Review of Ayn Rand
claremont.org
claremont.org
Anyone who is fascinated by the sort of gossip that these biographers found (such as the idea that Frank was a wuss who didn't want to move to NY or that Rand was addicted to speed) would probably strongly prefer People magazine to any of Rand's works. Fortunately for them, many such magazines exist.
There is an odd tone of satisfaction in many reviews of Rand biographies... as if the writer feels somehow more empowered to critique Rand's ideas after learning about some personal foible or other than he/she did after reading (or attempting to read) one of her books.
Another good idea: "It's a world of cooperation and mutual benefit through the pursuit of self-interest, enabling satisfying lives not only for the Hank Reardens of the world but for factory workers."
She opposed coercion, writing that "in a free society, all government financing would be voluntary." At the time she considered that an ideal whose time had not yet come, but I would argue with her, probably until 3:00 in the morning, that after 46 years it's high time we moved in that direction.
We would have other disagreements as well. She thought that monopolies of force were needed to avoid anarchic carnage, but unfortunately anarchic carnage was precisely what force monopolies themselves delivered throughout the 20th century.
Of course Ayn Rand had her annoying traits, habits, and foibles, but I've read "The Letters of Ayn Rand" and seen plenty of endearing personal qualities as well. But she hated collectivism with a vitriolic passion, having seen its murderous effect on the people of her native Russia.
To those who cannot stomach Ayn Rand, allow me to summarize the high points which I have adopted for myself:
1. I can deal with reality effectively through the use of reason and conceptual thought.
2. I should interact with other people only on a voluntary basis, without initiating force or aggression against them.
3. I should seek my own health, wealth, happiness, and fulfillment. My success depends not only on my own productive abilities, but also my ability to engage with other people in mutually beneficial ways.
I'm not convinced that the ethics of any philosopher, a matter of praxis by definition, should be considered strictly apart from the values which that philosopher really acted by (as this article portrays). Not following your own ethics seems as dishonest as openly proclaiming "do what I say, not what I do", as dishonest as an evolutionary biologist advocating creationism in their free time. Because of this, IMO the article does not incur in ad hominem for presenting Rand's life.
But really, if you doubt and think that the belief is hero worship, you should probably spend some time reading the wikipedia articles (or whatever else) on them, and come up with your own refutations. Figure out how their lives contradict their philosophies, and then come back and tell us.
Everyone, no matter how great/influential has a mundane, humdrum, petty aspect to his/her existence. We are just privy to the biographies of the philosophers you mention filtered through the lens of centuries of hero worship.
Rand lived in the television age. When I first saw her in a video interview after reading her books I was disappointed at first glimpse. It's inevitable. Nobody can ever live up to their creative achievements.
Sometimes, I think like you, and at some other times, I think this is just an easy excuse for us petty people :)
And Xenophon, too. What stroke me reading them is that though Xenophon "philosophy" is much more shallow and dull than Plato's, Socrates' character appears extremely similar and /true/ both in Plato's and Xenophon's dialogs. He sounds real.
Part of the fascination for me is finding out: what were her motivations? What drives a person to work like this? And, since I personally don't like her philosophy and find her self-described followers unsettling, what lead to that? I don't disagree with some of her basic premises (the importance of rationality), but I disagree with where she often ends up. Why is that? I got an answer from the book.
I think this is different from wanting to read People magazine, but maybe you disagree.
If you have a good idea, and try your best at it (and don't get all the way there), it doesn't make it any less of a good idea. We all need an ideal to strive for.
Nathanial Brandon: his writings most resemble modern psychology, and Rand was opposed to making her ideas sound like psychobabble... hence her use of "selfishness" rather than the looser (though more descriptive) "self-actualization".
Greenspan: One simply cannot thrive in politics by discussing the morality of capitalism (other than by criticizing it). Greenspan omitted any mention of Rand from his most recent book, and all we have is an essay he wrote. Meanwhile he officially ate crow after the financial meltdown by making some remarks critical of capitalism.
It would indeed be interesting to listen to tapes of their debates, but short of that I think it would be fairly difficult to learn much, since Greenspan himself is mum.
Eleanor Roosevelt.
