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Friday, March 29
The Indiana Daily Student

A defense of objectivism

On Oct. 10, the IU New Intellectual Salon, the Objectivist club I founded last year, stationed members across campus to read aloud from “Atlas Shrugged” to commemorate the novel’s 50th anniversary. The event was a resounding success in that we met many people with a wide array of beliefs and engaged them in philosophical discussion. We had intended to hang up our activist hats for a while afterward, but after reading Indira Dammu’s column Wednesday referencing our “Who Is John Galt?” chalking, I thought it appropriate to offer a defense of our beliefs.\nI will pose a series of questions. Is it selfish for a woman to abort a pregnancy so that she might achieve her life goals? Is it selfish for a homosexual to come out of the closet, ignoring society’s demands, and live with the partner of her choice? Is it selfish to study your passion, rather than choose a major that helps more people? The answer to all these questions is “Yes,” and by Objectivist standards, these are all perfectly moral decisions.\nThe cardinal virtue of Objectivism is rationality, and a rational person does not hold one group of people to a different moral standard than another. Why, then, are those who pursue self-interest monetarily evil, yet if money is not involved, good? Objectivists understand that wealth has to be produced, and as such, you have a right to all the wealth you produce, and only the wealth you produce.\nWith regard to politics, I will simply say that the only proper system is that which leaves people free to achieve the aforementioned virtues. The right to earn and produce freely is just as important as the rights to speak, worship and assemble freely. It is not the jurisdiction of any government to dictate whose happiness is justified and whose is “unfair.” Free market capitalism is the only system under which all people are free to produce their own happiness, both material and spiritual. And happiness, whatever its manifestation, is the moral purpose of our lives.

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