"Man must live for his own sake, neither sacrificing himself to others nor sacrificing others to himself."
Ayn Rand, The Objectivist Ethics, 231
Like most of Rand's statements, this one could cause great emotional upset in people who would look at it as selfish and uncharitable. Rand has often been understood for her philosophy of "Objectivism" which she suggests is an integrated system of thought that defines the abstract principles by which a man must
think and act if he is to live the life proper to man (Doherty, 1997).
Although she espoused this in her novels such as "The Fountainhead" (1943) and "Atlas Shrugged" (1957), it is excellently expressed in the novella "Anthem." In that book, the main character exists in a time of the future, when the word "I" has been banned. Chapter 11 becomes first person and the word "I" becomes almost a mantra. "I am. I think. I will" is the way the chapter starts, and the drama of that chapter is exciting.
"Reality, the external world, exists independent of man's consciousness, independent of any observer's knowledge, beliefs,
feelings, desires or fears. This means that A is A, that facts are facts, that things are what they are--and that the task of man's consciousness is to perceive reality, not to create or invent it" (Cashill, 1985).
The objectivist believes that "think" is an activity that can bring knowledge 'from nothing'. It evidently should be a non-specified activity scattered by all possible directions to collect everything which can be collected and answer at least a common question, for example, like this: whether or not is the situation stable (symmetric) between 'I' and 'my antagonist'?
If the situation is estimated to be stable, it is the sign 'I and my antagonist' are in balance. It gives the choice either to do nothing (to keep up the situation) or to destroy balance by own additional activity. If the situation is estimated to be unstab...