I don’t share Ayn Rand‘s deification of egoism and untrammeled capitalism, though I was briefly enamored with “objectivism” as a teenager (who wasn’t?). Nevertheless, her emphasis on the use of reason made her a passionate opponent of religion. Here’s a five-minute clip of her defending atheism on three television programs. I don’t recognize the first show, but I think the host of the second is Phil Donohue. As a reader below notes, the third is Tom Snyder.
h/t: PN
No wonder Ayn Rand was so hated. She pissed off the religionists and the Communists.
The first is also Phil Donahue.
The first two are Donahue. The last one is Tom Snyder
Ayn Rand was a shitty philosopher, a compromised ethicist, and interpersonally a monster and hypocrite.
Can’t we find less tarnished prominent atheists?
Not to Godwin, but would we want to promote video around of Hitler articulating why religion sucks?
Sorry, but I don’t take well to folks telling me I shouldn’t have posted something.
She got national exposure saying stuff like this; that’s good enough for me. And the audience reaction is interesting.
WEIT, as one or two authors have done, we can use her as a foil for putting forth a better ethic and political philosophy.
Her defense of reason against faith is her only, it seems, contribution to rationalism. It sems to me that, however, she really did not grasp the arguments about God! I noted when Donohue queried something about an argument, she had no real response.
Oh, she could have used your and my teleonomic argument!
You might comment on her failed analysis of human nature. What does evolution reveal about that nature that refutes her unfounded intutions about it?
Fair enough. Between yesterday’s homophobia and today’s rancid libertarianism, I’m outtie.
Jerry, why do you “not take well” to those who disagree (in this case only partially, even slightly, it seems to me) with you?
“Can’t we find less tarnished prominent atheists?” seems to me a point worthy of discussion on its merits rather than out-of-hand dismissal.
I have to agree. Sorry, but simply because this otherwise intellectually horrific little gnome happened to share a single trait–atheism–doesn’t mean I have any desire to accept her as a spokeswoman for those views.
Surely there must be others whose words could uphold the atheist viiewpoint, Jerry–those who weren’t otherwise, and in every other way, moral morons.
Nicely put.
I don’t entirely agree. What bothers me is the suggestion that repugnant atheists should be hidden from history or conversation. Ayn Rand was an atheist. And she was politically influential (in a negative way, IMO). These are just facts of history. I don’t have a problem with discussions about nasty people even though I’d rather not be personally associated with them.
I think we here can hold in our heads both the idea that she was a terrible person and a bad philosopher, and someone who had something interesting to say about atheism.
In the same way, I would be curious to see what ghastly gay men like Roy Cohn, Joe McCarthy, Cardinal Spellman or J. Edgar Hoover had to say about homosexuality.
It doesn’t seem to me that her reasons for her atheism were particularly novel, and I was curious to hear her speak (I never knew she spoke with such an accent). She didn’t seem nearly as cogent as she wrote – but then, anyone who spoke the way she wrote would have to carry a riding-crop and flick it against her high leather boots from time to time.
(When she died, some of her devotees put a tribute in the paper addressing her directly, so I wrote to the paper rejoicing at how quickly the “objectivists” had abandonded her nasty “philosophy” in favour of a mystical belief that something of her had survived. The fans never forgave me.)
On the possibility that there exists even a tiny shred of credit or interest or interst in these posts, I suggest you’ll have to invent a new classification lower than “faint praise” as that phrase is far above what you posted.
Clarification: Ayn Rand was not a spokesperson, proponent or activist for atheism. She would consider that so trivial as to not justify an ounce of energy. The only time she even touches “atheism” per se is in conjunction with any challenges from theists or questgions about it, such as in this interview.
I actually think her interviewers were more interesting, in the way they seemed to think atheism was something unusual, and the poor defences for theism they offered. But then, I don’t live in the USA.
She expresses an atheist point of view clearly and is worth listening to. JC has added a disclaimer distancing himself from her other beliefs. So why can’t we take the good from her and leave the rest? Seems a balanced point of view.
I don’t agree with her ‘selfishness is good’ philosophy. Of course she is right when it comes to close interpersonal relationships, however she doesn’t seem to connect the dots between ‘give only to others who can give back to you’ to her wider community ie; ‘the welfare state’, or realise that if people in the community are doing very poorly then that impacts on everyone including the better-off!