Incidentally, was Eleanor Roosevelt really the first to say this? None of the online attributions include a source.
I am however appalled at how many people chose to discuss attribution of the quote when the very quote itself instructs them not to. Reminds me of murderous zealots killing in the name of their merciful god; not in their savagery of course, but in the blinding irony of the situation.
Frankly this is phenomenally small beer compared to the sins of other philosophers or influential intellectuals. And I find the obsession with Rand gossip amongst her detractors pretty stupid.
The reviewer also dismisses 'Objectivism' and says the novels are the important thing. But actually the novels contain most of the philosophical meat of Objectivism - the subsequent non-fiction is more like footnotes/endnotes, collections of essays that relate ideas from AS to real-world history and economic theory. An Introduction to Objectivist Epistemology does contain many new ideas though, but it's only 50 pages or so and is fairly a-political. I suppose the start of The Virtue of Selfishness contains a couple of essential ideas one might not pick up from the novels (ie. why you can get ought from is), although that could be seen as overly intellectual 'who cares' territory (as most people perceive the whole field of philosophy)
Funny, I found the people in Atlas Shrugged to be two dimensional bores that didn't talk to each other but gave long rambling speeches.
Nobody in that book acted the way humans acted and for some reason that world had entropy turned up to 11.
The philosophy aside, the book was horrible ordeal full of people that I just wanted to punch in the nuts.
This sounds an awful lot like the philosophy of the Bayesian conspirators over at lesswrong.com. However, instead of pronouncing intuition to be hokum, they just say that intuition isn't magic. I wonder how Ayn Rand would've been informed by the wealth of knowledge we've gained in the study of the brain and cognition and by computer science? Objectivism would have been quite different. (Not suffused with the false notion of mind as tabula rasa.)
EDIT: An excellent Review. http://lesswrong.com/lw/m1/guardians_of_ayn_rand/#more
I think Eliezer is trying a bit hard to have a negative view of Rand (which is a very faddish view these days). Rand's scientist heroes would fit right in among the LessWrong crew, and Rand acknowledged that her own role (as a philosopher and novelist) was to help elucidate the moral issues around reason and capitalism. She was not particularly interested in the mechanics of reason itself, but I would guess that she would very much have enjoyed LessWrong.
Rand's heroes were driven, passionate, often outcasts from society. They sought only their work and the fulfillment they gain from it. Their processes involve reason, but their identities do not. Their creative drive is more like what we expect from artists these days. Perhaps this feels foreign to those in academia who live grant to grant.
note: I consider Eliezer Yudkowsky one of the most important intellectuals alive today. Of course, I judge him by his primary work not by his personal habits or his occasional rant about subjects that are not his focus.
By my lights, an individual or organization can be judged by how well they adapt to reality: do they interpret facts to suit their ideology, or does their ideology grow by accepting new facts and knowledge?
By this measure, it's much easier to have a negative view of certain of Rand's followers.
They sought only their work and the fulfillment they gain from it.
I think this will be my new credo.
Perhaps this feels foreign to those in academia who live grant to grant.
Perhaps this is like certain entrepreneurs who live to exit, or head hunters who live only for their fee. We should navigate and groom our incentives instead of letting them rule us.
I completely agree. I have generally had a fairly negative impression of the organizations that exist today to support her philosophy, but I read most of her books (fiction and nonfiction) and enjoyed them tremendously.
I've had a generally negative impression of her followers. All self identifying "Objectivists" I've met seem to be "second-handers" latching onto greatness as a substitute for their own work. This term comes from The Fountainhead, which I enjoyed greatly. I am certain that it's useful to occasionally ask oneself, "Am I second-handing?" My answer in a few cases has been "yes."
(In particular, regard for the individual and reason are not gods. They are not absolutes but best regarded as good policies and tools.)
Now that would make a quite interesting blog/thesis/book. If you or anyone else ever gets motivated to write such a thing, I'd certainly be motivated to read it. :)
The problem with Rands repetition of A = A is not that it's wrong but that it doesn't bring anything to the table.
The real question obviously is what is A?
A is any entity.
