Since one of the ongoing comment threads has gotten into a discussion of Ayn Rand, since she was in the blogs a lot this week because of this Stephen Moore article for the WSJ, and since few if any intellectual figures have done as much to shape the secular right in modern America, let’s make her the topic of a (polite, civil) open thread.
Rand famously did not want opposition to organized religion to be regarded as one of the defining aspects of her thinking, not because she was the slightest bit apologetic about her stand, but simply because other battles interested her more. As one writer notes, she aimed her fire on numerous occasions at pronouncements of the Roman Catholic hierarchy and the Vatican, while saying little that was specific to Protestantism (or Eastern Orthodoxy, Judaism, Islam, etc.). At any rate, some resources on Rand’s views of religion and faith can be found here, here, here, and (video) here.
What sets Ayn Rand apart from other atheist thinkers is her groundbreaking alternative to a system of ethics based on faith. Her objective ethics represent the final detachment of man from church; the preacher is no longer needed.
Ayn Rand’s greatest contribution to the realm of political philosophy was her explicit moral defense of capitalism. Too many defenders of capitalism on the political right are lukewarm on capitalism. They argue that it “works” (in the sense of delivering material prosperity), but regard the essential element of capitalism (the pursuit of one’s self-interest) as morally suspect. For instance, Irving Kristol only gives capitalism “two cheers” in his famous book by the same title because he regards capitalism as lacking an essential moral dimension.
In contrast, Rand argued that capitalism is moral precisely because it allows men to pursue their self-interest. At an implicit level, most Americans understand this. They want to be happy, prosper, and pursue goals and values that are important to their own lives.
And this country is a beacon of hope to millions of people around the world precisely because it promises an “American dream” where honest, hard-working people can make a better life for themselves. It is this promise that drew my parents to America from Taiwan over 40 years ago. They came over to this country with little more than the clothes on their back. But they worked hard, prospered, sent two children to medical school, and are now enjoying a happy and well-earned retirement.
Many thinkers on the right do a very good job defending capitalism on economic grounds. But capitalism needs a moral defense as well. Right-leaning thinkers too-often find themselves losing the political debate to leftists who claim the moral high ground by attacking capitalism as “selfish” and promoting socialism as noble precisely because it isn’t selfish. Americans want to “do what’s right”, so if a leftist tells them that capitalism is immoral whereas socialism is moral, they’ll keep falling for leftist demagogues even though socialist ideas never work in practice.
For this reason, intellectuals on the right need to proudly and unabashedly defend capitalism as moral — not despite the fact that it allows men to pursue their self-interest but *because* it allows men to pursue their self-interest.
Ayn Rand was the first thinker to make this fully moral defense of capitalism to the American people. For our sakes, I hope she’s not the last.
Paul Hsieh, MD
Freedom and Individual Rights in Medicine (FIRM)
http://www.WeStandFIRM.org
I have long considered shuttering away explosive terms like “capitalism” in my normal conversations in favor of terms that could better gain me entrée into diverse political conversations. However, capitalism, I now believe, cannot simply be called something else merely to sooth the nervous minds and sensibilities of its duplicitous opponents, the anti-capitalists. It is they who attempt to obfuscate their intentions through the disingenuous manipulations of language and ideas. We could at least set ourselves apart on precisely this point: by saying what we mean and meaning what we say.
I think it is long past time to be squeamish about important ideas. It is imperative that we precisely set the terms of the debate and clearly distinguish ideas that favor liberty — in the social, economic and political arenas — from those that do not. What better litmus test than to have clear and consistent Objectivist ideas forthrightly upheld with substance and conviction.
If some terminology is from time to time shown to be wrong or wrongly used, the error should be corrected and clarifications made. If it is right, it should be embraced and promoted for what it is. We cannot ‘synonym’ our way around a foundational idea. If the term “capitalism” suffers disrepute, then surely it falls upon us to restore it.
I am in agreement with the articulate posts above. The WSJ editorial is getting wide-spread attention, which has a certain ironic justice to it; the viral attempted slap-downs against Ayn Rand — all the way to Obama — which followed Greenspan’s perfidious and craven attempt to save his reputation by throwing Miss Rand under the bus, had their moment. I must say the Objectivist community responded effectively with correcting counter-posts across hundreds of blogs and news sites. The overt game of blaming Ayn Rand has no legs.
What the smear did not take into account is that millions of people have actually read Atlas Shrugged and know that Objectivism is not only not to blame for the current implosion, but that Ayn Rand predicted this as the consequence of a mixed economy and evasion of economic reality, and also traced the causation right down to the very root. This is why Stephen Moore’s piece has traction.
By the way, my one-liner deconstruction of any attempt to inculcate Rand by Greenspan was: “Greenspan wallowed in the job that John Galt refused to take, even though tortured to take it: dictator of the economy.”
As far as “secular” is concerned, Mr. Olson correctly points out that Rand was only interested in denouncing religion to the extent it intruded itself upon the ethics and politics of mankind. I see it as brushing away an annoying mosquito, albeit a disease-carrying one. Her true fire was devoted to a proactive enlightenment of man qua man.
