, classics, humanitarian disciplines, mathematics,
and athletics during World War I. According to biographer Burns, Ayn was not
popular with her classmates, though they petitioned her frequently for help in
their subjects, acceding to her intellect, but perhaps, Ayn speculated, envious
of her because she was smarter. “Most likely, her classmates simply found Alisa
[sic] abrasive and argumentative. She had an admitted tendency to force
conversations, a violent intensity to her beliefs, an unfortunate inability to
stop herself from arguing” (Burns, p. 13). In her later years, “her
intolerance for dissent and her abusive private behavior toward her closest
associates and potential allies” made her a tragic, lonely figure (Kilgore,
p. 1, Ref) . By 1917, World War I had dragged on for the third year, and
the Russian winter temperatures hovered around 25 below zero for weeks.
Rationing to support the Russian Army led to rampant criminality in most Russian
cities as citizens scrambled for bare living necessities. Life started to fall
apart for the middle-class Rosenbaums during the 1917 Russian Revolution to oust
the incompetent Czar Nicholas II, eventually to be replaced by oppressive
Bolshevik leader Vladimir Lenin who wanted to stamp out economic classes by
stealing from the wealthy—bourgeoisie—and giving to the poor, or proletariat.
The Rosenbaums had to migrate on foot, their possessions in a cart, their rubles
completely devalued by the issuance of inflated rubles, to the Ukraine and then
to the Crimean city of Yevpatoria to avoid forced sharing of their hoarded
supplies and government-confiscated shelter. In her novel, We the Living,
Rand provides a chillingly accurate description of life under Communism during
this period. 
Notable Objectivists, Practitioners, and Web Sites
Posted on 07/18/2010
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