Regardless of my (lack of) regard for Ayn Rand, I won't indulge in any trolling here. I do, however, think it bears pointing out that her philosophy has absolutely nothing whatsoever in common with Aristotle.
You don't need to go after her as a person to point out what is wrong with what she was fundamentally preaching.
"The individual "must exist for his own sake"
That "must" in there is basically undermining her own claims about rationality.
It might very well be that the individual exist for his own sake. But "must"? That's a pretty unsupported moral claim and by no metrics rational.
Her focus on the individual is in itself a very naive interpretation of reality.
What individual is she talking about. No man is an island. The very existence of what we call individuals depends on so many factors from our ancestors to the existence of a live-able planet to the air we are breathing.
If anything she wrote self-help books. To call it philosophy would be a crime to philosophy.
Or what about A = A. Existence exist. But what is existence? That is the question you must answer before you venture out from the premise and start prescribing what is right and what is wrong.
It's still an unsupported moral claim.
The only thing is that it rests on a conditional premise of choosing life over death, but that's hardly necessary to discuss
What actions are necessary for survival. In a war what do you think? When you get born who takes care of you?
Besides her actions being obviously wrong (no man exist in isolation) she is also showing a very poor understanding of basic evolutionary theory. You can't prescribe anything based on evolution.
I can see that the Rand fanboys are roaming this thread. Instead of just downvoting perhaps (not you Tycho) you should show some cohonas and actually make an argument.
In a war you need to take risks to ensure long-term survival (and survival 'qua' man btw, not as a slave or prisoner), there's nothing irrational about that. When you're first born you have only the pleasure/pain mechanism to tell good from bad, and that alone is not sufficient for survival, so as your mind develops you must use reason to live.
Rand never mentioned evolutionary theory as far as I remember, the argument is based simply on the easily observable biological functions that support life. No knowledge of evolution is necessary in order to act morally or come up with a similar moral theory. Meanwhile you keep saying 'no man is an island,' 'no man exists in isolation,' but I'm not sure what you actually mean by that. I could just as easily say 'no man shares the mind of any other' - it's a bit of a platitude - what's your argument exactly?
Basically your argument about kids are not any different than the religious people trying to explain how a child that haven't been baptized can go to heaven if they die early.
What about the victims that meet the an enemy with overwhelming power. Are they heroic when they flee because that is the rational thing to do? Or are they irrational because they take the risk and attack the enemy?
What about the retarded? Are they not humans because they aren't rational?
You simply skip over all the problematic part with Rands philosophy. That's fine with me, just don't call it careful thinking.
The point about no man is an island is that the idea of the individual is not just naive it's flat out wrong.
With regards to your easily observable biological functions. Let me remind you that the body is a colony of cells that all work together to ultimately maintain the idea of you as an individual.
To claim that the individual is somehow a well defined thing is simply showing the same kind of ignorance that the religious people have towards science.
The survival instinct is hardwired into you only to the extent that it's not being suppressed by a severe depression. The brain is not a mechanical thing it's moldable.
Obviously being young and immortal Rand makes some sense. This explains why she is so popular to young people who lack any fidelity and experience outside the campus.
If anything Rands thinking is that of a immature human being who lack any desire to really understand the world around them because it is to occupied with themselves.
Existence exist, but the question is what is existence. Rand goes from description to prescription but forget to do the check and balances of her premise.
Meeting an overwhelming foe in war is an ethical emergency where there is no good outcome, just a choice of bad ones. As such, do whatever seems to best protect that which you value most, either fleeing or fighting (or even dieing to save others) could be moral decisions. These are not the problematic parts of Rand's philosophy, the rules themselves don't change - but they are in fact the problematic parts of almost every other philosophy I come across: ie. the unhelpful focus on emergencies and exceptions, rendering the 'answers' irrelevant to everyday life. See Rand's essay 'The Ethics of Emergencies' for more on this.
You say the concept of the individual is wrong but just as morality only has meaning to the living, this very discussion only has meaning if it involves conscious, self-aware individuals, so there's literally no point entertaining any idea to the contrary (even though I'd like to point out that molecules still exist as unique entities even though they're made up of quarks).
