Ayn Rand

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Ayn Rand (February 2, 1905 – March 6, 1982) was a Russian-American writer and philosopher, best known for her two best-selling novels, The Fountainhead and Atlas Shrugged, and for developing a philosophical system she named Objectivism. Born Alisa Zinovyevna Rosenbaum in Saint Petersburg, Russia, Rand witnessed the Bolshevik Revolution, which she opposed. In 1926, she immigrated to the United States, where she pursued her career as a writer and developed her philosophical ideas.

Early Life

Ayn Rand was born to a bourgeois family in pre-revolutionary Saint Petersburg. She was the eldest of three daughters of Zinovy Zakharovich Rosenbaum and Anna Borisovna Rosenbaum, largely secular Jews. The turmoil of the Russian Revolution and the subsequent communist regime had a profound impact on her, fostering a lifelong antipathy toward collectivism and state intervention.

Career

Rand moved to the United States in 1926, initially settling in Chicago before moving to Hollywood to pursue a career in screenwriting. She worked in the film industry and took various odd jobs while working on her first major novel, We the Living, a semi-autobiographical account of life in Soviet Russia. Although initially unsuccessful, she achieved fame with the publication of The Fountainhead in 1943, a novel that she had struggled for years to publish. The success of The Fountainhead was followed by Atlas Shrugged in 1957, which articulated her philosophy of Objectivism in the form of a dramatic narrative.

Philosophy

Rand's philosophy, Objectivism, posits that reality exists independently of consciousness, that human beings have direct contact with reality through sense perception, that one can attain objective knowledge from perception through the process of concept formation and inductive logic, that the proper moral purpose of one's life is the pursuit of one's own happiness (or rational self-interest), that the only social system consistent with this morality is one that displays full respect for individual rights embodied in laissez-faire capitalism, and that the role of art in human life is to transform humans' metaphysical ideas, by selective reproduction of reality, into a physical form—a work of art—that one can comprehend and to which one can respond emotionally.

Later Life and Legacy

Rand's work on Objectivism continued into her later years, through the publication of non-fiction books and articles, and by giving talks at institutions across the United States. Despite declining health, she remained active in the Objectivist movement until her death in 1982. Rand's philosophy has been both widely criticized and influential, particularly among libertarian and conservative circles in the United States.

Rand's legacy is complex, with some viewing her as a champion of individualism and capitalism, while others criticize her philosophy as being overly simplistic and lacking in empathy. Her novels continue to be popular, selling millions of copies and inspiring numerous works of fiction, non-fiction, and scholarly analysis.

Bibliography

• We the Living (1936)
• The Fountainhead (1943)
• Atlas Shrugged (1957)
• Anthem (1938)

See Also

• Objectivism (Ayn Rand)
• Libertarianism
• Capitalism
• Philosophy of Ayn Rand