Posted on 07/20/2010 6:42:03 AM PDT by marshmallow
No philosopher ever proposed a more simple and straightforward view of life than the one Ayn Rand urges upon us.
"Yes, this is an age of moral crisis … Your moral code has reached its climax, the blind alley and the end of its course. And if you wish to go on living, what you now need is not to return to morality …. but to discover it."
Thus spake, not Zarathustra, but Ayn Rand's philosophical mouthpiece, John Galt, the protagonist of her principal novel, Atlas Shrugged. The "moral crisis" to which he refers is the conflict between altruism, which is radically immoral, and individualism, which provides the only form of true morality possible. Altruism, for Galt and Rand, leads to death; individualism furnishes the only path that leads to life. Thus, in order to go on living with any degree of authenticity, we must abandon the immoral code of altruism and embrace the vivifying practice of individualism.
Throughout the course of history, according to Ayn Rand, there have been three general views of morality. The first two are mystical, which, for Rand, means fictitious, or non-objective. The third is objective, something that can be verified by the senses. Initially, a mystical view reigned, in which the source of morality was believed to be God's will. This is not compatible either with Rand's atheism, or her objectivism. In due course, a neo-mystical view held sway, in which the "good of society" replaced the "will of God. The essential defect of this view, like the first, is that it does not correlate with an objective reality. "There is no such entity as 'society,'" she avers. And since only individuals really exist, the so-called "good of society" degenerates into a state where "some men are ethically entitled to pursue any whims (or any atrocities) they desire to pursue, while other men are ethically obliged to spend their lives in the service of that gang's desires."
Only the third view of morality is realistic and worthwhile. This is Rand's objectivism, a philosophy that is centred exclusively on the individual. It is the individual alone that is real, objective, and the true foundation for ethics. Therefore, Rand can postulate the basic premise of her philosophy: "The source of man's rights is not divine law or congressional law, but the law of identity. A is A – and Man is Man."
An individual belongs to himself as an individual. He does not belong, in any measure, to God or to society. A corollary of Rand's basic premise is that "altruism," or the sacrifice of one's only reality – one's individuality – for a reality other than the self, is necessarily self-destructive and therefore immoral. This is why she can say that "altruism holds death as its ultimate goal and standard of value." On the other hand, individualism, cultivated through the "virtue of selfishness," is the only path to life. "Life," she insists, "can be kept in existence only by a constant process of self-sustaining action." Man's destiny is to be a "self-made soul."
Man, therefore, has a "right to life." But Rand does not mean by this statement that he has a "right to life" that others have a duty to defend and support. Such a concept of "right to life" implies a form of "altruism," and consequently is contrary to the good of the individual. In fact, for Rand, it constitutes a form of slavery. "No man," she emphasizes, "can have a right to impose an unchosen obligation, an unrewarded duty or an involuntary servitude on another man. There can be no such thing as 'the right to enslave.'" Moreover, there are no rights of special groups, since a group is not an individual reality. As a result, she firmly denies that groups such as the "unborn," "farmers," "businessmen," and so forth, have any rights whatsoever.
Making sacrifices for one's born or unborn children, one's elderly parents or other family members becomes anathema for Ayn Rand.
Her notion of a "right to life" begins and ends with the individual. In this sense, "right to life" means the right of the individual to pursue, through the rational use of his power of choice, whatever he needs in order to sustain and cultivate his existence. "An organism's life is its standard of value: that which furthers its life is the good, that which threatens it is evil." As Rand has John Galt tell her readers, "There is only one fundamental alternative in the universe: existence or nonexistence." Man's existence must stay in existence. This is the mandate of the individual and the utility of the virtue of selfishness. Non-existence is the result of altruism and careens toward death. Making sacrifices for one's born or unborn children, one's elderly parents or other family members becomes anathema for Ayn Rand. She wants a Culture of Life to emerge, but she envisions that culture solely in terms of individuals choosing selfishly, the private goods of their own existence. If ever the anthem for a pro-choice philosophy has been recorded, it comes from the pen of Ayn Rand: "Man has to be man – by choice; he has to hold his life as a value – by choice; he has to learn to sustain it – by choice; he has to discover the values it requires and practise his virtues – by choice. A code of values accepted by choice is a code of morality."