But that is besides the point. She is worth the airtime
Ann loses some credibilty when she suggests selfishness as being “good”. I would contend that selfishness has no qualiites of good or bad, it just represents the rteality of all human psyches as each of us pursues meeting our needs. To call it good (or bad, for that matter) presupposes the existence of some standard that exists beyond each human beings perception, and or, needs. No empirical evidence to support this. Reductionist logic, circular reasoning, nihilism – yep!
I don’t know if she even used the word good but she does appear to advocate selfishness as a positive for the person on the receiving end – the self
She wrote a book called “The Virtue of Selfishness”.
(I suppose you could quibble that in the strictest sense, “virtue” need not mean goodness, as in, “the poison killed him by virtue of its toxicity.”)
You can be sure that if such recordings or writings existed the religious would be trotting them out as “proof” that atheism = nazism.
Indeed. Yet, here in the real world, the exact opposite is true, and it’s quite clear that Nazism was a thoroughly Christian phenomenon, what with Gott mit uns on the belt buckles and Mein Kampf reading like one of Martin Luther’s theological screeds and all.
Yes, yes. I know. “But my Jesus would never support anything like that,” the Christians will apologize. Uh-huh. And I bet your Jesus would never order a blood sacrifice be made out of all non-Christians, too, such as in Luke 19:27? Or declare that he came not to bring peace but a sword and to set families at each other’s throats? Or smite the fig tree, the very symbol of Rabbinical Judaism and the Torah? Or curse the Pharisees as the brood of vipers and cast them from their own Temple?
I could go on….
Cheers,
b&
at least you’ve quit flogging your preposterous claim that ‘mein kampf’ includes “…extended in-context quotes from Jesus.” now maybe you could go back and read luke 19:11; you do the case you’re trying to make no favors by exaggerating, distorting, and even falsifying the evidence you adduce to argue it.
Nazis believed in something called “Positive Christianity” which was a tad eccentric, rejecting the entire Old Testament and arguing Jesus was not Jewish. But it was definitely religious.
Incidentally, while Luke 19 is indeed horrible, there are good reasons for believing Luke is mainly referring to Jews rather than a broader category of unbelievers. Doesn’t make it any better though.
You mean the psychopath with a messiah complex Hitler? The square moustache who’s Catholic mother’s grave was his shrine? The batshit insane dictator who did not tolerate secular schools because of their irreligious tendencies? Please do show me a video of him articulating why religion sucks.
We could more accurately say Stalin and Mao and the point would be the same. But Ayn Rand was not a mass murderer or advocate of genocide, although she was more subtly inhumane in other ways.
To heck with Godwin, do not violate rule #5.
She was a great philosopher and an impeccable woman.
Is your tongue in your cheek?
Eh, she was neither.
She tortured her gentle husband Frank for 20 years by conducting an affair with her disciple, Nathaniel Branden, right under Frank’s nose.
Decrying the “state” and government handouts, she nevertheless received both Social Security and Medicare in the last decade of her life.
And don’t get me started on the fact that she was a heavy smoker until she had to quit after being diagnosed with lung cancer, but continued to deny that smoking causes cancer until she died.
She was a moral and ethical pygmy.
Paleeze.
I pretty much dislike Ayn Rand, but I think that the “torture her gentle husband” gambit is a bit over the top. Presumably poor suffering Frank was an adult, fully capable of declining to continue participating in the relationship.
Or, you could, you know, just read one of the several biographies of Rand, one each written by Barbara Branden, Nate’s wife, and of course, the other, by Nathaniel Branden. If these actors seem less than objective to you, two others have been written recently, both excellent, and I assure, every last one of them writes about the pain that Frank O’Connor endured by Rand’s affair with Branden.
Why do I need to read a biography to make the judgement that an adult man married to a slime-ball wife should be capable of deciding to up and leave? You speak of him as if he was a child.
I speak of him that way because the biographical reference material describes him that way, as gentle and child-like.
You could, like I said, read a book.
You keep saying I could read a biography. Well, of course I could. I don’t need to though, do I?
Just because a biographer speaks of an adult man as a child (which I gather is the case if your assertion is true) doesn’t make the man a child. So your repetition of an over-the-top characterization of “poor Frank” remains over-the-top.
