Ayn Rand is one of those writers who divide the world. There are partisans, who are utterly smitten by her message, and then there are the rest of us, who can’t fathom the fuss. The former find it very hard to forgive the latter, about which more in a moment.
I have read some of Rand’s essays on art and philosophy. They struck me, as I said in a review of a book about her philosophy of art (reprinted in my book Art’s Prospect), as pretty thin gruel. I never made it through either of Rand’s two big novels, The Fountainhead and Atlas Shrugged. To enjoy either, I suspect, you had to have encountered Rand in adolescence, when so many of life’s lasting enthusiasms are forged. In recent years, a few friends have urged Rand on me, and I dutifully tried both novels more than once. Each time, I found myself oscillating between fits of the giggles, at the awful prose, and irritation, at the jejune philosophy. Among the many reasons I am thankful to Whittaker Chambers, his having rescued me from making further attempts to scale the Everest of Atlas Shrugged comes high on my list. His review of the book in an early issue of National Review is a masterpiece of literary demolition and moral interment.
Brutal though Chambers is — his review precipitated Rand’s break with National Review — it nonetheless acknowledges a pertinent fact about Rand: that “a great many of us dislike much that Miss Rand dislikes, quite as heartily as she does.” That fact disposes “us” — i.e., us conservatives who share Rand’s belief in self-reliance and who dislike big government and the nanny state just as much as she did — to endorse some of what Rand advocates. Hence, for example, widespread popularity of Rand’s character John Galt and sympathy for “going Galt,” i.e., Just Saying No to the many violations of personal liberty perpetrated by an omnivorous, socialistically inclined state.
But to say that one is wary of statism or that one is a champion of capitalism and limited government is not to say that one is a follower of Ayn Rand. This is a something that some of Rand’s disciples find difficult to acknowledge. I was reminded of this the last few days as I contemplated the large outpouring of calumnious rage directed at Anthony Daniels, who writes about a new biography of Rand in the February issue of the magazine I edit, The New Criterion.
The piece has been available on our website for only a few days, but already it has generated more than 160 comments. The response started modestly enough, but by the time # 4 from “Peter M” rolled in, I knew we were in for substantial hilarity. “Wow,” he writes, “this hit job comes close to matching the most dishonest review probably ever written of any book — Whittaker Chambers’ review of Atlas Shrugged.” A nice Bre’r Rabbit moment, that: having someone insult you by comparing you to Whittaker Chambers!
Ayn Rand and Hannah Arrendt are probably the two most praised and pilloried female writers/philosophers of the last 100 years, and both for almost certainly the wrong reasons.
People and philosophies are complex. Why turn our view of either of these extraordinarily influential women into an all-or-none dogma contest?
Two things are conspicuously missing from this glib set of rationalizations: a) what Rand actually said, b) why Kimball disagrees. You’d think those two things would be essential to discussion of the topic. But not here: a discussion of (a) would be too gauche, and (b) would require the effort of non-fallacious argumentation– both non-starters at The New Criterion. I guess we’re supposed to be impressed instead with “clever” jabs and pointless autobiographical “sharing.” Well, sorry–I’m not. Hard to see how anyone with a brain would be.
You are quite correct in this about the strange passion of Rand followers. A writer can have readers — as I was once of Rand — and may also attract followers. I suspect that the Rand followers are but a passionate if respectively small subset of the many millions of readers she’s had. That still makes them in aggregate a significant number of people. And they are people of a kind of cult mind that will find and attempt to flame hairless anyone that says an unkind word concerning the center of their cult.
In many ways the people in that thread remind me of those who used to show up in droves whenever anyone said an unkind thing about Ron Paul during his silly and abortive run-up to the nomination.
It’s cult behavior. I’d say to the author of the review: “Forget it, Tony. It’s Randtown.”
Thank you Irfan for so clearly illustrating my point.
You know, one thing I have to say about Rand’s detractors: that are as bad as Rand’s supporters. Notice how they go on about how stupid Rand is, how horrible her literature is, how pathetic and childish people who appreciate her are; they seem to have a pathological need not simply to dismiss her, but to destroy her. Makes one wonder why. Yes, her ardent supporters are tiresome, annoying, narrow minded, self-contradictory, etc etc, but they are for all intents harmless. Leave them be and they will only pester each other on the internet. Yes, Rand’s writings are purple, have logical errors, and are self-contradictory, but are they so much worse than a Howard Zinn or Karl Marx. Chamber’s review, far from being good, is horrible and in a very way telling. “To a gas chamber go” he says, but nothing in Rand leads in that direction, yet Chambers was an agent to a movement that supported the Gulags. So he “got over it”, but as Daniels often points out, even in the 30’s people should have known where Communism was leading. Glad you finally got to the right answer Chambers, however Rand was there long before you.
Kimball is quick to make a snide comment about “passion formed in childhood”, but as one of those people who did read Rand young, I am forever grateful to her. She inoculated me from socialism. Long before I had the intellectual capacity to understand the better writers who wrote why the promises of communism lead to the Gulag, Rand pointed me in their direction. I got through university as a History/Literature major unscarred from the multitude of socialist professors because of her (humorously, few college professors could argue better than her, though they all claimed they could). Yes, her followers should take wing and learn better arguments, but to discount the overwhelming good she did for many is surprising from such a prominent conservative intellectual. Isn’t Kimball in the least curious as to why “a few friends” (who I imagine he respects) suggest her writings to him? Isn’t he curious why many who support the causes he believes in have read her? I don’t know what Kimball’s intellectual journey has been, but if he is another one of those who learned better (as Chambers); it would be a pity he didn’t read Rand as a teenager.
Now in Kimball’s (and Daniels) defense, both are coming at Rand from her artistic writings, and god knows that is enough to turn one off of her permanently, but still show a little less arrogance, and a little more sympathy to Rand’s followers: after all first crushes are hard to forget.
I read Rand in the very early 60′s when I had a lot of time on my hands due to my service in the USAF. Both the readings and the service were appropriate enterprises for a young man in his late teens/early twenties, before it became time to look more closely and move on, and the affect of each was informative, even if not especially beneficial.
What Ms Rand’s Objectivist’s seem to be least objective about is that she was a screenwriter. As a philosopher, as a business leader, as a pragmatist who understood that compromises are the friction that propels almost any enterprise, she was a decent screenwriter. To ascribe more to her, and her philosophical/political ruminations is to attempt to impose reality upon a fiction.
Mr Alan Greenspan might care to elaborate.
I have long thought that Ayn Rand’s devoted followers admired her economic views—and sexual liberalism. A high number of these people are promiscuous and adamantly pro-abortion. There are indications that they also voted for Barack Obama in the 2008 presidential race. Socialism is apparently an acceptable compromise if the so-called right to abortion can be protected. Rand aborted her own child. This makes her a hero among the libertines.
Ayn Rand was an authoritarian. The world was supposed to revolve around her. The husband of this overbearing woman was bullied into accepting the role of cuckold. Rand provided some sound economic insights, but not much more. It is very fair to describe her as overrated.
Well,I usually share the views of New Criterion writers, e.g., Kimball, Bowman, Weiss; but I often don’t like they way they express them. Too much anger and snootiness. Bowman in particular has become very dark and angry–and unpleasant. I suppose this comes with the territory of being cultural critic in America. But Mark Steyn seems to have avoided their fate.
And Kimball sports bow ties and round nerd glasses. Jeez. I’m on their side, but come on.
OH, there is nothing worse than fans with rose-colored glasses. But I admit I havent read the review, but why would I, I’ve never read Rand.
5. JohnSace:’Isn’t Kimball in the least curious as to why “a few friends” (who I imagine he respects) suggest her writings to him? Isn’t he curious why many who support the causes he believes in have read her?’
I have received the same suggestion but from what I have read about Rand, it would probably be a case of preaching to the choir. Not much point. Perhaps Kimball feels the same?
I too, at a younger age read Atlas and came to despise Statists. I went on to read Capitalism: The Unknown Ideal
Rand’s words made an impression on me and I came to see the value of Liberty. Here is a quote:
“If one knows that the good is objective-i.e., determined by the nature of reality, but to be discovered by man’s mind–one knows that an attempt to achieve the good by physical force is a monstrous contradiction which negates morality at its root by destroying man’s capacity to recognize the good, i.e., his capacity to value.”
Our society is weakened one soul at a time when we demand people do good (for instance share the wealth)and force them to comply with an elite’s version of fairness. Value to a soul is built by free exercise of choice. A society of people with forced values is a weak one.
Again Rand wrote in Capitalism “Force invalidates and paralyzes a man’s judgment, demanding that he act against it, thus rendering him morally impotent. A value which one is forced to accept at the price of surrendering one’s mind, is not a value to anyone; the forcibly mindless can neither judge nor choose nor value. An attempt to achieve the good by force is like an attempt to provide a man with a picture gallery at the price of cutting out his eyes”.
Though this is not as clearly written as some others the principles espoused are powerful and missing in mainstream thought today.
5. ‘Isn’t Kimball in the least curious as to why “a few friends” (who I imagine he respects) suggest her writings to him? Isn’t he curious why many who support the causes he believes in have read her?’
Having read a bit about Rand and having been urged to read Rand, perhaps Mr. Kimball feels as I do: it would be a bit like preaching to the choir.
Hi Roger,
Why would the editor of The New Criterion deign to write a column about the comments sections of an article in his journal? Why would the editor of The New Criterion publish an article and write an op-ed about someone as inconsequential as Ayn Rand? Why would the editor of The New Criterion appear so nervous, edgy and defensive? It’s unprecedented? It’s also a sign of the times. It’s a sign of the decline and fall of a once interesting journal.
Twenty years from now, historians will look back at the Daniels’ piece and your defense of it as signal moment when The New Criterion began its descent into irrelevance. The fact that you would write this essay–so full of haughty invective and so obviously a reflection of your panic–is symbolic of the decline and fall of the conservative intellectual establishment.
The nattering nabobs of the conservative establishment just don’t get it. What you’ve written demonstrates a radical disconnect between the conservative intellectual establishment (all unprincipled pragmatists at heart) and the millions of ordinary, everyday Americans who support the principles of individual rights, limited government, and capitalism. What you’ve written demonstrates that you have no principled arguments to challenge Ayn Rand, only infantile slurs. What you’ve written demonstrates the degree to which you and the conservative intellectual establishment have become unhinged by the growing influence of Ayn Rand on the Tea Party Movement. What you’ve demonstrated is just how irrelevant you and your friends have become to the new grassroots movement in defense of a free society.
Your time is up. A new generation of principled intellectuals is rising and ready to lead the movement to restore the original spirit of American liberty.
Au revoir, Roger.
At last count, the responses totaled 193.
However, I’m still waiting for an answer to my original query It’s interesting that while many commentators here denigrate Rand and her novels, not one of them, including Daniels, has offered a measure of what he considers the pièce de résistance of literary achievement with which make a comparison. Is it because he has no measure (I‘m thinking of Graham Greene‘s “Brighton Rock,” or any of Henry James‘s novels, or the oeuvre of Joyce Carol Oates, or Russell Banks, or Vladimir Nabokov, et al.), or because he knows that his measure pales before the brilliant lighthouse of Rand’s fiction? I invite readers, and Mr. Daniels, to submit their candidates (please, do not include the Bible). If Mr. Kimball is reluctant to climb literary Everests such as Atlas Shrugged, does he instead brave the nihilist gutters of Waiting for Godot, Brighton Rock, or The Catcher in the Rye? Perhaps it one of William F. Buckley’s literary ventures, such as Saving the Queen. I would really like to know what Mr. Kimball — or Mr. Daniels, if he chooses to poke his head out of the hole — regards as a work he believes — and I stress “believes” — would stack up against Atlas Shrugged.
Well cry me a river, Mr. Kimball.
Certainly, those were some profoundly nasty comments, but they are in fact pretty mild compared to what is written and said about Ayn Rand and Objectivists routinely, as we have seen and will see in comments there and here.
Now, I’d be the first to say, how about we all get over this sort of thing, start over, and *try* to be reasonable here. But sadly, the National Review at least made it pretty clear what their position on the matter was, when they ran the Chambers hatchet job again recently.
The overwhelming majority of “criticism” of Ayn Rand is of the tone and character of the “cult” smear (#3 Vanderleun) and the “but I grew out of it” type (as “Bemused” above), and most of the following critics will follow the pattern also (yawn).
