Who is Ayn Rand?
Born 1905 in Russia, Ayn Rand witnessed the Communist Revolution and the pillaging of her father's business in the name of the people. Fleeing her homeland in 1926, she came to America to begin her career that she choose at 10, to become a writer. Her first novel, We the Living, followed a young woman in Russia shortly after the Revolution in her struggle to live and love in a world filled with death.
In Rand's next novel, The Fountainhead, she grabbed national recognition. Her hero, Howard Roark, is a budding architect that refuses to build anything but the best that a building can be. He is ridiculed and shunned for his buildings because they don't look like every other building. This novel explores the meaning of individuality and to value the best within you.
Rand's magnum opus is Atlas Shrugged. This is the first novel to fully integrate an entire philosophic framework within the plot. The story and philosophy are so compelling that millions have read and been moved. This story spans a generation of men who develop and run the world by their decisions and actions. When these men quit, what happens? The impact of this story started a movement to change the world and actualize Rand's vision of man.
Atlas Shrugged was her last novel. Since then, hundreds of articles and several books about her philosophy have been published in her name, among these, The Virtue of Selfishness, The Romantic Manifesto, Capitalism: The Unknown Ideal, and Introduction to Objectivist Epistemology. She continued to lecture and write until she died in 1982, capturing the hearts and minds of many young people seeking truth and rationality in a world void of both.
What is Objectivism?
In a nutshell, Objectivism holds that:
- Reality exists...your thoughts have no influence on what exists in reality.
- Reason is man's only reliable means of obtaining knowledge...emotions and faith are not a path to knowledge.
- Men should pursue their own self interest...your own life is the source of all values and supporting that life requires that you give it the highest value.
- In order to flourish, men must recognize the right of individuals to be free from the initiation of physical force.