John Donohue
Pasadena, CA
While the importance of Ms. Rand’s positions on ethics and politics cannot be understated (and in fact it was her ethics that initially drew me to her works), I think that the most important aspect of Rand’s work to focus on and advocate in the public right now is her epistemology, specifically her view of knowledge. Even (especially?) the academics and educated people I deal with regularly are mired in an insidious skepticism, where they doubt on a fundamental level their (or anyone else’s) ability to know anything at all. People need to understand what knowledge is and is not, how it is acquired, and that we are capable of knowing reality. Skepticism among the educated is poison to our intellectual culture and leave us with only one other means to problem-solve and make decisions: our feelings. Before we focus on questions of ethics and politics, there is the seemingly simple yet elusive task of getting everyone to agree that there is one reality, that reality exists prior to consciousness of it, and that this reality is intelligible to our senses and minds. Until we can get there, going further is futile.
Enlightenment economists discovered that Capitalism produced great wealth. Yet, they were apologetic about its selfishness. Adam Smith famously explained that an “invisible hand” engineers the greatest common good by the means of individual selfishness. Thus, the moral justification for Capitalism remained “the common good”, the good of society, or something similar.
Rand rejected this moral argument. In her Ethics, Rand’s placed rational selfishness itself as the core of goodness. Some enlightenment thinkers had seen the pursuit of happiness as one part of moral goodness, but all of them continued to retain altruism as a moral primary. Rand rejected this. The pursuit of happiness was the fundamental reason for any human action, and the cornerstone of a code of action (i.e of a moral code). Charity was fine, as a secondary, but not the essence of moral virtue.
If we rejecting altruism, and accept rational selfishness as a moral virtue, then a system that gives men individual rights, to allow them to pursue their own happiness, is a moral system. It needed no auxiliary moral justification. To Rand a moral society was one where government protected individual rights (in their traditional narrow sense of life, property and action) and did little else. That was her vision of what Capitalism ought to be.
It’s one thing to stand opposed to a specific idea, but it’s entirely different to advocate for your own idea. In the case of religion, you can simply be against it, i.e., the atheist standpoint, or you can be an advocate of your own specific ideals, in Rand’s case it was Objectivism. Throughout her body of work there is little said on the topic of atheism. Considering Rand’s attempt to present an entire integrated system of philosophy based upon reason, it shouldn’t be too hard to understand why. It would be much easier to explain what your philosophy is rather then spending all your time telling others what it is not. And as far as religion goes Rand understood that such questions were a minor part of philosophy in general. She made clear that fundamentally it was either Reason or Faith. From her 1964 Playboy Interview:
PLAYBOY: Has no religion, in your estimation, ever offered anything of constructive value to human life?
RAND: Qua religion, no—in the sense of blind belief, belief unsupported by, or contrary to, the facts of reality and the conclusions of reason. Faith, as such, is extremely detrimental to human life: it is the negation of reason. But you must remember that religion is an early form of philosophy, that the first attempts to explain the universe, to give a coherent frame of reference to man’s life and a code of moral values, were made by religion, before men graduated or developed enough to have philosophy. And, as philosophies, some religions have very valuable moral points. They may have a good influence or proper principles to inculcate, but in a very contradictory context and, on a very—how should I say it?—dangerous or malevolent base: on the ground of faith.
http://www.aynrandlexicon.com/lexicon/religion.html
What Rand did in the field of philosophy was for the first time in history present an objective argument for reason starting from metaphysics through epistemology, ethics, politics, and aesthetics. If you become an advocate of reason then the term “secular” can become redundant.
Thanks for the open thread on one of my favorite subjects, Walter. I too am impressed with the quality of all the comments so far, and I notice with delight that I do not recognize any of them as among the regulars hereabouts. I hope they stick around and comment more.
I particularly agree with this assessment that her epistemology is as or more relevant to the ills of our society, than her ethics at this point. I have been a devotee of Ayn Rand for over thirty years and an admirer, proponent, and practitioner of Maria Montessori’s Method of education for the past twelve.
Only recently, I discovered that there was a nexus between them. I was aware that many years ago, my partner was the Montessori teacher for the children of Leonard Peikoff and others at the Ayn Rand Institute; but I assumed that was just an accident. Then I stumbled across an article by Michael S. Berliner, Ph.D. entitled “Ayn Rand and Education,” which is remarkable for being 27 years old:
He then offers eleven points for consideration. Among them:
He is right about the confusion in the Montessori ranks, and regrettably I must report that the Montessori Method is being severely corrupted in America, by modern Montessorians’ ill-conceived quest for recognition by mainstream academia, and the attempts to shoehorn the Method into rigid public school curricula. Authentic Montessori programs are still available in the private sector; but the name is in the public domain and anyone can call their school a Montessori school, whether or not it provides an authentic Montessori curriculum. Caveat emptor.
At the end of the article, are some interesting quotes. I liked Peikoff’s:
Then, by Ayn Rand herself:
Finally, if you are unfamiliar with Montessori philosophy and at all interested in exploring it, I recently published an essay entitled, “Spontaneous Minds,” which covers the way in which the Montessori Method nurtures the spontaneous process children use to create their own minds, by interaction with their environment, during the crucial preschool years. ◄Dave►
It looks like I’m about to step in it, but I’ve always thought of Objectivism being to philosophy what the Austrian School is to economics. It produces a far-reaching system from a small number of axioms, and tends to get things almost right in a great many uninteresting cases, but completely fails to bend when facts about the world or mankind differ from what it claims they ought to be. In general, both think much too highly of man as a rational animal. I think that this type of thing tends to appeal to reasonably intelligent non-experts – it’s very tempting for them to suppose that the correct theory is a simple and elegant axiomatic system. For example, one can sound knowledgeable in economics while having given relatively little thought to the subject by working from Austrian premises.
