"The abnegation of reason is not the evidence of faith, but the confession of despair."
- J.B. Lightfoot
Friday, November 13, 2009
Author Ayn Rand has had a resurgence in recent days. As a reaction to the obnoxious, creeping statism of our government, people are talking about the libertarian icon more and more, inspired by the idea of "going Galt", etc.
My knowledge of Rand was, for many years, limited to a dusty copy of Atlas Shrugged in my parent's house that looked far to thick to read, and a reference to "the genius of Ayn Rand" in the liner notes of Rush's album 2112. But in the past year Eldest Daughter saw a reading of The Fountainhead take two of her close friends down a path from Christianity to some form of self-serve Deism, and Eldest Son has also expressed frustration with the growing Rand cult amongst conservatives (and had a mini run-in with an atheistic Objectivism fan at an evening lecture last week).
On this subject, Peter Wehner weighs in: Objectively, Ayn Rand Was a Nut:
Ayn Rand was, of course, the founder of Objectivism – whose ethic, she said in a 1964 interview, holds that “man exists for his own sake, that the pursuit of his own happiness is his highest moral purpose, that he must not sacrifice himself to others, nor sacrifice others to himself.” She has argued that “friendship, family life and human relationships are not primary in a man’s life. A man who places others first, above his own creative work, is an emotional parasite; whereas, if he places his work first, there is no conflict between his work and his enjoyment of human relationships.” And about Jesus she said:I do regard the cross as the symbol of the sacrifice of the ideal to the nonideal. Isn’t that what it does mean? Christ, in terms of the Christian philosophy, is the human ideal. He personifies that which men should strive to emulate. Yet, according to the Christian mythology, he died on the cross not for his own sins but for the sins of the nonideal people. In other words, a man of perfect virtue was sacrificed for men who are vicious and who are expected or supposed to accept that sacrifice. If I were a Christian, nothing could make me more indignant than that: the notion of sacrificing the ideal to the nonideal, or virtue to vice. And it is in the name of that symbol that men are asked to sacrifice themselves for their inferiors. That is precisely how the symbolism is used. That is torture.. . .
Yet there are some strands within conservatism that still veer toward Rand and her views of government (“The government should be concerned only with those issues which involve the use of force,” she argued. “This means: the police, the armed services, and the law courts to settle disputes among men. Nothing else.”), and many conservatives identify with her novelistic hero John Galt, who declared, “I swear — by my life and my love of it — that I will never live for the sake of another man, nor ask another man to live for mine.”
But this attitude has very little to do with authentic conservatism, at least the kind embodied by Edmund Burke, Adam Smith (chair of moral philosophy at the University of Glasgow), and James Madison, to name just a few. What Rand was peddling is a brittle, arid, mean, and ultimately hollow philosophy. No society could thrive if its tenets were taken seriously and widely accepted. Ayn Rand may have been an interesting figure and a good (if extremely long-winded) novelist; but her views were pernicious, the antithesis of a humane and proper worldview. And conservatives should say so.
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Comments on ""Objectively, Ayn Rand Was a Nut"":
2. Wickle
- 11/13/2009 11:48 am CST
What really scares me about Ayn Rand is the number of Christians who are buying into her garbage now. Mostly, it's been pushed by Glenn Beck, but I know a lot of people who think that he's a great Christian thinker. Wrong on all three counts, of course ...
3. Shrode
- 11/13/2009 1:12 pm CST
I must admit I was a little befuddled when a very capitalistic friend of mine who was an atheist, told me he got it from Ayn Rand. He bought the Objectivist philosophy completely.
Being a member of the Religious Right, (Wickle, we can still be friends, right? ;-) it was a little weird to think of a major proponent of capitalism (i.e. "conservative") as an atheist.
But there it is. The one thing I respect about Ayn Rand is the honesty. For those of you who have read more, is objectivism internally consistent? Just curious.
4. Andrew
- 11/13/2009 1:33 pm CST
For those of you who have read more, is objectivism internally consistent?
To put what I know of Ayn Rand simply:
In her statements about Objectivism, there are four pillars. None really follow from each other (except maybe rational self-interest to Capitalism). She ripped a lot what she wrote from Aristotle, though I don't think she knew Aristotle as well as she thought she did. She criticized Kant, calling him "the most evil man in history" because of his ideas on the limits of Reason, but she does so in a way that makes you think she either never read Kant or misunderstood him terribly.
She saw Man as a "heroic figure" who was the Fountainhead of creation, but didn't believe in a Creator. I don't know how she came to believe both of those things at once, but I suppose it's not inconsistent.
