Ayn Rand

It is a simple thing to understand, that much of what she says is true. But, the primary ethic cannot be simply what benefits me. There are things which would benefit me---I have an urge to make love, and it would make me satisfied if I could. But, without love, what is sex? Really, what is life without love? What is life without sharing, intimately, in someone else's success, fortune, wellbeing, even at some points sinking into obscurity with them, for no other sake than the fact that they need you?

There is also a matter of survival. Sometimes, our happiness comes at the expense of others'. If I nurture a love, have children, and then leave my wife on the whim that I now love some other woman, and I particularly am disinterested in my children, so I abandon them too---so I am happy? There are people like this. Albert Einstein was one of them, who left three people destitute, while he was given the whole world.

What is joy, without sacrificial love? What is life, without people who share it? There are times, many times, when commitment precedes a desired happenstance. There are times when someone needs you, and you cannot do the things you want to do. Wives, husbands, children---children sometimes have to make hard decisions, and care for their elderly parents. Parents sometimes have to give up hefty salaries, and give up dream vocations, so they can take care of their children or make their spouse, friends, family and parents happy (Which is a very important thing, too)..

If we all were independently happy, and not conditioned on the behaviors of our fellow man, this virtue of selfishness could be enacted. If we were essentially separated, and lived in isolation, with no one as our dependents, no one who loved us... can anyone survive for long being unloved?

If people were truly this rational, and self willed creature she determines, then the Stoics would be right, that happiness can be cultivated with much, or little. So her entire philosophy wouldn't really matter that much. If the mind cultivated all our faculties, and men were empowered by reason, then Religion would also be the highest ideal, not the lowest. As, if this life is my goal, and life is all there is, why not subdue everyone around me, for my own happiness? So long as I do not cheat, steal, or murder them... I simply live in a grey shadow, stringing them along, but keeping them all at a distance, never allowing them the satisfaction to love me? How empty and hollow would that life be? No, but rather, I could manufacture happiness on my own. Whether in poverty, or in wealth. Whether in sickness, or in health. This is not true, as we are social creatures. But, what would create the happiest being, is not the worldly success and fame and fortune. It is simple what makes us happy. Yes, exercising reason is happy, being occupied with work is happy, being satisfied with your fruits of labor is happy, but to live in isolation is not. And what do men need? They need other men, so therefore, as Ralph Waldo Emerson said, to live with other men, we must know also how to make them happy. And that is the role of Religion, is to suit us for fellowship with other men, and make us subject to God's will, which is not our own. For, if we make all other men miserable, in order to obtain our own happiness, then perhaps we are jubilant... there are such men in the world who possess entire worlds, where they are happy, while no one else is. Let me never be one of them.