Rand The Optimistic Secular Humanist

 On Page 23 of her book, The Virtue of Selfishness, Ayn Rand shares her optimism about how humans can build a life for themselves if they engage the world, thinking experimenting, rummaging around, building a life and a world that interests, nourishes and sustains them: "Psychologically, the choice 'to think or not' is the choice 'to focus or not.' Existentially, the choice 'to focus or not' is the choice 'to be conscious or not.' Metaphysically, the choice  'to be conscious or not' is the choice of life or death. survival is reason.

Consciousness--for those living organisms which possess it--is the basic means of survival. For man, the basic means of survival is reason . . . But man's responsibility goes still further: a process of thought is not automatic nor 'instinctive' nor involuntary--nor infallible. Man has to initiate it, to sustain it, and bear responsibility for its results. He has to discover how to tell what is true and false and how to correct his own errors; he has to discover how to validate his concepts, his conclusions, his knowledge; he has to discover the rules of thought, the laws of logic, to direct his thinking. Nature gives him no automatic guarantee of the efficacy of his mental effort.

Nothing is given to man on earth except a potential and the material on which to actualize it. The potential is a superlative machine: his consciousness; but it is a machine without a spark plug, the self-starter, and the driver, he has to discover how to use it and he has to keep it in constant action. The material is the whole of the universe, with no limits set to the knowledge he can acquire and to the enjoyment of life he can achieve. But everything he needs or desires has to be learned, discovered, and produced by him--by his own choice, by his own effort, by his own mind."

My response: Here Rand seems to be advocating that the awakened, willing human will choose to live the vigorous, active life: to think, focusing consciously on living via reasoning as a rational egoist. He has to self-will that he must think, experience and investigate to build up his life, his knowledge.

I like how she optimistically suggests that there are no limits set to his knowledge acquisition, and that so like self-actualization theory. Notice her emphasis that her humanistic agent will grow intellectually in knowledge, skill and technology, building up his civilization that grows out of and extends outwards from his study of and manipulation of the material world. There is not much guilt in her world either, as he is expected to enjoy life, but she does offer an admonishment that he must grab all of these desirable gains through his own hard work and effort. I admire, overall, what she is offering.