All of them, tellingly, focus on attacking people — Ayn Rand and her supposed failings, and those of her admirers.
Rare are the criticisms that focus on *ideas*… but I imagine that’s for good reason, as attempts in that direction from conservatives so far have failed to elevate above such gems of decorum as “to the gas chambers, go!” from Chambers, and Daniels’ laughable description of Ayn Rand as “Soviet” (as if “We the Living” were never written).
To me, it is a basic principle of honest discourse to actually know and understand what a person said or wrote on a topic before criticizing it, but the vast majority of Leftists and conservatives alike seem to think that such principles don’t apply when the topic is Ayn Rand.
So while I would like to see the discourse take a more civil tack, I see no evidence that you share such a preference, sir.
And that’s fine; our ideas have survived the status quo quite well, and shall continue to do so.
OK, let’s see if I understand Mr Kimball correctly:
1. He doesn’t like Rand’s books, even though he was unable to finish them.
2. He had to rely on another reviewer to fully understand why he didn’t like them.
3. Objectivists share some beliefs with “conservatives,” but he doesn’t understand why we don’t agree with their entire agenda (for one thing, the neoconservative movement is really just a form of fascism; they don’t endorse individual rights; they just want to substitute their thugs for the ones currently in control)
4. He ridicules one previous comment by comparing it with a “Bre’r Rabbit moment,” and another by simply restating part of the comment — purely emotional ploys, with precisely zero intellectual depth.
5. He attempts to defend Daniels as being “one of the most percipient and humane cultural critics now writing,” but offers no proof or support; yet Daniel’s previous article clearly shows that statement to be false (as Objectivists would say: declaring something to be true doesn’t make it so).
6. He calls the later posts in support of Rand “subliterate invective,” as though online comments in response to a poorly written article are supposed to be works of art.
In addition, Mr Kimball, as with Mr Daniels before him, conflate “followers of Rand” with followers of the philosophy that she helped define, Objectivism. As with many Objectivists, I couldn’t care less about Rand the person; what she did or didn’t do in her life is completely immaterial to me. I only care about the philosophy–which, by the way, is largely an extension of the work started by Aristotle. Perhaps Mr Kimball has heard of him? One could even argue that she completed his work by finally solidifying a foundation for morality that isn’t based on mysticism; something no philosopher before her was able to accomplish.
In fact, it’s my guess that this is one of the real reason that neocons hate Rand with such a passion: in her nonfiction work, she clearly showed that morality and happiness are possible by relying only on yourself, and without relying on faith. Sacrilige!
Roger,
To get through “Atlas Shrugged”, I recommend the following:
1) Glass of wine in hand when feasible.
2) Sense of humor at the fore.
3) Realize that you’re going to need a bookmark to focus the eyes as you read when you realize that a character is beginning to bloviate.
4) Steely determination when encountering one of Rynd’s long-winded descriptions of one of her characters.
5) Attempt to relish the occasional (though repetitiously rehashed) flashes of true insight the book reveals.
6) Bite your lip and/or count sheep when Dagny has sex with someone.
7) When the going gets particularly difficult, consider the social adulation conferred at having read one of the longer American novels ever written and allow this fact to spur you on.
If the above fails, may I suggest the Cliff Notes?
John
Pajamas Readers:
Ask yourselves these questions:
Why would Roger Kimball, the high priest of the artsy-fartsy establishment, deign to write an article about a woman from whom he only get “fits of the giggles, at the awful prose, and irritation, at the jejune philosophy”? Answer: Atlas Shrugged sold close to 500,000 copies this year.
Why would Roger Kimball deign to write an article about a novelist whose novels he admits he’s never finished? Answer: Because the Tea Party Movement and hundreds of thousands of ordinary, everyday Americans are being influenced by Ayn Rand’s philosophic defense of the United States.
Why would Roger Kimball feel the need to smear Ayn Rand (just like his Soviet spy hero, Whittaker Chambers) with such smarmy invective? Answer: There are now over 60 university programs around the United States that include the reading of Atlas Shrugged.
Why would Roger Kimball sanction the publication of an article that is verifiably dishonest and near libelous? Answer: Over 10,000 high school students submitted essays last year to a Fountainhead essay contest.
Why would Roger Kimball waste one second of his time on a writer he has so little respect for? Answer: Roger and his neoconservative pals have become irrelevant (who reads The New Criterion anymore, except when they’re smearing Ayn Rand?), and now they’re acting out in the same way that Sarte did when he realized that no one read him anymore.
It’s all rather seemly. It’s all rather pathetic.
What Roger and his pals over at Commentary and the National Review have learned in recent years is that their attempts to smear Ayn Rand just aren’t working like they once did. Every time Roger and his little rabbits come of their holes, they get smacked down. We know everything that they’re going to say about Ayn Rand before they say it. I hate to break the news to you, Roger, but you’ve become tediously predictable, all-too-predictable.
Roger, my friend, I know it’s upsetting to you, but you’re shooting blanks and no amount intellectual Viagra is going to change that. It’s over. The game is up. The intellectual tide has shifted.
Irfan Khawaja: This article is not a rebuttal of Rand, that should be obvious. It is clearly just an opinion piece about the responses to Daniels articles. Whatever New England seminar that taught you logic forgot to teach you how to read. If you want I could recommend you some books on different types of essays that I share with my undergraduates.
I first read Atlas Shrugged at the age of 14. At that time, I considered it one of the most profound books ever written (yeah I know, give me a break I was only 14 and just beginning to concern myself with the larger issues of life). I read several of her essays and then the Fountainhead. At that point I realized just how much Objectivism conflicted with my Christian beliefs. I still remained a fan at that point, but had serious doubts about Rand’s philosophy. In the 10 years since then, having read so many more authors and philosophers I’ve come to realize how shallow Rand really is. Her personal philosophy is nihilistic. Its bleak, without joy, and just plain wrong. While on subjects of economics and government, I find much to agree with, her philosophy and justification remains shallow, especially when contrasted to the likes of Locke, Jefferson, Mills, etc.
I can say that very little, if any, of Rand’s philosophy and writings influence me now. I will give her this though; reading Atlas Shrugged and The Fountainhead helped to increase my interest in both politics and philosophy at a young age, but I can thank her for little else.
Wow, I can’t believe somebody actually compared Rand’s fiction to a “lighthouse” or “Everest.”
Actually, that second is an apt description…..reading Rand is as arduous and as difficult as climbing a mountain.
Actually, Chad, a “lighthouse” comparison does make sense. After all, its purpose is to warn others, but it takes a special type to live in it 24/7.
Roger is right about Rand being thin gruel. A good reason for a conservative, such as Roger, to not read Rand is that there are far better reasons for being conservative than ‘Objectivism’, especially fo ran intellectual conservative (however, I’m not a conservative – so what do I know).
The claim made in these comments that Objectivism is the intellectual wave of the conservative future as expressed by the Tea Partiers is interesting. Isn’t a better characterisation that Tea Partiers are un-intellectual, and that Ayn Rand is a good philosopher for the un-intellectual conservative, or maybe the immature intellectual.
My intellectual background is in science: physics. Hence, one problem is see with Rand is that she makes big claims about the way that consciousness and reality interact in a way that, from a philosophy of science perspective (and practice of science perspective come to think of it), is just crazy. It just reads like some stuff she made up.
I suppose there is some comfort to be had from believing that your politics is not just good, but objectively true. But if simple things like scientific theories aren’t objective objects, and trust me they aren’t, then how on earth is a complicated thing like a political theory an objective object?
I love reading the objectivists’ responses to criticism of their philosophical system and especially of their messiah, Ayn Rand.
I think the point is that breaking down the logic of objectivism is like breaking down the logic of scientology. For most of us, the bizarre behaviour of its founder and followers is far more interesting to discuss than the merits of the system. And we just hope that the very small number of people who buy into it wholesale do not have to suffer to much. The megalomania is also amusing: the regarding of second rate sci-fi writers as the living end of human thought and the violent denunciation of anyone who offers any criticism, most often in the most abusive, paranoid and childish language possible.
Those objectivists who read Kimball’s article, why can’t you see who crazy your co-religionists are when call Kimball and Daniels collectivists or insist that anti-Rand article in the New Criterion spells the end of neoconversatism if not the world? I mean, any merits of objectivism are quickly lost in the flood of bizzare and irrational behaviour that pours out of the evangelical circles of Objectivism.
vanderleun #3 and #4 as well as the authos of this article, clearly prove the point of 2 Irfan.
If you have some dislike/hate of Ayn Rand, that’s ok. Maybe you don’t like hers novels? That’s Ok. Maybe you like only red haired girls? That’s OK. But if you want to be serious about hers philosophical VIEWS on freedom, the Human nature, the requirements for a man to grow as a man and not as an animal or a plant; then you should discusses WHY you don’t agree on those topics, on hers views making at least a attempt of a reasoning. I can see nothing of a serious discussion here. Sure if you are a Christhian, then you will dissagree at some point with Rand since she was atheist. That’s OK. BUt any arguing? No. A reasonable discussion? NO.
Only opinions are presented here, as pointed out by Optimus Prime Mover n.18, thus making this article one more in the long series of Rand-bashing pieces much so loved by our commons enemies: the left.
13. How about C.S. Lewis’ Screwtape Letters. Admittedly, the protagonist is a villain, but it does give insight into the mind of an oppressor.
After reading Ayn Rand I just shrugged.
@John Ford…
Wish I had access to those tips before I embarked on reading Atlas Shrugged during my vacation last year. Copious amounts of Pinot Noir would have helped me get through most of the novel, and particularly John Galt’s speech, which I identified with but is quite tiring and intimidating to look at in written form (there’s a seventeen-part (!) YouTube series in audiobook form, set to music, which is much easier to get through, and quite soothing).
If you can auto-pilot through the long-windedness and learn to laugh at Rand’s ridiculous depictions of sex and love, it’s not a bad read (come on, Ayn…it’s just a roll in the hay, quit taking it so damned seriously!). And although the statist villains in the novel come off as too buffoonish and ridiculous, I can’t imagine that their real-life counterparts in our state and federal governments are too far removed from them.
First of all, “Optimus Prime Mover,” I think that a person who wants to take the tone of hauteur you’ve taken with me ought to have the courage of his convictions and use his real name, as I have in every post I’ve put up here. If you’re an academic, you’re protected by the canons of academic freedom and should have nothing to worry about in using your real name (not that you have anything to worry about otherwise, unless you live in Saudi Arabia or North Korea).
There’s no deficiency of reading comprehension in my post. Kimball’s post is “obviously” full of commentary on Rand. Well, I’ve asked some rather simple questions about that commentary. If Rand’s views are “thin gruel,” as he puts it, what views does he have in mind (question a)? And why are they thin gruel (question b)? His say-so has limited probative value. The claim about “thin gruel,” you’ll notice, is about Rand’s work, not Daniels’s essay. Behold the powers of reading comprehension.
I don’t need recommendations on how to read–thanks. I especially do not need them from people who themselves do not know how to read or think, despite the airs they assume on the subject. A little bit of logic should tell you that if Daniels’s piece was an attempted rebuttal of Rand (not really a review of the Heller or Burns books), and Kimball’s piece is an attempted defense of that rebuttal, Kimball’s piece has to contain criticisms of Rand, and my questions are perfectly relevant. A little more thought would have revealed the obvious: an editor would not have published a “review” like Daniels’s unless he thought its claims had merit, as Kimball clearly does. But I realize that requests for logic or thought in this forum are unlikely to go satisfied.
For future reference: I’m not the sort of person to be much intimidated by some anonymous guy’s comparing me to his undergraduates. I’m more inclined, when confronted with such a guy (or gal), to wonder about his pedagogical competence, and to wonder whether his undergraduates are getting their money’s worth from whatever he does in the classroom. If those are the questions you’d like to raise, feel free to keep writing as you have.
