| Ayn Rand |
| Ayn Rand's writings have fascinated me for years. Her writings have been very popular and influential in the United States of America, so much so that it is trivially easy for me to find someone with strong opinions (usually in favor) about her. I've liked her sharp criticism of Communism. However, I've been distressed by numerous semantic "dirty tricks" I've round in Rand's writings. |
| example 1: Rand's description of "altruists" is nonsensical, contradicting accepted definitions of what an "altruist" is (definitions that can be found in English dictionaries). To get the basic idea of Rand's claims about "altruists", imagine someone pointing a gun to someone else's head and saying, "If you don't give a dime to every beggar you see on the street, you don't deserve to live." (Rand's words appear intended to attack the Communists' seizure of businesses and other kinds of property. Where she errs severely, is to call such Communist behavior "altruism", when it is an opposite to altruism, in many ways. ) To Rand, the person with the gun making this threat is an "altruist", and the resultant transfer of wealth from a monied person to a poorer person is "altruism". In three obvious ways, the accepted definition of "altruism" is sharply contradicted by Rand's caricature of an "altruist". (1) the person with the gun isn't making a sacrifice: someone else is. (2) the person being forced to give the money isn't doing it voluntarily. (3) the person giving the money is expecting to thereby obtain a benefit: they are avoiding being shot by a gun. |
| example 2: Rand's words sometimes imply that a person and their money are the same thing. |