I enjoyed the Fountainhead, and what I’ve read of Atlas Shrugged, but I’ve never understood how someone could take moral guidance from them. There’s something conflicted about literature that relies so heavily on emotional appeals to make a point about the supremacy of reason.
Hello, Gotchaey. You characterize Objectivism as a far-reaching system produced from a small number of axioms. Now, Objectivism *recognizes* a small number of philosophical axioms as fundamental and inescapable facts at the base of all thought, but Objectivism is most certainly not *derived* from them. You have it exactly backwards: gaining knowledge of the world is fundamentally an inductive process, not a deductive one, and philosophical knowledge such as Objectivism is no exception (which Objectivism explicitly recognizes). If you want to understand the what and the how of the system, I recommend the (notably nonfiction) book _Objectivism_ by Dr. Leonard Peikoff, which provides a brilliant overview of both the content and method of Rand’s philosophy.
Another common confusion you seem to have fallen prey to is taking Rand’s/Aristotle’s recognition of man as “the rational animal” to mean that people are and/or must be rational in their thinking. But in fact, they only mean that we are a species with the *capacity* for reason — and Objectivism is explicit in recognizing that people possess volition and need not be rational. Indeed, the core message of the Objectivist morality is that people *should* be rational — *if* they wish to live full, happy lives. For a brilliant introduction to the Objectivist ethics, I recommend the small (nonfiction) book _Loving Life: The Morality of Self-Interest and the Facts that Support It_ by Craig Biddle — and if you are interested in a more meaty presentation and analysis, I recommend Dr. Tara Smith’s (nonfiction) _Ayn Rand’s Normative Ethics: The Virtuous Egoist_ from Cambridge University Press.
I think Gotchaye above me expresses the opinion that Objectivism is produced from a small number of axioms, that it fails to connect with the world at large, and that it puts up an impossible standard of rationality for men.
Now this statement about axioms is partially true. Each point in Objectivism can be reduced back to basic axioms. However, that is not how one comes to understand it, and it is not how Ayn Rand came to discover it. They are self-evident primaries that are useful in proving why the normal nonsense in philosophy is incorrect (things like the idea that to be perceived is to exist, or that consciousness can be reduced to material machinations). However, Ayn Rand stressed the point that philosophy isn’t a deductive subject. One doesn’t begin with point A and just naturally arrive at point Z. This is mysticism, the idea that the mind can naturally float from one point to the next.
Ayn Rand’s belief in the self-evident nature of man’s faculty of perception, meant that, unlike most other philosophers, one could learn about the world, about men and about oneself, by observing the world and oneself. She paid strict attention, like the ancient Greek philosophers, to what exactly things are, how they behave, how they are effected by things, the things they are capable of doing, etc etc. She studied how she thought and how she acted, and how other men acted.
From this great wealth of evidence, she started to see the patterns, to draw out the essentials. She saw that there were certain methods of acting, certain conditions which produced the best life for men, which produced happiness. I might add, at this point, that she made the point that she couldn’t have developed the political part of her philosophy if she hadn’t learnt about the Industrial Revolution and contrasted it with Soviet Russia. She had to understand man’s action in all these situations to be able to validly induce exactly what was proper to man.
And what did Ayn Rand learn from studying herself and studying other men, both past and present? She learned that there were certain virtues that men could heed which would bring about great happiness. She learned that happiness is /good/ and should be sought. She saw that, by following these virtues, one could not validly claim that one’s self-interest conflicted with another mans.
I am trying to make it clear here that she wasn’t born with Objectivism ingrained in her mind, that she wasn’t taught it by some cynical professor, that she didn’t mystically divine her philosophy. She /learned/ it. And she lived by it. And she proved that it works. She learned it from reality and it is a philosophy about reality. She learned it by living and comparing it to how other men lived, so it is fair to call it a philosophy for living.
If you want to learn about it, I suggest you read The Fountainhead and Atlas Shrugged. The poster above me tries to make the point that literature appeals predominantly to emotion rather than reason. In fact, he doesn’t attempt to prove it, he just states it. Whilst her fiction is gripping and emotionally involving, it is that because of the highly engaging subject matter. One doesn’t shut off one’s mind when one reads. One has to think, one has to make the connections oneself. A writer lays it all out there for a reader, but he has to engage his mind and thinks. Ayn Rand’s works are written in a manner that they can be just enjoyed as a Good triumphing over Evil story; however, peel back the layers, and you can really enjoy the much more fundamental points being made. It invites you to start inducing Objectivism for yourself. It shows you how different men choose to exist, what guides their lives, and tries to convince you that there are certain things contrary to man’s survival, and certain things conducive to it. Read, and decide for yourself if you are convinced.
“…but completely fails to bend when facts about the world or mankind differ from what it claims they ought to be.”
So what is your suggestion, if you feel she has put her finger correctly on the way things “ought to be” — to abandon a normative system proper for man in favor of the status quo, or to urge mankind to rise?
In other words, just because (in your estimation), much of humanity acts irrationally, why should Objectivism bend?
John Donohue
Pasadena, CA
Responding to the notion of ‘epistemology first’ made by The Kat ….
Yes of course Objectivist ethics and politics can only gain purchase if the Objectivist epistemological system is in place.
And as remarked, first must come a metaphysical transformation, the ascendancy of Primacy of Existence over Primacy of Consciousness.
I usually gauge the sophistication of a radical Skeptic by bouncing them with a typical challenge when they formulate some variant of “There are no absolutes,” or “We can know nothing for certain.” I’ll respond to the later with “Are you absolutely certain of that?” If they don’t blink and instead get all high and mighty with a big “Yes I am” I know they are just parroting what the Establishment intellectuals have fed them. If instead they give me a dubious sneer and shut up, I know they know the utter nihilism that lies at their feet and I know they know I know.
