Objectivism vs. Conservatism Smackdown

It seems that there’s a Frank Rukavina running for the Conservatives in the putative upcoming federal election. Frank Rukavina philosophy:

I hope you will give me the opportunity to be your voice in Parliament to fight for better health care, lower taxes, the abolishment of the gun registry, and for better support for our municipalities. We need to fight for a more transparent government, for renewed fiscal responsibility, and for the end of cronyism and corruption in Ottawa. It is time to send the Liberals a clear message — we are sick of their tired and arrogant regime.

And if that wasn’t enough, Mary Ann Sures, a “longtime personal friend” of Ayn Rand, was born Mary Ann Rukavina. She and her husband Charles wrote the memoir Facets of Ayn Rand. Ayn Rand philsophy:

My philosophy, in essence, 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.

Comments

oliver's picture
oliver on October 25, 2005 - 15:15 Permalink

I haven’t read Rand, but she gets talked about as one of them big thinkers of the 20th century and is basically a social darwinist by reputation—not to mention author of a philosophy that one is supposed to get over after becoming an adult and capable of a sincere concern for others. Canada would be saying goodbye to socialized medicine if it made Rand PM. She’s the patron saint of Libertarians, gun owners and oil company executives down here in the U.S.

oliver's picture
oliver on October 25, 2005 - 15:17 Permalink

My goodness, and she had a really funny haircut too! (I just followed that link)

Kevin O'Brien's picture
Kevin O'Brien on October 25, 2005 - 18:28 Permalink

What an interesting post Peter.

It would seem that Ms. Sures (Rukavina) has a more balanced outlook than either Frank Rukavina or Ms. Rand. In the quotes you give Rukavina seems embedded only in the last element in what Rand lists as the essence of her philosophy; namely politics. Fair enough, he’s running for office.

I’ve been interested in Ayn Rand for some time but have always found a fairly quick departure from her and Objectivism because her ethic of self interest is not sustainable when its practice becomes predominant in a culture (eg. USA) and leads ultimately to governments which promote the self interests of wealthy in conflict with the interests of others. And that’s just another way of describing laissez-faire capitalism to which Rand subscribes as a political(?) ethic. It appears Frank Rukavina and Rand agree on at least that.

Truely is is upon altruism that great societies are (will be) built, which is to say, when an _objective_ person evaluates the interest of another as having more importance than a self interest and defends the position contrary to his own, he has become fully human and is acting in a globally sustainable fashion.

Marian's picture
Marian on October 26, 2005 - 20:11 Permalink

I don’t understand this blog entry.

Marian's picture
Marian on October 27, 2005 - 17:10 Permalink

From Ayn Rand’s alleged masterpiece Atlas Shrugged:

She lay stretched lazily, her head thrown back, her arms at her sides, palms pressed to the rough texture of the bedspread…”

He stood against the wall, his head thrown back, his eyes closed and thought of Dagny.”

She sat at the window of the train, her head thrown back…”

She stood up angrily and backed away from him. And while throwing her head up, resentment in her eyes to meet the sternness in his, while feeling certain that his was a glance of condemnation and hostility, she heard himself asking him, a tone of smiling defiance in her voice: