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A review by scordatura
The Virtue of Selfishness: A New Concept of Egoism by Ayn Rand
1.0
I am reading this for my studies, that's the only reason. My blood started boiling in the first paragraph... this isn't going to be fun.
Finished it finally: I was expecting it to make me angry and in some ways it did. What I didn't expect was to see such poor reasoning, such poor internal consistency, so many random "choices" (decisions to place certain things centrally in her ethics), so many black/white views on matters... that I cannot fathom that intelligent people take it seriously. In one way, this is a silly book, easily dismissed but at the same time it has very dark connotations. It allows people to dismiss matters like white privilege and how random life can be, giving them an excuse to say that hard work fixes everything, and that everyone should focus purely on their own success and pleasure.
In the end, whenever my blood started boiling while reading it, I donated money to charities Rand would have found objectionable. This helped me actually finish the book without my brain liquefying.
Edit: typos.
Finished it finally: I was expecting it to make me angry and in some ways it did. What I didn't expect was to see such poor reasoning, such poor internal consistency, so many random "choices" (decisions to place certain things centrally in her ethics), so many black/white views on matters... that I cannot fathom that intelligent people take it seriously. In one way, this is a silly book, easily dismissed but at the same time it has very dark connotations. It allows people to dismiss matters like white privilege and how random life can be, giving them an excuse to say that hard work fixes everything, and that everyone should focus purely on their own success and pleasure.
In the end, whenever my blood started boiling while reading it, I donated money to charities Rand would have found objectionable. This helped me actually finish the book without my brain liquefying.
Edit: typos.