More Ayn Rand

BY Xion 06.17.11 AT 7:51 PM

Rand thought she came up with a new philosophy and people often attribute her with creating something new. It wasn’t new at all. Objectivism is quite simply existentialism with a purpose. The purpose is to “be all you can be” as the Army slogan goes. If you love architecture or making steel, then build the best buildings and make the best steel and ascend to the highest heights of your potential.

It is amusing to see how wrong Rand was about Christianity and yet to see her espousing principles which aren’t far off. A Christian would say “be all God would have you to be”. Fulfill your God given purpose.

Rand’s arch-enemy was collectivism which is contrary to individualism. One’s purpose is to serve the state and not ascend to the heights of your potential, but the state’s. The state is run by moochers, lawyers and politicians who produce nothing but feed off of the productivity of others. In the name of fairness and equity they destroy prosperity.

Rand viewed Christianity as a tool of the state, as the opiate of the people, which demands self-sacrifice and service of others. This was the greatest evil in Rand’s view. She got it wrong.

Serving God is a personal, individual aspiration. Service of others is not an end in itself. Service of God is the fulfillment of one’s maximum potential and it goes far beyond concrete and steel, the stuff of this life.

Existentialists are not wrong. The problem is their view is too narrow. Solomon, the wisest man in history aside from Christ spoke of things under the sun. Vanity of vanities.

If the secular world is all there is, then existentialism is the truest philosophy around. It accurately captures the vanity of existence and proposes no hope other than to burn brightly before your light is snuffed out.

Solomon went on to explain that there is another dimension to life above the sun, i.e. a spiritual dimension which gives life meaning even beyond the grave. I pity Rand for never having embraced this wisdom. Her philosophy, i.e. plain old existentialism, is quite good for materialists. But reality is more than the rudiments of this world and its vain philosophies.

“Beware lest any man spoil you through philosophy and vain deceit, after the traditions of men, after the rudiments of the world,and not after Christ.” (Col 2:8 KJV)

(She missed the cross, but freed my thought to reject the collective view of the church to the individual love of Christ for me. Yes,"God so loved the world...", but "I am crucified with Christ: nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me: and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave Himself for me." (Galatians 2:20)