Ayn Rand was truly a remarkable woman and accomplished an astonishing feat throughout her career and her philosophy continues to affect many people’s lives. Through her works of fiction and her essays later in her life she discovered a whole new philosophy, a philosophy for living on earth. This vision has inspired countless people to take charge of their own lives.
Alissa Rosenbaum (Ayn Rand) was born February 2, 1905 is St. Petersburg, Russia. She was the oldest of three sisters and her father, Zinovy Rosenbaum was a successful pharmacist and businessman who owned his own pharmacy, Ayn and her family lived a wealthy life. Early in life, Ayn found school to be unchallenging and found refuge in writing screenplays at the age of six and novels at the age of eight. At a young age Ayn also took to politics as she supported republican ideas. In 1917, at the age of 12 she witnessed first hand the initial shots of the Russian Revolution from her balcony. It was overnight that her family was suppressed to poverty as communist thugs confiscated her father’s pharmacy. This disrupted the comfortable life that her family enjoyed and she and her family were forced to flea St. Petersburg’s to Crimean Peninsula, which was initially under the control of the White Army during the Civil War. While she attended high school she became an atheist, as she valued reason above anything else because the revolution and the fact that she and her family was suppressed as individuals. The fact that she witnessed this brutal civil war shaped her beliefs as she realized that the government was taking away her right to think and be an individual.
After attending high school away from home she graduated at the age of 16 and returned back to St. Petersburg whe...
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...nd put down due to collectivism or just as an individual they will always claw and fight for their own freedom and the individual will always declare his or her own purpose in life.
Overall Any Rand is an amazing individual with an amazing philosophy for living on earth. Through every novel she wrote she put her philosophy of objectivism as the centerpiece to each one. Rand wrote so much about wanting people to be selfish but to be selfish in a way where you follow reason not faith and you work hard to achieve a meaningful life. As well as making your own happiness your main priority and to learn from others by treating them as individuals. Ayn Rand was so dedicated to her philosophy and she devoted her life to get her view across to the people that in the end all she wanted was people to know that her philosophy was the key for living on earth day in and day out.
One being the fact that this book is a collection of her essay and speeches. But the main one is how this book discusses her own Philosophy. She first explains the importance of philosophy and how it used in the real world unknowingly today, but she then says the philosophy most people follow today, Altruism, as irrational. “Altruism is the rationalization for the mass slaughter in Soviet Russia – for the legalized looting in the welfare state – for the power-lust of politicians seeking to serve the common good” (Rand 27) Altruism is basically the thought of having selfless actions and to serve others. This completely contradicts Ayn Rand’s philosophy of living, Objectivism. This is where the book becomes different form other books and even the entire world. Many people and religions are taught to help others. This follows Altruism in the fact that we are serving others and being selfless. Objectivism has many different layers to it but one of the most important parts to it is the concept that man should be self-serving. That we should be selfish and live for ourselves only under the condition that it doesn’t harm others. This is extremely different from everything we are taught since we were
Mankind is composed of sovereign individuals, and each person only has one obligation to self: think of "me" before "we."
Ayn Rand, in Anthem, illustrates a futuristic, socialist society. In the novel, Rand destroys any sense of individuality and describes the social setbacks endured after living ‘only for the brotherhood’. The individual person fails to exist and is but a ‘we’ and recognized by a word and a series of numbers rather than a name. Additionally, she describes the horrors encountered within this different system of life: from reproduction methods to punishments. Through the life of Equality 7-2521, Rand demonstrates a person’s journey from obedience to exile in this socialist society. Throughout the entire novel, Rand criticizes Marxist theory as she demonstrates socialism’s failure to suppress revolution, thwart material dialectic, and its detriment to humanity.
The Society of Anthem is a striking instance of a dystopian society in which daily life is dominated by fear. The society is headed by a group of elders, who attempt to destroy the concept of individuality and promote the idea of collectivism. The society controls all aspects of life including roles and profession, emotions, mating and the freedom of choice. Equality 7-2521 undergoes a transformation that is contrary to the principles of Anthem’s society. In Anthem by Ayn Rand, Prometheus (formerly Equality 7-2521) should not feel guilty when he writes “why the best in me had been my sins and transgressions; and why I had never felt guilt in my sins.” because what he learned about himself over the course of the story.
Ayn Rand wrote Anthem as a critique of Communism, yet along with that she demonstrated her own belief system of individual ideals. Objectivism was aptly shown throughout the entire novella with the thoughts and actions of the main characters, Equality and Liberty in contrast with the universal thought of the city and society. Rand clearly showed her philosophy well in this story.
