Posted on 11/13/2009 7:51:55 AM PST by cornelis
Objectively, Ayn Rand Was a Nut [Peter Wehner]
According to Politico.com, Ayn Rand — the subject of two new biographies, one of which is titled Goddess of the Market: Ayn Rand and the American Right — is “having a mainstream moment,” including among conservatives. (Gov. Mark Sanford of South Carolina wrote a piece in Newsweek on Rand, saying, “This is a very good time for a Rand resurgence. She’s more relevant than ever.”).
I hope the moment passes. Ms. Rand may have been a popular novelist, but her philosophy is deeply problematic and morally indefensible.
Ayn Rand was, of course, the founder of Objectivism – whose ethic, she said in a 1964 interview, holds that “man exists for his own sake, that the pursuit of his own happiness is his highest moral purpose, that he must not sacrifice himself to others, nor sacrifice others to himself.” She has argued that “friendship, family life and human relationships are not primary in a man’s life. A man who places others first, above his own creative work, is an emotional parasite; whereas, if he places his work first, there is no conflict between his work and his enjoyment of human relationships.” And about Jesus she said:I do regard the cross as the symbol of the sacrifice of the ideal to the nonideal. Isn’t that what it does mean? Christ, in terms of the Christian philosophy, is the human ideal. He personifies that which men should strive to emulate. Yet, according to the Christian mythology, he died on the cross not for his own sins but for the sins of the nonideal people. In other words, a man of perfect virtue was sacrificed for men who are vicious and who are expected or supposed to accept that sacrifice. If I were a Christian, nothing could make me more indignant than that: the notion of sacrificing the ideal to the nonideal, or virtue to vice. And it is in the name of that symbol that men are asked to sacrifice themselves for their inferiors. That is precisely how the symbolism is used. That is torture.Many conservatives aren’t aware that it was Whittaker Chambers who, in 1957, reviewed Atlas Shrugged in National Review and read her out of the conservative movement. The most striking feature of the book, Chambers said, was its “dictatorial tone . . . Its shrillness is without reprieve. Its dogmatism is without appeal . . . From almost any page of Atlas Shrugged, a voice can be heard, from painful necessity, commanding: ‘To a gas chamber — go!’”
William F. Buckley Jr. himself wrote about her “desiccated philosophy’s conclusive incompatibility with the conservative’s emphasis on transcendence, intellectual and moral; but also there is the incongruity of tone, that hard, schematic, implacable, unyielding dogmatism that is in itself intrinsically objectionable.”
Yet there are some strands within conservatism that still veer toward Rand and her views of government (“The government should be concerned only with those issues which involve the use of force,” she argued. “This means: the police, the armed services, and the law courts to settle disputes among men. Nothing else.”), and many conservatives identify with her novelistic hero John Galt, who declared, “I swear — by my life and my love of it — that I will never live for the sake of another man, nor ask another man to live for mine.”
But this attitude has very little to do with authentic conservatism, at least the kind embodied by Edmund Burke, Adam Smith (chair of moral philosophy at the University of Glasgow), and James Madison, to name just a few. What Rand was peddling is a brittle, arid, mean, and ultimately hollow philosophy. No society could thrive if its tenets were taken seriously and widely accepted. Ayn Rand may have been an interesting figure and a good (if extremely long-winded) novelist; but her views were pernicious, the antithesis of a humane and proper worldview. And conservatives should say so.
If it's a figment of a single mind, it's not objective.
If you're interested, that statement is consistent with a school of thought called "Cartesian dualism" - a venerable school. The trouble with it is that it rules out the possibility of any new discovery being objective. (New theories are formed in the mind.) It also rules out the possibility of anyone being objective about their own emotions.
(Once again, I'm delving into points that would be better suited for a philosophy seminar. Philosophy ain't engineering, that's for sure.)
If happiness is objective, then why do so many people get divorced.
Thanks for the rest of your post. It certainly shows how people differ, that's for sure.
