06-27-2014, 12:55 AM
Recently I've been getting kind of interested in philosophy. Don't get your expectations up too much, it's not a subject I know very much about (although I certainly aspire to). One of the more interesting names I've encountered so far is Ayn Rand.
She was a strong advocator of rational self-interest and believed that people who sacrifice their own interests for the well-being of others are immoral. A government's job in her opinion is to merely make sure that individual freedom (such as the right to own property) is protected. In other words she despised welfare societies where people are forced to contribute to the well-being of others through taxation. Charity is fine by all means in her philosophy, but not through any kind of force. Naturally she believed in a completely free capitalist market with no governmental interference.
Personally, this woman really fascinates me. She comes across as someone who developed a very firm view on morality and life early on and stuck to it relentlessly making neither contradictions nor exceptions. I have great respect and admiration for people who passionately uphold their own ideals consistently.
As to her philosophy, it makes a lot of sense for people who value freedom as the goal which to strive for within politics. However, I do believe in a somewhat limited form of welfare state with free education, free health-care etc. and do not advocate the kind of dog-eat-dog world Mrs. Rand would see us have. Her belief in a completely unregulated and free market seems to me pretty naive. She claimed once in an interview that monopolies cannot possibly occur in a free market, which I don't really agree with. I also feel like it's relatively easy for someone with her privilege to speak about a completely free world where individual achievements and ambition are recipes for unrestrained success. She was born into a bourgeoisie family, received high quality education etc. so in her ideal world she was equipped with the tools to success from the very beginning. Someone who is born as an ethnic minority, with certain handicaps or other factors that make the goal of success harder to reach would hardly share the same vision of a utopia.
I'm kind of curious to see what other people think of Mrs. Rand. Maybe there are more knowledgeable people in the forum who can shed some light on her philosophy with either praise or criticism? I feel like it's impossible to have a non-interesting discussion about her at the very least!
She was a strong advocator of rational self-interest and believed that people who sacrifice their own interests for the well-being of others are immoral. A government's job in her opinion is to merely make sure that individual freedom (such as the right to own property) is protected. In other words she despised welfare societies where people are forced to contribute to the well-being of others through taxation. Charity is fine by all means in her philosophy, but not through any kind of force. Naturally she believed in a completely free capitalist market with no governmental interference.
Personally, this woman really fascinates me. She comes across as someone who developed a very firm view on morality and life early on and stuck to it relentlessly making neither contradictions nor exceptions. I have great respect and admiration for people who passionately uphold their own ideals consistently.
As to her philosophy, it makes a lot of sense for people who value freedom as the goal which to strive for within politics. However, I do believe in a somewhat limited form of welfare state with free education, free health-care etc. and do not advocate the kind of dog-eat-dog world Mrs. Rand would see us have. Her belief in a completely unregulated and free market seems to me pretty naive. She claimed once in an interview that monopolies cannot possibly occur in a free market, which I don't really agree with. I also feel like it's relatively easy for someone with her privilege to speak about a completely free world where individual achievements and ambition are recipes for unrestrained success. She was born into a bourgeoisie family, received high quality education etc. so in her ideal world she was equipped with the tools to success from the very beginning. Someone who is born as an ethnic minority, with certain handicaps or other factors that make the goal of success harder to reach would hardly share the same vision of a utopia.
I'm kind of curious to see what other people think of Mrs. Rand. Maybe there are more knowledgeable people in the forum who can shed some light on her philosophy with either praise or criticism? I feel like it's impossible to have a non-interesting discussion about her at the very least!
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still a hilarious post