Also it's irrelevant whether there is a hardwired survival instinct in place or not - as I said the whole thing rests on a conditional premise, a choice. Look at what Rand's saying like this:
Do you, lifeform, wish to live? If so then [insert Objectivism here]
I don't change the definition I am telling you what is wrong with her definition. There is a world of difference.
Again you speak of conscious self-aware individuals as if it's well defined what that means.
This is exactly the problem with Rands philosophy and your belief. Words are not reality, words are simplifications of reality.
No matter how many descriptors you put around the word individual it won't become more well defined. There isn't any clear cut easily observable individual when you start to really dig into it.
"Do you, life-form, wish to live? If so then [insert Objectivism here]"
This obviously isn't what she is saying since there are other ways to live than by the gospel of objectivism. Ways that have no problem supporting life. Religion being one of them.
Individuals are extremely easy to recognize, we do it all the time. We just don't know exactly how all the systems supporting our individuality work, but then we don't know exactly how all the systems supporting anything work either. Quantum mechanics, anyone? Humans are rational animals: that means as animals they have all the usual biological considerations of growth/development/decay but the end product of that growth/development (when successful) is always a being with the type of consciousness (ie. awareness) that allows him/her to not only respond to the environment and act autonomously, but also to abstract, conceptualize, and reason.
Also I think you misinterpreted my last line - Rand is only addressing or 'trying to reach' life-forms who choose life. Of course they could choose to follow some other advice and still choose to live (although not wholly consistently, Rand would argue)
That's all I need to do. I don't have to buy Rands observations if they don't fully account for the reality they are trying to make claims about.
You are confusing what seems to be the case with what is the case. You take one interpretation of phenomena and makes it the only interpretation.
Then you (or Rand if you like) take that an try to make universal claims.
That is exactly what is wrong here. That is only one interpretation not very well thought out and certainly not grounded in any deep thinking on the matter.
Humans are not only rational animals they are also irrational animals. Sometimes that irrationality actually have benefits for survival. And then we haven't even looked at the problem with claiming that something is rational outside of it's context as you are fundamentally arguing.
No I didn't misinterpret it I understood very well what you said.
To boil it all down. The problem that you find yourself in is that every time I give you examples of where Rands universal claims don't apply you simply exclude them from the claim. You don't need to think about this very long until you realize that this is not what constitutes careful thinking. That's sloppy thinking.
There is nothing well defined about reality. No slam dunk easy peacey way to get to certainty in these matters no matter how many words you use to describe it.
Listen you will grow up meet the woman in your life, perhaps get kids. Then you will realize just how wrong Rands thinking is.
And don't get me wrong. Rand did have some clever things to say and sure did inspire many to do better. But a philosopher she was not. That requires careful thinking something that she and the whole objective school that came after her so sorely miss.
I don't think you understand very well what Rand is arguing, either - the reason I responded initially was because you said 'rationality is good' was an unsupported claim by Rand, as if she used it as an axiom but she doesn't. I'm not making any effort to 'exclude' examples that you give - you just don't seem to fully grasp that which you're criticizing, so it's no surprise that you give inappropriate examples.
And of course something cannot be rational outside of its context - in man's case the context is the environment (and his own thoughts/memories), hence 'consciousness.' Consciousness implies something to be conscious of.
Look, you can try to deny statements like 'doves can fly' (all doves? baby doves? retarded doves? doves with broken wings? doves in cages? war doves?) all you want. You seem determined to deny the basic tenets of human existence - we just think we're individuals, but we're not; we just think we perceive reality, but we don't; we just think words denote reality, but they can't; etc etc. You know, the things that let us go about our daily lives. And let's face it that's what most philosophy does, which is what leads to endless pages of borderline unintelligible and almost always completely useless treatises and critiques about 'pure reason' or 'phenomenology' or whatever. But this is not deep thinking or careful thinking... it's just a sneaky attempt to sidestep the facts of existence and hence shirk responsibility for one's decisions.
If you want to make universal claims as Rand obviously wanted then you naturally need to take all factors into account. You can't just cherry pick those that seem to support your argument and then skip over the rest.
Well you can but then you are not interested in making philosophical arguments. You are just making claims.
With regards to rationality is good I was responding to that not claiming that, please read the thread.
