Rand's Objectivism: Philosophy or Propaganda?

Philosophy Forums Philosophy
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Rather than continue a hijack of another thread (link), I’m beginning a discussion of Ayn Rand’s Objectivism. I’m not a fan of the philosophy, though in high school I was a loyal Objectivist. I’ve since come to think very little of it as a legitimate philosophy.

I will address the rest of this post to Bill Patterson, since I am continuing a discussion we were having in a nother thread.

Bill Patterson,

What I said was, “She wasn’t the least bit concerned with society, except in so far as she believed it was the natural extension of individual self-interest.”

Logic, in itself, says nothing about the relationship between individuals and society. In any case, this doesn’t affect my point.

If you take the pragmatic view in and of itself, then you can rightly conclude that, at times, the good of the many can outweigh the good of the few. That is, since society can pragmatically be defined as a tool for the ends of humans, then it may at times be in every individual’s best interest to have individuals sacrificed for the good of society. Pragmatism alone does not discount this possibility. Yet, the very notion that there is a “good of society” which could outweigh the good of any individual is, for Rand, obscene. This all goes back to the “la te da” portion of her argument I referenced earlier.

For those just tuning in, the “la te da” reference was made when I wrote this:

I don’t accept her notion of absolute values, or her reliance on individuality as a primary process.

If you take complexity theory and evolutionary theory to their logical conclusion, the individual is not primary. Rather, the “individual” as such is a site of exchange, a dynamic surface effect, between genetic and memetic replicators. The individual body (and mind) emerges from these interactions.

I just don’t see the sense in trying to establish absolute values which attribute a false sense of power to the individual. I’m not saying we’re all powerless. Rather, I’m saying our power is less definite, and that it is best to think of it as a flexible and complex set of processes.

Is it a coincidence that her most successful and accomplished writings are works of fiction? Her tendency to oversimplify ideas and problems is very well-suited to the world of fiction, where the audience is looking for clearly defined heroes and villains. In philosophy and science, however, we expect a more honest portrayal of what it means to be a person.

You give her much more credit than I. For one thing, I don’t credit her with establishing an actual school of thought. Rather, I believe she succeeded in establishing a cult. It’s not quite a religion, since it does not postulate a supernatural realm. Yet, it is more of a cult, in that it relies on dogma and propaganda. Furthermore, I don’t think she did much at all as far as appropriating anything Nietzschean.

Indeed, I attribute her popularity and influence to her ability to write persuasive socio-political propaganda. That she did so with very little philosophical sophistication is a testament to her powers as a writer.

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I agree pretty much with everything you have here… rand/objectivism is not much of a philosophical system; however, I disagree about the primacy of the individual… (and no, I am not a fan of society or the role of the herd) the individual is always primary and always the primary actor…

-Imp

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Might I intercede in saying that it is the nature of humanity to put oneself before everything, because personal gain is more important to the self, than the gain of the collective.

Now, of course Randian “philosophy” was indeed fueled by the fact that the people she was writing for were poor, worthless, and had nothing but themselves; so they needed the “self” to be empowered. However, if you were to take her ideas for face value, that is objectivism, it makes sense.

A black, and a white, no middle, in all things.

This may “over-simplify” situations, but it brings them down to there cores, and as such presents ways to go about the situation.

However, if it is not the individual that is making this decision, then it is the collective; as long as there is a collective, someone isn’t going to be happy. The collective cannot have power, if everyone isn’t happy.

So, in essence, the individual is what makes the collective work, and is therefore, more powerful. Take every revolution in history. We’ll use the end of WWI. The Treaty of Versailles was a collectivly decided on thing. But, it made Germany useless. Not everyone was happy with what the collective had decided, so, an individual, Hitler, come out of it, and created his own collective. Then this was changed, and so on and so forth.

The collective cannot have power if everyone isn’t happy, and power comes from the one individual who forces everyone to move.

I hope that made sense. I think it was more of a rant than anything, but I thought it made sense.

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I always thought that Ayn Rand got to the right place but by the wrong way. It’s the subjective nature of values that I think gives credence to the idea of superiority of individual rights.

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Subjective? It is embarrassing that I have no idea what that means. Explain please :smiley: .

EDIT: I’m going to guess it is the opposite of objective, but what would that be?

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“But what would that be” indeed.

If objectivity is up for grabs, then maybe we should leave things up to each individual to determine their own values. Always seemed strange to me for a philosophy that essentially advocates this to be named “Objectivism.”

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not really…

I object to society… I am objective…

:slight_smile:

-Imp

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I say this often enough whenever Rand is discussed… I have only read “Atlas Shrugged”, so I do not claim to know much about Rand.

