Today marks the beginning of a journey I’ve been preparing for my entire intellectual life—whether I knew it or not.
I’m not here to politely critique the so-called “great” philosophers of our time. I’m here to challenge them. Head-on. Without apology. Without the borrowed reverence they’ve been granted by generations too polite—or too intimidated—to question their frameworks.
Because let’s be honest: far too many of the minds we’re told to admire were only “brilliant” in the context of the empires, egos, and ideologies they helped justify. And as a Black man, it was just another white person telling me how life should be lived. Their philosophies weren’t designed to liberate humanity. They were designed to organize it—into castes, roles, and pecking orders that preserved power for the few and handed obedience to the rest.
What am I bringing to the table?
Something disruptive. Something inconvenient. Something rooted in a deep, lived understanding of how thought becomes power and how power becomes policy. I call it the Eclecto-Pragmatist lens—a living, breathing synthesis of eclectic thought and pragmatic truth. Really, I have published books on the subject. It doesn’t worship ideologues. It doesn’t pretend objectivity exists in a vacuum. And it sure as hell doesn’t divorce ideas from their outcomes.
This lens is forged from contradiction, sharpened by experience, and unshaken by orthodoxy. It welcomes the tension between individual freedom and collective obligation. It refuses binaries. It cuts through dogma—left, right, classical, or postmodern—and asks the most essential question of any philosophy:
“Who does this serve—and at what cost?”
So no, I’m not here to write book reports on Plato, Rand, Rousseau, or Hume. Fuck that. I’m here to interrogate their legacies. To challenge their assumptions. To expose the limitations in their frameworks—and to offer something better. Not just more moral. More useful. More human. More honest.
Starting today, the conversation shifts.
We are no longer playing defense against half-baked ideologies masquerading as enlightenment. You have to see that their views were limited relative to the times in which they lived.
We’re building something different. Something grounded.
Something that doesn’t crumble under the weight of reality.
Let the reckoning begin.
First on the hit list…Ayn Rand and her “Soul Suckin’ Legacy”.
Did I just hurt your feelings?
Let’s get one thing straight from the jump:
Ayn Rand doesn’t appeal to people because her philosophy is intellectually rigorous. She appeals because she tells selfish people that selfishness is noble. Funny because every fair colored philosopher is always considered rigourous. I just threw up in my mouth a little.
She doesn’t challenge the worst parts of human nature.
She canonizes them. How is that rigorous? It’s rigorously fucked up, that’s what it is.
That’s why tech bros, hedge fund vampires, and self-anointed alpha capitalists still clutch Atlas Shrugged like it’s scripture. Rand told them the lie they were desperate to believe:
You don’t owe anyone a damn thing. Not compassion. Not context. Not contribution.
But from where I stand—through the eclecto-pragmatist lens—her ideology is not only morally bankrupt, it’s strategically naïve.
Let’s go point by point.
1. Laissez-Faire Capitalism: The Fairy Tale That Keeps on Failing
Rand says: The market should be free of all regulation. Government interference is tyranny.
I say: Then you’ve never studied history, power, or basic math.
Markets do not self-correct. They self-concentrate. They consolidate. They crush. You don’t get railroads, broadband, or clean water from deregulated chaos. You get monopolies with lobbyists.
Freedom without rules is how wolves eat sheep. Don’t confuse that for liberty.
2. Finance as Savior? You Mean Finance as Siphon.
Rand says: Investors and financiers are heroes of civilization. Risk-takers. Builders.
I say: The majority of modern finance isn’t building—it’s bleeding.
From housing bubbles to student debt slavery, what’s being “risked” is other people’s futures, not your own. We’ve built a system where algorithms eat dreams for breakfast and still ask for dessert.
Not all capital creates. Some capital just consumes with a better PR team.
3. Wealth is Moral (If Earned)? That’s Cute.
Rand says: If you earn it, you deserve it.
I say: Sure—if.
But in a rigged system, that “if” is doing the heavy lifting.
Try being born without capital, connections, or generational safety nets and see how “deserving” gets defined. This country builds billionaires off underpaid labor, subsidized infrastructure, and tax loopholes.
You don’t hate the rich. You just hate bedtime stories pretending they built it all by themselves.
4. Collectivism Is Evil? Nah. It’s Survival.
Rand says: Altruism is immoral. Collectivism is cancer. Serve only yourself.
I say: What the entire fuck? That’s not philosophy. That’s a sociopath with a thesaurus.
We’re social organisms living on a shared planet. The social contract isn’t weakness—it’s architecture. You want clean air? Functioning hospitals? Disaster relief? Then you better believe in collective solutions.
Being strong doesn’t mean going it alone. It means knowing when to build something bigger than your ego.
5. Markets Protect Freedom? Not Without Guardrails.
Rand says: Capitalism respects individual choice. No one is forced.
I say: From mouths of the privileged. That’s a lie dressed in theory.
When your “choice” is between starvation and minimum wage, that’s not freedom—it’s structural coercion. You didn’t opt in. You were boxed in.
No one’s free when their only options are survival or submission.
6. Altruism is Vice? No, It’s the Only Reason We’re Still Here.
Rand says: Living for others is immoral. Prioritize your self-interest.
I say: And that’s why the planet’s on fire.
If every person lived as though they owed nothing to anyone, we’d be extinct. Cooperation built civilization. Self-interest alone burns it down.
Altruism isn’t weakness—it’s a recognition that we rise or fall together. Period.
7. Government Exists Only to Protect Property?
Rand says: The state should only enforce contracts and guard property.
I say: LOL. Remember States’ Rights (oh, that’s right it still exists, look it up). The people are the state.
And they need more than just a nightwatchman for the rich. They need a government that protects rights beyond the dollar—like access to education, health, and justice.
What good is protecting property if you trample humanity to do it?
The Real Problem: It’s Not Ayn Rand. It’s What She Gives You Permission to Be.
She appeals to every money-hungry, accountability-averse MFer who wants moral cover for being indifferent to the suffering of others.
She isn’t a prophet. She’s a permission slip.
She taps into our most primitive instinct: self-preservation.
But that instinct alone can’t build a future. It can only protect what you already have—usually at someone else’s expense.
What we need is more evolved:
→ A philosophy that balances self with society.
→ A strategy that prizes contribution over conquest.
→ A framework that honors complexity, not just capital.
We all share this planet. Its resources are plentiful—but only if we stop pretending that hoarding is heroic.
You want to play Atlas? Fine. But when the world starts to crumble, don’t pretend you didn’t help shake it.
For those of us building new systems,
Not escaping into bunkers or books about heroic CEOs—
We’re done pretending Rand is a map. I’ve been done since I read her stuff in Coleman Library as a preteen. I thought she was fucked up then and I still think that years later.
She’s just a mirror. A blurred one.