Thôi khỏi đọc

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Rand's simplistic Objectivist worldview couldn't be better designed to
appeal (hấp dẫn) to sheltered (được chở che, sống êm ả) middle-and-upper-class suburban (ngoại ô) white boys like me — the kind of people who, in the immortal (bất hủ) words of Barry Switzer, were born on third base and thought they hit a triple (sinh ra ở tầng lớp thượng lưu song lại cứ tưởng mọi thứ mình có được là nhờ nỗ lực và tài năng cá nhân).

For kids like me at the time, Rand's message that we earned every piece of wealth that we inherited was a comforting one, and it pleased our egos by centering us as masters of the universe who deserved our elevated perch.

Thankfully, it didn't take me too long to shake off the themes of "Atlas Shrugged." As soon as I befriended people who were not suburban white dudes, and once I understood that they had to work five times as hard to enjoy half of the privilege that I enjoyed, I realized that Rand was singing a heroic ode to the comfortable. With the application of a little bit of empathy and life experience, her philosophy fell apart.

...If you recall, ventilators (máy thở) were in high demand in the early days of the pandemic (đại dịch), and then-President Trump had to use powers of government to force General Motors to manufacture them — a gross violation (vi phạm) of Rand's philosophy (triết lý).

And the global supply chain was completely broken in those early days, meaning all the money in the world couldn't get ventilators or the parts to manufacture ventilators to Galt's Gulch in time to save those poor sickened Objectivists.

Then consider the fact that Galt's Gulch likely has no public health department to inform the populace about at-risk behaviors and demographics, no way to direct private business in ways that benefit the public good without massive price-gouging, and no tax dollars to support people who lose their jobs because of the pandemic, and John Galt's utopia is starting to look a lot like "The Hunger Games." (đấu trường sinh tử)

...The pandemic is proof of the single inescapable fact that destroys Ayn Rand's philosophy: We live in a society, and nobody is truly a self-made master of their own destiny. The sooner we understand the American ideal of sovereign individualism is the stuff of science-fiction (khoa học giả tưởng), the faster we can get to work building a world that's better for everyone.