It should be mentioned that barely anyone in academic Philosophy takes Ayn Rand seriously. There are very few objectivists out there. Many libertarians and conservatives latch onto the laissez-faire economics portion of her system, but I think most would try and distance themselves from the ethical system. As of today, neither Oxford nor Cambridge recognizes Ayn Rand as having anything to do with philosophy in their comprehensive dictionaries of philosophy.
5. Bob Sacamento
- 11/13/2009 1:49 pm CST
For those of you who have read more, is objectivism internally consistent?
I tend to think not. Ayn Rand trumpets reason so frequently, and she is so good (really good, frankly) at pointing out the inconsistencies in others' thought, that it's easy to quickly get the idea that objectivism is the only consistent thing out there. I think it fails at its own game, though, in a couple of ways.
First, in freedom vs. materialism. Ayn Rand believed 1) the universe was real, apart from anyone's belief about or knowledge of it, 2) there was no "spiritual reality" beyond that of man himself, and 3) man was free. This opens up immediately the question of how we could possibly be free, given that our freedom doesn't come from a "higher power" and given that there is absolutely no accounting of how deterministic matter can give rise to free beings.
Second, in practical freedom vs. absolute good. Rand believed that certain things were just simply good/important/worthwhile/what have you, and other things were simply bad/trivial/worthless/what have you, regardless of what anyone's opinions or beliefs about them are. And there were plenty of things lying on the spectrum between the two. The point is that she thought the "goodness" of a thing could be "derived" from the first principles of logic, and therefore wasn't open for debate. In short: she believed in absolute good and evil. And yet, she told us we should all be deciding for ourselves what we valued and living our lives accordingly, regardless of what anyone else thought. Not clear how those two ideas mesh together.
6. Wickle
- 11/13/2009 2:21 pm CST
Yes. Shrode, we can be friends. I actually consider myself well on the Right.
It's just that I despise so much of what the Right has become, that I don't talk about it much. ; -)
The Huckabee campaign might have been my last hurrah before I openly admit that I'm theologically conservative and politically li- ... ummm ... lib- ... something less so.
As for Rand, she was absolutely panned by "National Review" in book reviews. It's interesting, though I'd argue sad, to see how things have evolved in that regard.
7. Inklingstar
- 11/13/2009 2:59 pm CST
Having just read Atlas Shrugged in the last year, I tried to look at it from as many points of view as I could. The conclusion I've come to is that Rand's philosophy is good when applied to government but lacking when applied to the individual.
Rand's reaction against government expansion and socialism shows how those in power who demand self-sacrifice rarely exemplify such traits in their own lives and careers. Think Al Gore chastising us for polluting while owning an enormous mansion and a private jet, or John Edwards lamenting how we've neglected the poor while spending $400 for a haircut. A philosophy of self-sacrifice cannot function as a government, because human nature will exert itself and those in power will inevitably be corrupt. Restricting the powers of government to as basic a form as possible is the only way to minimize this corruption.
This does not apply the same way to one's personal life, however. It is here that we can walk like Jesus, showing humility, charity, and virtue. It's one thing to give to charity money and time that you have earned through the sweat of your own brow. It is quite another to vote for a senator who will raise taxes on other people and give them to charity.
8. Bob Sacamento
- 11/13/2009 3:33 pm CST
As for Rand, she was absolutely panned by "National Review" in book reviews. It's interesting, though I'd argue sad, to see how things have evolved in that regard.
Actually, NR still disowns her. The column Bill posted is, indeed, from the NR Online blog.
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Yeah, she struck me as someone desperately needing to switch to decaf.
I kind of owe her a debt. I was a big liberal in my young and stupid years. Her withering criticism of all things left really pulled some thick scales from off my eyes. Thankfully, my parents had already made sure I was a Biblically grounded, if stupid, young guy, so I never bought into her screwy thoughts about God.
Wehner is right that her philosophy had nothing to do with conservatism. And she herself would have agreed. She said straight out that the people who would listen to her would not be right wingers, but disillusioned lefties. (She detested Ronald Reagan, by the way.)
But in the past year Eldest Daughter saw a reading of The Fountainhead take two of her close friends down a path from Christianity to some form of self-serve Deism
I saw this happen myself years ago. Ayn Rand is the incarnation of the reason why, even though doctrine isn't everything, we have to teach doctrine and we have to teach it coherently. She appeals precisely to the most intelligent and thoughtful of our youngsters. If they are self-absorbed like most kids tend to be, and if they are fed up with being told to follow the rules, to drink the feel-good pablum their church dishes out, and to stop asking questions, when they meet her, they think they have found the answer to all of life.