The society in Anthem is a very collectivist society, thus a single individual’s health and survival might not be as important as with an objectivist “society”. However, the society in Anthem does address health and survival in a collectivist way. By having the Old Ones not work and “the State take care of them” this society deals with one of the biggest health problems, old people (7). This society takes a socialist method of health care and the State provides for all of the Old Ones which shows how they are meeting the needs of health and survival. The society takes a different approach on survival. Because of the strong collectivism, individual lives do not matter and “there are no men but only the great WE”, as long as the WE survives any one person can die and the society will not care (3). Anthem’s society takes survival to mean the survival of the whole not the individual. This shows that society is not needed for the individual’s survival, as not only does this society provide little individual health care, Equality 7-2521 in the later part of Anthem is easily able to
Berliner, Michael S., ed. Letters of Ayn Rand. By Ayn Rand. New York: Dutton, 1995.
The values at risk in Anthem are not merely those of the central luminary; they are the ostensible values of an entire civilization—our own. Our society is founded upon the notion of individual rights; its existence, as Ayn Rand depicts, cannot be conceived on any other grounds. Anthem, Rand’s dystopian novella, is about us, and about what will happen if we do not follow alongside Equality 7-2521 and Liberty 5-3000 in their discovery of the importance of individualism.
Ayn Rand's Anthem shows us her view of our world united under what seems to be communist rule. For example their view of right and wrong; which Anthem portrays is a system of very strict rules which mainly make sure that everyone is involved in a collective role within the society in this system no one is considered an individual or that they can even think as an individual.
in his world it was believed that ?What was not thought by all men cannot
Howard Roark’s speech in Ayn Rand’s The Fountainhead displays the author's personal philosophy of objectivism. Objectivism is an idea that Ayn Rand had developed and promoted in her works of literature. Objectivism advocated for the rights of individual freedoms such as someone being able to do whatever that person desires with their own creations. In this case, Ayn Rand’s character Howard Roark; who had dynamited his own building . Through Rand’s persuading diction, immense detail, and powerful organization, Ayn Rand takes a stand through a fictional character to promote the idea that an individual should be able to live freely without society or the government scrutinizing him.
Ayn Rand based her novel of the idea of objectivism the idea that reality exists independent of consciousness, and that the proper moral purpose of one's life is the pursuit of one's own happiness or rational self. We see this throughout the entire novel and within all of her characters. Ayn Rand had an interesting perception of selfishness and selflessness, along with her view of objectivism. As a reader we are thinking the opposite of what the characters are thinking, and never know what is going to happen next. Roark and Keating gave new meanings to selfishness and selflessness within the world of architecture.
In this world, and in the world of Ayn Rand’s imagination, there are two kinds of people: those who live to create, and those who wish to live as parasites feeding off the benefits of those creations. In Atlas Shrugged, she explores what might happen when the creators of the world stop creating; the parasites are left to try to live on their own. The novels that Miss Rand writes always reflect this sort of thing. She writes of the battle between the two types of people as some write of the battles between good and evil. In reality, each side of the battle can be equated in such terms. These writings provide a detailed analysis of the two forces, and leave the reader with a profound sense of vitality and inspiration.
Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness--this is what Americans identify as the full definition of “to live.” These were the ideas that attracted generations of immigrants to the shores of Ellis Island and Angel Island, hoping to find tangible dreams promised in the torch of The Statue of Liberty and in the cobblestone sidewalks of San Francisco. To the rest of the world, however, what does “living” really mean? As Kira Argounova, the protagonist, states: “Why do you think I’m alive? Is it because I have a stomach and eat and digest food? Because I breathe and work […]? Or because I know what I want, and that something which knows how to want—isn’t that life itself?” (399) We the Living by Ayn Rand creates a backdrop of communism in the Soviet Union, where the responsibility for one’s own survival and well-being is subordinated to a “duty” to others, which “forbids life to those still living” (189). However, when the communist government forces all citizens to sacrifice all of their property and freedom for the benefits of the State and Society, the three protagonists Kira, Leo, and Andrei unfortunately learn that despite how strong, independent-minded, and confident they are, staying alive demands the sacrifice of their biggest values.
Sonya Kovalevsky was born on January 15, 1850 in Moscow, Russia. She grew up in a very intellectual family. Her father was a military officer and a landholder; her mother was the granddaughter of a famous Russian astronomer and an accomplished musician. She grew up living a lavish life, and was first educated by her uncle, who read her fairy tales, taught her chess, and talked about mathematics. She even bumped into the subject of trigonometry while studying elementary physics. She achieved all of this by the age of thirteen.