That much absolute knowing is at least a little compensation for the encounter.
John Donohue
Pasadena, CA
The problem with Objectivism is the Objectivists. They’re even more tedious and dogmatic than Libertarians (note the capital L — I’m a libertarian myself but can’t stand Libertarians).
Tedious and dogmatic, or principled and consistent?
@Anonymous Coward
I always refer to myself as a small (L) libertarian also. I rarely make the distinction, since so few people have ever even heard of objectivism, much less understand it; but when I do, I use a small (O). All attempts to organize fiercely independent people are doomed to failure, for the same reason that one cannot herd pigs or cats. That said, I think I would take issue with the notion that Ayn Rands philosophy is dogma. Perhaps I am blinded by common sense; but to me, it seems quite the opposite. ◄Dave►
That’s not a refutation of Objectivism. It’s a classic example of an ad hominem fallacy.
This is so typical of Ayn Rand’s critics. They rarely have anything substantive and factual to say about Ayn Rand’s ideas.
God forbid this turns into the typical, uninteresting shouting about Rand. It seems to me it would be more profitable to talk about what things Rand really contributed that were new. It’s correct that Rand did an excellent job presenting a moral defense of capitalism, and I think her work in epistemology was also new and good and convincing. But one thing I think a lot of people tend to overlook is Rand as an atheist defender of natural rights. It’s actually pretty rare in the natural rights tradition to find someone defending that position without appealing to religion–which I consider pretty ironic, since the whole point is supposed to be that these rights are natural, not supernatural. But just about every major natural rights thinker I know of appeals to God as the source of these rights–thus, in my view, rendering the theory vulnerable on its face. This is especially true in light of evolution, which convinced many philosophers that there just was no such thing as a human nature which could serve as the source of these rights. If human nature is malleable, then human beings’ needs and desires are malleable, and therefore any rights argument that appeals to those needs and desires is really just subjective or culturally relative. Rights, these people thought, were really just social conventions.
What Rand did was to defend a theory of natural rights that really is natural–i.e., based on the objective, real facts of human nature. Rand does not try to argue for an unchanging human nature by the tactic of denying evolution (which is, sadly, the calamitous tactic taken by many conservatives). Instead, at this point, her epistemology comes in quite effectively: she recognizes that when we’re talking about human nature, we’re talking about a concept, and these concepts are not themselves metaphysically real, although their referents are. The long and the short of it is that while human nature may gradually change due to evolution, it remains true that humans have a nature, and that nature requires certain things for flourishing, and rights are the political implementation of some of these things.
Rand’s rights theory deserves much more thorough discussion than a blog-post-comment; my point here is just to say that people sometimes overlook what an interesting and unusual thing it is for Rand to defend a natural rights theory without appealing to mysticism.
Ayn Rand is the second of the two greatest philosophers in man’s history. Her work in epistemology, ethics and esthetics are evidence of the originality and scope of her thought and work. Her identification of the way in which man forms concepts is the most important and far-reaching contribution to human knowledge since Aristotle’s identification of the principles of logic and the law of identity. Her work in ethics is unparalleled in setting men free from the domination of state and church by offering the first systematic discussion of man’s right to exist for his own sake and keep the results of his own efforts. Her esthetics is the first to identify and define what art is and to clarify the meaning of art and its spiritual importance to man.
All her other wortk is secondary to these three great achievements. For it is these three that are at the root of and provide the foundations of her writings on the crucial and central role of reason in man’s life, on man’s rights, capitalism, the nature of government, individualism and the psychological foundations and meaning of art.
In toto, Ayn Rand’s philosophy of Objectivism offers individuals certainty—which feeds their ambition and results in their happiness. Her philosophy will add years to man’s existence and has jump-started an entirely “new ball game” in his continuing accumulation of knowledge.
Sylvia Bokor
https://sites.google.com/site/branchessite
I can attest to Timothy’s assertion that historical arguments for natural rights have been grounded in divine appeal, ultimately to their own detriment. For all the influence that Locke had on the founding fathers and their desire to uphold and protect individual rights, the acceptability of his arguments hinged on a) his ability to interpret scripture for his purposes, b) his ability to persuade readers that his interpretation is accurate, and c) his readers’ willingness to accept divine authority. Locke could have no defense against alternative interpretations of scripture if they arbitrarily happened to be more appealing; and given an entirely different audience, such as Soviet Russia, his entire argument would be rejected before it even got started.
Note that Ayn Rand’s discoveries about individual rights are consistent with her recognition that life is a “process of self-sustaining, self-generated action.” To live is to act–and the most fundamental of man’s actions is to think. Thinking–a volitional act–requires freedom from physical coercion by others. This is the foundation of the moral principle of rights, and of a proper political system. Capitalism is the only moral system because it is the only system consistent with man’s nature as a being of volitional consciousness, who must think and produce in order to live.
(Faith is a short-circuit in one’s thinking, which demands that a man accept a conclusion in defiance of the facts. Thus faith is deeply hostile to the essence of human life. It is no accident that where faith is accepted as a principle of government, censorship and the inquisition soon follow.)
Such identifications demonstrate that Ayn Rand did not deduce her philosophic system from a set of axioms–she came to the axioms by observation, and by inductively drawing broad abstract conclusions about what she saw.
