Ayn Rand (1905-1982) was an American philosopher who coined the word objectivism for her philosophical ideas. Her novel Fountainhead was an inspiration for making a film in 1949 with Gary Cooper in the lead role. Her subsequent book, Atlas Shrugged, fully defined what would become the four tenets of objectivism: reality, reason (rationalism), self-interest (independence), and Laissez-faire capitalism.

She was born in St. Petersburg, Russia in a middle-class family. Her father owned a pharmacy which was taken over by the Bolshevik revolutionary groups and the family, who had enjoyed a decent independent living thus far, had to move in with their relatives and share a small, cramped apartment. All high achievers and the brightest people in society were brought down to the level of the lower middle class, there was no hope of progress or success, life was flattened for everyone, and the future looked bleak. The government-controlled everything.

Even after arriving in America in 1926, she had to struggle a lot to achieve worldly success and, despite being a highly intelligent woman and having ambitions to become a writer, she did small unskilled and semi-skilled jobs, including waiting on tables, in various establishments for several years. The thought that she should share the hard-earned rewards of her success, if at all she achieved any worldly success, with others who were not being responsible and productive, and some downright criminals, was abhorrent to her, and it would be to anyone in her situation.

Against this backdrop, she developed a philosophy that promoted freedom.

This promoted freedom from government control and taxes, the moral value of only pursuing personal happiness, and doing only what is rational rather than what our emotions tell us to do. The basic tenets of her objectivist philosophy are:

1.    One’s own happiness is the moral purpose of one’s life.

2.    Man exists for his own sake.

3.    If someone is poor it is their fault mostly, the exception being a victim of misfortunes.

4.    Reason is the only absolute, we should only do what is rational and not what our emotions or scriptures tell us, it is immoral to be guided by one’s emotions. One should not act because one felt like it. Feelings are not guides to reality, they are consequences of thoughts and actions.

5.    God does not exist; religion and faith can be dangerous. Religion is a rudimentary form of thinking that stops people from thinking.

6.    Everything should be privatized, and the government should hold no property apart from the building they operate from, akin to right-wing libertarianism.

7.    Governments should not have too much power – they should take care of only the military, police, and courts, and not much else, governments should not collect taxes, the welfare state is an insult to people.

8.    Altruism is a sickness of the mind. Happiness does not come from making others happy – one should not feel obliged to help others, because that is bondage. Charity should not be a duty, helping others is okay but only if there is accidental misfortune or mutual contract.

9.    Value of self-esteem – respect your own mind and possibilities of being, and be independent. Do not be coercive to anyone, and respect others’ rights to freedom and a good life.

Objectivist philosophy has seen a revival in recent years in the Western world, perhaps a response to rapid globalization for which people and societies were not ready. We have seen things such as Brexit, Europe sealing off its border to non-Europeans, electing far-right ideology governments, and trade tariffs on international business, the rise of right-wing thinking, and more recently countries wanting to be self-reliant (independent) in every feasible way.

The championing of selfishness and callousness to the unfortunate finds echoes in our contemporary capitalist world, Silicon Valley bosses find her philosophy quite attractive, and helpful in justifying their greed. The logic for some of these social changes is quite strong but I have chosen not to dwell on them here.

She described this phenomenon as collectivism.

Ayn Rand is right that the individual should not be subjugated to the group and made to sacrifice for the common good to such an extent that they cannot even see themselves as individuals, only as members of a group. he described this phenomenon as collectivism. 

I came across Ayn Rand’s philosophy in my late twenties but chose to ignore her ideas, thinking they were harmless, but looking back I think it was important that society understood such ideas and refuted them, ignoring them will not make them go away, like radicalization. Her ideas can cause enormous damage to individuals’ lives and countries if not understood from the right perspective. Her ideas, although helping people achieve worldly success, are stopping them from leading a happy, fulfilled, deeply connected, and contented life. Such ideas can destroy stable relationships and any chances of people connecting with their higher divine selves.

My guess is Ayn Rand and her followers haven’t lived in poor third-world countries where people don’t pay taxes, governments have no control, all the money and power is in private hands, every development is funded by private industry, inequality is stark and massive, governments have no money for infrastructure development, citizens are in the grips of feudalism, etc. Exactly what objectivism is striving to achieve. In such countries, altruism and feelings of brotherhood are redeeming features for people living in the lower strata of society. If one lives in such societies and, like Ayn Rand, is opposed to even charity and altruism, the only option left would be to let people quietly die out of hunger or let them be exploited by thugs who have money.

