Man—every man—is an end in himself, not the means to the ends of others. He must exist for his own sake, neither sacrificing himself to others nor sacrificing others to himself. The pursuit of his own rational self-interest and of his own happiness is the highest moral purpose of his life.
Objectivism was a new thought. Something that had never crossed my mind. That it was possible to think about man's Ego.
When I read Ayn Rand's We the Living a number of years ago, I wasn't impressed. So I did not attempt any other book by the same author. About a couple of years ago, a friend told me about The Fountainhead. His exact comments were, "Amazing book! We cannot imagine that such a man could exist." Needless to say, I wanted to see why that 'man' was special. So I got hold of the book - and was hooked. The inevitable next step was Atlas Shrugged.
The theme was the same in both the books. The terms "Ego", "Selfishness" that we always associate with a negative person suddenly took on a new meaning.
Ayn Rand calls her school of thought "Objectivism". I do not claim to understand all of it. But I do recognize it as a different approach altogether to all that I have seen and heard so far.
I will add more on this topic soon, there are some text that I would have to copy and paste, perhaps in a different post.
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