Anyway, it seems to me that “Objectivist” stems from Rand’s denial of Idealism, going all the way back to its roots in Plato. A exists as A seems to be the mantra upon which she predicates her brand of hedonism. When I read the chapter entitled “This is John Galt speaking” I became acutely aware of the fact that her argument was overly repetitive to the point that she was saying, basically, my argument is true, my argument is true… (A is A… get it?)

Probably an annoying personality quirk. (On her part, not mine).

I also seemed to recall her making an argument for laws based on rational thought. Sounds nice. But doing all that would require a society forcing individuals to conform to said laws.

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Off topic, but not entirely unrelated

Some insightfulobservations about objectivism:

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Well at least we now know that Ayn Rand is burning in hell…

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Peter,

You seem to be putting forward a false dichotomy. It is not always the one vs. the collective. In other words, it is not just pure selfishness or pure selflessness. One can put a small portion of the whole ahead of one’s self.

That point aside, I think you are wrong to assume that it is the nature of humanity to be primarily interested in personal gain. I would say that an interest in personal gain is a very important and significant part of what it means to be human. However, one can be interested in personal gain without being so to the exclusion of all other interests. Parents, for example, will often tend to make sacrifices for the good of their offspring. Individuals will even sacrifice themselves for the good of their community.

This is all natural, and it makes perfect sense when we consider the evolutionary conditions which made humanity what it is.

Of course, according to Rand, this is all just some kind of huge mistake, and all these people who make personal sacrifices are evil or just stupid. Her way of thinking is horribly closed-minded and naive.

Why do you suggest this? It seems to me that Rand’s audience was composed primarily of well-off American capitalists.

I don’t see much value in over-simplification. Now, there are certainly many times where we have to work with simplifications. However, that doesn’t mean that all issues can be approached in black and white terms. It certainly would make a discussion of the electromagnetic spectrum quite difficult, don’t you think?

Another instance of the same false dichotomy. It’s not always the one against the many.

Ah, but if it’s every man for himself, then everybody will be happy? I don’t think so.

What is wrong with saying that institutions can have power? Sure, maybe everybody won’t be happy all the time. That’s a given in any society.

I don’t accept this assumption. The group helps determine the individual, and the individual helps determine the group. They each have their own powers, and only in rare instances can an individual become more powerful than a whole community.

What is that supposed to demonstrate? (Besides, it is wrong to claim that Hitler created the collective National Socialist Party. The group was partly responsible for his rise to power.)

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Nah – objectionable, maybe :slight_smile:

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I think your points are well made. Rand saw post-Kantian Idealism as being a root cause of much that was disastrous in the last 200 years of history and saw basing valuations in share-able (“objective”) observations – natural law – as a viable alternative.

I think “forcing individuals to conform to said laws” is an idealist paradigm superimposed on her natural law paradigm. In her consentual theory, only laws that can be widely agreed upon would be enacted in the first place, so the law cannot be used as it currently is, as an instrument of oppression. Secondly, as I read it, she would require an active contract of consent from each citizen – so the chief “problem” of law enforcement in a Randian society would be the enforcement of consentually entered-into contracts, not getting people to “obey” laws they disagree with. Agree or disagree, this reframes the problem – it cannot be coherently discussed within an idealist paradigm, which has assumptions that don’t obstain within her framework.

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This is a dialectical position which cannot be accepted as a flat statement; it requires support.

The contrary position has been enunciated by Rand with a certain degree of thoroughness, and as I remarked before, it is essentially the same as Emerson’s position, so it has a certain historical inertia.

This is a logical leap of some magnitude. You have a “hidden premise” here, the Utilitarian model of social value – specifically Mill’s notions rather than Bentham’s. The proposition as you have stated it is arguable, and people will come to different conclusions depending on the premises they start with.

Somewhat true – Rand’s position is actually quite a bit more nuanced – but your conclusions are based on faulty reasoning, from inadequately remembered (and possibly inadequately apprehended) source material. It would be more accurate to say that the “good of society” in Rand’s view is one of many factors in all individual moral decisions, and the best possible human society (not a perfect one, just the best possible given human nature) rises from the rational evaluation of self-interest – that is, each individual becomes an element in a complex interacting system, and the system obtains its character from the interactions, not from imposition of rules from some top-down authority.

Not accepting the premises of her argument is one basis for conducting a discussion, but flat statements don’t make a discussion – particularly when it’s not clear to me you understand her actual position: thinking back, I can’t recall a single statement from you that was an accurate paraphrase or description of her position, rather than a caricature.