The obvious response would make the responder seem a sourpuss. (Just imagine what "Cranky Carl" would make of it.) We don't always know what makes for our happiness unless we lead really sheltered lives, for our entire lives. Believe it or not, it's possible to be both objective and wrong. New or previously unperceived facts can upset the applecart.
"Acting cheerful will make you cheerful." That can be seen as subjective...if it works. /wink
I've found that to be very true. Just the simple act of smiling seems to have an effect on ones self.
Laughing releases endorphins. I can start myself laughing for no reason. (Im kinda goofy any way) but in a short while I can feel the effects.
Aristotle did land on a good one. The trouble with "moderation," though, is that almost any talk or action can be pegged as moderate! I can get away with pegging Rand as a "moderate egoist" if you let me bring in Max Stirner (or Aleister Crowley.)
In regular life, the word's used in one of two ways: musical-chairs ("I'm not extreme; look at _____") or feelings-based ("If I'm calm, or not that excited, I'm moderate. If I'm overly excited, I'm extreme.")
Of course, the medical morphine had nothing to do with it. /irony
btt
It depends on what freedom means to you.
Your mileage may vary. Something has to bother you before you’ll take the action necessary to dig deeper. I was bothered by the “fact” that billions of people would be burning in an eternal hell, all from a “loving” God who commands us to forgive our enemies. It doesn’t add up, I don’t care who says it does. If that bothers you too, you can find more info by Googling 1 Timothy 4:10. I also learned a lot at www.tentmaker.org.
If it doesn’t bother you - carry on. I’m not out to convince anyone of this, nor will I be convinced that it’s wrong. Like I said, your mileage may vary.
This is what happened when this hit piece on Rand was posted the first time.
I think Rand has a valid point taken intentionally to an impractical extreme by strangely drawn characters. Even in her book, striking or “going Galt” as many say today, was only a temporary shock designed to reveal to the public the moral and logistical bankruptcy of the looter/moocher/tyrant philosophy of self-sacrifice (for everyone else), and to disable it’s promoters. Once those things were done, the gulchers intended to rebuild society in a form in which each person could benefit from his own work and from the contributions of those mythic super-producers she revered. So the message isn’t so much selfishness as respect and gratitude for people who know how to do things.
LOL!!!
Cheers!
Rand makes a perfect circle to describe the world.
Randians shout at her detractors, 'Aha! You don't like circles, what's wrong with you?'
And the detractors say, 'Nothing. But her circle is too damn small, you Nimrods.'
If you build a philosphy which contains as an axiom the preposition that altruism is bad, you might as well be fellating Nietzche.
Having eliminated alruism and sacrifice as a good, she then ignores how much it plays a role in the real world.
EPIC FAIL.
Cheers!
For example: The "Work of Christ", climaxing in the suffering and death, is, among other things, to enable men to quit being vicious. It's not just throwing away virtue for vice (which is her most misleading formulation in the quoted passage). It is the shattering of what traps people in vice, in moral inferiority, and in the consequent misery.
Those Christians who deny that humans are ever more than "counted" as good,but instead are freed and enabled to become - if not good - better than they were, might have trouble distinguishing what they think from what she says. But Catholics and the Orthodox would not recognize their belief in her account of it.
And the contrast between sacrifice or service and happiness is, to us, bogus. The life of virtue, while it can lead to opposition, suffering, and even death, is considered a life "toward" happiness and strength, toward excellence. The cartoon image of the devil on one shoulder and the angel on the other is wrong if the devil is supposed to be offering enjoyment and self-actualization and the angel suffering and self-abnegation.
For us, to redeem that cartoon, we'd insist that the devil is lying and that following his suggestion will tend to make one weak and unhappy. Following the angel's advice will, we think, make one happier and stronger.
I think possibly Rand mistook the anemic and moralistic version of Christianity promoted by some who are uncomfortable with any sort of pleasure or ease for the solid, vital, even uproariously delighted religion which proclaims (Psalm 16, verse 11) that at God's right hand are pleasures for evermore.