I think the point is that the bizzare and irrational behaviour of Rand and her followers is far more interesting than the philosophy she offers. Look at how objectivists in the New Criterion’s forum on Daniel’s article have spewed out hate, accused Daniels of being a secret collectivist and have proclaimed that the appearance of his article spells the end of the New Criterion, conversatism and perhaps even the world as we know it. Rand’s followers remind most rational human beings of the followers of another 2nd rate sci-fi writer by the name of Hubbard, although the Objectivists are less successful at spreading their message. I mean, look at Ifran’s post above. He is obviously educated and smart, but misses Kimball’s point by a long shot and has to resort to infantile comments about the intellegence of the author and readership of the article. Or PeterM, another clearly bright individual who sees Daniels’ article as the sign of the end times for the New Criterion and the ushering of a New Order of Objectivist-lead conversatism. This is my objection to Objectivism: it takes bright people and turns them into lunes. That objectivism as a philosophy entails a dogmatic blindness to its own philosophical assumptions and rigid adherence to its system is philosophically childish and psychologically harmful. And I thank Daniels and Kimball for helping point that out. Kimball will find me a continued admirer of his work and I’ll be looking out for Daniels name in the future.
But their is nothing more damning to objectivism than allowing objectivists to speak about it for themselves under the slightest pressure of criticism.
IMO, Part of Ms. Rand’s appeal is that most people have been introduced to her through friends or by accidental discovery rather than through the public schools or from within the hallowed halls of high academia. Thus, there has been a seductive “forbidden fruit” aspect to one’s first experience with her writing. Had even one of her novels been included in your average high school survey of literature I think that her followers would be less passionate and hyper-partisan and her detractors would be less dismissive of her importance.
In my 10th grade literature class we read: The Catcher in the Rye, The Grapes of Wrath, A Farewell to Arms, The Crucible, Our Town, The Death of a Salesman, The Metamorphosis, etc. In short, they were all downers and your average red-blooded healthy kid instinctively rebels against such fare. I seem to recall that our “discussions” in regards to these works meant listening to our teacher pontificate while we silently watched the clock in anticipation of getting the hell out of there. I can’t be sure but I might have actually enjoyed The Fountainhead.
X: Although the implication that bashing Rand helps the left is a little far-fetch, you are right.
Find Under: Selfishness at http://aynrandlexicon.com/lexicon/selfishness.html
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1) Does this article correctly state the objectivist position? 2) How can any reasonable person maintain that human good does not require human sacrifices? 3) And how is it that “rational interests of men do not clash—that there is no conflict of interests among men who do not desire the unearned, who do not make sacrifices nor accept them, who deal with one another as traders, giving value for value.” 4) What if there are limited resources and I want to take something by force from someone else for my own good and survival? Why shouldn’t I according to objectivist ethics. 5) Under what criteria is the robber morally worse than he who realizes his self-interest through production. 6) Where does “man’s right to a moral existence” come from: God, Rand?
why can’t you see who crazy your co-religionists are when call Kimball and Daniels collectivists
This is not brain surgery. It is very easy to explain. These individuals are almost always adamant secularists. They are strongly attracted to Ayn Rands atheism. The odds are very high that these admirers are sexual libertines who rely on abortion when “things go wrong.” Do you think I am exaggerating? In that case, ask them yourself. Almost certainly, they will blurt out the truth when push comes to shove.
But their [sic] is nothing more damning to objectivism than allowing objectivists to speak about it for themselves under the slightest pressure of criticism.
If that is indeed the case, then I wonder if there is any ism that isnt damned.
Dear Ifran:
I prefer using the name Im using because I think its funny. It is not material that you cannot track me down and find out who I really am. And I would really feel sorry if my anonymous post DID intimidate you.
I replied as I did because your post struck me as childish due to the comments about intelligence. And it still does. You cant go around calling people stupid and expect them to engage you philsophically.
Especially when the point is constantly raised the those in the objectivist camp become shrill whenever the touch of criticism lands upon Rand. I still think Daniels and Kimball make some good points and look forward to some specific criticisms of their claims from the objectivist camp.
I also owe everyone reading this forum an apology if I have distracted from debate with silly name-calling, and I offer it to you all as unselfishly as I can.
My first encounter with Rand was Ayn Rand Speaks to Students the summer after I obtained baccalaureate in electrical engineering. It was her plea for us young ones to stay out of the leftist mileau of hippiedom of the times. It left me completely flat and I thought her really out to lunch. One of the gems I remember went something like this: try to imagine a room full of hippies working as computer operators, trying to get you to giggle at the thought; and at the future being denied to these types. As it happened I was a longhair, and on my way to a lucrative career in board-level hardware design and analysis. Rand had no clue, as offices occupied by software engineers were being staffed up by plenty of longhaired geniuses, I met many of them over the years.
OPM:
(1) The Objectivist position on what?
(2) How can a reasonable person maintain that the good involve human sacrifice?
(3) Rational interests are long-term in nature.
(4) Because Objectivism denies that initiating force is in ones rational (long-term) self-interest.
(5) Objectivism denies that robbery is in ones rational (long-term) self-interest.
(6) The source of Mans rights is his nature as a volitional, rational being. If a man chooses to live, it is a fact that he must produce certain values to live and a fact that he requires a moral code to effectively produce those value. A moral code is a set of principles accepted by choice to guide ones actions and choices.
I tried reading Rand (Atlas Shrugged and The Fountainhead_ in High School and never made it past the first few chapters. However, I did read both of them in the past two years and found them fascinating. I do not agree with the Objectivist philosophy, Rands politics or her views on religion. But, I was impressed with her characterization of certain archtypes from the world of politics and business… and a little frightened at just how recognizable their ideas are among todays so-called leaders.
Optimus Prime Mover begins: I think the point is that the bizzare and irrational behaviour of Rand and her followers is far more interesting than the philosophy she offers.
A few lines later, we read: This is my objection to Objectivism: it takes bright people and turns them into lunes. Cant quite make up our mind, can we? So first the philosophy was not the point. Then an objection is made to the philosophy. So it turns out that the philosophy was the point after all. So much for logic. Meanwhile, my original challenge, utterly unmet, is now described as infantile. Whats so infantile about it? Optimus Prime Mover keeps attacking Objectivism, then shifting the goal posts by pretending that hes not attacking it. When challenged, he changes the subject. How am I infantile for drawing attention to this fact? He insults me by accusing me of an inability to read, and when I push back, complains about being the subject of insults. Whos the infantile one here?
After behavior of this sort, isnt it a bit incongruous that people like Roger Kimball and Anthony Daniels think that Objectivists are the ones stuck in adolescence? But then, what else can one expect of a journal that makes lame excuses for the rhetorical excesses of Carlyles apologetics for slavery and anti-Semitism, and then turns around and accuses Ayn Rand–a refugee from Soviet socialism and ardent anti-communist–of Stalinism? They overlook Carlyles slavery and anti-Semitism, his determinism, his hatred for free trade, and his defense of stupidity (!), but then think theyve dispatched Ayn Rand with a few giggles, some cheap sarcasm, and some claims of personal incredulity. So Carlyle is their ally in the quest to defend the free market and limited government, but Rand is not (despite her defense of liberty, anti-racism, free will, free trade, and human intelligence). To paraphrase Eisenhower, it all proves, yet again, that theres no final answer to the question, How stupid can you get?
Thisll be my last post here. Ive had enough.
Thank you, Alfred
(1) Selfishness (sorry, opps)
(2) One could give the last bit of food to ones child maybe.
(3) How does the long-term nature of rational interests prevent them from conflicting?
(4) Why is force not in ones rational (long-term) self-interest? Seems to me that it could be if it gets you what you want and can avoid being caught.
(5) Why not? Why does long-term rational self-interest dictate not using force?
(6) This makes some sense to me. But I am a little uneasy as I dont see why Mans rights logically follow from Man being volitional and rational. And does this mean Mans rights are only what we accept by choice and thus meaningless if one chooses a moral code where others have no rights. Why not chose a moral code where you can violate someone elses volition when it gets you what you want?
The main point is that I dont see why from an objectivist standpoint I should not force others to give me what I want if it helps me and I can avoid future ramifications.
I suspect “seminar troll” descends etymologically from Rush Limbaugh’s “seminar caller”. As Rush would say, “ leave these things to the professionals, please.”
That said, I must be a rare bird. One who is ambivalent about Rand. Maybe because I read Atlas in late middle age. I found her American dystopia interesting and in some details prescient read 50 years late. The most memorable character is not John Galt but Jim Taggart the capitalist with a soft spot for statism. The Obamaized CEO of Pfizer comes to mind.
But it goes downhill from there. I have not read Dr.D’s review yet and have never read Chambers’. But it is clear from Rand’s writing that she was more interested in ideas than in people. This trait she has in common with Lenin and Mao and this trait makes for bad writing.
…..and it makes for bad politics.
Lord save us from those who are more interested in ideas than people; who put principles before practice.
…Roger, what was the point of your essay. to sh!t on Ayn Rand ?
thank jebus you have all the answers
WHAT MATTERS IS WHAT SOMETHING IS, NOT WHAT IT IS CALLED [W.S]
========================================================
I read The Fountainhead as a teen. I was quite impressed even though I didn’t understand much of it… or rather, I understood it only superficially, or so I was and have been told.
Such a thick book after all. I had just finished reading Little Dorrit so I figured any important book worth reading had to be, well, thick.
Kinda like the Bible (which I’ve never read).
I didn’t know anything about AYN RAND other than that the author was “European” (which in my household was an admirable thing to be). But I was intrigued by the name AYN.
At first, I thought it might be a version of ANN but I dismissed that quickly. After all, The Fountainhead was a MAN’s book – no girl could possibly have written it.
This, despite having been fooled before when I read The Wizard of Oz and Ozma of Oz. These two tomes simply had to have been written by a female, but lo and behold, they had been authored by a man ! But the author was not European so that made a difference.
Europeans have always been funny about names. I imagine it was they who started the double last-name thing which only lately has become a fad among Americans.
Take EVELYN WAUGH (British) and MIRCEA ELIADE (Romanian), that is, they’re both Europeans. Now, one would have to think these were girls’ first names, but you’d be wrong The authors are actually men !
Anyway, back to ANN RAND. Once I found out she was female and taking into consideration what she had written, I concluded that, like my sister, she was just a Tom-Boy and summarily dismissed her from my mind.
I’m amazed anyone can take HER seriously as an adult once the truth about her is known.
#40 – You are to be commended that, unlike Kimball, you are actually engaging Rand’s ideas, and not brushing them aside without argument as “jejune”.
Your fundamental error is that you are not thinking in principles (which are, inherently, long term). A blog comment is of course not sufficient to elaborate, but these thoughts may start to point you in the right direction – and Rand’s “The Virtue of Selfishness” is a good place to go if you sincerely want to explore:
2)Rand explicitly states that suicide of this kind *may* be appropriately selfish given one’s values hierarchy – basically, if one’s life’s purpose/meaning would be so impoverished by the loss of the other individual’s life. But, in the larger view, this is necessarily a corner case, and Rand demolishes the notion (in “The Ethics of Emergencies”) that such cases can be a basis for an ethical system.
4) “… without getting caught…”. But this ignores the reality that you would then be constantly looking over your shoulder, not knowing when the axe would fall, and, that _you_ would know of your misdeed and this will have real consequences for your long-term happiness and self-esteem. The “get away with it” argument leads logically to the conclusion that being a criminal is a way to live a happy existence, which is refutable with a very small amount of reason and observation.
Further, as the conceptual view widens, one can see that a consistently applied rule of law is actually beneficial to one’s long-term interests, and, if _you_ are able to subvert this rule of law, well that must mean you are not protected from others’ violations. Rand’s elaboration on these ideas is fully convincing.
#41 and #42: It is clear to me that Rand did not accept the dichotomy between people and the ideas which motivate them, or more generally between theory and practice (“If a theory is inapplicable to reality, by what standard can it be estimated as ‘good’?”). If you have read her and not grasped this, then you have not read very carefully.
OPM: No disrespect is intended in the following.
The questions you ask and the points you raise are typical of those that are not familiar with Objectivism in any meaningful way. So, I don’t think it is out of line for me to conclude that you have, if any at all, but a shallow understanding of Objectivism and in particular, Objectivist ethics.
Now, I’m aware that reading Rand can be difficult and her style may be off putting to some. So, if you sincerely wish to understand the Objectivist ethics without reading Rand, I highly recommend the following three books:
“Loving Life: The Morality of Self-Interest and the Facts that Support It” by Craig Biddle
“Viable Values: A Study of Life as the Root and Reward of Morality” by Tara Smith
“Ayn Rand’s Normative Ethics: The Virtuous Egoist” by Tara Smith
Smith’s books are scholarly but accessible while Biddle’s book is written for wider audience and is a great introduction.
