Ayn Rand on Page x her Introduction to her novel, The Fountainhead, points out that she is a man-worshiper: “The man-worshipers, in my sense of the term, are those who see man’s highest potential and strive to actualize it. The man-haters are those who regard man as a helpless, depraved, contemptible creature and struggle to never let him discover otherwise. It is important to remember that the only direct introspective knowledge anyone possesses is of himself.
More specifically, the essential division between these two camps is: those dedicated to the exaltation of man’s self-esteem and the sacredness of his happiness on earth—and those determined not to allow either to become possible. Most of the mankind spend their lives and psychological energy in the middle, swinging between these two, struggling not to allow the issue to be named. This does not change the nature of the issue.”
My response: I wonder if Rand was a psychological egoist. For sure she was a rational egoist and a normative egoist. She probably thought people were born neutral (neither depraved nor kind) or basically good.
I am a psychological altruist, but a rational and normative egoist. I do not believe people are born basically good, but I believe they are born with a weak sense of conscience and goodness that can be strengthened through self-control to the degree that the person can become essentially a person of virtue and find character and good will.
I also define evil as selflessness and altruism (mostly) and I define good as self-interest and egoism (mostly). The law of moderation requires ethical retention of some selflessness and altruism (partly).
The Good Spirits are our masters and mistresses—whether we believe they exist or accept their supremacy over us or not—so we are to worship them, but not ourselves. Still, because the Father, Mother, Jesus, and the Good Spirits are all individualists and individuators, they strongly salute human endeavor to grow self-esteem earned through merited knowledge gleaned, art and inventions privately produced, and by growing spiritually and morally.
The good deities invite us to grow in self-esteem and talent, but we are not to worship ourselves or exalt ourselves over them (that would be blasphemous and hubris) but we are to be proud of our accomplishments but sensible and respectful to our spiritual superiors at the same time. As self-actualizers, humans are to be living angels, actualize the highest human potential possible.
Humans are born depraved man-haters—hating ourselves, others and the good deities, while loving and gravitating towards the evil deities. Humans naturally are groupist, nonindividuators and sometimes satanists who may seek to further degrade naturally depraved humans, reducing them to pure evil, contemptible and beyond redemption, kept down and back in this world and the next.
The benevolent deities greatly seek and bless humans, of their own free will, striving after happiness in this world and in the next.
The benevolent deities seek to invite and nudge the majority of people to introspect and discover that they have boundless talent and ability if they just believe in themselves, and if youngsters are brought up to worship God, to individual-live and to individuate. and to know love and wisdom, then the great majority will not be fence-straddlers any longer, but will become living great-souls, heaven-bound after death.
The benevolent deities greatly seek and bless humans, of their own free will, striving after happiness in this world and in the next.
There is much in Ayn Rand that I agree with and respect, but her fanaticism, black-and-white categories, her atheism and excessive secular humanism need scaling back into sacred humanism. Still, she has much to teach us about how to live, and how to act so that the Good Spirits are pleased with our growth and divine ambition.
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