Citing The Fountainhead - not exactly the best way to make an argument. I'm a supporter of Rand and her ideals but her writing regarding human relationships is detached from reality.
I'm not making an argument. I'm making hazy observations based on feelings.
Everyone knows people who are their own people, but who do not impose on others. If asked, they will tell you. If pressed, they will stand up for themselves. But they sometimes show restraint where others might take the opportunity to "count coup."
It's also possible to be your own person and stand up for yourself while being abrasive, suffering no fools, and keeping everyone around you on edge. There's also a whole spectrum in between.
If my observations about certain subscribers to individualist philosophy bothers you, I suggest that might be salient data. You have far better access to additional data than I for evaluating that.
I find Objectivism, from what I know of it, to be remarkably self-consistent. It is an admirable product of its time. Some of what Ayn Rand said needs to be modified in the face of new evidence from evolutionary biology and neuroscience. (Humans clearly do have instincts.) A sign of a healthy philosophy is its ability to incorporate such new data.
Objectivism is terrific in a few ways. I still reread The Fountainhead once or twice a year. But the more you learn of it the shallower it becomes. The Fountainhead works because it's an incredibly contained world; Roark is essentially a loner. But Rand makes that out to be some ideal in and of itself. In truth, lots of brilliant people are radically social, and have had convoluted lives entirely unlike the straight path Roark takes. If you ignore that, and ignore the biological imperatives that explain it, then you're creating a fantastic type of human that doesn't really exist, and in some ways you belittle the people that Rand drew inspiration from to create Roark.
I just realized -- I never really criticize Objectivism in this thread. (That the founder's world view is eventually superseded by advancing knowledge is just a fact of life, not a criticism.)
What I do criticize is the way some people apply "Objectivism." This is certainly not unique. I also find the attitudes of many Christians to be distinctly not Christ-like.
What I do criticize is the way some people apply "Objectivism." This is certainly not unique. I also find the attitudes of many Christians to be distinctly not Christ-like.
That's actually a really apt comparison! I think I'll borrow that in the future.
