Ayn Rand - Objectivism

Its time I spoke about Objectivism and Ayn Rand. I read Fountainhead 3 years ago. To be frank, at that time I never knew anything about Ayn Rand or Objectivism. The book was written pretty well given the author is from Russia. In the coming years, I learnt about objectivism through internet. I recently saw a documentary about (Gautam is gonna kill me for this, but I saw it even before you could warn me). The title of the documentary is "Ayn Rand - A sense of Life". After watching it , I decided to write about this topic someday and I think I have the time to write it now.

Ayn Rand was short and precise about her philosophy. This is what she asked people to do, "Be Selfish!!!” .She should be absolute nuts to say that people should be selfish. She defies all Religion in this world. It also had some archive footage about Ms. Rand talking about how everyone should be selfish and she was supportive of capitalism. I thought Ayn Rand was utter rubbish, I know I may get the ire of some of the readers, but How can one live without helping others. The irony is Cecile B. Demille helped Ayn Rand to get a job in his studio and that kick started her writing career. I found it foolish when someone else helps you create a career; you say that you must be selfish. I think Ms. Rand missed the whole point.

Every religion in this world preaches that we have to help others in some way or the other. Feynman says that the moral part of a religion is the only thing that he accepts from a religion. Ms. Rand is an atheist that does not mean that she can say whatever she thinks. I think she missed the whole point, and in the documentary she was taking her characters in her book for her philosophy.

I thought that Ms. Rand missed the whole point. Each and every action that a man takes is to satisfy his conscience. For e.g., when a guy offers something to a beggar, he is happy that he has helped a poor guy. Inherently, he does that because it gives him satisfaction, otherwise he would not have offered anything to that beggar. Even if he is a miser and doesn’t give anything to that beggar, he does that because that makes him happy. So every action that a man does is for his satisfy his inner greediness. By satisfying his inner self, he also helps another person. Is this wrong? Ms. Rand says it is wrong and I say Ms. Rand is wrong. She staunchly opposes Socialism. What a joke?

In a particular interview she was caught unawares by the host, the guy asked her she felt when her husband died. She thought that she wished that she can be with him when he meets St.Peter in heaven in support of him. So the host told her that it was against objectivism (he was right). She said something and escaped that question. If she wants to help his husband, doesn’t that action goes against her philosophy? Every philosophy has some flaws, but Ms. Rand’s philosophy is full of flaws. How can a selfish person write about Love? In Ms. Rand stories, love plays a major part. A selfish guy cannot love. A guy loves a girl and will do anything to make her happy which in turn makes him happy.

I was also angry that she was supporting the capitalist policy of America and she started to campaign for it. We can see what selfishness and capitalism (of US and UK) has brought to this world. We have numerous example, Iraq, Afghanisthan , etc…. They wont go and fight the militants in Africa, because there is nothing in Africa. Their sole interest is the oil rich countries and that’s why they went for Iraq , when there is no sign of WMD in there, get control of all the oil resource and start a civil war and devastate the whole country. Their next target could be Iran. During time when people need care and peace, I thought that documentary to be piece of s*** and Ayn Rand’s philosophy to be utter crap.

Life of a software engineer in India - Part 1

Rahul was studying in an engineering college in Chennai. He was in the final year now and seriously preparing for the final semester exams. Rahul's ambition was to become a Scientist (in the field of Chemistry or Electronics), when he was doing his higher secondary, he was told by his parents that he has to do engineering and not to take B.Sc (Chem). As in those days , a middle class father thought that only a B.E. course would bring job to his son and all the other courses will not aid his son's future.

After he finished his higher secondary, he has to write entrance to get into engineering. So he wrote some dozens of engineering entrance exams and finally gets into a good engineering college.Almost 4 years have passed and after September,2001, there was a revival in software industry and companies started to recruit people from engineering colleges. Everyone were excited about that because they will be getting lucrative offers from these software companies.

At that point of time, getting into a software company is the ultimate aim for all engineers, that was supposed to be highest point in one's career a engineer can reach.Before the first day of campus recruitment, a confused Rahul sitting in his house (in a rather confused state) pondering about his future. He forgot his childhood ambition of becoming a scientist and serve the nation and thinking about his future in software industries. Finaly he decided that software industry is the way to his future and he gets mentally prepared for the campus recruitment. He also learns from his friends about the positives of working in a software company and the huge salary they pay you and about the on site opportunities they get when they get into the companies.

The D-Day arrives and he writes the entrance test and at the end of the day he finds out that he didnt get selected, but he was assured that more companies are going to come for campus recruitment. He was confident of getting into one of them. As months rolled, he couldnt get through any of the companies and his future starts to look bleak.