The recent corona pandemic has laid bare the ugliness in these societies – where governments have no money to even provide two square meals to their people who are thrown off work, if lives are being saved in those countries, it is because of charity and altruism.

Lockdown has proved that the governments that were not collecting taxes were ill-prepared to help the unfortunate, people would have died in the absence of charity contributions from the wealthy. One should either believe in the government collecting taxes or the altruism of the rich, if one does not, what would be their model for the survival of the human race? I am imagining Ayn Rand would have said – to make every human being productive and also, follow her philosophy, without coercion. It is not easy to achieve that. We know that a reward-punishment system is already in place in our society, and it is not enough for people to get motivated.

The recent corona pandemic has been a wake-up call for the Indian government which is now putting forward proposals to increase taxes and create a mini-welfare state by giving away no-interest loans liberally to poor people to start businesses.

It does not matter which model of philosophy, which society, which political system, which moral values or societal mores, and which era of human history we are talking about – the final dictum remains the same – it all boils down to just one thing – just one insight:

It’s the rich who are paying for the poor, the employed paying for the unemployed, the young paying for the old and children, the healthy paying for sick, responsible citizens paying for the irresponsible, hardworking people paying for the lazy ones, bright minds paying for imbeciles, sane people paying for the insane, law-abiding citizens paying for the criminals and prisoners, fortunate paying for the unfortunate, etc. Whether this happens under coercion or voluntarily, whether through governments collecting taxes and creating a welfare state (as in the Western world) or through the altruism of rich people in society.

Ayn Rand has said we should not help those who have brought unhappiness or problems upon themselves because of their irresponsible behavior and should be willing to help only those who have become victims of misfortune or calamity. Being a psychiatrist, I know for certain that this distinction is not that easy to make. Mahatma Gandhi used to say, “all those who suffer from physical illnesses should be held responsible for leading an unhealthy lifestyle and for their suffering; and those we have put in jails and correction facilities deserve our love and affection and care which was denied to them as children.”

Life seems unfair if we look at the cross-section of our lives at any given point in time, but we start seeing fairness if we take a longitudinal view of human life. Selfishness and altruism are two pieces of a jigsaw puzzle and are not mutually exclusive – they play distinct roles at various times in one’s life.

Kant’s Realism and Idealism

Ayn Rand, in one of her television interviews, described Kant as the real villain of our age. I felt sad listening to that, but I understood why she was saying that. Like most scientists, she wanted to stick with empirical data and how a rational mind would interpret them rather than create ideas about reality from one’s subjective experiences. Kant divided human experience into two broad categories – noumenal and phenomenal, or realism versus idealism. The terminologies and their interpretations by various philosophers can be confusing, but to put it simply.

Transcendental realism – is the view that regards space and time including objects in the world as real and they exist independent of our sensibility.

Transcendental idealism – is the doctrine that says – all cognition through the senses and experience is nothing but sheer illusion, and there is truth only in the ideas of pure understanding and reason. Kant typically distinguishes two varieties of transcendental idealism: dogmatic idealism, which claims that objects in space do not exist, and problematic idealism, which claims that objects in space may exist, but we cannot know whether they do.

Kant’s view of transcendental idealism is remarkably like the concept of Maya in ancient Indian philosophy which suggests that this world is just a “Maya,” or illusion, and we should view it as a dream with no real consequences for our soul.

A friend once questioned me about this hard-to-believe Indian thought that this world is not real, and that reality cannot be perceived through the five senses and our rational interpretation. He asked – does that mean my flesh and bones are not real or my house is not real. My answer to that was – yes, they are all real matter at a gross level, and calling them flesh, bones, and the house is a mental construct of our waking consciousness. And when a shift in consciousness occurs because of being in deep meditation, one is transported out of their normal consciousness into a different level, and from that standpoint, they are seen as blobs of energy and vibrations constantly in flux – and that would be the reality from an astral level.

