My Cocktail Philosophy: Ayan Rand's Objective Philosophy Versus Collectivism.

Ayan Rand’s Fictions

People associated with me always grimace when I say I enjoyed Ayn Rand's book immensely. How can someone who was born and reared in a collectivist society like India enjoy objectivist fiction? Being from a collectivist society with a degree of individual freedom may have conditioned my mind to appreciate extreme objectivism while coping with the negative side effects of a collectivist society. That is the first reason. Negative effect: I think I should clarify that only in instances of individual freedom is a person's willingness to make unintended sacrifices questioned. These sacrifices reach a point where a person forgets about his own happiness, even if he is joyful, claiming that everyone's happiness is his own.

The second reason for my admiration of her fictional work may be a parallel to my own search for the inner self and for giving my life meaning or finding a purpose through activities in creating me. (Whether it be career or existence)

When making a statement in a collectivist society, there is an element of truth in certain circumstances. Compared to Western families, the interdependence of family members in India is a model of collectivism that is securely coupled. I have always believed that individuals in India should be independent and self-reliant, but what is the reality? With a few exceptions, we do not live in a utopia where individuals walk, learn, and carry out all actions of their own accord.

Let me challenge Rands’s achievement from today’s perspective. We are talking about her, today due to a collectivist organisation and a publication which is a result of collective effort, though ideas and writings are from an Individual thought. We can't deny a society that carries her ideas, which becomes a collective effort. It could be direct or indirect. Remember there is an Ayan Rand Institute. There I make a statement, every phenomenon (small or big) in this world may be a product of an individual’s vision and defined objectives or as a result of objectivism. But in most cases, that’s achieved through collective effort. If I make it even simpler, even the activity of brushing teeth in the mornings becomes an action that comes out a result of the collective effort of making toothpaste factory men that started as a seed in individual minds.

Objectivism is a philosophical system developed by Russian-American writer and philosopher Ayn Rand. She described it as "the concept of man as a heroic being, with his own happiness as the moral purpose of his life, with productive achievement as his noblest activity, and reason as his only absolute".

 

 

My Position: A cocktail of objectivism and collectivism.

The only question, in my opinion, is where objectivism begins. Where does it apply? Where does it end? I am aware that Ayn Rand avoided the subjective emotional aspect of the human condition. That is not consistent with objectivism. I would like to see a blend of emotional quotients in the objectivism theory. Let's term it a novel philosophy if it does not already exist a mixture of subjectivism and collectivism. (A cocktail of objectivism and collectivism.) I will not separate emotions from this theory, its objective intentions or its subjective realities. Because there I discover a space of unity.

For example, I write this for my own happiness with me as my primary subject. That satisfies Ayan Rand’s first line of objectivism. Now returning to the example, I write this blog for my own pleasure and for the enjoyment of my peers. Even if only a hundred people read this article, "I" and the hundred become one.  Let it be platonic. At that moment, I become friends with “We” the collective. “I” and “We” becomes one during that thought process in the conscious even though people are detached from me, it’s my objective vision and collective vision at the same time.

At this juncture, I blend emotion with objectivism and develop a more subjective perspective of the world; if not at the execution level, the subjective emotional integration becomes a part of the objective at the platonic level. In rare instances, it may also occur at the level of execution, when someone reads her book after reading this essay. Most objectives are accomplished with varying degrees of collective effort.

Politics and Capitalism.

Having said that, I will be completely in agreement with her in many areas of her philosophy.

Man’s mind will not function at the point of a gun. Therefore, the only type of organized human behaviour consistent with the operation of reason is voluntary cooperation. Persuasion is the method of reason. By its nature, the overtly irrational cannot rely on the use of persuasion and must ultimately resort to force to prevail. Thus, Rand argued that reason and freedom are correlated, just as she argued that mysticism and force are corollaries. Based on this understanding of the role of reason, Objectivists claim that the initiation of physical force against the will of another is immoral, as are indirect initiations of force through threats, fraud, or breach of contract.

Regarding capitalism, she supported a free market economy. A laissez-faire capitalism. My views slightly change here. Indian conditions created my thought process, hence a level of control on essentials concerning states’ objectives and people’s objectives required. There may be a level of control required from the governments on selected areas like education, food and housing. I know it’s a never-ending debatable area.

Laissez-faire capitalism is a theory of free-market economics that suggests that the government should not interfere with the economy. It is based on the idea that businesses should be allowed to operate without regulation or intervention, as this would foster competition, innovation, and productivity.

Although I agree with the fundamental instincts of humans for advancement in terms of how competition, innovation, and productivity have helped states and people advance and fostered the growth of thriving industries in the last three hundred years to create the world we see today. You can’t deny all the positives that came out of man’s quest to create the world we live in today. I am not an extremely pessimistic poet lamenting progress. But the checks and balances required due to the destructions because of creations need to be identified and supported. There I would place collective intentions above individual purpose.

At the same time, it is unacceptable for individuals to be punished, attacked, or killed if they object to a collective. An example would be a person who rejects a religion attacked by the same group of individuals. This occurs in the present day. That is true. There, I oppose a group of men who is in charge of that. In such situations, individual aims do not align with team objectives. Respect the liberty of the individual. I stand with Ayn Rand on this point. The world is not entirely black and white.