Some of the more interesting people I know in person (online personas must be excluded for reasons which I cannot delve into here) are Objectivists, that is, followers of the integrated philosophy of Ayn Rand. Objectivism, in essence, is composed of the metaphysics of reality, the epistemology of reason, the ethics of self-interest, and the politics of libertarianism. Put in more everyday terms, objectivists believe the reality is just as it appears, that it can be understood by us through reason, that the right thing to do is to seek one's own satisfaction in life, and that the ideal political system consists of a government which restricts itself to protecting the fundamental human rights of life, liberty, and the pursuit of property, which implies the economics of capitalism.

The foremost issue is whether objectivism is the logical necessary integrated philosophy it is purported to be, or is it merely yet another of many plausible worldviews, that is, does the entire coherent philosophy indeed follow from any well-reasoned examination of the universe? Given some perfectly rational creature such as Spock of Vulcan who is determined to discern the great truths of the universe, would he eventually settle upon the metaphysics of reality, and derive therefrom the epistemology of reason, the ethics of self-interest, and the politics of libertarianism? The answer from the peanut gallery is of course a resounding NO. Philosophers, ethicists, and political pundits of every stripe claim to derive their principles and theoretical structures logically, given certain axiomatic principles which may or may not be at variance with the axioms of objectivism. The objectivists face a twofold challenge of justifying their axiomatic assumptions and showing how it is that the theories of objectivism necessarily follow. It seems that the ambiguity inherent in the world allows for variant axioms as well as variant derivations within the bounds of what we may yet call reason.

Which brings us to the practical problem of modern evangelical Objectivism, that it is rather unpalatable to most people in the U.S. even today. Although many Objectivist ideals are quite popular in our culture such as the insistence upon objective reality, the utility of reason, and to an increasingly lesser extent to politics of freedom, there remain several serious barriers to the evangelism of objectivism inherent in the worldview, some of the most notable of which are intellectualism, egoism, atheism, and volitionalism.

The first and foremost major barrier to the evangelization of the Objectivist philosophy in America is that it is indeed a philosophy, and a complexly integrated one at that, and as such may only appeal to those willing to study enough of philosophy to understand the entire system and why it should be considered superior to other metaphysical, epistemological, ethical and political worldviews. In truth, even those with degrees in philosophy may lack the broad philosophical base necessary to fully grasp to implications and arguments necessary to properly understand and evaluate Objectivism. But most people in the U.S. today fall far short of even this level of inadequacy. The educational system has become increasingly appalling and the social climate more anti-intellectual, as evidenced by the giant backward strides recently taken by the likes of the state educational systems of Kansas and Oklahoma in screening evolutionary material from the classroom. It seems that a philosophy which not only touts itself as such but even goes so far as to constantly emphasize the priority of reason will not gain wide acceptance in our increasingly unenlightened society.

As to those who do not disdain the intellect, most all of them are altruists, and many of them lean towards some form of collectivism. Perhaps the only portions of the modern university which can be said to subscribe to the any of the anti-altruistic ethical or political ideals of Objectivism in any significant way is that of the economists, who in general tend towards capitalism more than their professorial peers as a result of their understanding of the machinations of capitalism; and that of the biologists, especially the adherents of evolutionary psychology, who exhibit unusual sympathy for the ethics of self-interest as a result of their understanding our being as the consequence of the blind machinations of 'selfish genes'. This is in some way cheering, that those intellectuals in most direct contact with these relevant fields of study would be those most convinced of the veracity of the Objectivist position. The fact remains, however, that the majority of the public at large and the intelligentsia in particular have been inculcated with the ethics of selflessness and the politics of benevolent socialism.

We have now weeded out the non-intellectuals and the preponderance of intellectuals who subscribe to altruism and collectivism. Of those that remain, many if not most are theists, and while intellectually oriented typically disagree with the assertion that the metaphysics of realism (as opposed to materialism) necessarily imply the truth of atheism, nevertheless, atheism is an understood prerequisite to join the Objectivist fold.

This leaves only the relatively small set of intellectual egoistic atheists. Of these, most are materialists and determinists, and as such deny the validity of volition. While volition is not one of the primary principles of Objectivism, Rand was insistent upon its indispensability to Objectivist epistemology.

All in all, this leaves the Objectivists with a very small pool from which to draw recruits, as there are indeed very few atheist realist rationalist indeterminist egoist individualist libertarians running about. That which is touted as Objectivism's great strength, it philosophical completeness and coherence, is also its greatest weakness.