Mindless altruism is evil, IMO. That is, sacrificing your essense as a free person for a lesser value. She was correct about that. Many mistook that admonition for condemnation of altruism such as the soldier who dives on a live grenade. But that isn’t sacrifice for a lesser value, and is thus not mindless. It’s unfortunate that she didn’t make the distinction as clearly as she could have.
>That is, sacrificing your essense as a free person for a lesser value. She was correct about that. Many mistook that admonition for condemnation of altruism such as the soldier who dives on a live grenade<
The idea is “rational self-interest”, in which she said, The individual “must exist for his own sake “neither sacrificing himself to others nor sacrificing others to himself”
She was likely reacting against Collectivism, in which the individual was forced into the subjugation for the group, such as is seen in cults, besides Communism. Willingly giving your life up to save others is not the same, nor is willingly going without so others can eat. Nor is eating, sleeping, etc., selfish if it serves to help others. Nor is it beneficial to subsidized indolence by continually helping those who can be productive. The Bible affirms all my statements. Rand might affirm my examples as being in the interest of self in the long run, while i see obedience to God as resulting in beneficence for others.
Rand operated out of the philosophy of Objectivism, which according to her, is “the concept of man as a heroic being, with his own happiness as the moral purpose of his life, with productive achievement as his noblest activity, and reason as his only absolute.” http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ayn_Rand
The problem with this is that it looks to the so-called “Golden Compass” of man as its source for determining what is beneficial “productive achievement” to man, but which reasoning can easily justify the manner of atrocities which men like Mao, Pol Pot, etc. and Communism perpetrated, and Kim Jong 2 threatens, just as Islam can do out of a religious basis. One operated without an objective proven transcendent moral authority, while the other does so out of a demonic one. However, while atheism loves to invoke the likes of the Crusades and Inquisitions as an example of Christian faith doing likewise, in reality these required widespread ignorance of the Scripture, and the subjection of them to an office which presumes authority over them, which was also the case in such things as the Utah War. Both stand in contrast to the message and methodology and means of the N.T. church in obedience to the example and words of Christ and His Spirit. Praise the Lord.