(None of my comments should be interpreted as saying that Ayn Rand wasn’t a nasty piece of work. I’m agnostic on that. Yes… I could go read a biography if I cared enough about that matter, but I don’t.)
So What! I’ve read her stuff and respect her work.
Well, that’s lovely for you, but I’m here pointing out to you that Ayn Rand does not meet the definition of “impeccable”, unless hypocrisy is a value worth celebrating.
Well….off into the sunset you go while riding your moral horse! Have a good ride!
You could offer an argument against, if you were so inclined.
Or get all huffy and defensive. As you like.
A two-part interjection here from a long time Objectivist:
1) all the “biographies” referenced here are chock full of psychologizing, a serious defect. I have read three of them and inspected thoroughly a fourth. You would not be encountering the thought of an important thinker except through the filter of partisan non-philosophers, but rather the slant of four or five parties quite interested in forwarding certain agendas. Naturally, this is a problem with all biography, but in Ayn Rand’s case, the stakes are high, the coat-tails are mighty and the subject is an iconoclast. One suggestion: Rand herself disdained this type of biography and wished instead for “the biography of an idea.” Moreover, I extend the above position to the various “official” films, essays and treatments of Rand’s life.
2) instead of slamming around personality traits and ad hominem attribution, why not actually contend with the thought of Ayn Rand?
Dear John Donohue,
Please point out where I was “slamming around personality traits and ad hominem attribution”.
Thanks,
Mary
The first one is Phil. The second one I don’t know.
Those interviews are at least 30 years old and it is amusing to see that the arguments the religious put forth have not changed one iota since that time – atheists are arrogant, atheists have as much faith as the religious, you can’t prove that god doesn’t exist, even if it isn’t true what harm does it do.
But I thought it was the militant atheists of the last decade that were being so mean to the religious that were the cause of all the strife ?
She was formidable person indeed no matter what you think of her philosophy and even in the grainy video and mushy audio her personality shines through.
Heh.
If you think it’s remarkable that nothing has changed in thirty years, you should try digging just a wee bit deeper in history.
Never mind Sagan, whose Demon-Haunted World was every bit as critical of religion as anything Dawkins ever wrote. And never mind Twain, who made Hitchens look like an innocent child. (And no disrespect to The Hitch — he would have been the first to agree with me.) Hell, don’t even mind Jefferson, whose criticism of Christianity is about as scathing as it gets.
The very first recorded debate with a Christian, between Justin Martyr and Trypho the Jew in the early second century, was no different from one you might encounter today. For example, Trypho points out that the “virgin” in the prophecy in Isaiah is a mistranslation only found in the Greek and that the Hebrew says, “young maiden,” a specific one at that, and that she actually did fulfill the prophecy a page or two later in the text. And Martyr doesn’t even pretend to respond — exactly what modern Christians do when challenged with that same inconvenient truth.
And never mind even that. Half a millennium farther back yet, Epicurus demonstrated the nonexistence of even gods of far less power and kindheartedness as Jesus is supposed to embody, and the religious answer to that is still to change the subject (especially to complete non-sequiturs such as free-range willies).
Indeed, I rather suspect the first atheist was born mere moments after the first god was publicly announced, and the foundation of said atheist’s lack of belief was no different from what lies at the core of all atheist’s lack of belief: “Ha, ha. Good one. Wait — you mean you’re serious? You’re shitting me. You can’t be. Nobody could be that clueless. Has anybody told you about Santa Claus yet?” — which is exactly what Ms. Rand politely does in all those clips. Sadly, there really hasn’t been anything forthcoming from the believers to merit much more sophistication in the way of argument.
Cheers,
b&
P.S. On almost everything but the topic of religion, I’m about as far removed from Rand as it’s possible to get. Jerry’s right in that her stuff is attractive to teenaged boys, but it’s also stuff that everybody not male and / or past puberty should have grown out of. b&
The first !*written*! attack on Christianity is the now lost “The True Word ( Doctrine)” by Celsus (No one would title a skeptical book that way today of course.) written about 177. Thanks for the alert to the Justin Martyr debate.
My understanding is that Martyr v Trypho is a couple – few decades earlier than Origen v Celsus. Then again, dating for that whole period is quite murky, especially when it’s the Christians themselves doing the dating, so I certainly wouldn’t bet anything more than a single cup of coffee / beer / whatever on that.