Here’s a scholarly review of Smith’s “Ayn Rand’s Normative Ethics”: http://ndpr.nd.edu/review.cfm?id=8123
A quote:
“Those who think of Ayn Rand as the icon of callow youths rather than a serious moral philosopher are unlikely to recognize the Rand whom Smith presents to us. Drawing on Rand’s novels, lectures, essays, and letters, Smith shows that her ethical theory is a form of naturalistic eudaimonism, which shares some features with the Aristotelian virtue ethics of Hursthouse and Foot, but differs from them in its unapologetic ethical egoism. This egoism is, however, as Smith argues, non-predatory and can accommodate helping others, genuine friendship, and even in certain circumstances risking one’s life for another.”
1) For the position on Selfishness you will have to read the whole book not the summary of the summary (which is mostly directed to already objectivists)
2) How can any reasonable person maintain that human good does not require human sacrifices?
You are maybe mis understanding sacrifices with investments? Or you have not understood what it’s “Scale of values” at all, or maybe what is a “value”. Solve that first and then try to answer the question 2. Ex. A mom who dies trying to save hers child from a burning building is doing given the circumstances respecting hers values and not doing a “sacrifice”. Not saving him would be a sacrifice (irrespecting hers values). OR trying to save 9 childrem from fire before save hers own child.. that would be a sacrifice.
3) Yes, if you behave as trader, giving value for value, no rational one’s interests will clash with your. Unless someone claim something unearned (like a % of your money via taxes) just because he/she wants it.
4) Because in real ethics you should act on principles, let me repeat: principles. You don’t steal because in order to respect private property you should respect it too. In the objectivist view, if you violate a Right, then you by your own deeds go out of the realm of Rights, thus losing your rights.
5) If you are asking this you have clearly not read/understand any of the views of Rand. Production doesn’t violate any right of anybody as does the robbering: You can survive isolated in an island if you get to know how/what to produce in that island. A robber can’t. Stealing requires somebody else’s production to steal (that’s definition of stealing: a violation of private property rights). Another question is the nature and origin of that right.
6) Rand clearly said that -even though she was atheist, the question whether God created the man or if man evolved from other species, in any case it does not change the question that a Man is a very specific entity, with especific requirements by nature in order to live as a man on the earth.
Mr. Kimball writes: “Each time, I found myself oscillating between fits of the giggles, at the awful prose, and irritation, at the jejune philosophy.”
An excerpt from Francisco’s “Money Speech”:
—
“Then you will see the rise of the men of the double standard–the men who live by force, yet count on those who live by trade to create the value of their looted money–the men who are the hitchhikers of virtue.
In a moral society, these are the criminals, and the statutes are written to protect you against them. But when a society establishes criminals-by-right and looters-by-law–men who use force to seize the wealth of disarmed victims–then money becomes its creators’ avenger.
Such looters believe it safe to rob defenseless men, once they’ve passed a law to disarm them. But their loot becomes the magnet for other looters, who get it from them as they got it. Then the race goes, not to the ablest at production, but to those most ruthless at brutality.
When force is the standard, the murderer wins over the pickpocket. And then that society vanishes, in a spread of ruins and slaughter.”
“Do you wish to know whether that day is coming? Watch money. Money is the barometer of a society’s virtue.
When you see that trading is done, not by consent, but by compulsion–when you see that in order to produce, you need to obtain permission from men who produce nothing–when you see that money is flowing to those who deal, not in goods, but in favors–when you see that men get richer by graft and by pull than by work, and your laws don’t protect you against them, but protect them against you–when you see corruption being rewarded and honesty becoming a self-sacrifice–you may know that your society is doomed.
Money is so noble a medium that is does not compete with guns and it does not make terms with brutality. It will not permit a country to survive as half-property, half-loot.”
“Whenever destroyers appear among men, they start by destroying money, for money is men’s protection and the base of a moral existence. Destroyers seize gold and leave to its owners a counterfeit pile of paper. This kills all objective standards and delivers men into the arbitrary power of an arbitrary setter of values.
Gold was an objective value, an equivalent of wealth produced.
Paper is a mortgage on wealth that does not exist, backed by a gun aimed at those who are expected to produce it. Paper is a check drawn by legal looters upon an account which is not theirs: upon the virtue of the victims. Watch for the day when it bounces, marked, ‘Account overdrawn.’”
“When you have made evil the means of survival, do not expect men to remain good. Do not expect them to stay moral and lose their lives for the purpose of becoming the fodder of the immoral. Do not expect them to produce, when production is punished and looting rewarded. Do not ask, ‘Who is destroying the world? You are.”
—
I suppose I’m not as sophisticated as Mr. Kimball as I’m certainly not giggling at this astonishingly prescient prose.
From Galt’s speech:
—
“In the name of the best within you, do not sacrifice this world to those who are its worst.
In the name of the values that keep you alive, do not let your vision of man be distorted by the ugly, the cowardly, the mindless in those who have never achieved his title.
Do not lose your knowledge that man’s proper estate is an upright posture, an intransigent mind and a step that travels unlimited roads. Do not let your fire go out, spark by irreplaceable spark, in the hopeless swamps of the approximate, the not-quite, the not-yet, the not-at-all.
Do not let the hero in your soul perish, in lonely frustration for the life you deserved, but have never been able to reach.
Check your road and the nature of your battle. The world you desired can be won, it exists, it is real, it is possible, it’s yours.”
—
Unlike Mr. Kimble, I’m just simple enough to actually be inspired by this “awful” prose
“This is especially funny for anyone who actually knows Anthony Daniels, one of the most percipient and humane cultural critics now writing.”
No, what is especially funny is that you all shot yourselves in the foot when you scrambled to exclude Ayn Rand from academic discourse and portray her work as vulgar populism, and now the Tea Party and regular conservatives have embraced her, taken political charge, and thrown your ideas into the trash heap of history; and they do this while denouncing big government “elitists.” (That would be you). Watching your scheme unwind in history–that is hilarious s***. It actually makes me laugh out loud. No, I take that back. The real laugh riot is that after all the effort you put into mocking her as trite, academia is starting to pick up her work anyway. It is all just so…”Randian.”
Back on point: You can engage in all the onanistic cultural critique you want, but the fact remains that Anthony Daniels is a collectivist, he recognizes Rand as the polar opposite and a threat to his worldview, and that is why he loathes her. Daniels’ basic belief is that people should live for something “greater” than themselves and that selfishness is the problem with the world. Rand believes that people can and should live for themselves and that collectivism is the problem, not the solution.
Daniels chose to discard individualism, and he chose to do so knowing that Rand’s philosophical system can’t be formally invalidated; that laissez-faire is both theoretically supported by classical economics and has stood the test of time in practice; and that statism in all its forms has been shown to have deleterious effects not only on the economy but on the culture. He saw it, and still he rejects it. That is intellectual dishonesty.
It must be hard, so hard for an archangel of altruism to see that his ideas, in purer forms, have wrought so much evil on earth throughout history, while the enemy’s heretical ideas about selfishness, executed in clear form, have lifted the physical conditions and the spirit of man to new heights. What is left for such a creature, Kimball? What is left for you all? Only to fight desperately for a lie, it seems. For the idea that maybe Ayn Rand was still wrong somehow, some way. That maybe, if you quibble about it long enough, Ayn Rand really was a bad person.
By the way, Kimball, if Ayn Rand was “unsavory,” then what would that make an ex-Communist spy? And what would it make someone who denounces her character but whitewashes that of Whittaker Chambers?
Tick tock.
X: Regarding point 4) I make it clearer:
If you want your property to be respected, you should respect it first, as a principle, the Private Property Right. A thief who steals money from you, violates that principle, putting himself out of the realm of Right (therefore it’s legitimate to proceed against him with the law, provided the law is “good”, i.e. intended to protect te rights).
Just think about this: if a robber steals your wallet, let’s say it was 20% of your salary… you don’t say he was a 20% of a thief, or it was a 20% of a robbery… no, you just say he was a thief and it was a robbery. Now compare that with the government taking (by force) a percentage of your salaries.
Very good work Alfred and Wendy.
All you people engaged in the fracas over what Ayn Rand means or didn’t mean, over how daunting a read her novels are, over how you were or weren’t impressed with her literary style or sex scenes or economics, over which wine to drink while reading her novels, over whether or not she was a deep thinker or just plain “thin gruel,“ over your having read her as a teenager but that you got over it (just like Hillary Clinton, it was just a phase) to become a mature, pragmatic, non-intellectual adult, and all the other picayune, irrelevant, myopic matters you’re bar-fighting over — don’t you understand that sitting above the slugfest is Mr. Kimball, chortling and guffawing over the spectacle? I keep imagining that he’s reading all this in between “fits of the giggles.”
I suggest that you re-read his column. That is the character of his “defense” of Daniels: a presumably witty manner of chortling and guffawing at Rand and the very idea that anyone should take her seriously. His malice is also directed at Objectivists, whom he and his sycophants also slur. I do not think he even agrees with his defenders. He’s just having all of you on. It’s not a debate that he’s invited readers to have, but to a circus that amuses him. He’s laughing at every one of you — except, perhaps, at PeterM and Ace — but he can’t afford to admit that. Examine his remarks again.
Where in them is there a cogent refutation of Rand’s literary achievement and philosophical perspicuity? Nowhere. His remarks are simply a satirical encomium that endorses Daniels but which doesn’t even attempt to defend him on intellectual grounds (not that there is anything in Daniels‘ review that can be defended, it is, as PeterM remarked, a National Enquirer caliber smear job). His most vicious remarks have simply encouraged others to come out of the closet here to join in the ribaldry. Don’t you grasp that he doesn’t really value the “debate” going on here, that Kimball is simply another nihilist neocon with no new ideas to offer — but that he would not trouble himself with Rand, her novels and ideas unless he feared their influence? He doesn’t want them to succeed. Perhaps he’s a little perturbed by the fact that Rand is now being taken seriously in those parts of academia not completely smothered by Marxists and liberals.
And, I suppose that, had he lived in Aristotle’s time, he’d snicker at the law of non-contradiction. He’d laugh his heart out over the contraries, ““Socrates is sick”/“Socrates is well,” just as he is laughing at the contraries being “argued here, “Rand is good“ / “Rand is bad“ (or light-weight, or boring, or daunting, or whatever). And if Aristotle had asked him what the hell he was laughing at, Kimball would have no argument but, “Well…heh, heh, heh, what nonsense.” That’s all a neocon can do in the way of rebuttal.
A mouse snapping at the heels of an elephant.
How many worlds have you changed, Roger?
How much carnage have your “conservatives” endured, playing as Democrat-Lite, as Republicrat?
This has all been quite amusing watching Roger’s Rabbits implode psychologically and resort to little more than ad hominem attacks, bold-faced lies, vicious smears, and downright nastiness.
But why? That’s the question that we must constantly ask ourselves.
Another important question relates to their method. It’s all laid out in the “Anti-Rand Playbook” that they all follow so slavishly. (It’s their version of Alinsky’s Rules for Radicals.)
The method goes something like this.
Step One: Line up your seminar trolls in advance.
Step Two: Attack Ayn Rand with vicious ad hominem; accuse her of being an authoritarian and as having traits in common with Lenin, Stalin and Mao at the same time that you say her philosophy leads to moral nihilism; say that Ayn Rand is what you read when you were 14 but now you’ve grown up you’ve seen the light (it’s funny how virtually all of Ayn Rand’s conservative critics say they read Atlas Shrugged when they were 14); call Objectivism a “cult” and compare Ayn Rand to L. Ron Hubbard and Objectivism to scientology; accuse Objectivists of being moral dogmatists and “sexual libertines”; and, most importantly, NEVER–EVER–discuss her philosophy. Make it as nasty and as personal as possible. Remember: The end justifies the means. No lie is too great.
Step Three: Have your seminar trolls lying in wait for those willing to defend Ayn Rand from the lies and smears.
Step Four: Accuse Objectivists of being “cultish” whack jobs for defending Ayn Rand from lies and smears.
Perfect–except there’s one problem. We’ve now read Alinsky’s Rules for Radicals and know what to expect from the Loony Left, and we’ve now revealed the substance of Buckley’s “Anti-Rand Playbook” and know what to expect from the Loony Right.