No philosopher ever proposed a more simple and straightforward view of life than the one Ayn Rand urges upon us. Man=Man; Existence = Existence; only individuals are real; all forms of altruism are inherently evil. There are no nuances or paradoxes. There is no wisdom. There is no depth. Complex issues divide reality into simple dichotomies. There is individualism and altruism, and nothing in between. Despite the apparent superficiality of her philosophy, Rand considered herself history's greatest philosopher after Aristotle.
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Barbara Branden tells us, in her book, The Passion of Ayn Rand, of how Miss Rand managed to make the lives of everyone around her miserable, and when her life was over, she had barely a friend in the world. She was contemptuous even of her followers. When Rand was laid to rest in 1982 at the age of 77, her coffin bore a six-foot replica of the dollar sign. Her philosophy, which she adopted from an early age, helped to assure her solitude: "Nothing existential gave me any great pleasure. And progressively, as my idea developed, I had more and more a sense of loneliness." It was inevitable, however, that a philosophy that centred on the self to the exclusion of all others would leave its practitioner in isolation and intensely lonely.
Ayn Rand's philosophy is unlivable, either by her or anyone else. A philosophy that is unlivable can hardly be instrumental in building a Culture of Life. It is unlivable because it is based on a false anthropology. The human being is not a mere individual, but a person. As such, he is a synthesis of individual uniqueness and communal participation. Man is a transcendent being. He is more than his individuality.
The Greeks had two words for "life": bios and zoe. Bios represents the biological and individual sense of life, the life that pulsates within any one organism. This is the only notion of life that is to be found in the philosophy of Ayn Rand. Zoe, on the other hand, is shared life, life that transcends the individual and allows participation in a broader, higher, and richer life.
In Mere Christianity, C. S. Lewis remarks that mere bios is always tending to run down and decay. It needs incessant subsidies from nature in the form of air, water, and food, in order to continue. As bios and nothing more, man can never achieve his destiny. Zoe, he goes on to explain, is an enriching spiritual life which is in God from all eternity. Man needs Zoe in order to become truly himself. Man is not simply man; he is a composite of bios and zoe.
Bios has, to be sure, a certain shadowy or symbolic resemblance to Zoe: but only the sort of resemblance there is between a photo and a place, or a statue and a man. A man who changed from having Bios to having Zoe would have gone through as big a change as a statue which changed from being a carved stone to being a real man.
The transition, then, from bios to zoe (individual life to personal, spiritualized life; selfishness to love of neighbor) is also the transition from a Culture of Death to a Culture of Life.
THE AUTHOR
Donald DeMarco is adjunct professor at Holy Apostles College & Seminary in Cromwell, Connecticut and Professor Emeritus at St. Jerome's University in Waterloo Ontario. He also continues to work as a corresponding member of the Pontifical Acadmy for Life. Donald DeMarco has written hundreds of articles for various scholarly and popular journals, and is the author of twenty books, including The Heart of Virtue, The Many Faces of Virtue, Virtue's Alphabet: From Amiability to Zeal and Architects Of The Culture Of Death. Donald DeMarco is on the Advisory Board of The Catholic Education Resource Center.
Then you really must love Methodists, Congregationalists, Presbyterians, and Episcopalians -- among others. You really should broaden your hatred to include all Christian groups. //sarcasm off
Oh my bad,, i thought we were talking about the ideas expressed in her writings,, not the ideas and actions of people who oddly worship her. I don’t like the cult types either.
“If the highest apostle of a philosophy violates same at every turn ... what are we to make of both the philosopher and her philosophy?”
Lucky for us all the popes and missionaries have been such shining examples. Some were first class SOB’s. But it doesn’t logically follow that the behaviors of some cruel men in the church, proves Chistianity is incorrect.
Likewise, many other brilliant people are incredibly poor at following what they correctly tell us is the right path. This only means they are weak, but not that their philosophy is incorrect.
There is a difference between deriving joy from your children, and having children only because of what joy they can bring you.