I’d be surprised if the oldest manuscripts of either are from anything earlier than the Dark Ages, so one can understand the futility inherent in attempting to date thousand-year-old copies-of-copies-of-copies of documents the originals of which are supposed to be another millennium older still.
Cheers,
b&
Very interesting, Ben.
Thanks for that post.
Many think Trypho is a literary fiction developed by Justin Martyr. If so, Martyr is simply putting words into the mouth of a hypothetical Christian opponent.
However, Celsus is well-established as a real character.
Manuscript-wise, We only know the text of Celsus from Origen’s rebuttal, but as in modern e-mail, Origen quotes very very long passages from Celsus, and at the time it would have been easy to check he was quoting Celsus accurately.
While Origen claimed Celsus wrote this in the first half of the 2nd century, Eusebius (an early Christian bishop) says Celsus wrote this circa 177 AD. For reasons unknown to me, modern scholars prefer Eusebius’ dating over Origen’s. The 1987 edition of Celsus (extracted from Origen’s rebuttal) edited by Joseph Hoffman may be useful here.
Celsus thought Christianity only appealed to the less educated classes and was a danger to the political unity of Rome. He thought the theology was a hodge-podge of bad ideas from Eastern religion, and that the Christian God’s actions were bizarre, and that the appeal to blind faith was silly.
Goes to show that atheism is no guarantee of decent social policy ideas.
Oooo…. but how arrogant atheists are!
Phil Donahue’s autobiography has a terrific chapter of how and why he lost his Catholic faith. He interviewed Rand several times, and I wonder where these interviews fit chronologically with his own (a)theological journey.
Donahue was also an interviewer who had clearly read Rand’s writings very carefully and extensively, and seemed to agree with several points and disagree with others which made him a good interviewer in contrast with the hatchet job that Mike Wallace did interviewing Rand in the late ’50s with horribly unprofessional questions just a notch above “When did you stop beating your wife?”
As for Rand, I find her a weird mixture of wisdom and folly. Her understanding of the history of Western philosophy is spotty and erratic. A much more skilled novelist with essentially the same political philosophy is Robert Heinlein, although RH’s works are tainted by elements of sexism and mysogyny (as PZ Myers recently observed on his blog.)
I grew up (so to speak) on Robert Heinlein’s “children’s” science fiction and on rereading many of those novels I’m surprised at how subversive they are give the zeitgeist of the time (cold war era, late 50’s/60’s). How these got through the editing process is beyond me.
And I’ll always be grateful to RH for introducing me to the author Jerome K. Jerome (bonus points if you can identify the RH novel).
Have Spacesuit, Will Travel.
Thanks for the memories!
My favorite Jerome quote, (and here’s to you Hitch): “Let your boat of life be light, packed with only what you need – a homely home and simple pleasures, one or two friends worth the name, someone to love, and someone to love you, a cat a dog and a pipe or two. And a little more than enough to drink; for thirst is a dangerous thing.”
A wonderful sci-fi book with references to Jerome K. Jerome is of course Connie Willis’s “To say nothing of the Dog”, a really delightful book. (Time travel, Victorian humor, the Blitz, etc.)
although RH’s works are tainted by elements of sexism and mysogyny
Depending on the novel in question, I would add eugenics, racism, raging militarism and jingoism.
His Mary Sue/stand-in character Lazarus Long promotes the killing of disabled people to maintain the genetic purity of the population. Anybody here read Farnham’s Freehold lately? The book where Africans dominate the planet, and what society that supposedly would produce? Or the morale at the end of the Puppet Masters? And what many people who have seen the deeply subversive movie find hard to stomach, the Starship Troopers book was NOT a satire but straight-faced promotion of militarism and fascism.
Seriously, I do not understand how my parents could read any of this without throwing these books against the wall.
I forgot to mention militarism. I actually didn’t know about the eugenics.
Actually, I heard about the biz of selective breeding in one of his novels and forgot about it.
I found her virtually unreadable, because her “philosophy” was just one unsupported assertion after another, with no thread of logic connecting them whatsover.
As for sexism, if I put a dollar in a jar for every time she said “man” (to mean the human race) and took one out for every time the Book of Mormon says “And it came to pass” I’m not sure the jar would be empty.
Man as a term for the human species is a pretty old and standard usage so I wouldn’t put that up as an example of her sexism (versus an example of sexism in our language). She said plenty of messed up things about gender that were a lot more direct.