But let's look at something she did claim.
"Existence exist"
The question obviously is, what is existence. You can't just say well the environment seems to have individuals, therefore individuals are a fundamental property of reality. And then use that as if it's a well defined entity.
You know, the things that let us go about our daily lives. And let's face it that's what most philosophy does, which is what leads to endless pages of borderline unintelligible and almost always completely useless treatises and critiques about 'pure reason' or 'phenomenology' or whatever. But this is not deep thinking or careful thinking... it's just a sneaky attempt to sidestep the facts of existence and hence shirk responsibility for one's decisions.
But that is philosophy whether you like it or not. Philosophy isn't there to let you go by in your daily life.
That is not the job of philosophy, luckily as there would have been no intellectual progress.
You are confusing what could be called life philosophy with philosophy. You wan't simple answers but in philosophy answers only lead to new questions. You want certainty were none exist.
And just to be clear here. Science is disagreeing with Rand, QM, Biology, Neuroscience. Reality is disagreeing with Rand.
Even if we were to take experience of reality for what it is. You try and have some children and you will realize that this egomaniac approach is nothing but an illusion that speaks to a very tiny part of the human mind.
That doesn't mean that you can't make rational decisions but to claim that it's somehow well defined is simply yet another non philosophical, non-sceptic approach.
Your last sentence really says it all. You want a life philosophy, that's all fine and good. Some follow Gods word you follow Rands. But independent rational thinking it is not.
In this case it is you that needs to properly read my reply. That's the second time you've misread my post (the first was the [insert Objectivism here] bit).
I want philosophy to help guide me through life, yeah. Whereas you want philosophy for, um, what exactly? I feel like there's a lot of empty rhetoric in your responses. First you just keep asserting that individuality and certainty are impossible. You think you've made the case for this by mentioning the words 'context' and 'vacuum' or something. You also try to use the prestige of science (QM, biology, neuroscience) to trash Rand without offering any specific evidence/argument, and try the same thing with the emotional appeal of family. Maybe you do have arguments involving those things but I've yet to hear them. You also keep saying 'universal claims' without really explaining what you mean.
Put it like this. Objectivism is only for rational beings, that is beings with the power to reason. Which is fine, because non-rational beings could never understand/use it anyway. She says 'man' in place of 'rational animal' or 'rational being' because on Earth as we know it humans are the only entities that develop rationality. Anyway, if you don't think that usage of the word 'man' is correct, it doesn't really matter - again the point is that anybody reading Objectivism qualifies as a subject.
By the way, Rand does discuss epistemology and metaphysics in some detail in her paper 'Introduction To Objectivist Epistemology' if you were interested in reading more about these low-level details of Oism.
Guiding you through life is the job of self-help books and religion and objectivism.
I don't want philosophy to help guide me through life. I use philosophy to constantly question assumptions in order to push my understanding of the world around me, not dictate what is right or wrong which is how Rand uses it.
First you just keep asserting that individuality and certainty are impossible.
Well by all means please show me something that is certain. Existence exist just isn't going to do it as existence itself is an open question. What is existence, how can you with certainty say something is the way you experience it.
I would be more than happy to be proven wrong. But if it goes like in most cases when I ask objectivist to prove their claim there will be silence.
Objectivism is only for rational beings, that is beings with the power to reason.
So the ability to reason makes you rational? Surely you can see what is wrong with that statement. A religious person is able to reason, a communist is able to reason.
That isn't what Rand was doing. She was reasoning a specific way based on specific premises. The rationale that followed her premises are what makes for objectivism. It is a specific moral claiming how man ought to be.
Of course as most first year student's of philosophy will quickly learn is that there aren't any certain premises.
Existence isn't a certain premise as you need to describe what existence is. That is the whole point of philosophy.
It's not to give you ten commandments to follow.
All of Objectivism can be extrapolated from 'Existence exists.' That statement implies that 'something' exists (hence law of identity, A is A) and that you are conscious of it (hence consciousness). That gives us the three axiomatic concepts on which Objectivism rests - everyone directly perceives them - and they cannot be denied because any argument against them would inevitably involve/imply existence/identity/consciousness resulting in self-contradiction. In a similar way, the validity of the senses is not up for debate because any attempt to negate this validity would at some point rely upon it. So you need to accept the three irreducible primaries (existence/identity/consciousness) and the validity of the senses - and happily basically everyone does accept those things, and lives accordingly, and would only so much as attempt to deny them during rare philosophical debates.
