Persuading People To Support Objectivism

[daniel]

How would you go about persuading someone to support Objectivism besides telling them to go and read Ayn Rand? When you tell people that one of her books is called 'The Virtue of Selfishness', they seem to turn off. How do you get across why selfishness is right? What makes it better than altuism? Why the individual and not the collective? To start talking about the ins and outs of her philosophy is ok for someone who knows about philosophy but how do you get these things across in laymen's terms? What premise do you begin from? In short I am asking you to prentend i'm new to Objectivism and philosophy and am open to being convinced to supporting it - what do you say?

(Corrected typo in title - sNerd)

Edited September 8, 2005 by softwareNerd

[JMeganSnow]

In the same way you'd convince anyone to do anything. Appeal to their self-interest and their desire to understand.

If you know what you're talking about, people will respond to that. They will pay attention when you speak. They will want to know when and where you heard things. Point them to some literature.

With thinking people, the process becomes self-sustaining. If you give them a little ammunition, they will use it. When they falter, they will go looking for more on their own. Eventually things will reach the stage where they have to give up on their own errors and dearly-held falsehoods.

[Inspector]

First, find a "hook;" an idea which your subject holds which is consonant with Objectivism. Then work your way around that idea, by showing what ideas that idea depends on and what ideas are dependant upon that idea.

If the person holds that idea strongly, and is intellectually honest, they will see that you are right and are making sense. Then tell them that the philosophy that drew those connections, and which has many more truths waiting for them, is Objectivism.