THE
VIRTUES OF SELFISHNESS
Every semester, I'll be walking through campus, and I'll
see fliers up with the title "The Virtues of Selfishness."
Of course, it's meant to make you stop and marvel that
somebody would say something that used the word virtue and
selfishness in the same sentence. The routine is
predictable. You come closer to the flier, and then you
realize that it's an announcement for a meeting of the
Objectivists Club -- those Ayn Rand Freaks (ARF).
Often some of us will sit around and casually make fun of
the ARF people, how moronic they are, but it's all benign
fun. We hate them because they're stupid. We don't hate
them because they're evil or anything. Those of us who
teach on campus will recognize the ARF-heads within a few
weeks, after they try and rub their faux-libertarian
philosophy down your throat. Anyway, I guess my point is
that these people are not benign. They can make a
difference. They are a bunch of want-to-be rich assholes
who have discovered that the way to make money is to
trample over everything else in your path. And they've
convinced themselves that this is a noble way to do things.
In fact, if you don't trample over everyone else to get
yourself off (money, power, sex), then you are doing a
disservice to your society...because those who cannot help
themselves will never amount to anything. So by helping
people you are screwing up the process of natural
selection. So goes the doctrine. So screw everyone else,
screw the poor in the banana republic, screw the workers
who clean your streets, screw the guy who asks for money
outside the 7-11, screw the women who come to shelters
asking for help, and let's get it on for ourself. It's
intellectual masturbation taken to its logical conclusion.
And the worst thing is that ARF-heads don't even have the
balls to admit that they're just looking out for number
one. No, they've wrapped it in the sheen of virtue. Every
man (and it's always the men -- Ayn Rand sure didn't think
much of women), a noble warrior for the good of
"civilization." Mussolini would have been proud.
FYI, there's a meeting of the Objectivists next week on
campus -- to discuss "freedom" -- where they will show a
film on the great things the John Birch Society has brought
us over the years. Ironies abound.