True, but she did happen to speak of generic “man” a terrible lot – I think I counted about 40 times in one page.
who wasn’t?
Any sane person? 🙂
Not too many people can look back and claim that they did not try out philosophies and fashions that they no longer embrace and in fact are embarrassed or horrified at ever being involved in them.
You of course may be an exception to the rule and a shining example to the rest of us.
Richard Dawkins has admitted that as an undergraduate he was drawn to one of the worst accomodationists of all, Teilhard de Chardin. Who can top(/bottom) that??
“Who can top(/bottom) that??”
I don’t want to think about that too much….
I remember reading Teilhard and finding him pretty much incomprehensible – but then I didn’t start from where he was starting from.
Anyone else care to confess to The Greening of America?
It’s been too long for me to remember many specifics and I don’t remember how much I thought of it, but I do remember the author losing me when he talked about how deeply meaningful it was that people were wearing blue jeans.
It’s not so much as trying out a stupid philosophy or holding a really stupid worldview, as much as Jerry’s claim that seemingly most nonreligious teenagers try out objectivism. Oh hell no they don’t.
I don’t see what’s so attractive about it. Is it because I wasn’t born a CEO?
I think it’s because most people who try out Rand’s philosophy do so as teenagers. Most teenagers are self-centered and think adults are holding them back with all their rules (sometimes they have a point, most of the time they don’t) and a philosophy that tells them that their right is attractive. Thankfully most people grow out of it.
I like her focus at the end there on the immorality of faith-based beliefs. Requesting that another person suspend their simply accept something based on no evidence, and then making that act out to be a virtue, is wrong: a person who deals in the truth would have no reason to ask someone to take something on faith. Mr. Hitchens would often emphasize that point, though with a bit more rhetorical flair than Rand.
Ayn Rand’s beloved Aristotle believed in God on purely philosophical grounds although Aristotle’s God wasn’t all that anthropomorphic.
Christianity developed a much more elaborate theology/apologetics than other religions due to its encounter with Greek skepticism, and Rand’s hero Aristotle eventually turned out to be someone that helped Christians a lot to rationalize their thinking.
—
It seems to be human nature to yearn for a God who is allegedly loving and yet remote, but this is a trait to outgrow. As Trek’s Spock said speaking of preferring love for distant people over near ones “It is not logical, but often true”.
“It seems to be human nature to yearn for a God who is allegedly loving and yet remote”
Or is it a just convenient way for a god to be?
That quote reminds me tangentially of this one:
Excellent.
There is a third: Slaughterhouse 5
And “Lord of the flies”
Reminds me of one of the old Apple Developer CDs… Lord of the Files.
The Star Trek argument is that were God perfect, then there would be no imperfections; in one episode Kirk got a robot claiming to be perfect finally to deny that.
And to laugh at that overrated Alvin Plantinga: he prattles that omni-God can make imperfections, because His powers allow for flourishes whilst limited God would have to work sparingly and so would have make perfections!
Plantinga revels in solecistic, sophisticated sophistry! And he cannot fathom how natural selection can make for our imperfect faculties that oft times work well but sometimes fail at arriving at truth. Carneades’ the atelic argument applies: Plantinga begs the question of directed outcomes. And would he allege as he does with the stupid free will argument that perhaps demons have something to do with the errors?
Yet, universities hire such a woo-meister!
There are no “imperfections” in Nature, only differences and changes.
Really? Wisdom teeth aren’t imperfections?
When they don’t get impacted, that is, when people have big enough jaws for them, no.
Got it. The fact that very many (most?) people suffer from this miserable design defect doesn’t represent an imperfection because some people get lucky. Kind of like how having a prostate gland, prone to growth and hardening over time, wrapped around a urethra isn’t an imperfection because young men don’t notice it.
(who wasn’t?)
I do not know anybody who was. But maybe this is still more of an American phenomenon.
No, I’m an American, and I too don’t know anybody who was. I knew plenty who abhorred objectivism even in their teenage years though.
Perhaps it’s a matter of dislocation in time rather than space. Dr. Coyne waould have been a teenager in the 60’s. Are you guys similar in age?
…excellent to see these interviews again !!!!
