If that is part of your definition of altruism, then you have won this argument. I have read all the non-fiction books. I agree with your analysis of Wynand. Toohey does call for altruism. I haven't read The Fountainehead in a long enough time to remember if Toohey selflessly did something for someone else. Often Tooheys and Obamas will do something that appears to be done selflessly for the behalf of others, but they definitely get value. They own the people they interact with.

Touche.

The demagogue means me, myself, and I, but says we, us, and our to accomplish his objective. I never said that demagogues had healthy egos. Just like someone who is obese, you can have too much of an otherwise good thing.

The useful idiots definitely were altruistic. No arguments there.

I didn't say that a narcissist's ego was healthy, but I certainly implied that the narcissist's ego was monumental in size.

A common theme of these demagogue types seems to be a very excessive use of "We" and "Us" and "Our" when making those big long winded speeches.
You would expect an actual Egoist to use "me", "myself" and "I" most of the time.

yes, useful idiots. intellectuals with half information, sloppy seconds in thinking out the moral justification for their opinions, instance thinkers-ignoring tomorrow, cynical jabbers, getting everyone to laugh at moral individuals' expense....high school

"calling for sacrifice" is only half of the puzzle. How did the tyrannical authority get to the point where it could so easily call for sacrifice? You needed those willing (educated/trained) subjects who are ready to sacrifice themselves to the greater good of the call of duty as demanded by their authority. This mass mindset, in the name of some altruistic motive, leads to those horrific tyrants.

systematically their freedoms were removed, often with their useful idiot compliance. One day they awoke to find a gun trained at their head when just recently they dutifully supported gun control...or they wanted a vibrant economy but they were against patents as aggression. suddenly, they found themselves without a job...

no, but he would like you to support his secretary which he does not

I disagree. a narcissist does not nurture a healthy ego

yes.

Plop down the next next four Google dictionary definitions for "Egoist" and get many subjectively contradicting answers. The word has been made into yet another anti-concept. The word seems mean what ever the person feels it means:

a believer in egoism
an egocentric or egotistic person

a doctrine that individual self-interest is the actual motive of all conscious action
a doctrine that individual self-interest is the valid end of all actions
excessive concern for oneself with or without exaggerated feelings of self-importance

One devoted to one's own interests and advancement; an egocentric person.
An egotist.
An adherent of egoism.

a self-centered or selfish person.
an arrogantly conceited person; egotist.
an adherent of egoism.

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"...you ought to discover some day that words have an exact meaning."
- Atlas Shrugged

Yes, the demand of tyrants for sacrifice is altruism. Have you read _The Fountainhead_? Rand's portrait of Elsworth Toohey is the definitive altruist. His final engagement with Peter Keating was reprinted in _For the New Intellectual_ as "The Soul of a Collectivist." Gail Wynand is tragic in the classical Greek sense because he was not meant to be a second-hander. His single flaw was the assumption that the only choice is to rule or be ruled. He says near the end that he held the public by a leash, but a leash is only a rope with a noose at both ends. Again, it is the concern for others, making others your reality.

Please request your definition to be added to the dictionary so that others outside the Gulch can learn it.

No, objective eogism is not solipsism. Like "capitalism" and "selfishness" and "logic" and many other words, the common or vernacular meaning found in the dictionary is _not_ an authoritative or technically correct meaning. You know that we conflate "mass" and "weight" in common speech. Look at any package in a grocery store. "weight" is given in kilograms, not newtons. And that's OK... except for engineering and anything else consequential. So, too, here.

When Rand wrote _The Fountainhead_ egoist and egoTist were synonymous. Objectivist psychology points out that the egoTist needs other people and is not an egoist.

"Arrogant" and "conceited" are labels ascribed to you by others.Typically, they say that when you do not notice them. That does not apply to a politician of any stripe: they do notice other people. Arrogant, conceited people often actually appear socially humble and withdrawn: they do not socialize well. One diagnosis that I do not like but find useful is "Asperger Syndrome." Someone like that never becomes a leader. But in our common culture today, arrogant and conceited certainly describe Dr. Sheldon Cooper of "The Big Bang Theory." Common folk reject the arrogant and conceited. Those common folk are the very people whom the leader needs to be a leader.

I think we are going to have to agree to disagree on that definition because a tyrant thinks nothing is bigger than he is. I think we have taken this very interesting discussion about as far as we can take it. Good night.

Tyrants do not have massive egos. They have massive "somethings" but ego does not describe it. What they have is a massive need for approval, maybe a massive sense of participating in something "bigger than themselves."

Yes, I am using "ego" in the Freudian sense. As I remember, he invented the term.

From dictionary.com
noun
1. a self-centered or selfish person (opposed to altruist ).
2. an arrogantly conceited person; egotist.
3. an adherent of the metaphysical principle of the ego, or self; solipsist.

Certainly a tyrant fits the first two definitions of egoist. I believe you are using the third definition. Am I correct?

A tyrant is not an objectivist because a tyrant asks other men to live for his. On that, we can agree.

Those people of whom you speak were bullied into caving on their values in the same way that Rearden was, and that is the point of your entire disagreement with me over the last week or so. Your point is solid.

The only disagreement we have is over the tyrant himself.

The demagogue speaks of their service, but they serve only themselves and those who pay for them to get elected. They do not altruistically give things away; ironically they trade value of food stamps, welfare, etc. in exchange for the value of a vote. For the tyrant or demagogue, everything has a selfish purpose.

An ego that needs sacrifice to sustain it is a contradiction in terms. You are using the word "ego" in some Freudian or other kind of colloquial sense, not any objective way. An ego is self-sufficient. Someone who needs the sacrifices of others is not an egoist.

To answer your other question: Yes, the need for sacrifices is altruism. It depends on others without whom it could not happen.

That is why Galt's oath has two parts: "I swear by my life, and by my love of it, never to live for the sake of another man, or ask another man to live for mine."

I agree with much of what you said, Mike, but I don't equate altruism and virtue. Should I have used the word "nor" instead of "or"?

Do you not see tyrants as having massive egos? Tyrants sacrifice nothing of their own and have no concern for others, other than to demand their sacrifice. It is the demand of others' sacrifice that I see as the opposite of virtue. The "sacrificing nothing of their own" can be virtuous for Objectivists, but no Objectivist would demand the sacrifices of others.

I think it's literally impossible to live for someone else, and that altruism is a dangerous form of delusion.