Hi Everyone,
Ayn Rand was the first person to define and present a rational philosophy for living in this universe. Once you read her works, you’ll have a rational philosophical base with which you can evaluate the ideas of the so called “experts” around you, in newspapers, on radio, on TV etc. You’ll come to the conclusion that these so called “experts” have massive flaws in their thinking and their ideas.
Everyone must read her works. For example, after reading her works, you will :
1) Understand why selfishness is moral.
2) Libertarianism doesn’t have a rational philosophical base.
3) Sacrifice is evil.
4) Capitalism is the only moral social-economic system.
etc etc.
I also have a group on facebook that I would like to invite all of you to join.
Many thanks,
Regards.
I think Ayn Rand is often misunderstood by the Right, or rather, by Conservatives. Many conservatives like Rush Limbaugh have sung praises of her magnum opus “Atlas Shrugged”, while they also call for the non-religious of the Republican party to leave it. The Christian conservatives who truly understand Rand ought to despise her. Rand, as Paul Hsieh pointed out, offered a true moral defense of capitalism. That is her major contribution to the realm of politics. Her ethics of self interest is diametrically opposed to the self-sacrificial ethics of Christianity and most religions. So if the Right is to be understood as the side that favors Capitalism, Rand is the most important figure in it of all time, without a qualifier of “secular”. She was the first to offer the moral defense of capitalism, and any person who takes their mantra of laissez-faire seriously is in debt to Rand.
Of course her philosophy is more than political, and I also believe her most important contribution to the world may be in epistemology and metaphysics, not in politics. I suggest reading her “Introduction To Objectivist Epistemology” and then reading “Objectivism: The Philosophy of Ayn Rand” by Leonard Peikoff, her intellectual heir.
Anonymous Coward said:
“The problem with Objectivism is the Objectivists.”
That has the ring of truth about it. Too many Objectivists parrot Ayn Rand’s style of argumentation (“Where are your premises?”, “What is your epistemology?”) without matching her brilliance and wisdom.
Of course, Rand herself had her own psychological demons to contend with and they helped make her circle of adherents seem a bit cult-like. I think anyone who subscribes to any philosophy to the extent that they identify themselves as a “—ist” anything, including “I am an Objectivist” is, as Ayn Rand would have appreciated, a second hander by definition. However, there are a lot of good ideas in “The Fountainhead” and “Atlas Shrugged” and the books represent important milestones in the development of libertarianism.
They are also very entertaining books to read. I prefer “The Fountainhead” myself since the characters of Roark, Dominique, Toohey and Wynand are very clearly defined archetypes and Rand’s skills as a dramatist are put to excellent use in some of the scenes in the book. (In particular, the scene at the party where Roark and Dominique are re-introduced and pretend not to know each other is electrically charged with tension.)
Ellsworth Toohey is the character that conservatives love to hate. Of course, he is an archetype, and it is difficult to map real people onto archetypes, but there are certainly many people I can think of who invite the comparison. Whenever I hear the results of the Turner Prize, for instance, I am reminded of Ellsworth Toohey.
Does anyone know if the filming of “Atlas Shrugged” with Angelina Jolie is still on track? I think she would actually make a pretty good Dagny Taggart, but if they choose Brad Pitt for John Galt, Tim Robbins for Ragnar Danneskjold and Sean Penn for Francisco d’Anconia I will know not to expect too much from it…
TrueNorth writes, “I think anyone who subscribes to any philosophy to the extent that they identify themselves as a “—ist” anything, including “I am an Objectivist” is, as Ayn Rand would have appreciated, a second hander by definition.”
This is a terrible way to conceive of the virtue of independence. Being someone who lives by an unborrowed vision and a firsthanded grasp of reality is an entirely separate matter from whether or not one is an *innovator*; the first is a moral issue, and the second isn’t. It would not be second-handed to learn, say, principles of mechanics from Newton, geometry from Euclid, philosophy from Aristotle and Rand. Rather, it is second-handed to take Newton, Euclid, Aristotle, Rand, or anyone on faith, adopting ideas (even true ideas) on their authority without actually grasping those truths oneself.
So it really depends on the truth of the “ism” as well as whether one has earned the “ist” which denotes living up to (or down to) it. I for one am proud of becoming an Objectivist, as I am certain Rand was as well.
@TrueNorth
I disagree. See the discussion on “case” above. Words are symbolic shorthand for ideas, from simple to complex. When I say I am an objectivist, I only intend to impart, with the economy of a single word, that I generally agree with the philosophy of Ayn Rand. I do not mean that I agree with every word she ever wrote, or that I am on a life mission to convert every other mind in the world to agree with her every word.
Nor, is the second-hander charge fair. I came to the general libertarian / objectivist mindset through life experiences and independent thought, long before I had heard either word. Reading Atlas Shrugged as a young man, validated my contrarian contumacious worldview, and further study of her works offered me a comfortable philosophical home. Living my own guiltless, productive, victimless, and joyful life by rational objectivist principles has been most rewarding.
As a final analogy, when one calls oneself a “Christian,” it imparts a generally understood message. Yet, among them, there are all manner of sects who disagree over what the word means, and many will argue vehemently over what a “true” Christian is. That does not negate the usefulness of the word, as a shorthand for a complex concept, and in normal conversation does not elicit a demand to define precisely what one meant by employing it. ◄Dave►
I agree with Mr. Hsieh. I think Ayn Rand’s eloquent defense of capitalism as a completely moral system crucially advanced political philosophy. If you haven’t seen this 50 minute clip, I’d highly recommend it as a beautifully honest and concise statement.
http://www.aynrand.org/site/PageServer?pagename=reg_ls_capitalism_without_guilt
Ayn Rand spoke of “the American sense of life”. Americans have long held certain values. To name a few:
One should think for oneself and work hard for one’s own prosperity.