Perhaps seeing real things as unreal needs some explanation – when people say dreams are unreal – it does not mean that the fact you dreamt it was unreal, or the chemicals and thoughts involved in producing the visions in a dream were unreal, or the racing of your heart when you had a horrible dream was unreal. In the same way when an Indian yogi says this world is unreal, just a dream, he is not denying the existence of the physical structure, but the way we look at it, and the narrative we hold is unreal. It is like when putting things under a microscope makes the gross thing disappear – in the same way with the divine eye the normal waking spectacle disappears, which was anyway not accurate due to the gap between things as they are and as we perceive them. With dreaming, everything about dreams is real except for the story or the narrative we hold at the time, and we cannot know that the narrative is not true for as long as well are in the dream. In the same way when we achieve higher consciousness – the spectacle of this world appears fragmented and, in flux, – hence yogis say that the mental image that we are holding in our mind’s eyes under normal waking consciousness is Maya and illusion.

Imagine for a moment that your eyes were seeing things through the lenses of an electron microscope – this world will disappear, and you may say that the world you were familiar with was “the reality as it appeared to my eyes” and this is the “real world.”

The electron microscope leads to the deconstruction of our mental constructs e.g., the concept of beauty and ugliness may get fudged.

Using another example, transcendental realism is like seeing this world as a snake, and transcendental idealism is seeing it as a piece of rope, the snake has become unreal the moment we see it as a rope, although the physical structure of the rope is very much there.

You cannot have both these notions at the same time. The moment you perceive the thing as a rope the perception of it being a snake disappears, it becomes unreal – both cannot coexist.

The perception of a snake was Maya/illusion, and by saying that we did not mean that something was not there, but the narrative we were holding about it was an illusion.

Using the microscopic eye, the distinction between a human being or an animal or plant or rock disappears – all you see is concentrated blobs of particles/energy scattered around unevenly and connected with each other in an inseparable way.

Just as the existence of a dream and its biochemical composition in the brain was a reality but not the content of it, the presence of an emotion or thought is reality but not its content or narrative, which is what Indian philosophy says and Kant’s philosophy is consistent with it.

One might say using the microscopic eye is an escape from our working reality and madness, and you will not want to hold on to that reality forever. But the reality is that – this working level of consciousness comes with eventual unhappiness (therefore Buddha said life is suffering) and the microscopic vision comes with unending joy – what would you choose? Some still choose the working reality as the microscopic vision is too much for them to bear and alien as well, but the majority get motivated to engage in pursuits to make the microscope vision last longer and longer. A single microscopic vision changes their life completely. We have come across several case studies where a single LSD or magic mushroom trip was able to cure people of their PTSD, depression, and suicidal thoughts. I must point out here one should not attempt that until further scientific research has proved such treatments safe.

Rationalism

Ayn Rand insisted that one should only be guided by rational thinking. Carl Gustav Jung, in his book – Modern Man in Search of a Soul, said the tragedy of the modern Western man is that the rational side of his mind is too developed, and he is cut off from his instinctual side. People in the Western world do not live by their instincts, which is why they are less content, less spiritual, and less emotionally agile, as it requires being connected to the totality of our emotions and the whole of our being. He felt that from a spiritual point of view, tribal people and those in the Eastern world were better connected with their Being. Jung has described two distinct types of thinking:

1.    The directed, logical, and rational – the thinking of our conscious mind.

2.    The spontaneous, imaginative, largely non-verbal, and non-logical processes, largely of the unconscious mind, which can be said to form the raw material for all forms of creative activity. 

In view of this, wanting to live only by rational thought will stifle our creativity, spirituality, and our transcendental self. Having said that, losing our foothold on rational objective facts will also be dangerous, as we will be burning witches at the stake. 

We should therefore stay grounded in rational thought but venture out into our dreams, fantasies, instincts, etc., to experience wholeness and integration, and sometimes be willing to be guided by them.

Coming back to rationality in the financial world, there is no rational formula to decide the salary of people. The free market can decide the earnings of a footballer or a film star, but it would be difficult for the free market to decide the salary of a NASA scientist who can tell us if we can live on Mars, a human biologist who can find a cure for corona or a lawmaker. Now, these best minds are being paid much less than property agents and online grocers. Where is the rational formula to apportion value to their work and who will pay them if the free market is indifferent to that need? How to decide whether a nurse should get paid more than a primary school teacher or a police officer? A free market will lead to a very lopsided growth of society. 

The Philosophy behind the free market economy is that society decides what is best, not the government. But how many of us understand the complexities of the human body, our financial institutions, or artificial intelligence to make rational decisions about our health care, finances, and IT systems, it must be left to experts to make those decisions. The decision-makers will not knock on each door to seek public opinion. The public will be appointing their representatives to make those decisions after studying the arguments for and against such decisions, and our members of parliament (government) are those people, and the public should trust them, and not get paranoid about them.