Roger and company: It’s become all too predictable. This kind of thing might have worked forty or fifty years ago, but not today. You and the rabbits are getting skinned alive.
Roger: Seriously, mate, you really should do some introspection and ask yourself one question: Am I an intellectually serious, honest, and moral man, or am I just a hoity-toity dilettante willing to sanction lies and smears?
@49 Wendy:
Ayn Rand wasn’t a bad person, just ignorant of the most common human experience: parenthood, and how it alters or even inverts one’s priorities. Atlas won’t shrug, John Galt won’t strike, when he has two tiny mouths to feed and a mother with Alzheimer’s. But Ayn Rand had no clue about the highest human effort to provide for the utterly defenseless.
Her broad economic and social points may be valid and reasonable, but Objectivism is no substitute for Mommy or Daddy rocking a sick baby to sleep.
> I never made it through either of Rand’s two big novels…
And I never made it to the second page of Roger’s critique.
For one thing, I didn’t get that much from the *first* page. The one thing I did get, is that we super-smart elites can congratulate ourselves by dividing humanity into two camps, and then putting ourselves in the smart half.
For example, there are two kinds of Ayn Rand detractors: Those who make a sincere effort to counter her philosophy, and Those who merely belittle her.
Roger Kimball, it appears, belongs to the latter group.
Well whoop-dee-damn-doo.
PeterM, you must believe that the best defense is an offense. So you must appreciate General George Patton’s speech to the Third Army on the eve of the D-Day landings:
“Now there’s another thing I want you to remember: I don’t want to get any messages saying that we are holding our position. We’re not holding anything. Let the Hun do that. We are advancing constantly and we’re not interested in holding onto anything except the enemy. We’re going to hold onto him by the nose and we’re going to kick him in the ass. We’re going to kick the hell out of him all the time and we’re going to go through him like crap through a goose.”
That should be the intellectual action plan of all Objectivists when confronting neocons and leftists. You’re giving a good demonstration of how it should and can be done. Two thumbs up, PeterM.
The trolls here seem to be the same one’s who slither out for a rousing hate-fest of Sarah Palin. They have never heard her speak, don’t have aclue about her ideas or principles, but feel qualified to vilify her based on some third-hand gibberish made up for the useful idiots to repeat.
Rand has been the target of this type for years. By their own admission, they no nothing about her novels or philosophy – but they feeeel the need to pile on.
If “Rogers Rules” intended to stimulate an intellectual argument, he shouldn’t have relied on the half-wits. An intellectual argument requires an intellect – not just the repetition of mindless drivel and trash-talk.
What is it Roger? Jealousy?
I like how Kimball asks, “‘One of the greatest minds the world has known’?” signalling his percipient skepticism. You do realize that Ayn Rand wasn’t great, don’t you? Because you wouldn’t want to look naive or cultish in front of such distiiiinguished persons as Roger Kimball by saying that she had one of the greatest minds in history, now would you? No. You want to be keeew-el in prestigious intellectual circles. So practice after me: “Meh!” Crinkle that upper lip!
So she came up with the only solution to the is-ought problem that has stood the test of time. Meh! And identified the locus of free will. Meh! And distinguished the non-initiation of physical force as the principle implicit to the Founding Fathers’ protection of individual rights. Meh! And solved the ancient problem of the nature of essences which the nominalists and realists could not for the past 2000+ years. Pffft! In fact, anybody could have pulled an entire novel epistemological theory out of their hat, give or take 30 minutes or so. I’m sure Kimball has his OWN theory of concepts in his left coat pocket. Clearly, there is nothing to see here folks, so keep moving…
Now where is that darn /sarc off key?
Criticizing Rand’s storytelling and writing style is legitimate to some extent. Her novels are overlong and she introduces too many characters, some of which could have been combined to tighten up the narrative somewhat.
Having said that, I don’t see that as a reason to discredit her basic premise. One can still benefit from her arguments without slavishly following the objectivist path to the letter. I can’t think of any writer, philosopher or great thinker from history that didn’t have their shortcomings and blind spots. I am not sure why some hold Rand to an unreasonable standard. Perhaps they are put off by her somewhat condescending manner and healthy ego.
And yet even the Cliff Notes version of Atlas and The Fountainhead provide valuable insight into the collectivist mindset. It unmasks the false altruism inherent in that movement in a way I found very compelling. Certainly her message has resonated with millions of people over the years. I feel we are better off as society having her work than without it. She was a fearless defender of capitalism at a time when it wasn’t fashionable to do that.
55. That is a very astute observation. My other objection to Objectivism, besides those that others here have mentioned, is that it is Orwellian in the manner in which it distorts language. It is not enough for objectivists to coin their own phrases; they feel the need to pervert the language (i.e. claiming that selfishness is a virtue, a synonym of rational self interest, rather than a vice that entails harming or exploiting another person for your own benefit at their expense, or it is not a sacrifice to uphold your ideals at the expense of your person).
When you pervert the language, you make the Truth into a lie. To illustrate, the Objectivist would call the Bible a lie not because he challenges its doctrines (though he probably would, that is not the issue here), but because it makes the claim that Jesus was the perfect sacrifice, laying own His life to make us righteous. The Objectivist would claim that it is impossible for Jesus to have SACRIFICED His life in order to obtain the perfect Bride that He wanted, because He was making a fair trade. Thus by perverting language, the Objectivist dismisses this statement out of hand because he reads the text to be something that it isn’t, namely, contradicting his faulty definition of the word ‘sacrifice’ rather than dealing with the real definition of the word ‘sacrifice.’
Give it up Kimball. Rand would have thought you were a turd. She wouldn’t have crossed the street to spit in your eye. You represent everything she detested.
The author seems to be attracted to the slaying of giants…but he gives us thinly sculpted argument..exemplary in its tedium, lacking validity so he gives us the literary equivalent of a wink and a smile. We are urged to be respectful of W.Chambers….for that I am grateful.
Roger, I usually don’t make it through your articles, but I enjoy the wit of Whitaker, I read his material and marvel at the intellectual prowess of the man. After all, he is the one who converted Reagan from a New Deal Democrat to a Conservative, I think we all owe him a debt of gratitude!
I read Rand 40 years ago and was captivated: I now drink better wine and read better authors. But what the Hell, if she converts a few people from the depths of Socialism, she is still doing an important job, like Whitaker on a less noble scale.
Had fun with the read, thank you. I will try to be more respectful of your writing in the future. Skook
Thank you Roger for the insight and I believe as you do a “pretty thin gruel.” Atlas Shrugged really seems to have become a fad as of late. Some of my Liberal friends mock me for not reading it but if I wanted to read an epic novel I could read War and Peace for a second time or Dr. Zhivago for a third. At least with Dr. Zhivago I’d be brushing up on the anarchy that occurs when a world government fails and the oligarchy that follows. Real food for thought. With Ayn Rand it appears that what you get are a bunch of unproven ideals closely related to what socialism offers. Pretty thin gruel indeed.
It takes a degree of intelligence to understand Rand.
She isn’t for everybody; not the statist collectivist, but also not the sort of person who needs to speed read the simplistically written, whose whole life of reading is at the journalistic level.
For those who are capable of understanding, her philisophy is anything but jejuene and “thin gruel” – she plumbs some deeper depths than anyone including Aristotle, especially when it comes to understanding the motivations of the human mind.
I realise why, now, I’ve always found your works boring, pointless, superficial and a waste of time. I’ll never bother trying to plough through anything you write again.
I have to admit, I’ve only read one Ayn Rand book all the way through. I was assigned Anthem in high school. I remember being a 15 year old reading Rand and thinking to myself “My God, this story is so simplistic and heavy handed, not to mention boring, thaat I can’t believe someone chose to read it let alone publish it.” I’ve tried top read her other books, but always either fall asleep or get disgusted (and no, you don’t have to read a book all the way through to know it’s a terrible book. That’s like saying someone that only watched half of Manos: the Hands of Fate, didn’t get a chance to truly appreciate the film).
Personally, I can’t understand the Randians. Then again, I can’t understand how anyone could find her to be anything other than a disgusting human being. Her “philosophy” as I understand it can be described thusly: Me, me, me, me, and to hell with everyone else, helping others is evil, love is forbidden, and Christianity needs to be replaced with greed. Ayn Rand was a demonic evil creature. Bill Buckley was absolutely correct to kick her to the curb of the Conservative movement. She has no place in Conservatism, nor in civilized society.
And before anyone says it, yes I am scared of Rand. I’m scared that simple-minded, easily influenced people will begin to take her seriously and put her hellish “philosophy” into practice. That would truly make hell on earth every bit as communism does (thankfully, Thomas Aquinas disproved virtually everything she ever back in the 13th century. Human beings are made for relationships with one and other. These relationships are based upon love and concern for the Other. And these feature of the human heart can never be overridden because they are written on every human heart.)
Optimus Prime Mover wrote #32, #40:
“What if there are limited resources and I want to take something by force from someone else for my own good and survival?
“The main point is that I dont see why from an objectivist standpoint I should not force others to give me what I want if it helps me and I can avoid future ramifications.”
Observe how detached from reality this is: floating, rationalistic “ifs,” bereft of instantiation. Not starting from what typically, obviously IS, for
the typical person seeking moral principles as a guide to action, to make their lives happier and more successful.
“Limited resources,” you say? That’s commie talk, suitable for leftists and ex-leftist, morally lost, cynical neocons. Every mentally intact, honest adult these days understands that “resources” are created only by mental effort, by transforming the raw materials of nature to suit human ends. Initiating force destroys that.
If your eyes glazed over as Rand concretized that six ways from Sunday in her “overly long” novels and showed what moral principles are involved, you have only yourself to blame. “Your own good and survival” are founded on living in Galt’s society, not Attila’s. If you are unwilling by your own actions to acknowledge that, just who and what is it that you are counting on, or blaming?
Michael, you are a prime example of what I mean by needing intelligence to understand Rand. Nothing in her works is against love, or helping others, or replacing Christianity. You havent read or understood a thing she wrote, it’s beyond you. Just accept you cant handle the intellectual content and are better off with simple words of one syllable which teach you mindless pointless touchy feely with no basis in principles. Oh, sorry, forgot, you probably dont know what principles are.
I forwarded this to a Rand scholar, one of the few who understand everything she wrote, for his comment. He replied
“I never read Roger Kimball. He’s an ignorant sarcastic ass but it’s always that snyde cutting intended-to-offend kind of sarcasm”
Exactly
Damn!
(By the way, well done gus3)
I don’t understand the obvious need — need! — to proselytize for Rand. I truly don’t. If she isn’t Roger’s cup of tea (and Objectivism clearly isn’t), so be it. Can’t he have his contrary opinion?
I’ve never read her (please spare me the pleading to do so), and I’ve only experienced objectivism from the periphery of these types of discussions, so the Ayn Rand stuff has always puzzled me. My knowledge of a current law school student in our family and his sudden “discovery” of objectivism lends credence (superficial, I know) to an earlier allegation in these comments regarding the strong attraction of Rand to folks with genuine candle power upstairs but happen to be sexual libertines or into alternative lifestyles.
As for Rand and the Tea Party — I don’t think objectivists can claim that leadership. Much like Obama supporters in 2008, that’s a disparate crowd projecting all manner of hopes and wishes into the political “movement” of the moment. Multiple prongs are sure to result from the process of putting meat on the bones of whatever the heck has been captured in these tea parties.
@61 Myth “buster”:
It’s not any pervertion of language. Jesus himself stated he was giving his life by his own will, nobody was taking it away from him, therefore he proceed stating he was also taking his life back at the correct time.
Such a sacrifice! It’s like a cop acting as a poor victim so a thief comes and takes his money, making it so just to follow the thief later to his own concealed place to kick the hell out of him and take his money back. The only different is that Jesus was not a cop, and he was not going after a thief but after the devil, not to take back his money but his people. So much for a sacrifice… It seems to me he was defending his values and acting for his own self interest.
Simon, you condescend to and ridicule Randers. That’s dispicable. It’s a Liberal pathology.
That she appeals to adolescents (me in the 50′s) is GREAT, you dolt.
That’s who we need to reach with Rand’s meticulous fictions of how statism and central planning destroys us. ALL their teachers do the reverse.
Thomson, I’m a faithful Christian, and as such, your tarring Objectivists with the atheist and pro-abort brush insults me. She indeed was an ugly personality up close, but so were ALL the German “philosophers” that I read. That she rescued me from progressivism in my adolescence far outways her personal sins.
