Posted on 11/13/2009 7:51:55 AM PST by cornelis
Objectively, Ayn Rand Was a Nut [Peter Wehner]
According to Politico.com, Ayn Rand — the subject of two new biographies, one of which is titled Goddess of the Market: Ayn Rand and the American Right — is “having a mainstream moment,” including among conservatives. (Gov. Mark Sanford of South Carolina wrote a piece in Newsweek on Rand, saying, “This is a very good time for a Rand resurgence. She’s more relevant than ever.”).
I hope the moment passes. Ms. Rand may have been a popular novelist, but her philosophy is deeply problematic and morally indefensible.
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.Many conservatives aren’t aware that it was Whittaker Chambers who, in 1957, reviewed Atlas Shrugged in National Review and read her out of the conservative movement. The most striking feature of the book, Chambers said, was its “dictatorial tone . . . Its shrillness is without reprieve. Its dogmatism is without appeal . . . From almost any page of Atlas Shrugged, a voice can be heard, from painful necessity, commanding: ‘To a gas chamber — go!’”
William F. Buckley Jr. himself wrote about her “desiccated philosophy’s conclusive incompatibility with the conservative’s emphasis on transcendence, intellectual and moral; but also there is the incongruity of tone, that hard, schematic, implacable, unyielding dogmatism that is in itself intrinsically objectionable.”
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.
Along the lines of another critic who said of someone that what she heard was:
“You lie - BOY!”
See how that works? It ain’t what they said, it’s what you THOUGHT they should have said.
Lots of words there ... but I'll bet you cannot come up with a single, objective factor that guarantees "happiness" at all times, for all people.
Because, you see, that is what "objective happiness" has to be. It CANNOT vary by individual or by time, because that would make it subjective happiness.
You're propounding a view of happiness that makes it like a feat of engineering: this input must produce "Happiness" as a result."
I'll bet you can't even define "happiness" in a way that is objectively testable!
And you have no evidence Rand's atheism was primary. She explicitly details why reason and reality are her givens, and that atheism is derived from that.
Well, she says that "reason and reality" are her givens ... but her philosophy ends up being neither reasonable nor in contact with reality. Something as real and natural as parenthood crushes her central thesis of self-interest. No parent can morally live as "an end in himself."
One must conclude that Rand chose her premises on some other basis than reason or reality; she clearly wanted to arrive at (most of) the commonly-held set of Western moral principles, but it is just as clear that she needed to find a moral basis other than that which had guided the morality of Western Civilization; i.e., a theistic worldview.
Rand's laughably flawed descriptions of Christian belief are proof enough of her virulently athiest world-view. One gets the impression that her description of toddler Dagny Taggart's tantrum in church is an autobiographical fantasy scene ... we get the impression that Rand has always been an atheist.
When you couple the two points ... yes, it's very reasonable to conclude that Rand's atheism came first.
Whatever her followers might say, I saw Phil Donahue, of all people, destroy her in a debate. I don't now recall the exact topic, but I do know that she was unable to answer a very basic question.
In fact, that was the moment at which my belief in Ms. Rand's philosophy began to crumble. I began to look more critically at what she claimed ... and once you start picking at her premises, the whole thing unravels.
The pursuit of self-interest can be a positive force. Rand’s dogmatic adherence to self-interest above all else fails to recognize that where self-interests clash, there must be some guide other than “survival of the fittest”. When a ship is sinking, it is neither dishonorable or bad if all men adhere to tradition of “women and children first”.
For someone who advocated the selfish pursuit of happiness above all else, Rand outwardly appeared to be one of the most miserable humans in the public realm. It seems that hedonism fails to bring lasting pleasure.
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Yes we can come up with a definiton of happiness that is universally applicable at all times. It would be a weighty project but doable. I believe Aristotle gave it a pretty good shot. Healthy mind, healthy body, adequate economic conditions, liberty, productive work, positive relationships etc...overall flourishing in every human sense.
You're trying hard to reconcile your belief in otherworldy reality with a happy life on earth. But if happiness isn't objective, why are you so obsessed with being happy in Heaven with God? Assuming you're as religious as you sound, that is.
Your answer doesn’t address her anti-christian views.
Let’s admit it, individualism can be an ism like anything else.
You might want to follow along with Publius' series from earlier this year as you read.
“She did illustrate the need for community so she wasn’t against it. Like you said the success of their community was partially the result of voluntary association. But it also rested on each person’s rational, honest self-awareness so that relationships and transactions were based on understanding of relative worth of contributions.”
Substitute Sinclair Lewis for Rand and ‘boosterism’ for ‘community’ and you would have a fair comparison of the two styles.
You masy have a bit of trouble with the motivation angle, though.
I believe it was a better writer than Ayn Rand who said, “All things in moderation...”.
I should have noted that there is a link to the successive thread toward the end of each thread.
Not objectively so, no.
Happiness isn't objective?
Nope. And if you claim otherwise, it is up to you to provide the proof.
Healthy mind, healthy body, adequate economic conditions, liberty, productive work, positive relationships etc...overall flourishing in every human sense.
And yet I know people who are happy despite lacking one or more of those factors.... And I also know people who have all those things, and yet are unhappy.... Clearly, although one can freely acknowledge them to be good and wonderful things, they obviously do not constitute objective grounds for happiness.
You're trying hard to reconcile your belief in otherworldy reality with a happy life on earth. But if happiness isn't objective, why are you so obsessed with being happy in Heaven with God? Assuming you're as religious as you sound, that is.
Well, no: I'm merely laying out for you the grounds by which you must (rationally) demonstrate the objective basis of "happiness," which you claim exists.
Your little comment is, however, quite unfortunately common to most interactions I've had with self-professed libertarians: when unable to confront the logic of their position, they attempt to shift the argument to something else.
But I'm not going there: I'm going to hold you to your claims of objectivity, and demand that you provide them.
Every religionist - like you - is - has to be - at root a fanatic. You can't prove your beliefs so you resort to nonsense. I gave you an objective definiton of happiness, your response was "lots of words there". Do you understand that such a response is linguistically, logically and empirically absurd? Is that within your intellectual grasp, or am I wasting my breath here?
These "people you know" - if they have those conditions and are yet unhappy are obviously mentally ill. I know NO-ONE - who has all such conditions fulfilled and is yet unhappy. I cannot conceive of such a person. I suppose that is what neuroticism means - havven't experienced it, but yes, I can imagine some folks are like that. Sad really.
And hey, people who posit the existence of "God" and other such unverifiables have no right to demand objective proof of anything.
Every religionist - like you - is - has to be - at root a fanatic.
Oh, my.... so now you've gone full-blown libertarian ad hominem, and right on schedule, too.
You guys are soooo predictable.
Define for me the objectively verifiable -- that is, observable and measurable -- characteristics that define "flourishing."
I won't hold my breath.
The act of having a child has no moral implications. It has legal implications as part of an expedient and legally-enforced social contract. Nothing more. Your Chrisitian beliefs lead you to idealize childhood and child raising..babies in mangers, a child shall lead them, and other such sentimentality.
Thnx
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