Selfishness In Chrysanthem, By Ayn Rand

Ayn Rand was a woman born and raised in Russia. She is what one would call a very dauntless woman when it comes to her personal thoughts, and she is not fearful of sharing her said thoughts. She is a strong believer of Ethical egoism, to look out for one’s own self interest, and her blunt fashion of voicing her thoughts shocked most of the public. She also wrote a book, Anthem, as if to show what would happen if we solely relied on our government and fellow man, how we would revert to a time before technology and almost have a Hungergames type of segregation. Now, the government of today is not like the one described in Ayn Rand’s book, however, government official Rand Paul referenced her writings in his argument against the Energy Independence act of 2007, and may have unintentionally compared the two governments. There is no right or wrong way to claim his action as. Many believe it was incorrect to make this reference,

Ayn Rand was a Russian- American novelist, philosopher, playwright, and screenwriter. She was born in Saint Petersburg, Russia on February 2, 1905. She is known for her very controversial novella showing a fictional, but eerily realistic post-apocalyptic world that has fallen into communism called Anthem. Anthem was published in 1938 and depicts a city that has fallen into now would be considered inhumane acts and laws. The city in the story Anthem features a collectivist dictatorship which holds strict laws that must not be broken, these laws prohibit individuality, creativity, and freedom.

Throughout reading and analyzing Ayn Rand’s dystopian novel, Anthem, a clear theme of egoism shines its way through the novella’s pages. The novella centers around Prometheus, a self-reliant and self-sufficient character. Prometheus, who evolves from his prior and sheepish self, Equality 7-252, holds his head up higher than anyone else’s. Prometheus holds an arrogant ring to his personality, but his arrogance and conceitedness gets him a life unlike what he has ever known.Through his journey of discovering himself and those around him, Prometheus explores his inner egoistic self. In today’s times, to be an egoist is to be selfish and careless towards others, but to be an egoist is to hold your strength up pridefully and intensely. Alike, Prometheus, Howard Roark who is the protagonist of another Ayn Rand novel, The Fountainhead, also carries a sense

The specific quote by Ayn Rand which states, “The proper method of judging when or whether one should help another person is by

Being a patriot of America, Rand loved that “America’s founding ideal was the principle of individual rights.” She favored The Declaration of independence rights for the people. Her Ideas of Objectivism were a constant concept in many of her books, she encouraged readers to think with reason and self-interest. “Selfish” in her ideas is used with a positive connotation, telling the reader to “pursue your own happiness at your highest moral aim” (Ayn Rand.

Ayn Rand was born with the name Alisa Zinov’yevna Rosenbaum on February 2, 1905 in St. Petersburg, Russia. Rand emigrated to America in 1926 where she worked in Hollywood as a screenwriter. She wrote three novel called: We The Living, The Fountainhead, and Atlas Shrugged. We The Living conveyed the struggle people went through to become individuals in the Soviet Union. The Fountainhead was the story of a famous architect named Howard Roark, and Atlas Shrugged which described several individuals who went on strike which was known as “stopping the motor of the world.” From others Rand feels contempt towards Immanuel Kant. This is because in her opinion his views caused all the metaphysical confusions in modern life. The Russian society had a

In The Virtue of Selfishness and Atlas Shrugged, Ayn Rand argues that selfishness is a virtue and altruism a vice, a totally destructive idea that leads to the undermining of individual worth. She defines altruism as the view that:

She started to analyze the information she had from her study and found that those who were living wholehearted lives were not always the most successful in life. Those people were not accomplishing more or satisfying more than others. They were simply who they are. They trusted that they were worthy of compliments and love even though they were not always successful and did not have all the things we think of in regards to successful

Ayn Rand argued that rational egoism gives each person the right to live his own life and that “selfishness is a proper virtue to pursue”. Rand also continues to say that, “altruism is an evil doctrine.” Not just an irrational one or an evolutionary dead end one. So if Rand rejects the unselfish acts of individuals she would clearly also be in favour of option C, by acting according to my own rational self-interest I will be the beneficiary of letting 20 000 die each

She writes about how doing good is selfish. How can someone doing something good be selfish? I get confused at times when I read things about people being selfish because they did an act of Kindness. It really bothered me too think about, so I did someone more research with Firestone’s study’s. In her writing she explains that even if someone who is living a less stressful and meaningful life are not considering to practice generosity are losing a life time benefit. She exclaims that generosity promotes social network and improves relationships. Firestone also indicates that after year and year, new studies are conducted and states that generosity increases one’s lifespan. I also found in this article that being generous distracts us from are inner thoughts where we tend to think of nasty negative thoughts. In this article by Lisa Firestone, she explains that there is four ways to fully practice generosity. First, give something that is sensitive to the other person, where she gets into depth about giving the other something that is meaningful. Second, is accepting appreciation, very important stage to make sure the other feels the appreciation. Finally the last two are accepting others and showing appreciation. (Firestone’s selfish,

The passage claims that altruism is a type of behavior which benefits another, yet provides little reward to the one performing the act. It provides examples with human donating blood and organs; sentinel meercat who look for the predators while the others hunt for food or eat food they obtained. However, the professor refutes each of reasons from the passage.

I think Ayn Rand can be a good and bad thing for a society. She believes in individualism wholeheartedly, and she doesn’t even really want to hear other people’s opinion. In the fourth video, a lady tried to express her opinion , and Ayn Rand didn’t want to hear what she had to say. She believed this was because of what went on in Russia when she was growing up. Caring about only yourself is a good thing to a certain extent. People should get to choose their occupation, who they marry, if they want to have kids, etc, but if all the people in the military only looked out for themselves, we wouldn’t have a military to defend us. I believe societies do need a government to keep everything in order, but they shouldn’t have complete control. There

Egoism, The basis of Ayn Rand’s teaching is the theory that selfishness could be a foundational moral built within us. Explained further it goes on to redefine the pursuit of happiness as an end goal that gets done by a person catering to their own needs.

For centuries, people have been taught that serving others defines goodness. Religious scriptures for example, taught that you should love your brother before you love yourself. Marxists taught that the working class must struggle to attain a higher form of humanity. Even Utilitarian philosophers taught that one should act in a manner that results in the greatest good for the greatest number. Moreover, past moral codes have taught that social life is a cutthroat war in which people must subdue through self-sacrifice and self-abjuration. Now enter Ayn Rand. She believed that you cannot say “I love you” if you cannot say the “I”. Her way of thought lead to the theory of objectivism. According to this theory, serving others is not the ultimate

Altruism is being selfless, putting someone elses' needs ahead of your own, doing something without expecting anything in return. The lecture heard in the audio talks about altruism, and how it is not as selfless as it seems.