Would that the young read Rand rather than the Potter business.
THE NEW CRITERION & THE GREAT NEOCON NARRATIVE: THE TRUTH ABOUT NEOCONSERVATIVE POLITICAL CORRECTNESS
It’s all about the “narrative.” Like their former allies on the far Left, the neocons have, following the Soviet spy and traitor Whittaker Chambers, constructed a politically correct “narrative” to smear Ayn Rand and read her out of the movement to defend a free society (except, of course, that a free society is not what the Big-Government neocons want to defend).
There’s just one problem. The narrative has now been exposed for what it is: a smear based on a lie, a lie based on fear, and fear based on hatred–or what Ayn Rand once referred to as “hatred of the good for being the good.” In the end, there’s little difference between “Roger’s Rules” and Saul Alinsky’s “Rules for Radicals.” Both start with the same premise–i.e., the end justifies the means–and in both cases the end is some form of collectivism and statism.
Roger and his Rabbits offer us nothing but a dark and malevolent view of the universe (think Edvard Munch and “The Scream”).
There is good news, though. In just the same way that Alinksky’s “Rules for Radicals” has been exposed and is now being used against the Left, so too with “Roger’s Rules.” Roger’s BIG LIE has been exposed. As Louis Brandeis once said: “Sunlight is the best disinfectant.”
It’s a different day, Roger. The old narrative just won’t work.
(Hat Tip to PJTV extraordinaire, Bill Whittle, for inspiring the title of this post. See his great video here at PJTV: “MSNBC & the Great Liberal Narrative: The Truth About the Tyranny of Political Correctness.”)
If you lack the discipline to read the book that you want to criticize and cannot fathom… why would I read your column?
Is this typical for you?
I’m still waiting for the seminar trolls to ask me if I am a sexual libertine and if I have had abortions and whether I voted for Obama. They seem remarkably eager to insinuate things, but not prove or confirm them. Now why is that?
I have no problem with Rand. I mean I think her philosophy is broken, but ‘to each their own’. However, I do have a problem with half-literate buffoons who claim to grok Rand, but in fact have no idea what they’re talking about.
Example: A co-worker was talking about how he was “going Galt”. So I asked him where he was moving to. Apparently his version of going Galt can be performed in suburbia, since he said he wasn’t going to move. Then I asked what he was gonna do for a living, but he plans to continue working here at the office. I asked about hunting or growing food… but he was offended by me insinuating that he would have to disconnect from society in order to ‘go Galt’.
That blows my mind.
I think this was just a way to get people to click over to the biography on the New Criterion.
Drat! I cancelled my subscription to The New Criterion some years ago when Charles Kessler attacked my hero, Donald Rumsfeld. (If the rag had printed my Letter to the Editor, I might not have done.) If I had waited, I could have cancelled it over Kimball’s dreary Ayn attack. I may yet stop reading Pajama’s Media. Between him and Rosenbaum, it’s getting a little to mystical for me!
71. You’re missing the other aspect- He saved His people by taking their burdens onto Himself, hence the title, “Lamb of God.” Yes, it was a willing trade, but that does not change the fact that He paid a heavy price for the benefit of others, hence He sacrificed Himself. That’s the whole point of my argument- self-sacrifice and altruism is completely rational, but it is by no means selfish, unless it is done in order to be boastful, hence the Randian position perverts language. Calling a diamond a piece of coal and a piece of coal a diamond doesn’t make it so.
In 61, “myth buster” complains that Objectivists produce Orwellian perversions of language.
How ironic. Objectivists take “sacrifice” to simply mean the giving up of something greater for something lesser or nothing at all. Pretty straightforward, no? Notice that this is not the giving up of something for ANY old purpose. To wit: If I give up something lesser to get something greater, that’s nicely identified as an INVESTMENT. Investments are the opposite of sacrifices, yet the likes of Myth Buster want to insist on a vocabulary that calls these the same thing.
Similarly for “a vice that entails harming or exploiting another person for your own benefit at their expense.” That evil is identified with a perfectly clear term: PREDATION. But what’s not clear to everyone is whether being a human predator is truly to one’s self-interest — so it is not helpful at all to slyly smuggle in such an assumption by insisting that predation is synonymous with selfishness, and that any who raise an eyebrow at this move are Orwellian fiends. (In fact, that assumption is precisely what Objectivists see contradicting the facts of what’s required to sustain a human existence.)
And so on. If you were truly concerned with avoiding “making the Truth into a lie” by perversion of your thinking and speaking, it appears you would do well to ask an Objectivist for help.
@80
Yet, Jesus took back his life and took back his body, and hes back to the heavens in his divine nature again, just about to come back to fight once and for all the Evil (according to Bible).
WHERE is the sacrifice?
I cant see the loss of any of his values, which is essential in the ialtruism/i. Sacrifice is the deliberate loss of a high value in favor of a lesser one or a non-value.
The application of this in a society where people is expecting for the others to sacrifice in the name of some public good and are expected to sacrifice also for the others, that makes an altruistic society. They are not trading goods and services, but burdens and grievances.
If they are doing for their own will, it can be tolerable. But alas, people usually dont exchange sacrifices by his own will, they prefer to exchange goods and services that reflect their values, usually with a rewards in mind. If you are thinking to benefit and obtain rewards from your actions, they are no more sacrifices but investments.
Long life to Capitalism!
My opinion of Mr. Kimball has just taken a dive. Id expect to see this sort of thing on a lefty blog. I am not taking issue with the criticism of Ayn Rand, but rather the techniques and tools used to denigrate her followers. They are right out of the lefty propagandists hand book. Though Mr. Kimball, to his credit, missuses them. (He should not have been so honest regarding his relationship with Ayn Rand.)
In like manner, let me first revealing my relationship with Ayn Rand and Objectivism. I read her fiction and We the Living when I was in High School during the 70s. She did not change my views so much as provide me with a greater understanding of the nature of the enemy. I have resently read Return of the Primitive. Though I generally agree with many things she says, I am not an Objectivist. I will provide my own opinion on the flaws of Ayn Rands philosophy at the end of this rant.
What Roger Kimball has done can be summed up like this:
1) Publish a review written from a heavily biased viewpoint using some of the same tried and true arguments used by the enemy (e.g. Marxist Professors). I read the review. I did not see any criticism that has not been hashed over a thousand times before.
2) Generate responses by over-sensitized defenders who are angered enough to write a response. This is selection bias no. 1. The energy needed to jump the entry barrier (i.e to write a comment) is related to the level of emotion that the article generated. Rationality tends to diminish with emotional involvement in normal people.
3) Select from those comments a subset of the extreme examples, is selection bias no. 2. Focusing on an individual who makes multiple posts is surly focusing on someone who is rather worked up about the issue.
4) Use this data sample to characterise everyone who disagrees with the conclusions of the review, and then use this characterisation to some how validate the review.
In other words;
Hit someone in the face repeatedly until they have had enough and start hit back. Then whine when some punches are wild and hit bellow the belt. Finally, use this as justification for attacking in the first place.
My comments on Ayn Rand.
1) She understood the nature of the enemy very well and she understood how it has infiltrated every aspect of western society. I think she was the first writer to talk about the school system deliberately causing our children to develop with deformed cognitive processes.
2) She was brave enough to attempt a solution. As an absolutist she produced a set of axioms and built everything around them. She was strong willed enough to stick by her convictions and to state views that flew in the face of everything that our schooling teaches.
3) She took the exclusion of the axiom of existence of GOD as an axiom. Sorry for this convoluted statement, but I wanted to highlight that Ayn Rand was in reality applying an axiom of negation by subscribing to atheism.
4) Any logical structures built that includes axioms of negation will be unstable or fractured. This is mostly apparent in any Objectivistic thought regarding the spiritual dimension of human existence.
Even though Ayn Rand, nailed it on the head in many ways, I feel that her thinking has flaws that need to be addressed. Throwing out everything she said because of some flaws is silly. In fact studying those flaws in context gives a deeper understanding into how to construct a better system.
One more disclaimer; I am a Christian and thus a theist. I personally believe that it is impossible to form any valid philosophic system that does not use the existence of GOD as an axiom. I also feel that it is silly to try to prove the existence of GOD as that would be trying to prove an axiom. I believe that this can be demonstrated by looking at all philosophic schools of thought that reject GOD. They invariably include some convoluted contradictory logic somewhere that is used to patch around structural problems. They also become a replacement religion for their adherents and the schools founders become their god.
To #83, DesertYote. A very good post. I find, though, that your argument breaks down at #3. And here’s the reason: “the axiom of the existence of GOD” is the ultimate begging of the question. You are saying that because the existence of god cannot be proven it must be taken as fact. If I am mistaken in my interpretation, please forgive me, but further, please prove the existence of god so that the alleged axiomatic nature of the proposition can be accepted. I see, though, that you refuse to enter into the proof of your axiom and therefore there is no way to have this discussion with you.
I beg your pardon. But how is this different from say, a liberal claiming it axiomatic that all conservatives are heartless pigs who want the poor to die from a lack of health insurance? It’s axiomatic. All right-thinking people know this. It’s not to be considered because it is axiomatic.
84. Chris in Toronto
Thanks for your kind comment. I am headed out to eat right now so I do not have time to properly address your questions. When I get back, I think I can supply some clarification as to my meaning by words like axiom.
[bs alert]
I shouldn’t open my mouth, as I don’t read any non-technical books at all (too many words), and can only bs. I also am not sure what “objectivism” or “morality” mean, either, so support for or against “ideologies” is by happinstance. But I can’t help _trying_ to make sense of things and lack self-restraint (redundant) so (sorry):
(3) How does the long-term nature of rational interests prevent them from conflicting?*
The idea of a hedge-bet comes to mind (bets on exclusive outcomes). It comes from a desire to increase the likelihood of some other (longer-term) outcome, based on probabilities, and may only seem contradictory at first level. Most everything in life is probabilistic only. Of course this has nothing to do with why most people(s interests) contradict themselves… to say people generally are or aren’t rational requires a bit of elaboration I believe (not to mention assumes an appropriate foresight).
Maybe a better term is longEST-term-interest, or (end) “goal”.
I think to say that something is rational or not is to say that its logical conclusion supports, (or maybe just doesn’t contradict) some goal (how well it supports it is a measure I use often of how “good” it is – and if I find it is “missing” support, then I often look to see if its true support lies elsewhere (alterior goal), unintentionally (foolish) or not (sinister). However, this presumes the knowledge, a priori, of what is the goal (and, often, logic)… so it seams a bit of an unclear tool, unless they are implicit – but then that would make it academic I suppose (and really the terms are more widely used as expressions of differing definitions, rather than than logical conclusions). (I suppose this would mean my def of “reason” is to self-consistently apply a logic, but whatevas this’s all bs.)
Test: a sadomasochist pinching himself is rational, if you ask me. But if he over-indulges he’ll have a problem.
(4) Why is force not in ones rational (long-term) self-interest? Seems to me that it could be if it gets you what you want and can avoid being caught.
(5) Why not? Why does long-term rational self-interest dictate not using force?
So again, the “goal” idea exists here as well, because if one understands Human Nature, then one knows things are replicated: Things are covetted. So to choose to do so unto others is to welcome its (increased likelihood of) doing unto oneself (as per a simple affine translation of the individual parties in the social contract – by the translation operator which is the space (Corporeal) part of the Charge of Equality) – and thus it is to not only accept, but promote, its continued existence in society – if only implicitly.
So really… this goes against (violates) the social contract itself (the unspoken contract). As per the contract, we are to render forceful aggression unto IT, in an effort to prevent its vengeful rot of community (like a quarantine). Some might say it doesn’t exist, but it is as real as the trust one has when they close their eyes next to another at night; Ancient even.
Thus begets the simple question: Will one indulge in the suffering (as a “necessary evil”) or will one share others (and have the possibility of unitarily rotating said “suffering” into “sacrifice”).
Or, simply… What is one’s “goal”? And is one part of the solution or part of the problem? (the definition of “problem” is transitive here, as it is defined iff “goal” is, thus adding no external linkage (likewise, solution here includes the whole complement as to exist in society without violating rules is by def abiding by the contract – true leadership/sacrifice is a bonus but not a binding duty, it is ours to accept or reject)).
