Objectivism

I find this idea pretty interesting: that we can steer subjectivity often for an individual's own happiness. For me it exemplifies what we're doing here, reading and writing self-published work which, apparently requires no approval than that of it's author. That's not to say I approve of Ayn Rand's theory of objectivism but I don't disapprove of it either; in today's society surely we have to accept that we are moving toward egocentrism in all walks of life.

Take the blog for example: a form of publishing grown out of the internet which inspired various off-shoots in the shape of social media that we all know and most of us use in a love-hate relationship. We justify this egotistical exercise as 'online diaries', 'personal journals', 'portfolios' and yet I have still chosen to write a blog, not a notebook. This is a conscious decision I've made to publish my work. Why?

Perhaps my seemingly self-validated piece isn't so gratifying in itself, while I may keep notebooks of real 'scribbles' this, what I am writing here, is mediated. In a notebook I'd be brash and raw when I liked and equally spend pages describing the face of my favourite, but that's too personal for here. Here I am representing myself however I would like to do so and while most people wouldn't write a blog, isn't the same true for Facebook, Instagram, YouTube? It's all become about self-projection and positive mediation of oneself - taking away our shameful qualities and amplifying those we are proud of. Perhaps it is fair to say that we live in a world where we show others who we would like to be rather than who we are.

Objectivism is often seen as the baddie of ethics, the selfish ethic; however what I find so interesting is how Rand's controversial theory is working it's way into the social mainstream. If we look at the 'self-love' movement emerging largely out of photoshopped supermodels who made mere mortals feel inferior, we see a generally positive response through platforms like Instagram. 'Individual rights' once more initially receive support, but when politics strays from protecting the minority, to selfish policies that protect the fortunate few, we begin to see self-interest as mean and greedy - see any immigration reform's opposition.

I'm not much of an authority on the topic but it seems to me, we should pay closer attention to our sources. Returning to social media's birth through blogs, we can infer that social media sites are essentially another form of self-publishing. No longer do people judge us solely on their perception of our personality, but of the projected personality that they've present to us through the internet. Thus the rise of objectivism presents an issue of trust where we are rendered unable to distinguish between vested and selfless interests.