A Referendum on Ayn Rand

Rand epitomizes the base, amoral nihilist that serves as the straw man that theists use to discredit atheism and its purported logical conclusion. That she held theists, Christians particularly, as deluded weaklings worthy of the utmost contempt and yet provides their ideological bedrock is nothing short of mind-boggling.

On an unrelated note, Buffett is a great man but really needs to weaken his stance on cuddling. It’s actually quite enjoyable.

I suspect that Rand really bothers the left because her influence shows the limits of progressive social engineering and indoctrination. She bypassed the left’s propaganda channels in education, academia and government by going straight to the market with her alternative humanism, and she found enthusiastic customers who bought her works with discretionary income and studied and thought about them on their own initiative, and even have written about them, even though this resembles the school work most Americans don’t care for. The Rand phenomenon provides an example of a Hayekian spontaneous order: No central planner mandated the introduction of her philosophy into the culture. People responded to her message organically and authentically, and in defiance of what progressives want them to believe and do.

Progressives and many conservatives try to dismiss Rand, with some justification, as a kook, a sociopath and an ignoramus. But her success in culture-jamming progressivism while energizing a certain kind of conservatism shows that her world view must have some compelling things going for it, despite its deficiencies. What does it say about progressivism that her philosophy looks like a better deal to many Americans, even if they don’t buy the whole Randian package?

BTW, in case someone brings up Rand’s youthful infatuation with the murderer William Edward Hickman, I’d like to point out the left’s own much bigger problem with idolizing sociopaths and murderers. Norman Mailer’s famous essay in Dissent magazine, “The White Negro,” published in the same year as “Atlas Shrugged,” romanticizes murderous “psychopaths” as examples of authentic living and agents of disrupting the bourgeois order.

And that doesn’t even begin to cover the left’s infatuation with the wholesale murderers Lenin, Trotsky, Stalin, Mao and the wannabe Che Guevara, whose image showed up in those Occupy derelict camps last year.

I don’t idolize Norman Mailer, for one.  You seem to be under the idea that if I’m categorized as “the left”, I have to support everything anyone says from that category.

What about when Rand basically stated that Europeans had every right to murder off the Native Americans, because they had no rights anyways since they didn’t understand property?

“...She bypassed the left’s propaganda channels in education, academia and government by going straight to the market with her alternative humanism, and she found enthusiastic customers who bought her works with discretionary income and studied and thought about them on their own initiative…”

“...the left’s infatuation with the wholesale murderers Lenin, Trotsky, Stalin, Mao and the wannabe Che Guevara, whose image showed up in those Occupy derelict camps last year.”

———————-
Mark, you get right to the heart of things yet there’s a few omissions: the Welfare State was set up in 1933 by the Greatest Generation and or their parents. So some of Rand’s work was/is purchased by older people whose disposable income was subsidized by the state.
Morality is elastic, so we can justify such by saying everyone does it and so on. A libertarian can say everybody’s parents get thousands of dollars per month from the state—so why can’t mine. A guy who was in the miltary can retire with military benefits on top of civilian state benefits, in total five thousand or more per month. Sometimes much more. Who knows?: they are not going to tell us the amounts they receive- are they?
Libertarians claim they themselves don’t obtain funding from the state, which may be true and is why they deserve to be listened to.
But it is also what people don’t say: in this case though they themselves aren’t getting funding, their families are and thus libertarians can benefit indirectly.. for one thing they don’t have to take care of their parents. Plus when their parents die the estates benefit. For the above reasons (actually merely one reason: the elasticity of ethics), libertarians—as everyone else—can’t be taken at their word.
As for the Occupy derelict camps, don’t forget they didn’t protest in the last decade and pent up anger erupted; they are largely kids who aren’t well informed by their elders—the same elders who may be getting thousands of dollars per month from the state! You know there are at least two sides to it, and you have looked at one above. Now look at the others.

... don’t like to comment more than once in a row, but this is an interesting excerpt on govt. spending, taken from an article by Victor D. Hanson at National Review Online:

“We see the symptoms everywhere of a political discourse that has nothing to do with reality. Agribusiness and its apologists in an age of record farm prices insist that growers will perish without direct crop subsidies… Entire industries exist to figure out how to sign parents’ assets away to their heirs so that the instantly impoverished mom and pop can receive free government nursing-home care. Police, firefighter, and non-combat military pensions and benefits are considered sacrosanct and are a third rail to anyone foolish enough to question them — even though the all-night 7-Eleven clerk, the freeway construction-crew member, and the private security guard are far lower paid, may face as much danger…”

I think what’s scary about Rand to progressives is that she demonstrates the irreducible core of reckless egotism lurking just underneath the surface of seemingly-civilized people, despite centuries of supposed progress. That she has been able to amass such a substantial following shows how receptive and eager people are for a way to rationalize indulging their id while turning their back on basic human decency and empathy, presumably to neutralize the feelings of shame and guilt that have traditionally acted as a check on such base impulses.

Another article on Ayn Rand ... popular in the month of August…

A few issues:

“in other words, extreme materialism.” - she actually valued art/aesthetics above material things, since it is through aesthetics that one develops their sense of life with, which motivates one to be productive, to survive ....

“In general, according to Rand, the only purpose of your life is your own happiness.” - not quite. Man’s life is a standard of value.

“If you are an altruist, you are something akin to a genetic mistake and deserve to fail.” - not quite. No one is an island - rational self interest often involves actions that improve the lives of others, and the world. The mistake is made in misunderstanding that helping others is can be an act of rational self interest. Roughly speaking, what Rand was against was actions that are detrimental to the individual. It is a complex issue.