Again a flat statement which is, moreover, a rather extremely reductionist interpretation and not in the theory itself. There is nothing in complexity theory that requires the individuals to be “sites of exchange” except as they are taking in and acting on informationabout their relationship to the surrounding individuals. Your position implies an interpretive framework, one of many equally valid interpretive frameworks – which has to be argued; it’s not an a priori proposition.

“School of thought” I don’t know about and will pass – but I think what I said is fairly accurate – her thinking appears to be based in Aristotle but not identical with Aristotle, with classical Aristotelians, with Scholasticism, or even with the 20th century Aristotelian-Thomists that might be classified as a neo-Scholasticism. It is a distinct Aristotelian lineage which has a few contemporary practitioners.

Possibly true – but the cult of personality is quite distinct from the metaphysics and psychoepistemology work, and in fact the quite visible contradictions and incoherencies in Rand’s behavior after 1968, compared to the work that came before, helped create a split that essentially destroyed what was at that time an actual “movement” (in the very loose terms in which that might be an appropriate descriptor).

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Pragmastist-

Addressing your questions in order,

-I worded that wrong (even though America was not doing really REALLY good at that point in time). Where she came from was filled with people who had above stated qualities. I think that she aimed to write as a voice for those people.

-This brings me to another point, echoed in many a philosophy class: There is no opinion, only truth. I also tend to follow this, as it is an efficient way for one to come to a conclusion. That, and in the end, there really only is truth and false. In stating the aforementioned, there only is a black (false) and white (truth).

-If it is not one against many, then it is one against one. There are really only two ways of playing that scenario, and often times it is one against many. I don’t think that was an instance of false dichotomy.

-In an idealistic situation, where it is every man for himself, then yes, everyone would be happy. People who would want to sell things, would sell things, and the people who needed their goods would buy them. People would invent things to fit their personal needs, whereas others would invent things to fit their personal needs. If everyone does everything for themselves, then the only thing you can be unhappy at is yourself.

-True. But, I meant more of an absolute power. If everyone isn’t happy, then someone isn’t going to listen.

-You make a good point here. I accept that.

-I know he didn’t create it, but he spear-headed its approval. More or less, he alone caused the Nazi’s to come to power. He was the individual controlling the collective.

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Rand quite explicitly argued Hume’s war of all against all was an illusion and argued that the basis of society was cooperation – there is no one against many in Rand and no one against one; all relationships are to be conducted consentually. In a sense, her “goal” in social planning (if one must engage in such an anti-social occupation!) was win-win all around and win-lose solutions don’t get into the mix in the first place. In fact, one of her major essays was on the subject: “there are no conflicts of interest among rational men.”

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That doesn’t make much sense. I have only read her novels, and took from it what I had percieved, but how can something always be consentual?

In that scenario, she just leads herself to the society that she created in “The Anthem.” Interesting how this is the second contradiction I have found in Randian philosophy.

The other being, that if everything is objective, and everyone is to accept one thing to be true, and another to be false, than you cannot be individual any longer. You are forced to be collective, because there is only one truth, and one false in every situation.

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I’m not sure what problem you are having here: if a proposed society allows only conracts made either by explicit terms or by implied contracts the terms of which are well understood (like: if someone rescues you from drowning, you ought to reward their kindness), and does not allow arbitrary interference with existing contracts (i.e., you can’t make retroactive laws that prevent the terms of existing contracts from being worked out), then it operates consentually. In other words, Rand is proposing that the contract be the core social model instead of the master-slave relationship – which is surely discussable.

Uh – “check your premises.”

Oh, my! That’s simply not what “individual” and “collective” mean.

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You misread. If there is one truth and one false, then there is a collective mindset. This is so because only one thing can ever be true, and one false. So, this would lead to something completely collective in that in any given situation, there are only two options, and everyone would obviously choose the one that is truth.

Hence, collectivism is created through objectivity.

EDIT: Once things become consentual, you also cause a collective to form, for the same reason as objectivism. In consentuality, there is one right and one wrong, which leads to a collective mindset.

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Apparently, I have not misread. Your definitions are screwy.

How do I say this? Any number of people who agree that some thing is true does not establish a “collective mindset” or a “collective” – it does provide the first basis on which a community might be created, and that commnunity might be a collective, but need not be.

A contractual or consentual relationship does not establish a “collective.” The term “collective” in the political and philosophical sense does not apply to fellow travelers, people who agree that something is true, or who have a contractual or consentual relationship.

Nor does “individual” mean or imply some kind of “metaphysical freedom.”

Individuals have relationships that are not collectivist in the sense in which Rand is using the term. I recommend Emerson’s essays “Nature,” “The American Scholar,” and “Self-Reliance,” as they deal with the problem of the individual in a community.