One of the most popular quotes attributed to Ayn Rand is: “The question isn’t who is going to let me; it’s who is going to stop me.” Many people are inspired by the self-confident attitude these words imply. “I don’t need anyone’s permission to live my life,” the words suggest. “All I need is an unobstructed road. As long as nobody stops me, I’ll prove myself.”
On Presidents’ Day, most Americans would like to celebrate the men who have been leaders of the greatest country in the world. If we go back to the Founding Fathers, there are many such men to admire.
Contrary to the mores of our society, Objectivism holds that pronouncing moral judgment is crucial to man’s life. For Objectivism, justice is a virtue.
“No man, neither Negro nor white, has any claim to the property of another man. A man’s rights are not violated by a private individual’s refusal to deal with him.”
“There is a fundamental moral difference between a man who sees his self-interest in production and a man who sees it in robbery. The evil of a robber does not lie in the fact that he pursues his own interests, but in what he regards as to his own interest. . .”
The birthday of Martin Luther King, Jr., offers Americans an opportunity to reaffirm their commitment to eradicating racism in all its forms. A good place to start is with Ayn Rand’s 1963 article, “Racism.”
Although Ayn Rand was a prolific author, she never wrote a treatise on Objectivism — her philosophical thinking and cultural commentary are spread out among more than a dozen books.
Peter Schwartz, distinguished fellow at the Ayn Rand Institute, reflects in this 2014 Washington Post op-ed, on why platitudes like “give back” or “remember the needy,” don’t represent his perspective on the Christmas season.
In this op-ed, “ARI’s Onkar Ghate explains why Christmas is “a spiritual holiday whose leitmotif is personal, selfish pleasure and joy” and why the commercialism of the season, “far from detracting from this celebration, as we’re often told, is integral to it.”
