Privacy

 

 

I enjoy reading the remarkable if troubled Ayn Rand. I can think of no one in human history that understood rational egoism or objective egoism as insightfully as did she.

 

From her book The New Intellectual, I will quote two paragraphs from Pages 83 and 84 and then comment on each paragraph.

 

Rand: “Now observe the results of a society built upon the principle of individualism. This, our country. The noblest country in the history of men. The country of greatest achievement, greatest prosperity, greatest freedom.”

 

My response: Yes, America was built upon the principle of individualism but still was to altruist-collectivist for my taste and comfort, the result of the group morality we know as Judeo-Christian morality, or individualism/collectivism.

 

Yes, her patriotic praises of America are true.

 

Rand: “This country was not based on selfless service, sacrifice, renunciation or any precept of altruism.”

 

My response: Rand is half correct: America was based on self-interest but self-service to others was and is still a large portion of American moral tradition, though that is usually regrettable.

 

Rand: “It was based on man’s right to the pursuit of happiness. His own happiness. Not anyone else’s. A private, personal, selfish motive. Look at the results. Look into your own conscience.”

 

My response: Jordan Peterson mistakenly downplay the individual’s right to pursue his own happiness. The individual should maverize by doing what he loves, and these personal efforts will make him sufficiently happy as he enjoys high self-esteem and proper pride in himself. Peterson is mistaken about pride too.

 

Rand: “It is an ancient conflict. Men have come close to the truth, but it was destroyed each time and one civilization fell after another.”

 

My response: The groupists that are mostly evil have prehistorically and historically always been in perpetual battle against individualists who generally are good. Evil rules in this world because groupists hold the reins of power everywhere. Only the arrival of a citizenry majority constituted of individuating supercitizens can lead to a civilization, truly free, just, prosperous, and peaceful, that can last.

 

Rand: “Civilization is the progress toward a society of privacy. The savage’s whole existence is public, ruled by the laws of his tribe. Civilization is the process of setting men free from men.”

 

My response: She is remarkable especially here where she writes that civilization of the progress toward a society of privacy.

 

The individual and individuator must enjoy his privacy, his zone of privileged, precious privacy, his independence and his personally owned property do use as he wishes. By himself. He needs maximum liberty to individuate and to be trusted by society to run his own affairs without cameras everywhere watching him all the time, without his neighbors bossing him around.