Those who are the latter usually make terrible parents.
The highest apostle of Christianity is the pope and missionaries?
Ann Rand makes this clear in her book, “Fountainhead”. Roark voluntarily gives assistance and charity to his friend the sculptor, and gives a somewhat lengthy explanation for his reasons for doing so.
That is correct. They do not have any rights. The individuals in those groups do. Making sacrifices for one's born or unborn children, one's elderly parents or other family members becomes anathema for Ayn Rand.
Nope. That statement is a straw man. "No man," she emphasizes, "can have a right to impose an unchosen obligation, an unrewarded duty or an involuntary servitude on another man. There can be no such thing as 'the right to enslave." Big difference.
Rand’s philosophy makes more sense than everything ever babbled by all the Popes combined.
ping
...thereby proving your unfamiliarity with her works.
Rand was definitely trying to make a point by killing off Eddie Willers.
And that point pretty much seems to be, "every man for himself, and no amount of loyalty and hard work is worthy of reciprocation."
Unlike (we are led to believe) every single person in Galt's Gulch, Eddie does not have the ability to fix a locomotive, and apparently that sort of thing is the standard by which a Rand character must live or die. In essence, Eddie Willers was no more than a tool of Taggart Transcontinental -- a mere employee, content and proud to be so, and disposable for that reason.
The underlying premise in Atlas Shrugged -- and by extension, Rand's overall philosophy -- is there are really only two types of people: titans of industry, and those who exist to serve them... and the latter cannot operate or even survive on their own without the presence and activity of the former. One is either a producer or a looter, and there is no middle ground.
Whittaker Chambers once noted that Rand's characters can be traced back to Nietzsche:
Miss Rand acknowledges a grudging debt to one, and only one, earlier philosopher: Aristotle. I submit that she is indebted, and much more heavily, to Nietzsche. Just as her operatic businessmen are, in fact, Nietzschean supermen, so her ulcerous Leftists are Nietzsche's "last men," both deformed in a way to sicken the fastidious recluse of Sils Maria. And much else comes, consciously on not, from the same source.)
There is no middle ground for her.... unlike in the real world.
Why not address my amplification above, rather than just spouting a mindless and incorrect opinion?
“I am a Muslim first, an American second.”
Uh...I thought Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan said that. Barry never said that.
This article is simply a rant against Libertarianism. Yes, Rand was self-actualized, and thus obnoxious to those around her. It is unwise to concentrate on the author, and ignore the philosophy.
I wouldn’t hammer the Catholic Church over this, as the author doesn’t speak for the Church at large. There are even academics, with Catholic “cover”, that question even the Gospels. With as many conflicting doctrines being espoused by various Catholic “flavors” (liberation theology for one), it is hardly worth getting worked up dissecting the thoughts of one religious academic. It’s just one guy’s opinion.
Rand’s philosophy is more applicable now, than when she lived.
That's not the pagan creed. It is specific to Aleister Crowley's Thelema religion, and is usually quite misunderstood out of context. It isn't even an original idea of Crowley's.
There is the Wiccan Rede, "An it harm none, do what ye will," but that's mainly just a restatement of the Golden Rule ideal.
Galt's Gulch had children; Dagny talks to a mother about the way she raises her children.
If you want to make the case that Objectivism is a less than complete recipe for a full life, that's already been done...by no less than Nathaniel Branden.
Amplify that, and try to be something besides an irritant.
"Then I looked to the great editors of the newspapers, whose flaming editorials...had proclaimed their love of freedom; but they, like the universities, were silenced in a few short weeks....
"Only the Church stood squarely across the path of Hitler's campaign for suppressing the truth... the Church alone has had the courage and persistence to stand for intellectual and moral freedom.
"I am forced to confess that what I once despised I now praise unreservedly."
She never said any such thing about voluntary choices. Her objection was to governments (or quasi-governmental churches like the author's) compelling sacrifice from their victims.
Yet she left her parents behind in Russia never to see them again, alienated most of her acquaintances and died an extremely lonely old lady, some say due to her emphasis on "self".
Don’t confuse him with logic, facts and reason.
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