“On one hand there is an incumbent president, Barack Obama, who personifies everything that Ayn Rand stood against: a populist who started out helping disadvantaged minorities and went on to invest trillions of tax dollars in community infrastructures around the USA, and who now wants to increase taxes on capitalists to help a shrinking middle class.” - what Rand stood against was the application of force. If anyone wishes to improve the lives of others, it is best that they do so without applying force on other people (i.e., taxation).

“The Great Recession was a tragedy of pure greed: Wall Street literally mortgaged an entire nation, and was on its way to mortgage the entire planet. (Main Street was an involuntary accomplice). It is becoming more apparent every month that many political decisions (including the ones that cost the lives of thousands of people in Iraq) were driven by Wall Street’s ideology of maximizing profits. Some people don’t like it, but some like it.”

-there is nothing wrong with anyone becoming wealthy. The problem arises when there is government involvement such that the wealthy have an unfair advantage (i.e., crony capitalism).

“Obama thinks that the roots of the nation’s crisis are systemic, and the seeds were planted long ago (by unbridled capitalism of the kind advocated by Ayn Rand and now Mitt Romney).” - it’s not unbridled capitalism, though. There is government involvement in the market everywhere you turn. We’ve never actually had the free market those such as Rand and Hayek proposed.

“Ayn Rand always represented a much colder view of the world, one in which the only moral value is pure self-interest. ” - no, rational self interest.

“Everything else is artificially fabricated and not “objective”.” - flat out false. Refer to objectivist epistemology for starters.

“Obama vs Romney is more than just an ordinary presidential election: it is becoming a referendum on Ayn Rand, a referendum on whether moral values should matter or not in an advanced capitalistic society. Do moral values create a better society around you or do they stand in the way of fulfilling your aspirations?” - this has nothing to do with Ayn Rand. Rand proposed that the individual should be free to decide what they value, and should be free to act according to those values so long as in doing so they are not applying force to others. Obama and Romney want to apply force to others by way of their values. Rand would argue that such a thing is immoral.

@Nikki: “no, rational self interest.”
In what sense is the self-interest advocated by Rand enlightened or rational? There is no indication that her thought entails any consideration of ecosystemic effects of unconstrained acquisition at all others’ expense. That others benefit when one attains wealth is not to say that they always do, nor that there is no point at which extreme disparities in wealth undermine the systemic integrity, upon which the wealthy depend.

Good article, and comments, especially from Nikki.

It is sad that Rand seems to get continually slated through the resurgence of her ideas by naive US political polarizing during POTUS. Yet I guess not so surprising that Reaganomics should be viewed during these hard times as some “golden era”, (rise of Silicon valley and all).

“Objectively”, objectivism is rational, as the only occasion for happiness lies with the pursuit and desires of the individual by the individual. And IF? “every” human could fulfill their desires, then we would all be content and at peace? Scenario: in VR absorption what would be your view of happiness? Transhuman’s may do well to scrutinize “Objectivism” a little more closely?

It’s almost impossible to separate Capitalism from Rand’s philosophy, (especially where she dedicates whole chapters to refute that “money” is not evil, and then fails to see that it is instead Selfish acts?) However, look more closely and you will see both generosity and empathy?

@Cygnus: could you provide, either in her writing or life, where Rand or her philosophy demonstrates a concern for generosity or empathy, besides the occasional byproduct of positive externalities that result when wealth creation is beneficial to others outside the creator in question?

Taking credit for the unintended positive results of your actions while ignoring and/or justifying the negative effects is not indicative of generosity or empathy, nor is it laudable.

“what Rand stood against was the application of force. If anyone wishes to improve the lives of others, it is best that they do so without applying force on other people (i.e., taxation).”

Then why do Rightists accept funds and services from the state? Permissible, sure; but to what purpose? IMO it has as much to do with consent and complicity as coercion and compulsion… simply say you “dislike big government” yet accept funds & services while telling yourself you are merely doing what everyone else is doing—it’s as easy as pie.
Anyway, perhaps Rand was a good thinker but a poor writer, maybe if she were living today—in a more feminist time—she might be able to express herself more readily.

 

@ SHaGGGz ?

What really? Proof you say? But this generosity and empathy is rife throughout “Atlas Shrugged”, in almost every chapter? She describes in depth a very deep and personal view of the Human condition?

Rand was above all a romanticist in nature, tone and ethic yes? Despite her flawed bourgeois notions concerning wealth and self sufficiency, (she fails to grasp that we ALL stand on the shoulders of giants, and that no man is successful without the help of others)?

Her stubborness, especially in the face of criticisms, to espouse selfishness as rule of thumb is often taken at face value, and aligned with economic politics, yet this should not distract from the premise of Objectivism.

Even a Buddhist monk, Yogi and Christian is Self-ish in their pursuit of goals?

Yet, “The goal is not to be Self-less, it is to be not Self-ish”? .. to be pursued with passion and tenacity?

What made Rand aesthetic can be seen in her appearance in the photo accompanying this article rather than her writing style (the philosophical content of her books is interesting, not the writing itself); you can see Rand was a product of her time—specifically the ‘50s; not to put it down, the photo is a good one and what an elegant way to dress, with the cigarette holder and all of it.
But that was then, this is now, the photo is an image frozen in time, not eternal. Art is not eternal, IMO, aesthetics are not eternal.

Of course there’s something to what Rand wrote, and to what Marx wrote, and to what Gore Vidal wrote- and to what everyone writes.

I have a growing suspicion fiscal conservatism ended on 9-11-2001, and now we are going through the motions. Politics has always been strange bedfellows: Reagan was a 19th century liberal—Mitt Romney is a Rockefeller liberal. Nothing is ever the way it appears to be.