I’m thinking that teacher had read Ayn Rand. She had a lot of good things to say about altruism and other things. If only she had understood Christianity ... but she didn’t. It was her blind spot.
It was indeed her blind spot, but I think her characterization of altruism as an evil that results in entities such as Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union.
Too many people confuse helping others or generosity with altruism. They are not the same. One is morally mandated (altruism) the other (generosity and aid to others) is not.
I meant that I agreed with her characterization of altruism the way she defined it.
Yes, that's definitely Rand-ian. Altruism is also founded in a selfish interests. Usually people try to overlook or ignore these things, that's why it's such a fertile field for con artists. As for Rand understanding Christianity, remember there's always someone looking to make a buck off the trust of the faithful (whether Christian or Communist, heheh). I speculate that Rand's view on turning a blind eye towards the hypocrisy in order to preserve one's peace of mind was also a selfish hypocrisy, and she wanted to illustrate that (I'm no Randist scholar, btw, but I did enjoy "Atlas Shrugged" and "The Fountainhead").