A review by girlbossed
The Virtue of Selfishness: A New Concept of Egoism by Ayn Rand

informative medium-paced

2.5

 As a self-proclaimed individualist, I have always felt that there is some virtue in selfishness. However, the topic has always felt controversial. How can you live in a society if you only think of yourself? You always have to sacrifice something in order to fit in! How can you have meaningful relationships with people if you only think of yourself? All relationships include compromise.
The two stars (2.5) are a thank you to the author for putting into words what my chaotic thoughts to these questions have been.

About Society:

"“Sacrifice” is the surrender of a greater value for the sake of a lesser one or of a nonvalue. Thus, altruism gauges a man’s virtue by the degree to which he surrenders, renounces or betrays his values (since help to a stranger or an enemy is regarded as more virtuous, less “selfish,” than help to those one loves). The rational principle of conduct is the exact opposite: always act in accordance with the hierarchy of your values, and never sacrifice a greater value to a lesser one."

About Relationships:

"Love and friendship are profoundly personal, selfish values: love is an expression and assertion of self-esteem, a response to one’s own values in the person of another. One gains a profoundly personal, selfish joy from the mere existence of the person one loves. It is one’s own personal, selfish happiness that one seeks, earns and derives from love."

"Integrity does not consist of loyalty to one’s subjective whims, but of loyalty to rational principles. A “compromise” (in the unprincipled sense of that word) is not a breach of one’s comfort, but a breach of one’s convictions. A “compromise” does not consist of doing something one dislikes, but of doing something one knows to be evil. Accompanying one’s husband or wife to a concert, when one does not care for music, is not a “compromise”; surrendering to his or her irrational demands for social conformity, for pretended religious observance or for generosity toward boorish in-laws, is. Working for an employer who does not share one’s ideas, is not a “compromise”; pretending to share his ideas, is. Accepting a publisher’s suggestions to make changes in one’s manuscript, when one sees the rational validity of his suggestions, is not a “compromise”; making such changes in order to please him or to please “the public,” against one’s own judgment and standards, is."

Some other points I appreciated also include her opinions on "moral neutrality":

"Observe also that moral neutrality necessitates a progressive sympathy for vice and a progressive antagonism to virtue. A man who struggles not to acknowledge that evil is evil, finds it increasingly dangerous to acknowledge that the good is the good. To him, a person of virtue is a threat that can topple all of his evasions—particularly when an issue of justice is involved, which demands that he take sides."

...and what she coined "The Argument from Intimidation.":

"But the psychological pressure method consists of threatening to impeach an opponent’s character by means of his argument, thus impeaching the argument without debate. Example: “Only the immoral can fail to see that Candidate X’s argument is false.”...It should be classified as a logical fallacy and may be designated as “The Argument from Intimidation.”"

That's where my appreciation ends.

Her Theory of Objectivism sounds like a very sound theory. You live according to rational, objectively good values that benefit you as an individual. Her idea of rational values, however, mainly includes being... productive, and by extension submitting to Capitalism.

In my opinion, you can never be objective (or rational) if you are biased, and you can never not be biased when it comes to humanity.

Something is objective only if it is always True and can exist outside of the human experience. Capitalism, as we know it, doesn't fall under that category. Neither does any other economic-political theory, which is why we can never state that any of them is objectively good or rational.

Adding to this is also the fact that the author seems to not be aware of how systematic oppression works (which is why she is apparently loved by the conservative girlies), and makes this whole ordeal sound too easy and accessible.

My opinion in the matter is that we can never find the 'right' philosophy to live by. No philosophy is right or wrong, because we are inherently irrational beings. It's time we stop turning to rationality to guide us, and look beyond these predated ideas to find something more novel.