My Introduction.

[Damis]

I am in the process of reading Ayn Rand and her colleague's writings on the Objectivist philosophy therefore I thought it a wise move to seek out an establishment that is inhabited by those who are knowledgeable on the subject. My motive for joining this forum therefore is to hopefully gain a proper understanding of the Objectivist philosophy and the issues it covers through discussion and question with said knowledgeable individuals.

My knowledge of Objectivism as it stands currently is rather basic. My first contact with Ayn Rand and her associates was "The Virtue of Selfishness", I am currently reading "Capitalism: The Unknown Ideal" I find Ayn Rand's writing style to be very concise which is a trait that I find to be an asset particularly in academic fields.

Concerning myself, I was born in 1991 in England, I have lived a considerable portion of my life (all of my conscious memory in fact) under a Statist/moderate Socialist government and our current economic condition is a testament to their rule. As of present I would not profess myself as an Objectivist however. My personal philosophy as it stands sways closer to what is commonly called Satanism, however Satanism in itself embraces a great number of components from Objectivism, particularly rational self interest and personal freedom. Politically I could be best described as a Libertarian in the classical sense. I favour deregulated economies and I regard a person's liberty as their most important asset, I see the individual as sovereign.

My academic interests are mainly history and philosophy. I am of the Empiricist persuasion as of the present. I favour the objective evidence approach to analysis of the past. Observable evidence as the key to objective reality. I distrust theory which is not grounded on said empirical foundations, I believe that purely abstract theoretical approaches such as Marxism distort the picture by applying theory before evidence and in the case of Post-Modernism, to be outright nonsense that attempts to remove the need for evidence from objective reality, leading to absolute relativism which is useless.

Thank you for reading my introductory post, I hope my presence here will be a productive.

[Greebo]

Welcome!

If you wish to understand O'ism from the ground up, you may want to read "Objectivism: The Philosophy of Ayn Rand" (OPAR) by Leonard Peikoff, Ms. Rand's intellectual heir. It presents a concise view of Objectivism from first principles (the three axioms) through ethics, economics, politics and aesthetics.

[softwareNerd]

Welcome to OO.net

[Eiuol]

As of present I would not profess myself as an Objectivist however.

Some people, like myself, often prefer the phrase "student of Objectivism," basically expressing an interest in reading and learning about Objectivism while agreeing with basic premises and many of its implications, yet acknowledging there's plenty more to learn about.

My personal philosophy as it stands sways closer to what is commonly called Satanism, however Satanism in itself embraces a great number of components from Objectivism, particularly rational self interest and personal freedom.

I'm curious, is that simply the best description you can give, or did you read about Satanism in the past, perhaps even identifying as a Satanist at one point?

Also a more general question: how did you first hear about Ayn Rand, or first hear about the book Virtue of Selfishness?

Thank you for reading my introductory post, I hope my presence here will be a productive.

I hope so, too. =]

[Damis]

I'm curious, is that simply the best description you can give, or did you read about Satanism in the past, perhaps even identifying as a Satanist at one point?

If to identify as a Satanist it requires me to be in agreement with all or the vast majority of what constitutes Satanic philosophy then I would say that I would be a Satanist. However the reason that I stop short and say that I probably approximate it is due to the rather subjective dimension that it has once you get past the foundation. Outside the core text the "Satanic Bible" a person is required to learn the rest through subjective introspection. Although this is intended to allow the personal flexibility which Satanism embraces, it seems to me that such an ambiguous stance is just a way of filling in any blanks that may be left.

This leads to a lot of debate over what makes a person a Satanist, one particular debate is a 'born vs made', an adoptable philosophy or an innate state of being (which sounds a little mystical). I myself came to the conclusion looking at the objective evidence that what Satanism is when you strip away the subjective elements i.e what people claim from experience with Satanism, and instead looking at just what is written in the Satanic Bible is that you find a personality type and a mode of conduct which is compatible with it. For these reasons I have never been too hasty in putting myself formally into that category, since whilst I agree with the premises and argument the reliance upon subjectivity and by inference the element of relativity raises a red flag or two, if I remember correctly Rand criticizes Nietzsche for his subjectivity.

As for how I stumbled upon Ayn Rand's work, her name amongst others often comes up in attribution to the intellectual make up of Satanism, however what really prompted me to look into her work was her focus upon rationality. I therefore did some preliminary research into her in order to get a rough idea of what she was about and where to start, "The Virtue of Selfishness" was advised as good step in the door.

[OCSL]

Welcome.

My first contact with Ayn Rand and her associates was "The Virtue of Selfishness"

That is extremely interesting. I have not heard of many people who have read Rand's non-fiction before her fiction.