One should be free to do so (free from government interference) .
One is responsible for oneself — responsible for supporting oneself and responsible for the results of one’s own actions, for better or for worse. One’s consequences are one’s own, and one’s rewards are one’s own.
One should see things for what they are, and call a spade a spade.
One’s life and affairs are one’s own (enshrined in the phrase “Mind your own business!”)
What one produces (“earns”) is one’s own. We need no masters and no slaves.
One should do one’s best, do what one thinks is right, and be the best that one can be.
Some of these values were expressed by the Founding Fathers as the right to Life, Liberty, Property, and the Pursuit of Happiness. It was from this principle that America was born. American values were the finest product of the Enlightenment, the product of respect for reason. When Ayn Rand, as a young girl, learned of these values by studying America’s founding documents and history, she made the decision to immigrate to America. She embraced and championed American values, identified them explicitly, and integrated them into a complete, consistent philosophy of reason, rational self-interest, and laissez-faire capitalism (liberty). Implicit in the list above are rationality, honesty, integrity, independence, justice, productivity and pride. These are identified by Ayn Rand as virtues, because they are necessary to man’s life and happiness. In 1957, Rand presented her full philosophy in her classic novel “Atlas Shrugged”. For the first time, American values had a complete philosophical validation.
Today, American values are embattled like never before, and need new champions. What has made America different from other nations lies in which ideas Americans have held to be true and right. That difference is conditional. Will America will be a free nation? That depends on whether Americans embrace these ideas or let them go, just as it depended at her founding. The battle for America’s future is a battle of ideas. Ayn Rand supplied the intellectual ammunition with which liberty can be won and preserved. Articles applying Ayn Rand’s philosophy to current issues can be found at http://www.aynrandcenter.org An online lexicon of her ideas can be found at http://www.aynrandlexicon.com
i can’t believe everyone in this comment thread is a devotee of Ayn Rand!! either the Objectivists have some sort of script that trawls the internet looking for mentions of Rand or Secular Right is more infected than I thought it was. Maybe both. (now i wonder what kind of overlap there is between self-identified members of the “secular right” and self-identified “objectivists”…)
any discussion of Rand has to start and end with John Galt’s 3 hour speech in Atlas Shrugged. besides being batshit insane and mostly incoherent, the speech rests on an false assertion that humans are rational egoists that are capable of living harmoniously in a purely laissez-faire capitalist world. In fact, this flies in the face of everything that we know about human evolutionary psychology and is UNCONSERVATIVE in the extreme. i recoil in horror of what would happen if the Randians ever seized power and put their ideas into practice. At least Callicles, Herbert Spencer, and Nietzsche weren’t so deluded to believe that the ends of the individual are identical with those of the society.
“And therefore the endeavour to have more than the many, is conventionally said to be shameful and unjust, and is called injustice, whereas nature herself intimates that it is just for the better to have more than the worse, the more powerful than the weaker; and in many ways she shows, among men as well as among animals, and indeed among whole cities and races, that justice consists in the superior ruling over and having more than the inferior.”
–Callices from GORGIAS. morally repugnant, but also a coherent argument.
“But a government that initiates the employment of force against men who had forced no one, the employment of armed compulsion against disarmed victims, is a nightmare infernal machine designed to annihilate morality: such a government reverses its only moral purpose and switches from the role of protector to the role of man’s deadliest enemy… Only a brute, a fool or an evader can agree to exist on such terms.”
–John Galt. not so morally repugnant, but incoherent–in fact, irrational.
@Rachel Miner
Thanks for the link, Rachel. I enjoyed Dr. Brooks’ lecture. ◄Dave►
@raft
Probably more than is realized. If one removes religion from politics, which most hereabouts do, what remains on the Right that is so incompatible with objectivism? ◄Dave►
In fact, this flies in the face of everything that we know about human evolutionary psychology and is UNCONSERVATIVE in the extreme.
Too true. In Rand’s defense, she wouldn’t have accepted the label “conservative” anyhow, at least not in the sense that most accept it.
Atlas Shrugged has got to take the prize for the most under-edited work ever. About half of it should have been 86’d. For me, one of the most annoying things in the novel is her base axiom “Existence exists.” Well, thanks, Ayn. Four thousand years of serious investigation into the nature of existence, and you’ve decided to just ignore it. The characters are also annoyingly full of self-pity. It’s amazing how many times Dagny Taggart, a hero of self-sufficiency, whines about being put upon by others.
Still, the novel perdures. There are some good reasons for this. As others above have noted, Rand was one of the few novelists to put down a passionate defense for the free market. I think her chapter on the XXth Century Motor company is a great short story by itself. While nowhere near the quality, it’s analogous to Dostoevsky’s prose poem of the Grand Inquisitor. She again and again repeats the importance of creating wealth, which is a damned rare thing to find in any novel.
One of the most misunderstood things about Rand is the belief that she was all for making money any way you can. This is just not in the novel. In fact, she held the opposite view. Characters like Rourke, Galt and others turned down easy money for the sake of their integrity. I would urge any serious Randian or Objectivist to emphasize this side of her work, too. There really is an admirable sense of honor running through her work (if not her life).
