Ayn Rand was an awful human being. That’s just an indisputable fact.

However, it seems even to this day there are feeble minded people who still try to preach her message of objectivism, or as I like to call it, being a selfish prick.

One group that likes to propagate these ideals of selfish actions that result in the benefit of all of mankind, because of reasons, is the Ayn Rand Institute. The Ayn Rand Institute likes to give out free copies of the mediocre authors “great works” (and that’s a very liberal use of the word great) to help further the message of objectivism by instilling it in the minds of the children of America.

The copies that they hand out are generally filled with forewords, afterwords and footnotes that pose as literary criticism of Rand’s work, but function more or less as masturbatory fair on how genius Rand was and why everyone should embrace her ideas.

You see, the idea of objectivism is that you should only act selfishly, and not worry about the consequences your actions may have on other people. Essentially, it can be boiled down to the idea of not sharing your new Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles action figure with that kid down the hall because it’s Donatello, and you’ve waited 35 long and grueling years to finally get it, and like hell you’re going to let that entitled little brat get his grimy sausage fingers on it.

Most people grow out of this complete lack of empathy by the age of five, but for some, like Rand, it lasts for life.

Rand was originally a Soviet citizen who came to America at the age of 21 and fell in love with the country. Her dream was to become a screenwriter in Hollywood. This did not pan out, and she would eventually begin to write books instead. Rand’s most famous early work is her novella, “Anthem,” which demonizes the idea of extreme equality, by displaying a main character who is so fantastic that he is like Brad Pitt had a baby with Leonardo DiCaprio, but is held back by equality. Of course I could mention that this same idea was executed much better by Kurt Vonnegut in his short story “Harrison Bergeron,” but that would point out how inadequate Rand is as an author.

Rand’s next novel was “The Fountainhead,” a story about an individualistic young architect who chooses to struggle in obscurity rather than compromise his artistic and personal vision. And while I may not be Sigmund Freud, I sense some major transference here. The main character also decides that when things don’t go exactly his way, that he must blow the building up. And this was Rand’s ideal of the perfect man.

The final novel that Rand would write was “Atlas Shrugged,” a story of what might happen if all the richest and according to Rand, the most brilliant people in America went on strike, and refused to support the lazy workers who had made them their fortunes any longer, and go off to a city where only rich people are allowed. The lack of sense that any of the ideas in this book make is simply unmatched in literature. It is simply appalling how much this book refers to the poor workers as simply machines for the rich to use.

But it is not simply Rand’s philosophy that makes her a terrible person. It seems that almost all of her opinions are offensive, and hypocritical. Some of these opinions include her support for Israel during the Yom Kippur War of 1973, which was fought against a coalition of Arab nations. Rand described this as “civilized men fighting savages.” Rand also believed that the European colonists had the right to take land from the Native Americans, saying “I do not think that they have any right to live in a country merely because they were born here and acted and lived like savages.” Rand also has condemned homosexuality as immoral and disgusting. Rand also decided to publish an article in her magazine, “The Objectivist,” denouncing the actions of Nathaniel Branden, a man she had openly been having an extramarital affair with for several years, when he had another affair with a different woman. She repudiated him for dishonesty and other “irrational behavior in his private life.” Despite how obviously these last two opinions clash with her philosophy of objectivism, and individualism, Rand stood by these opinions until her death.

However, one of the most egregious comments that Rand ever made was declaring herself “the most creative thinker alive.”

Rand’s ideas are not unique, they are juvenile. Rand is a hypocrite, a racist and a downright awful human being. And yet some still support her ideas, and try to impose them on other people. The least that these people could do is pick a role model who isn’t as greedy as Mitt Romney and Donald Trump, and more racist than Donald Sterling and Dan Snyder combined. In a modern connected world, there is no place for any objectivist philosophy, and thus, there should be no place for the work of Ayn Rand.

Alex Bertsch is the opinion editor for The Dakota Student. He can be reached at [email protected].