I can't even remember the name of the Rand book I read. But I was struck that the first romantic encounter was about domination, indeed almost rape. Another poster has suggested that it's hard to see where family duties (and desires) fall in her scheme. What could be one's duty to the elderly and infirm in her views?
Of course, a scheme which postulates atheism and denies heaven (and, I suppose, hell) will not envision the sort of human excellence which we talk about. In such a case, it's hard to imagine what difference her thought makes. If a stronger group advocating a different view wiped her teaching from the face of the earth, what would she think of that, I wonder.
This is not meant to be any kind of refutation, except of her depiction of Christianity. I'm not saying she's wrong to say the Christians are wrong (though I think so). I'm only saying the I don't think Christianity is what she says it is -- which I think was what you were asking for.
I haven't had an AHA! moment. Its been a gradual understanding, that as I type I realize that I'm just scratching the surface of a scratch in understanding who God is. But it makes knowing God with each step sweeter.
And now the link and explanation of 1 Tim 4:10 An Exegetical Study of 1Timothy 4:10
NONSOTERIOLOGlCAL-SOTERlOLOGICAL INTERPRETATION (FREE GRACE SALVATION).
A. This is the correct interpretation. It is found by making a thorough study of the term "Saviour" (in both its noun and verb forms1) in the context of the chapter, the epistle, the New Testament and the Old Testament.2 The final phrase "specially of those that believe" clearly Indicates that the term is here given a twofold application. Of all men God is the Saviour, but of some men, namely, believers, He is the Saviour in a deeper, more glorious sense than He is of others. This clearly implies that when He Is called the Saviour of all men, this cannot mean that He imparts to all everlasting life, as He does to believers. The term "Saviour," then, must have a meaning which we today generally do not immediately attach to it. And that is exactly the cause of the difficulty. Often In the Old Testament, the term meant "to deliver — (verbal form) or deliverer (nominal form)" — both with reference to men and God (cf. Judg. 3:9; II Kings 13:5; Neh. 9:27; Ps. 25:5; 106:21). Also, in the New Testament, reference is made to the Old Testament where God delivered Israel from the oppression of Pharaoh for He had been the Saviour of all, but specially those who believed. With the latter, and with them alone, He was "well pleased" (I Cor. 10:5). All leave Egypt; not all enter Canaan." POINT: In both the Old and New Testaments the term "Saviour" is often used to speak of God's providential preservation or deliverance which extends to all men without exception. (Cf. Ps. 36:6; 145:9; Matt. 5:45; Luke 6:35; Acts 17:25, 28.) Moreover, God also causes His gospel of salvation to be earnestly proclaimed to all men without distinction; that is, to men from every race and nation (Matt. 28:19). Truly the kindness (providence or common grace) of God extends to all. But even the circle of those to whom the message of salvation is proclaimed is wider than those who receive it by a true saving faith.
B. Conclusion. A paraphrase of what Paul is teaching in I Timothy 4:10 is this: "We have our hope set on the living God, and in this hope we shall not be disappointed, for not only is He a kind God, hence the Saviour (i.e., preserver or deliverer in a providential, non-soteriological sense) of all men, showering blessings upon them, but He is, in a very special sense, the Saviour (in a soteriological sense) of those who by faith embrace Him and His promise, for to them He imparts salvation, everlasting life in all its fulness.
THE LIVING GOD IS THE PROVIDENTIAL PRESERVER OF ALL MEN; BUT HE IS ESPECIALLY SO FOR BELIEVERS, FOR HE NOT ONLY PHYSlCALLY AND TEMPORALLY DELIVERS THEM, BUT HE ALSO SPIRITUALLY AND ETERNALLY SAVES THEM.
Ummm, hmmm,... Ayn Rand was a Jewish immigrant...
The fatal flaw of Ayn Rand's philosophy: Morality and all of those associated ideals are rooted entirely in a presupposition that some higher power defines what is correct for human behavior.
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