Ayn Rand is a very polarizing figure. When first encountering her writings as a teen my initial assessment was “dreadfully boring,” and so I stopped reading. With such little exposure to her I was amazed some years later when I became aware of the following that she had. Proponents of her philosophies seem to very often be people whose main attraction is the idea of raising selfishness to a virtue.
On a side note, Ron Paul naming his son Rand is just . . . I don’t know, hilarious and scary at the same time. Neither one of them should be let anywhere near the controls.
Maybe he just likes Robert Jordan.
You know, I read Atlas Shrugged, The Fountainhead, and that one that took place in the USSR in the 20’s (don’t recall the name) many years ago, and have never understood why people love or hate her so much. I have never understood why she is considered a philospher. Her books are interesting, but she doesn’t really do philosophy, does she? She wrote books that describe the kind of society she (presumeably) would have wanted to live in and glorify the character traits that she held dear. So what?
Why aren’t there people out there trying to promote the ideals expressed by other authors as a political platform? I guess she had a catchy name for her “philosophy”, but where are the Tolstoyans? I don’t think it wise to base a political system one’s favorite literature, but if we’re going to try it, can we pick a better author?
Perhaps I’m the one in error by not taking her seriously. I admit I don’t know much about her or objecivism.
Apparently I don’t know much about proofreading either.
Actually, she did write stuff that she thought was philosophy. I read Atlas Shrugged and that was enough Ayn Rand the novelist for me. I then tried to read her philosophy, The Virtue of Selfishness, and my interest in the crazy woman was extinguished.
Somewhere in my 20’s I found Atlas Shrugged in a second hand bookstore. Picked it up, bought it and read it.
Liked the style (she apparently has read a lot of Nietzsche?) and the contents of the first half. Couldn’t care less about the objectivism.
It’s just a book, certainly not a dangerous book.
0.02
We have people in our government who think Atlas Shrugged is only second to the Bible in beign the most important book ever written. I’d say that makes it pretty dangerous.
Actually I don’t think any book is inherently dangerous, it’s people who can’t distinguish fantasy from reality that make a book dangerous.
One rarely, if ever, gets from Rand a sense of her having warm blood in her body, or showing traces of heartfelt sympathy for her fellow humans. The best we get from her imagination are monsters of egotism like Howard Roark, in brick-sized books stuffed with horribly bloated, prolix and poorly written prose. Also, for what it’s worth, the record does seem to confirm that Rand was a cold, manipulative and scheming shit in her personal life.
Sorry, you read the wrong record. Not only was she generous, warm and kind in her personal life to family and friends, but also to unknowns and strangers…as long as they showed some indication of shared values with her. If someone did not, she was neutral until they started spouting toxic ideas. Then she could be a rapier or guided missile.
And…oh how I hesitate… but no, it must be said in this blog…
She loved cats and shared special affection for them with others.
The wrong record? “Warm and kind”? Hmmm…you mean the same person who, with remarkable humility, described herself to Mike Wallace in 1957 as “the most creative thinker alive”? Who spared no vitriol even against political allies like William Buckley and Ronald Reagan? Who described altruism as “the philosophical root cause of Nazism and Stalinism” since it “denies the primacy of the self”? Who would describe anyone who is not a superman like John Galt or Howard Roark to the role of “parasite” and “moocher”? Who manipulated her husband Frank to the role of willing eunuch and asked him to go out to a bar and wait while she humiliated him by having an affair with Nathaniel Branden? Yes, sweet gal.
Correction: My post should read:
“Who would relegate anyone who is not a superman like John Galt or Howard Roark to the role of “parasite” and “moocher”?”
Altruism IS the root of Nazism and Stalinism. Please check the original and root meaning of the word per Auguste Comte who coined it, and who meant it to be state-enforced collectivist sacrifice to the point of self-immolation. If anything, Rand went soft on altruism.
http://hubcap.clemson.edu/~campber/altruismrandcomte.pdf
Don’t make the mistake of answering me back that altruism just means to be kind and help others. That is “kindness and generosity,” not altruism.
You have the structure of moocher ugly-wrong, per Rand. To be not a moocher, all you have to do is be self-productive; you do not have to be superman. You don’t even have to be a net-contributor to taxes or anything, if you have a plan and a purpose and are moving up. You are a moocher, of whatever position, if you could support yourself, but instead you manipulate others or the state to do it.