Another point in her favor, back in 1964, she foresaw the collapse of the Soviet Union. That’s a pretty amazing insight for the time. When everyone was still cleaning their underwear from the Cuban Missile Crisis, she understood that the game was up for Communism, and said so in her Playboy interview. In Atlas Shrugged, Communism never makes an onstage appearance. The villains are New Dealers and their Corporatist allies. Thus, despite a lot of dated scenery and technology, the basic story still holds up quite well.
Well, say what you will about Rand’s philosophy (which I think is about 65-75% correct and about 25-35% wrong), one thing that we can all agree upon is that Atlas Shrugged, from a literary perspective, is one awful piece of writing. There are so many things which is pedestrian, substandard, ridiculous, and nonsensical about the characterizations, the plot, the theme, and the dialogue that it is difficult to know where to start.
There are so many things which is pedestrian, substandard, ridiculous, and nonsensical about the characterizations, the plot, the theme, and the dialogue that it is difficult to know where to start.
It convinced Officer Barbrady to never read another book again.
One of the most misunderstood things about Rand is the belief that she was all for making money any way you can. This is just not in the novel. In fact, she held the opposite view. Characters like Rourke, Galt and others turned down easy money for the sake of their integrity. I would urge any serious Randian or Objectivist to emphasize this side of her work, too. There really is an admirable sense of honor running through her work (if not her life).
Here, to me, has always been the weak link in Rand’s thinking. I agree that this “honor” element exists in the work. However, it is not easy, in my mind, to jibe with the rest of the ethos of “the individual over all.” While “integrity” may be internally driven, as a reflection of how one sees himself, “honor” is externally driven, how others sees him. But that, to me, is the weakness, because as soon as one takes a step down that path to improve one’s image among others, he is integrating social response into his actions. Rather than maximizing his own self-interest, he is taking into consideration his social position, which makes him not a “sovereign” individual, but a member of society, with the rights and responsibilities that go along with that.
If one could successfully pull of a massive pyramid scheme, and thereby achieving ultimate happiness for oneself, shouldn’t he do it under the Randian view?? Why hang on to “honor” when it can interfere with maximizing personal happiness??
Perhaps I am missing something here, and I would like to consider what some of our resident Randians would say about that.
Ah… yes, there is that, isn’t there… which is why I use the small (L) and the small (O), and why the Libertarian Party will never amount to more than a tiny percentage of rabid purists fighting with each other over minutia. It is also why I frequent Secular Right forums, rather than wasting time among the purists. We can stand on our lofty principles and eschew pragmatism, or we can acknowledge that we live in a real world where pragmatic steps in the right direction toward Liberty, even baby steps, would be infinitely better than the steady drift toward tyranny with the Incumbrepublocrats.
Perhaps it is because my rational mind vehemently rejects losing touch with reality, and thus I am not, and could not be, a user of intoxicants; but I am more than willing to take the drug issue off the table long enough to woo the conservatives into seeing the advantages of libertarian / objectivist principles. That single issue is the deal killer for 90% of the conservatives I try to talk to about libertarianism.
Couldn’t we ask the stoners to shut up, and just continue to stay out of sight while zoning out, long enough for us to build a Liberty coalition? We can work on the futility, terrible waste of resources, and the crime syndicates spawned by the “war on drugs,” after we have some political power; but at this rate we never will.
Another losing issue is security and open borders. There are Islamic Jihadist barbarians out there, who wish to kill us and destroy our society. We are being invaded by Mexico, and La Raza openly claims that they are retaking their Atzlan, one neighborhood at a time. Are we so wedded to our principles that we are blind to these realities? What point would there be to achieving an idyllic objectivist society, if our grandchildren ended up having to speak Spanish while they use their prayer rugs five times a day?
Color me pragmatic… I have been accused of it before; but John Galt didn’t eschew security measures in his mountain redoubt, and the moochers sure weren’t welcome there. Let’s make America one big Galt’s Gulch, safe from the barbarians and parasites outside. Most conservatives would go for that message; but they won’t buy our whole package until they have tried some tasty samples. Until we learn a little salesmanship, and get them nodding yes one step at time, they will continue to reject our product. ◄Dave►
No, no, no! God, no.
We need to cultivate a scientific and rational view of the world, not descend into dogma and religious faith. Your favored approach is an abomination.
Dave, why are you wasting your time trying to woo such people? They’re not interested in rational government.
If one could successfully pull of a massive pyramid scheme, and thereby achieving ultimate happiness for oneself, shouldn’t he do it under the Randian view?? Why hang on to “honor” when it can interfere with maximizing personal happiness??
A pyramid scheme would be, in Rand’s view, a violation of the non-aggression principle because it would rely on fraud. Since it’s based on delusion, your happiness wouldn’t be authentic. It would be an illusion, dependent on you keeping the fraud concealed.
“A pyramid scheme would be, in Rand’s view, a violation of the non-aggression principle because it would rely on fraud. Since it’s based on delusion, your happiness wouldn’t be authentic. It would be an illusion, dependent on you keeping the fraud concealed.”
Well, fraud need not be agressive. Indeed, fraud need not cause injury, yet can still be fraud, so I don’t believe that that argument truly follows. Further, there are those who would derive true happiness from sucessfully deluding others, so I cannot see how their happiness wouldn’t be authentic. If anything, it would be greater, because they would have the “selfish” happiness that the money will provide, plus the psychological happiness that defrauding others would buy. Finally, if one was able to abscond with the money to a country where there was no extradition treaty, it would not matter if the fraud were concealed. That person could enjoy the happiness of the money in security, so there would no illusory happiness, unless “happiness” incorporated (perhaps through the “honor” device), an obligation to others. But if that is the case, then how can one be certain that the obligation only extends as far as Rand suggests, and doesn’t extend to encompass more?
