What is the philosophy of Objectivism? Let's learn about it together! I bet you'll learn something new!
Objectivism is the name of a philosophy--a set of ideas--developed by novelist Ayn Rand in the 20th Century. Objectivists are people who practice Objectivism. What do Objectivists believe? They think that a person should be happy, and that your happiness is the moral and ethical purpose of your life. They claim that rationality and reasoning are your main tools to succeed in the world, and that success causes happiness. They promote capitalism and individualism, feeling that the individual is more important than society.
Did you know? The 1980s were called The Decade of Greed because many people were influenced by Objectivism at that time, including high-ranking officials of the Reagan Administration. Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan was also a known Objectivist.
Who was Ayn Rand? She was born in 1905 in Russia to Jewish parents. She lived through the 1918 Communist Revolution in Russia, which gave her a lifelong hatred of Communism and socialism. Eventually she escaped the USSR and fled to the USA. She achieved wealth and fame with her bestselling novel The Fountainhead (1943), and followed it up with her novel Atlas Shrugged (1957). Atlas Shrugged is the foundation of Objectivism, and is over 1000 pages long!
Did you know? There was a surge of interest in Objectivism in the 1960s, and a large Objectivist movement, centered around New York City. But Ayn Rand had an affair with another one of the leaders of the movement, a man named Nathaniel Branden, and when they broke up in 1969, an explosive conflict developed and the fallout destroyed the Objectivist movement of the 1960s.
I hope you enjoyed learning this lesson about Objectivism as much as I did! Thanks for reading!