Reagan was a FDRer turned conservative with some overlap for Objectivists and Rand specifically denounced him for his vocal and intended support of making abortion illegal. Buckley? Please. Check the source of vicious, smearing, defamation thrown at Ayn Rand by Buckley and his henchmen. They hated her for her atheism and they shouted it in blustery high-blown purple prose. Rand really did not bother to ‘vitriol back” at these sad jerks. These are not allies of Ayn Rand.
Next, if challenged as to one’s importance as a creative thinker in the culture, she gave her opinion. She was an iconoclast and original thinker while the rest of 20th century intellectuals were just rehashing Plato’s Republic and coddling Stalinist USSR. Name a more creative thinker.
Finally, and inclusive with my non-response to the personal sexual affairs of Rand: none of what you raised (and have now been corrected) says not one word about Objectivist philosophy.
Wow. I’m so impressed by the recitation, Mr. Tool. Happy Randian doings to you…
Rand is forever wrong about altruism! Ti’s bait and switch to apply Compte’s definition to helpful matters. Doctors serve others, go on vacations and generally do what they want and make a log of money!She reifies extremism as a virtue. Altruism is quite in our self-interests!
She did not acknowledge other philosophers of egoism nor combat pheilosophers who showed up egoism.
Folks, she was just Spencer regurgutated. She and he both consider us less-well off as parasites. Other find her taking ideas from Nietszche, but so what, when ti’s Spencer who rings her bells. Call Social Darwinism Spencer-Randism as the former slurs Darwin and the two were not racists and eugenicists.
We Democrats should hammer that home!
WEIT, and Spencer’s survival of the fittest means gene frequency,not of the meanist,etc. Go after Spencer too!
” Elvis is alive. Rudolph Valentino told me so! So much for the Resurrection,” Fr. Griggs
Pray to me, and you’ll get the same results as with God, but I admit my inability!
” Religion is mithinformation.” An Englishman
ignoring this utterance, the sound of one jaw flapping, because otherwise I would have to break the rules.
my “ignoring” post is not intended for Lord Griggs but rather for the life form posting above him.
I, too, was sucked in by Ayn Rand–first by the movie, “The Fountainhead,” then by the book “We, the Living.”
I also was sucked in by a Rand-nut woman and took off for the woods and she married a publisher. Beautiful physically, but I couldn’t quite connect with her.
Living under the Soviets might have made me irrationally objective too, but I’ve never been attracted to guru-types.
This world is threatened, however, by egocentric narcissists, including that proliferating cultural mutant, and nest-parasite the yellow-bellied grantsnatcher.
The world would be a better place if Ayn Rand had been bludgeoned to death as a child.
That statement of hate CANNOT fall into “okay” per the rules just posted in another thread.
Oh my, yes. We mustn’t hate the dead. They might take umbrage.
The world would be a better place if Hitler had been bludgeoned to death as a small child.
Any complaints on behalf of the dead about that one?
Hate is hate, dead or not. It cannot be in the spirit of our host for you to be posting it.
That’s ludicrous.
Here’s an example of someone who was frequently praised on this blog: youtube.com /watch?v=UIviufQ4APo
Amen. If it quacks like a demagogue . . .
But see here, my good fellow, surely you jest (and some fail to perceive it as such) concerning killing babies . . .
“The world would be a better place if Hitler had been bludgeoned to death as a small child.”
You have no guarantee of that at all. His absence might have just made room for someone even worse – who won the war, for example. But a small child, still harmless, would still have been blugeoned.
Someone could write a parallel history on that basis – and just for an extra twist, somehow have the blugeoning be the trigger that sets of the rise of this Hitler2.
That statement is not all right. You’re not just hating the dead; you’ve wished that she was bludgeoned to death as a child. That’s not all right, so apologize.
What has her malign influence on the world actually been? I can only think of one really terrible movie, The Fountainhead…
The Tea Party. (or portions thereof)
Besides being an absolute champion of reason, Rand’s metaphysics is a very important reinforcer of that which lies at the root of all science: objectivity. It is simple to grasp, namely that “this world of particulars” exists, and ONLY it exists. No supernatural, no miracles, no afterlife. And this especially: Existence has primacy over Consciousness. In other words, your thought does not construct reality; reality is. Your consciousness has the job of discovery that which exists and identifying its nature.
That is objectivity and therefore, science.