Laissez-faire capitalism

Ayn Rand vilified government regulations because they hinder freedom. In her collection of 1984 essays on the Virtue of Selfishness, there is no compromise between freedom and government control.

One feels that after adopting Laissez-faire capitalism one will become free of government coercion and live happily ever after. Sadly, they have not realized that they will be collaborating with big corporate giants who are capable of exerting, and they are already exerting greater coercion.

People across the world, irrespective of which country they live in, feel more coerced when working in the private sector than in the public sector. It is a different matter that financial rewards are greater in the private sector. The conclusion is that there is going to be some control and coercion, if you do not like government coercion, you will have coercion of the corporate bosses, which may be worse. Of course, total government control as seen with some totalitarian regimes will not be in the best interest of an average citizen and should be opposed. At the same time creating a free society and leaving vulnerable people at the mercy of the rich will not be a clever idea.

I was recently watching Milton Friedman, a Nobel prize-winning US economist and a libertarian, being interviewed on television. Picking up just one example from that interview, he said the US government should get rid of the FDA, let the responsibility for the safety of drugs be with the pharmaceuticals, and let them face the lawsuits if something goes wrong – they will become more responsible and the society will do the same job anyway if the FDA was not there. I am thinking about how much pressure and coercion the employees of the Pharma industry will have to go through. Each pharmaceutical company will have to create a mini-FDA within its own organization, and will the truth ever come out in time if the survival of the company was at stake? We need someone, who does not have vested interests, to make those decisions.

The virtue of selfishness

Ayn Rand was right here, the Buddha left his wife and his one-year-old son to pursue his own happiness, was he not pursuing the virtue of selfishness as taught by Ayn Rand? The flight attendants, in case of an emergency, tell us you must first wear your own oxygen mask and then help your child, is it not a lesson along similar lines? You cannot help others if you are unable to help yourself. If your pot is empty, you cannot pour anything into someone else’s pot. Without the Buddha leaving his house and attaining enlightenment, his son would not have reached the first stage of enlightenment i.e., Nibbana, and without first putting on your own oxygen mask you will not be able to help your child.

Ayn Rand’s philosophy appeals to young impressionable minds because they have yet to fill the pots of their life, asking them to worry about someone else’s pot will not make any sense to them. But once you have achieved success in your life, achieving more success does not give you the same level of thrill or joy, that is what a midlife crisis is about.
  The answers to our issues at that stage of our life are not material but spiritual. We see many super-rich shrewd businesspeople become philanthropists, but hardly see any philanthropist becoming a shrewd businessman later in life.

Why billionaires are not leaving behind their money entirely to their families, what satisfaction do they get? In their financial wisdom, which may perhaps be greater than that of Ayn Rand, they choose to return part of it back to society.

Perhaps to earn money they did follow Ayn Rand’s philosophy of the virtues of selfishness – making no concession to their customers, be it Bill Gates and Warren Buffet in America, Alibaba boss Jack Ma in China, and Ambani in India, but after achieving their life goals there was a change of mind – that of helping the society without any selfish motive. Very rarely do we find someone who had believed strongly in altruism becomes a shrewd businessperson? This gives us an indication of which direction one’s psychological growth in life takes place. Altruism is the next step one needs to take after one has followed Ayn Rand’s philosophy, not before it.

Ayn Rand did not always live by her own philosophy, she collected social security payments and Medicare later in her life, something she was opposed to most of her life, justifying her action by saying it was restitution for paying taxes earlier in life. As if one wrong can justify another. Someone who believes in non-violence should not become violent in response to violence, or a truthful person should not justify telling a lie on the grounds that he was also lied to.

To conclude, we do need Ayn Rand’s philosophy and it is very appropriate that it is being taught to A-level students of political science in colleges and universities in modern times.

Studying Ayn Rand will help us understand human nature, also altruism and know the difference between healthy and unhealthy altruism. These courses will also provide a forum where young impressionable minds will get the opportunity to reflect on their ideas and challenge them in a rational way and be challenged by their ideas. Unless someone else challenges our ideas, we will not be able to fine-tune our own thoughts about any theory or philosophy, which is needed before we adopt them.

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