Does your “society” believe in the Golden Rule of Reciprocity (a truth)? Does your “society” believe some Pigs are more equal (able to do things others shouldn’t do, or copy)?
[] This defines well (maybe?) a binary partitioning of all Men. We have not discussed “good” nor “bad”, and yet these two flavors will be at odds, by nature; one is a parasite hosted the other (and provides no benefit like some “parasites”).
Some will not be aware of the dichotomy (esp. Liberals – who indulge in playing Robin Hood with the Government’s faceless hand (= monopoly on violence)). But that makes it neither non-exisistent nor inconsequential; nor does granting it fancy names though it can help for human exchange – it is not essential though.
(*) In fact, in the simplest sense, the people in each group have the same “interest” – HOWEVER the two are not (homomorphic?) equivalent. One of those interests is (self-)contradictory to the group identity concept (as members within a group are at this point equivalent – unless you want to apply some “other” metric). ‘Those’ individual’s interest are in conflict… at odds with everyone including those in their own group, instead of just the other group (unless one forms a gang – which in and of itself violates contract (conspiracy) – though clearly has a statistical advantage – even wolves noticed this truth). It is worse odds to be in ‘that’ group in the sense of number against (by the only measure in sight – equality – once you throw in another you will have more-equal pigs)).
It’s like the difference between a purely repulsive and a purely attract force. One is much more lonely; and if you look to the heavens you can see which dominates the universe.
Of course the direct analogy fails when group identity is not known. And also for sadists and psychopaths (sanity could be addressed further – but will again introduce more-equalness). Plus, the whole thing assumes one wishes to live among a society, there is always escape back to Nature, shrinking as it is. But there is at least (1+) historical examples to shed light on the possible outcome on Earth.
PS: I think within Alfred@37′s conciseness is what I was trying to say/express. In fact I kinda like this definition of “morality”. It is at least “useful” (well-defined).
“(6) The source of Mans rights is his nature as a volitional, rational being. If a man chooses to live, it is a fact that he must produce certain values to live and a fact that he requires a moral code to effectively produce those value. A moral code is a set of principles accepted by choice to guide ones actions and choices.”
If I could point out that a non-trivial “morality” (labor ==> water, eat, sleep, elemental-shelter…) seems to only exist when there is more than one person (a social contract). A fine point, but I always consider the desert island example.. not because it is sustainable, but as a check that the stranded soul’s “Rights” aren’t violated as he surely has the same Natural Rights as any soul. Its closer to the animal scenario though, and likely about as useful as a tree-falling-in-the-woods.
/bs off (<- L337 now?)
/laugh away
I find this fascinating! I appreciate that an editor / publisher somewhere has decided that a robust exchange of views precipitated by an opinion piece can become the topic of further exchange I, too, read Rand when classmates were reading her at age 13 & 14. This was the 60s, so I was also reading Orwell, Koestler, and trying to understand Marx. We later progressed to Marcuse [some detoured to Tolkein], Alinsky, and Chairman Mao. Undergrad philosophy put some perspective and rigour to what had been peer-generated reading and discussion.
Am I alone in neither worshipping nor condemning Rand? She was a mediocre author with a thin philosophy. There is more meat and rigour out there if you are going to spend your time in such vehement disagreement. The book review was poorly written and focussed on the reviewer’s opinions of the subject more than the substance of the biography; I know what he thinks of Rand, but not whether I should read the book. Her facile defenders sound like Tea Partiers and her detractors take Rand far more seriously than she deserves. The one issue that does trouble me is the insistence on being an acolyte before one is granted access to her papers – this is not the way to attract the recognition and stature her fans believe she deserves.
I came to Rand backwards: I read “Capitalism: The Lost Ideal” (or whatever) first, perhaps “We the Living,” and “Anthem” (which I viewed as a poor knock-off of “1984″) in my mid-twenties. I read “Atlas Shrugged” at 40 then began reading about the woman herself. I have yet to read “The Fountainhead.”
The following comic from Reason magazine rather nicely sums her up from where I stand:
http://reason.com/archives/2009/11/10/will-everyone-please-stop-frea
All things said, I give the old girl a thumbs-up. But I’m not a fanboy and probably won’t re-read anything by her.
84. Chris in Toronto
An axiom is a simple statement that by definition can not be proved or disproved. A set of axioms provides the foundation for constructing a formal system. By combining axioms, theorems are created. An example would be the 13 axioms of Euclid that form the basis of Euclidean geometry. These 13 axioms can not be proved. In fact one of the axioms has such a complicated definition that its inclusion as an axiom was in question. Many mathematicians tried to prove it. This is the axiom of parallel lines, “Through any point ‘X’ not on line ‘A’ there is one and only one line not intersecting line ‘A’.” The attempt to prove this led to one of the more important mathematical discoveries, the existence of alternate geometries. It turns out that this axiom should actually read, “Through any point ‘X’ not on line ‘A’ there are either no lines, one and only one line, or an infinite number of lines.” Each one of these three equivalent statements produces either Riemannian geometry (geometry on a sphere), Euclidean geometry (flat space), or hyperbolic geometry.
The utility of a formal system relates to what type of problems can be mapped onto it and thus solved. So even though the selection of axioms can be seen as arbitrary, they need to be able to be the basis for a self consistent system and that system needs to be applicable to some set of problems.
It occurred to me, when I was a young pup of 20, that given the inability for the existence of GOD to be proved or disprove, maybe the issue should be treated as an axiom. So I set out to produce a set of formal systems and see what I get. Kind of like the “survival of the fittest philosophy”. I got distracted by partying, pursuing a career, and raising my son, so I have not done much work on it until just recently. As a Christian, I am most interested in what type of system I can create by using the existence of GOD as one of my axioms, so thats the one I am doing first. I would like to do the same thing with the other two options also.
So it is not so much as saying that “because the Existence of GOD can not be proven, He Exists”, as it is asking “What kind of problems can a system that uses the Existence of GOD as an axiom solve”. Its an experiment.
One more point regarding axioms, sometimes one axiom can be substituted for another, and still produce the same formal system.
I hope I did not get too technical.
82. He poured out His Blood and endured great torment; that is His loss. If you don’t think that’s a loss, go get tasered for someone who isn’t even grateful that you’re doing it for him. It won’t do any permanent damage, but it will put you through a great deal of pain. How great a sacrifice must it have been for Him to die for the people who killed Him?
One point I missed is that I am using a very simple definition of GOD. Its more of a mathematical (phenomenological) concept then a religious one. Anything else would be too complicated to be usable. All of the characteristics normally attributed of the GOD of Abraham must be built up from the system. I am also striving to find the smallest set of axioms that can form an usable system.
DesertYote:
Thank you for taking the time to explain yourself. To which I will simply reply with this (from the Merriam-Webster Dictionary):
“axiom |ˈaksēəm|
noun
a statement or proposition that is regarded as being established, accepted, or self-evidently true : the axiom that supply equals demand.
• chiefly Mathematics a statement or proposition on which an abstractly defined structure is based.
ORIGIN late 15th cent.: from French axiome or Latin axioma, from Greek axiōma ‘what is thought fitting,’ from axios ‘worthy.’
And no amount of verbiage and argument to the contrary changes the fact that in order for it to be “axiomatic that god exists” you must take it as an article of faith that god exists. That is begging the question. Believing something to be so does not make it so.
That is why it is called faith. Because it cannot be proven. Which is why it cannot be axiomatic.
I hesitate to join the general circus, but amidst the rather scaremaking rhetoric I couldn’t help noticing T. Smith’s book mentioned in passing.
It’s quite good. I’m curious as to how she got the contract in the first place–Cambridge U. press, wasn’t it? Very serious, very impressive, and quite an achievement considering the total lack of prestige attached to her matter.
I mention the book again because it’s an attractive example of what can be done with questionable material. Smith struck me as a sharp, analytical, and academic thinker–in the good sense, and eminently decent and reasonable too; she yokes small-o objectivism to the intellectuals traditions which rendered it relevant and provide an egress into mainstream philosophy. But I’m partial to virtue ethics.
But oh, Roger Kimball, Roger Kimball! How you persecute my heart. I suspect most of the raging attached to Mr. Daniels’ article has been attracted to you from other shoals of the internet, but I’m one of your–what was it, a teeming 6,000?–print subscribers. Would it destroy you to stop sneering even for a moment? Would you perish?
Here and in general: poor show, you ungentle soul. What’s a reader to do? At least Commentary can still be trusted.
92. chris in Toronto
I am using the Mathematical definition as used in formal systems theory. Axioms can not be proven. Their veracity is taken at faith. That is why I gave the example of the “parallel lines theorem”. When its proper form was first encountered, it was dismissed because it did not make immediate sense. Not all axioms are obviously reasonable. Belief in the validity of an axiom is not important. What is important is the structure that the system of axioms produces. If real worlds problems can be mapped “onto” the structure and the structure manipulated to produce results that “solve” the problem, then the system has utility.
The whole point in the exorcize is to create a set of approximately equivalent system with axioms such as “One god exists”, “No gods exist”, “Many gods exist”, etc. Once this is done examine their respective utility. As I said, it is a mathematical experiment.
I am sure that there are some popular books that cover basic Axiomatic Systems Theory. If you are really interested, you should read up on the subject. Its fascinating, well at least to a math geek it is
@90
I understand what you said, but it’s a high price from our point of view, not from His, since he took back his life after mere 3 days.
Yes, it’s a very high price for us, nobody is willing to do the same, and maybe somebody can die for another, but nobody will resurrect for another. I understand your point, and that it’s called sacrifice because it had to be taught in that way to us, for us to grasp what has been done.
But from his point of view, it was no sacrifice. He recovered his life and now is alive according to Bible. If any, the loss was 3 days? 33 years? High price for us, not for him. We needed to understand it, so “sacrifice” is taught to us.
94. DesertYote
You are mistaking Axiom for Dogma. Both are “fundamentals” in the sense they can’t be proven. But there is a difference between them:
The dogma is based on faith.
The axiom is self-evident.
The first one is an authoritative principle, belief, or statement of ideas considered to be true by some group/authority.
The secons one is self-evident, accepted not by proof, but are inductively derived via the persistent observation of particular facts or instances in the nature.
“Gravity exists” can be considered an axiom. You don’t know why it had to be so, or what are the real origins, you just know because the phenomena is consistently observed.
“God exists” is a dogma. According to Bible nobody has ever seen God. He is to be accepted only by faith. There is no proof but there is no observation either.
–0–
I think objectivists and christians can coexist peacefully in a capitalist society as long as they hold FREEDOM as their supreme value in a society. The best example is from the Founding Fathers, they believed in God and even included Him in the Declaration of Independence. But they didn’t construct the Republica on the basis of Bible, as usually said, but all on secular principles.
95. Blaspheme. He bore the punishment for trillions of crimes he did not commit, fully paying the just penalty for each of them. Furthermore, the Bible specifically calls the Crucifixion the perfect sacrifice.
Hasn’t anyone read “Manhatten Melodrama” aka
“The Night of January l6th?” This was a play by Ayn Rand which I actually saw in summer stock. Not bad.
@ 97
yeah, right. Perfect because is a sacrifice without loss. Such a sacrifice. If that’s a sacrifice then welcome, I’d also like to be able to do such lossless sacrifices. But such a thing is accomplishable only to God as long as I can see in your book.
If humans are not able to do that sort of things, then humans shouldn’t even try. And politic theories/philosophies for human beings should not include such a impractical thing.
Roger Kimball’s memory may be playing tricks on him. He says he has read “some of Rand’s essays on art and philosophy” and that he declared them to be “pretty thin gruel” in a review of “a book” on her philosophy of art. He may actually have read all her essays on esthetics, as there are only four, but he does not in fact even refer to them in his review of the book, ‘What Art Is: The Esthetic Theory of Ayn Rand,’ which I co-authored. Since an entire chapter is devoted to each essay, however, one can perhaps understand how after more than a decade Kimball (a thorough reviewer) might indeed feel as if he had read the essays themselves. The review was first published in the Public Interest (Spring 2001).
http://www.nationalaffairs.com/public_interest/detail/can-art-be-defined
Authors’ response: http://www.aristos.org/editors/resp-pi.htm
In any case, it is worth noting that Jacques Barzun, whom Kimball admires, thought a good deal more than he did of Rand’s philosophy of art, based on our account of it.
http://www.aristos.org/barzun.htm [scroll down to "Letters from . . ."]