Depending upon others through dishonesty and violence makes you, in a way, a slave to others. This is totally contrary to individualism.
@Caledonian
I disagree. Plenty of conservatives are open to reason if presented reasonably. Unfortunately, the word libertarian has become almost as repulsive to a typical conservative as the word atheist. I have yet to meet the Christian I couldn’t have a somewhat reasonable conversation about religion with, if I refer to myself as a heathen or godless instead of an atheist. If I couch objectivist principles in terms of America’s “founding principles,” they strike a chord with conservatives, and I can talk them down out of the “will of the people” tree. As soon as I say atheist or libertarian, minds snap shut. ◄Dave►
I could not get past the stilted literary style of Atlas Shrugged and gave up maybe 150 pages in. The dialogue was excruciating: people giving long lectures to each other about the virtues of capitalism. Rand may have been a powerful philosopher, but she was not a particularly compelling novelist. Perhaps it’s a mistake to try to be both.
Well, fraud need not be agressive. Indeed, fraud need not cause injury, yet can still be fraud, so I don’t believe that that argument truly follows. Further, there are those who would derive true happiness from sucessfully deluding others, so I cannot see how their happiness wouldn’t be authentic.
While it’s true Rand traffics in universal absolutes, I have to wonder at the utility of finding someone so pathological that they enjoy deceiving others for the sake of it really counts as a counter-example.
At any rate, Rand argues that free trade depends on both parties being free to choose. However, if one party is being dishonest, then he’s depriving the other of his freedom to choose because his choice wasn’t fully informed. Fraud is in this way a form of force because you’re depriving someone of information.
As for fraud that doesn’t hurt, I don’t see what the point of the fraud would be. Again, it would be such a small part of human interaction I wonder if it’s really worth the bother of considering.
I could not get past the stilted literary style of Atlas Shrugged and gave up maybe 150 pages in.
It is a terrible chore, but if you can push through it, there are some great insights and chapters.
We the Living is a better Rand novel to start with. It’s short, concise and far more heartfelt because of it autobiographical nature.
Heather Mac Donald: i bet Plato could write a pretty good novel…
David: “If one removes religion from politics, which most hereabouts do, what remains on the Right that is so incompatible with objectivism?”
well, the way i personally think of conservatism is 1) a disposition to resist change and 2) a philosophy of doubt, humility, and realism. obviously you could define the “Right” differently; probably what we call “economic conservatism” today is compatible with objectivism. But i don’t see how you could be both, say, a Burkean conservative and an Objectivist. Burke was very suspicious of radicalism and sanctimony.
“While it’s true Rand traffics in universal absolutes, I have to wonder at the utility of finding someone so pathological that they enjoy deceiving others for the sake of it really counts as a counter-example.”
I’m not so sure that such people are all that rare. Advertising is big business. More seriously, I think that there are a lot of people who see business as one big game, with the object to win, so if they can do so by deceiving other people, they brush it aside by saying that those people deserve it, that they should have been responsible for themselves, they shouldn’t have trusted the person who pulled a fast one, etc.
“At any rate, Rand argues that free trade depends on both parties being free to choose. However, if one party is being dishonest, then he’s depriving the other of his freedom to choose because his choice wasn’t fully informed. Fraud is in this way a form of force because you’re depriving someone of information.”
Fair enough. But what if you have information that, if your trade partner knew of it, he would never commit to the trade at that price? (I.e, the first person knows that the second has undervalued the object due to mistake or mere lack of information) Would that be free trade or, because it was not “fully informed”, was it coercion/fraud??
If one party has an enourmous economic advantage over another and the object is something that circumstances dictates the less advantaged person needs, would that be free trade or coercion/fraud?? (Think worker v. the company store scenario or rates for utilities, etc.)
As for fraud that doesn’t hurt, I don’t see what the point of the fraud would be. Again, it would be such a small part of human interaction I wonder if it’s really worth the bother of considering.
I think I was commenting more on the fact that simply because it is fraud does not mean it is agression. (And normally a fraud in this case is done simply to complete the deal, out of fear that, had the truth been given, the purchaser would not have gone through with it out of a subjective desire for something that is objectively equal or worse.)
@raft
Well, I doubt that god is real; but I don’t do humility. When did our founding principles of individual Liberty for self-reliant, productive, and honest citizens, cooperating voluntarily in a free trade environment using honest money, become “radical?” Arguably, after a hundred years of dominance, it is the Progressives on the Left who are resisting change.
They haven’t had a new idea in generations; all the innovative ideas for curing our national malaise are coming from the Right. Even if our notions are two or three hundred-years-old, they worked pretty well for the first hundred years of America, and it is a shame that conservatives have been stewing complaisantly in the “will of the people” collectivist pot for so long now, that they have forgotten our roots and are foolishly resisting returning to them. ◄Dave►
I think there is some misunderstanding of just what is, in the sense of Jeremy Bentham and John Dewey, pragmatism. It is not simple practicality, but rather the eschewing of all principles. All decisions, however, must be made according to some principle, implicitly or otherwise.
For example, say you really feel like harming an innocent person. If you decide that you should, you are implicitly granting that it is morally permissible to harm an innocent person because you feel like it. Likewise, if you decide that you should not, you are granting that is morally reprehensible.
So pragmatists end up being ruled by a collection of unchosen and usually contradicting principles.