When I said rational beings are defined by their ability to reason, I did not mean such beings are automatically acting rationally. Its a different sense of the word, like a fast car vs a car that is actually going fast. Just a misunderstanding.
Rationality is also not good just as irrationality is both good and bad.
Context determines not ideology.
It's not rational to claim that the individual should exist for his own sake anymore than to claim that the individual should exist to pro-create or to secure the continuation of it's genes.
Any notion of good and bad must start with something... Rand tries to back-fill rationality being good based on what is essentially an evolutionary argument. Not the strongest argument, but probably stronger than the premises used by most moral philosophers.
Even from an evolutionary point of view there isn't any "should" or "must".
The theory of evolution does not consider itself with morals or ethics. There are no prescriptive moral in evolution.
It's a model to explain, retrospectively, how things evolve not how it should or must evolve.
It's an interesting argument, but you have to buy the premise in order to find it remotely persuasive. I find it more persuasive than any argument invoking God (as most other moral philosophers do) but not completely persuasive.
Being an atheist I don't buy the God argument either, but Rands is in my mind simply taking the opposite extreme in her attempt to get out of meta land and by doing so becomes religious herself.
I don't believe it's possible to talk about one moral being more correct than another. (i.e. there is in my opinion no rational argument for a correct moral as everything is context dependent)
For instance if just some of the things that the transhumanists believe come true (such as close to eternal life) then obviously it's going to change the context of morals.
But I do believe some morals in a certain context are better than others. That doesn't mean I believe they are more correct simply that I accept them as a better model for co-existence than others.
And yes, I always enjoyed RAW's jabs (or nods) toward Rand, Joyce, and Pynchon. That man was a treasure.
Rand created no new knowledge, no new art. All she did was write pseudo-philosophical treatises on why it's OK to behave badly and selfishly, and a bunch of self-important wankers decided to deify her for creating a moral code that legitimized their assholery. Compare Rand to the philosophers of the Enlightenment. She's less than a lightweight, she's nothing.
Dude, writing books is work. Try it some time, it's not so easy to make a living that way. Do you think when people at 37 Signals worked on writing their book, that was vacation time?
As to the rest, don't troll here. Insulting people you hate doesn't contribute to the discussion.
Well, there are books and then there are books.
1) I don't know who the folks at 37 signals are. Please refer to people that are widely known outside of your little bubble, please.
2) Writing a scientific paper is hard work. Writing a thesis is hard work. Writing a book is even harder. But Rand's novels are not in the same league as Dostoevski's. Not even close. Everyone can be an author, only few can be writers.
3) The irony is that Rand glorified a class of people she did not belong to. The world would have been different (and poorer) without Edison, Tesla, Bell, Shannon, and the like. If Rand had never existed, the world would have been exactly the same. She had zero real impact, like most philosophers of the 20th Century. Discussing "ideas" that are not even properly defined is mental masturbation, not profound thinking.
Ayn Rand came from Russia to a US society that was giving socialism serious thought. She articulated for capitalism an ideology; before her it seemed to have none. She was widely read for 2 generations. Her students managed political office and monetary policy in the US. I see all this as more than zero impact.
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Fact or not, you can't dispute the Bible's influence over the last 2 millenia either. Dismissing the Bible as a fairytale for entertaining fools is either an extreme hyperbole or proof that you have no idea what the Bible is about. I also am beginning to believe you know just as little about Ayn Rand other than that lots of assholes justify their actions using her ideas.
It could be worse. At least Rand valued hard work and self-reliance. It would have been worse if her books glorified being a social parasite.
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Rand's biggest hero, John Galt, was a thinker not an industrialist.
It's a socially acceptable reference given the frequency of SVN articles on HN.
Could it be because Objectivism is one of the few philosophies people actually embrace and practice? I mean has anyone ever literally met a practicing utilitarian for instance?