How do I live my life under the philosophical system of Objectivism?

If you held these concepts with total consistency, as the base of your convictions, you would have a full philosophical system to guide the course of your life. But to hold them with total consistency—to understand, to define, to prove and to apply them—requires volumes of thought. Which is why philosophy cannot be discussed while standing on one foot—nor while standing on two feet on both sides of every fence. This last is the predominant philosophical position today, particularly in the field of politics.
My philosophy, Objectivism, holds that:
Reality exists as an objective absolute—facts are facts, independent of man’s feelings, wishes, hopes or fears.
Reason (the faculty which identifies and integrates the material provided by man’s senses) is man’s only means of perceiving reality, his only source of knowledge, his only guide to action, and his basic means of survival.
Man—every man—is an end in himself, not the means to the ends of others. He must exist for his own sake, neither sacrificing himself to others nor sacrificing others to himself. The pursuit of his own rational self-interest and of his own happiness is the highest moral purpose of his life.
The ideal political-economic system is laissez-faire capitalism. It is a system where men deal with one another, not as victims and executioners, nor as masters and slaves,but as traders, by free, voluntary exchange to mutual benefit. It is a system where no man may obtain any values from others by resorting to physical force, and no man may initiate the use of physical force against others. The government acts only as a policeman that protects man’s rights; it uses physical force only in retaliation and only against those who initiate its use, such as criminals or foreign invaders. In a system of full capitalism, there should be (but, historically,has not yet been) a complete separation of state and economics, in the same way and for the same reasons as the separation of state and church."

t. Ayn Rand

Nothing wrong what she said.

Not an argument

What's wrong with Objectivism?

Capitalism is inherently unfair an exploitative

Why would you is a better question.

Why wouldn't you?

That's literally the opposite of Objectivism, you would know this if you read any of Rand's major works (Fountainhead, Atlas Shrugged, etc.).

Not an argument

If the best thing Rand could respond to that behaviour is shaming then she has literally no arguments against employing that behaviour

>Politics: capitalism
>an economic system is a political one

Because i already have a religion

A shitty one

Shut up kafir

No U

That wasn't true Capitalism

How do you live your life under the trappings of Objectivism?

you kys

Ruse

By reading her books

Reality is unfair and exploitative.

Only because of free will

I wrote something down about this shit and the book in general, let me find it. It'll take a while to transcribe though since I have to copy something I wrote by hand.

Then we should take evreyones free will away and give our authority to our instinctual sensory functions

here it is, forgive me for sounding a bit pretentious, I was not the original writer.

1/3
There are plenty of self-respected philosophers out there who have committed dialectic sins, like starting with false pretenses and intentionally building an argument to justify their petty beliefs, but at least they managed to maintain a consistent idea in a single paper. What really gets to me about Atlas Shrugged is how every character is so...so hypocritical. Not just the looters mind you who are supposed to be hypocrites, but everyone says something but means something else. I feel like I shouldn't use hypocrisy as a pejorative after I've pointed out that everyone does it, but then I wouldn't have a problem if one of the book's themes was that humans are inconsistent. However, 1. that's not one of the themes, and 2. the characters are not humans. They're cardboard cutouts, sock puppets, mouthpieces, and strawmen. As bad as some books are about writing the plot first, Atlas Shrugged is even worse.

Here's an example for you: the good characters are those who are willing to admit to themselves and to others that they want a lot of money, and that a proper measure of success is net worth. Except that's not true, that's not why they do what they do. Early on in the book back when society could still be salvaged, Taggart and Rearden collaborate on a new rail line that uses Rearden's new alloy. They have to go through a lot of trouble to get the line finished since the official word is the alloy is untrustworthy and likely to fail. And as they're finishing constructing a bridge that no one thinks will hold, there's a moment where Dagny Taggart thinks to herself that she would trade away all her money and all her influence, just to stay in that instant the bridge is competed.

2/3
Later on there's another moment where her brother, the official head of Taggart Trains, manages to get the company even more money by manipulating government regulations in order to put their competition out of business. This act doesn't win him any respect whatsoever. Clearly then, the good people don't actually hold wealth as the highest of ideals, but rather it's that sense of accomplishment of knowing that you're won, and you've won fair and square without any cheating or trickery. This emotion is more valuable than physical resources and the main protagonist says so herself, and yet even after the book admits this, she and the others like her continue to insist that the fact that they are openly greedy is a virture. While I'll certainly agree that open greed is more honest than secret greed, their opposition states that there are things more valuable than money and apparently Ayn rand herself agrees.

And here's another piece of hypocrisy. Soon after the railway line is built, Hank Rearden and Dagny Taggart start having an affair. Dagny isn't married, but Hank is, and while he's admittedly stuck in a loveless marriage with a woman that tries to regularly emotionally manipulate him, Hank has a very strange view of what constitues a breach of contract. Maybe it's because Rand wrote this in the 1950s but apparently, despite the fact tht Hank views his marriage as a contract, he doesn't seem to realize that because he's having an affair, he has broken the terms of that particular contract and it is time for it to end. Instead, he doggedly sticks with his marriage, and quite naturally makes himself and everyone around him more miserable than they have to be.

3/3
Now one of the biggest complaints I have about this book and about Rand's assumptions in general is that it seems to go by the Great Man Theory of History, the idea that history is studded with uniquely exceptional, irreplaceable people, and as such, if the names in our history and science textbooks were to vanish, so would the impact of their discoveries, their inventions, and their social and political movements. But that's not true, and I've been saying that's not true my entire life. Individuals do not create social and political change, socities and politics do. MLK didn't forge the Civil Rights movement, the mechanization and urbanization of the South did. If Columbus hadn't gone on his voyage, or if he hadn't run into a Caribbean isalnd, the Portuguese would've discovered Brazil regardless. If Edison's company hadn't invented the first practical lightbulb, one of the many people whose patents his company bought would have. Major inventions like writing, electricity, and firearms are always collaborative efforts between hundreds of people across dozens of nations, and for every innovator that gets the credit for either being the first, or being the first to commercialize, there's an endless number of competitiors who weren't quite as clever or as quick. For crying out out, Alexander Graham Bell had to literally race to the patent office in order to become the man who invented the telephone. This is in stark contrast to the world of Atlas Shrugged, in which such innovators are in short supply and if they were to vanish then nobody would be able to take their place. And I'm sorry but inventors have never been that far ahead in their field.

I could keep going, like about how the government has no characterization beyond being this distant, menacing thing. Or how Dagny personifies this odd idea Rand has about how a healthy, intimate relationship apparently involves haven't to submit herself to a powerful man.

Why did ayn rand create Objectivism? What was her end goal?

Because she lived under the soviet union so she wanted the exact opposite of that.

Be a massive cunt to everyone around you

>characters that cheat, undercut, and connive their way to the top, fucking over everybody else in their way, are portrayed as negatively in rand's novels

>n-not an argument!

I thought she created Objectivism when people started asking her why she hasn't followed the norm

I'm reading the fountainhead and its great. Money is represented as a reward for giving the vulgar masses what they want instead of working according to your tastes. Of course it's dumb to use this as the bible but it's the same with every book, even the Bible lol.

People lie about this book. She just wants you to think independently and just be yourself. Ellsworth toohey is a faggy parody of the people who dislike rand.