Kimball aptly characterizes the comments of Rand’s defenders as a “large outpouring of calumnious rage” aimed at Daniels and suggests that “this subliterate invective” would have embarrassed Rand herself. I would hope so. Such individuals certainly do not make my own work and that of other serious Rand scholars and critics any easier. Daniels says a great many things about Rand that deserve to be challenged. And Kimball’s brief remarks, both in tone and content, must surely cause uneasiness at times, even among his admirers–but his criticism of the commentators is essentially justified.
I limited my own comments in that discussion (page 7, #63) to a suggestion of two areas Daniels may have overlooked–epistemology and esthetics–when he wrote that he could “not think of any field [of important human activity] in which Ayn Rand showed any proper . . . intellectual judgement.” Kimball calls him “one of the more percipient . . . cultural critics now writing.” Having read some of his work, I would agree. Indeed, in 2006 he was selected as the winner of a retroactive Aristos Award for his article “Trash, Violence, and Versace: But Is It Art?” (1999), which he wrote under his pseudonym, Theodore Dalrymple.
http://www.aristos.org/aris-award-3.htm [Aristos Award, 1999: search for "Theodore."]
Much of the recent discussion here and at the New Criterion website seems to be by members of the orthodox wing of Objectivism (on which see Chris Matthew Sciabarra, “Orthodox Interpretations of Ayn Rand”–see URL below). Kimball and Daniels may be unaware of the body of serious Rand studies and related books by independent-minded scholars even they might respect. Among the works I have in mind are these: Sciabarra’s ‘Ayn Rand: The Russian Radical’; ‘Capitalism: A Treatise on Economics’ (the first comprehensive book on the subject from an Objectivist perspective), by George Reisman; ‘The Fountainhead: An American Novel’ (part of Twayne’s Masterworks Studies series), by Douglas Den Uyl; ‘Goddess of the Market: Ayn Rand and the American Right,’ by Jennifer Burns (a new biography published at the same time as Heller’s).
http://www.nyu.edu/projects/sciabarra/essays/oioar.htm
Louis Torres, Co-Editor, Aristos (An Online Review of the Arts)
#97 mythbuster:
The “paying the price for our sins” thinking goes to the Germanic “weregild” laws of the Middle Ages, but it is not Biblical.
Look at the instructions for the annual Passover. The living sacrifice, the scapegoat, is the one that takes the sins away from the people. The sacrificial lamb, in shedding its blood, brings life, because life is in the blood.
@99 Atlante:
Three questions:
1. How much do parents sacrifice, for the good of their children?
2. Is every such sacrifice guaranteed to be a losing proposition?
3. Does the possibility of a greater good mean it’s no sacrifice?
99. Jesus’ sacrifice is perfect not because it is lossless, for indeed, He shed His Precious Blood; rather, it is perfect because of His sinlessness.
100. “He who knew no sin became sin so that sinners could become righteous,” and “He became a curse for us.” And in His own words, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken Me?” for indeed the penalty for sin is to be cut off from God and consigned to the netherworld. Still, you are correct in saying that the shedding of Blood is what grants Life.
I think it was Russell Kirk who dismissed Ms. Rand with “Oh, they only read her for the naughty parts.” Just so.
102 Gary:
Depending on where one is while reading it, the entire book could be one big naughty part.
/did i just say that out loud?
I find it understandable that Bill Buckley would kick out Ayn Rand from the conservatives in good standing club while she was alive (and by all accounts a horribly obnoxious person). Was Rand a rival as a possible leader of intellectual conservatism? Any by all accounts, Bill Buckley was often a horrible person (read Chris Buckleys book).
Now that they have both departed this earth, no need to snark on Rand to maintain favor with Bill. Is the Daniels piece, and Kimballs post here, simply the result of their inculcation under the Buckley wing? Ok, done psychoanalyzing for now.
On to what Rand actually wrote. I first read The Fountainhead and then Atlas Shrugged in college. I thought The Fountainhead had serious flaws. (Why are you sitting in your office all day, Roark, waiting for a phone call? Even if you are a genius architect, how are people supposed to find out? Do a little advertising and promotion, will ya?)
Atlas Shrugged was a revelation. Sure, the prose is Russian (does that mean its bad? Parlor game: every time she writes as if take a drink of your red wine.). Sure, its long, could have used an editor to cut out 200-300 pages. Sure, Galts speech is WAY too long (are we seriously to believe that someone would give such a speech to an actual audience of the entire country? And they would listen to the whole thing? Galt makes Obamas speeches look concise.) And, sure, as gus3 at #55 writes, and as my Jurisprudence professor at Notre Dame, Charlie Rice, said to me, funny thing about those Ayn Rand books. There are no children in them.
But when she nailed it, SHE NAILED IT. This is why National Review/TNCs reflexive dismissiveness towards Rand bothers me so. Didnt Reagan say that one who agrees with you 80% and disagrees with you 20% is an ally and a friend, not a 20% traitor? Why does Rand get such a bad rap? Why cant she be treated as an 80% ally on the horrors of statism, and morality of economic conservatism, and a 20% dissenter on family values?
Cmon Kimball, cmon Daniels, tells us why the extensive quote Alfred Centauri cites at #48 is jejune and the prose awful. Would that any Republican politician gave that same speech! It is worth repeating:
An excerpt from Francisco’s “Money Speech”:
—
“Then you will see the rise of the men of the double standard–the men who live by force, yet count on those who live by trade to create the value of their looted money–the men who are the hitchhikers of virtue.
In a moral society, these are the criminals, and the statutes are written to protect you against them. But when a society establishes criminals-by-right and looters-by-law–men who use force to seize the wealth of disarmed victims–then money becomes its creators’ avenger.
Such looters believe it safe to rob defenseless men, once they’ve passed a law to disarm them. But their loot becomes the magnet for other looters, who get it from them as they got it. Then the race goes, not to the ablest at production, but to those most ruthless at brutality.
When force is the standard, the murderer wins over the pickpocket. And then that society vanishes, in a spread of ruins and slaughter.”
“Do you wish to know whether that day is coming? Watch money. Money is the barometer of a society’s virtue.
When you see that trading is done, not by consent, but by compulsion–when you see that in order to produce, you need to obtain permission from men who produce nothing–when you see that money is flowing to those who deal, not in goods, but in favors–when you see that men get richer by graft and by pull than by work, and your laws don’t protect you against them, but protect them against you–when you see corruption being rewarded and honesty becoming a self-sacrifice–you may know that your society is doomed.
Money is so noble a medium that is does not compete with guns and it does not make terms with brutality. It will not permit a country to survive as half-property, half-loot.”
“Whenever destroyers appear among men, they start by destroying money, for money is men’s protection and the base of a moral existence. Destroyers seize gold and leave to its owners a counterfeit pile of paper. This kills all objective standards and delivers men into the arbitrary power of an arbitrary setter of values.
Gold was an objective value, an equivalent of wealth produced.
Paper is a mortgage on wealth that does not exist, backed by a gun aimed at those who are expected to produce it. Paper is a check drawn by legal looters upon an account which is not theirs: upon the virtue of the victims. Watch for the day when it bounces, marked, ‘Account overdrawn.’”
“When you have made evil the means of survival, do not expect men to remain good. Do not expect them to stay moral and lose their lives for the purpose of becoming the fodder of the immoral. Do not expect them to produce, when production is punished and looting rewarded. Do not ask, ‘Who is destroying the world? You are.”
What’s up with my quotation marks and apostrophes disappearing?
… And all the Randists came out here as well! It would be funny, if they weren’t all so hateful.
If you can calm your juices for just a moment, the simple fact is this:
If you want to understand Man and Existence, study Ayn Rand.
(By “study”, I mean, eg: work at it until you understand OPAR; I do /not/ mean skim Nth-hand material by Nth-rate “thinkers” looking only to join the vituperation spew.)
You should read the beginning of Daniels’ piece and think abut it.
Anyone who actually looks at what Ayn Rand said, whether they disagree or not, can easily see that she was against censorship. She believed that human individuals are capable of acting for human life, capable of understanding if they use the thinking that enables life in reality – in fact she urged people not to simply believe what she said but to check it out and think for themselves, as readers of Daniels’ your articles should do.
In contrast her enemies such as Marxists and religionists strongly censor.
So Daniel’s writing starts off as a smear campaign based on fantasy not on reality. Much like conspiracy theories do.
It is easy to write words that sound good to certain mentalities, very difficult to write clearly based on fact. If you want to run a blog shouldn’t you aspire to the latter? Of course you’d be emulating Ayn Rand in that capability.
For an excellent, erudite review of Anthony Daniels’ piecs, see here:
http://is.gd/8pbrC
“I was taken aback by Anthony Daniels’s superficial analysis of Ayn Rand in his article “Ayn Rand: Engineer of Souls,” which appeared in the February edition of The New Criterion. And this is coming from someone who is enamored of Daniels’s excellent writing in Life at the Bottom, where he illustrates his critique of modern British society with superbly wrought first-hand observations. “
“Personally, I can’t understand the Randians.”
“Then again, I can’t understand how anyone could find her to be anything other than a disgusting human being.”
“I can’t understand…”
But don’t let that stop you from giving us your opinion, eh?
As I wrote in #14:
To me, it is a basic principle of honest discourse to actually know and understand what a person said or wrote on a topic before criticizing it, but the vast majority of Leftists and conservatives alike seem to think that such principles don’t apply when the topic is Ayn Rand.
Called it.
It wasn’t hard.
After all, while conservatives don’t (can’t) understand Objectivism, I certainly do understand conservatism — better than most conservatives, interestingly.
And that, as they say, is that.
I have always been a Cavalier Tory. I believe in as much freedom as possible for the individual and that democracy, as Churchill said, is the least worst form of government. But I am also an ardent Constituional Monarchist who believes in the efficacy of tradition and old insitutions, particularly the common law. But most of all I beieve in taking the piss out of those who take politics too seriously.
Rand falls into the last character. She is like a taxi driver or pub bore whose opinions contain a grain of truth, but whose style of address makes them look like foam-flecked loonies with whom it is best to agree cursorily and then move on as quickly as possible.
Rand’s writing is really terrible as literature because she constantly disobeys the cardinal rule: show don’t tell. But even worse is the constant shrill melodramatic tone in her novels, that makes one think of a Georgette Heyer bodice ripper written by someone on speed.
I seem to remember that the first line in ‘The Fountainhead’ is “Howard Roark laughed.” That is the only intentional comedy in the whole of Rand’s opus. As comedy is so essential to the human condition, a long work of fiction that has no humour is unlikely to raise above melodrama of the basest sort. There is more to life than political statements, struggling for truth and three-pushes-in-the dark sexual encounters, but that’s all there is in Rand’s fictive world. Like the Katherine Hepburn in the famous quip (by Dorothy Parker?), Rand runs the gamut of emotions: from A to B.
But it is probably mean to castigate Rand for being the Dan Brown of the right. Her novels are not meant to be read as novels, but as political tracts. I strongly suspect that those who remain Randites after their first teen crush on her novels, are those who read very little fiction and care very little about the arts in general.
I should add that Rand’s counterpart on the left, Virginia Woolf, was far worse a person with execreable ideas. And her novels were terrible too, because like Rand her writing is emotionally constipated.
You obviously did not read any of Ayn Rand, your assertions are so false that you start looking really ridiculous
While I think Rand’s books are boring and silly (I recommend their deconstruction at tvtropes’dot’com) and her philosophy, while notable, not appealing to me, I find it curious why somebody would praise Mr. Chambers’ review that much. I just read it and it was spot on in some points but it also presented some disappointingly outdated anti-secular views on ethics that seemed to have diminished Mr. Chambers’ capacity to understand some of Rand’s points.
Quote:
“..the pursuit of happiness, as an end in itself, tends automatically, and widely, to be replaced by the pursuit of pleasure, with a consequent general softening of the fibers of will, intelligence, spirit. [...] For, if Man’s heroism [...] no longer derives from God, [...] then Man becomes merely the most consuming of animals, with glut as the condition of his happiness and its replenishment his foremost activity.”
The fact that Mr Chambers believes God to be the only thing that prevents man from becoming a degraded gluttonous animal illustrates Mr Chambers’ own character flaws rather then the general character of men.