Ayn Rand Would Rant and Have a Bunch of Pretentious Fanboys
“Ayn Rand. Have you ever read one of her 75-page philosophical rants?” Ayn Rand was a Russian-born American author and philosopher. Rand authored two best-selling novels, The Fountainhead (1943) and Atlas Shrugged (1957). Her novels were especially influential among conservatives and libertarians from the mid-20th century. Yup, The Fountainhead. The one that all of the pretentious, pro-capitalist, Wolf of Wall Street loving fanboys try to say is canon. Ayn Rand has been one of the greatest salesmen of capitalism in history, with total sales of her books approaching 30 million copies. Take from that what you will.
Rand called her philosophy “Objectivism”, describing its essence as “the concept of man as a heroic being, with his own happiness as the moral purpose of his life, with productive achievement as his noblest activity, and reason as his only absolute”. Her subsequent book fully defined what would become the four tenets of objectivism: reality, reason, self-interest, and capitalism. Ayn Rand isn’t well-liked amongst other philosophers because her work doesn’t fit into the mold of what academia deems acceptable philosophy. Many argue that this makes perfect sense when you understand that Ayn Rand’s view of philosophy is different (she wasn’t trying to meet the standards of academic philosophy). Many, adversely, believe that Ayn Rand’s fundamental problem is that her arguments aren’t great. They often don’t support the conclusions she wants them to, or they reach conclusions that seem incoherent. Well-reasoned arguments are the critical difference between a person giving their opinion and a philosopher, and she often failed to provide them.