I quite agree that “reality is.” However, I’d like to hear of a specific example of Rand’s reasoning.
O my. Houston, we have a true believer…
Meaning Mr. Donohue, not Mr. Tyson.
“(who wasn’t?)”
Me. But then that was natural back in the day because outside of the socially retarded states of America she was unknown.
She was? 😉
Wayne Tyson
On what topic? or…post a formulation.
How ‘bout substituting needs for morality/virtue? I would suggest that the use of the word morality and virtue are embraced by us, both individuals & social groups, to make it appear that our motivations are beyond self interest. However, I don’t find any empirical evidence beyond self gratification for any act.
I have been involved in work with the disadvantaged and vulnerable throughout my life. The work is not altruistic,or moral, or virtuous. Despite some enormous frustrations, it still just meets my needs. My ethical standards merely evolve out of, and express, my needs. They are always situational, and grow out of a range of variables often beyond my understanding, but always directed towards my emotional self interest (egoism?). To call one’s behavior moral/virtuous/altruistic seems to presuppose the existence of absolute standards that exist outside of, and are independent from, the human experience – just like all those religious doctrines that have stupified civilizations over time.
The more I read this stuff, the more I appreciate having been raised with the arrogance/ambivalence of agnosticism. Though my own life is defined by my dependence on empirical evidence, and the use of human logic to meet my needs, I accept the limitations of that experience re: defining either scientific or spiritual absolutes.
God, etc. has been created to meet the needs of those who need God – I argue against God’s existence because of the absence at this point of time of evidence via my 5 senses to support such a concept. However, the need to believe is obviously an emotional reality, and faith by definition, though illogical, therefore is beyond any explanation other than it meets one’s needs.
The common ground for believers and non-believers is just that – it meets a need, and if there is one absolute, perhaps that may be it: There is no behavior other than that which meets a need, all of our needs being highly individualized and evolving out of our own very unique set of experiences (both nature and nurture). Moral beliefs are merely the means by which individuals and social units describe their individual and group needs – they are ever evolving, and serve to both provide answers, and create more questions. For those of us in the secular world that provides for exciting exploration of many areas. Unfortunately for many in the religious community it is only a threat, and thus they are often prone to meet their needs with simplistic, accusatory, and often aggressive, attacks on others.
Time to move on to ?’s of free will!!??
“Piety is oppressive, it takes all the air out of thought” Norman Mailer
Hmmm….needs, and needs per individual at that. That is not far from Rand’s unusual confrontation when considering “ethics” as a branch of philosophy, namely, “Why does man need a code of morality at all?” The short answer is: because man is a being of volitional consciousness and requires a “survival and flourishing” diary since he cannot shut off his conceptual mind and function fully on instinct. The judge of how well an individual has met this “need” is reality: if his chosen code of behavior is correct qua man’s nature, he will survive and thrive. If he chooses foolish guidance, reality will make him suffer and die. Period.
Second, you would find that Ayn Rand is iconoclastic (third time I’ve used that term in this thread) on the subject of “free will” as contested in this blog: she 1) has not an ounce of tolerance for the idea that God grants the “miracle” of free will to an otherwise soulless, materialistic bag of bones that is man; and 2) has not an ounce of tolerance for the notion that man is purely determined, that a human being does not have free will. It is a false dichotomy which her philosophy smashes in true iconoclast tradition.
Agreed, but as a free market, free will, capitalist, survival of the fittest (“God helps those who help themselves” is the spiritual equivalent)BS she is trapped. She must allow the dichotomy to support her vitriol toward the less fortunate. Further evidence that pursuing one’s emotional needs will so often force one to flee from objective truths.
@cubswin84
Your reply was unitelligible in context. In other words, I have no idea what you just said.
Meanwhile, Rand has zero vitriol towards the “less fortunate.”
Sorry for the lack of clarity.
I have dumped free market, free will, capitalist, survival of the fittest (“God helps those who help themselves” is the spiritual equivalent) all together as part of a broad generalization for folks who flee from the notion of cause and effect when it meets their judgmental needs of other folks behavior. If vitriol is too strong a term for Rand’s attitude toward the less fortunate, ie, those who fall by the wayside in the rush up the economic ladder, so be it. She has consistently shown disdain for those unable to compete, as if it was a free will choice on their part. To me that is an inherent contradiction for one so committed to egoism, and objective reasoning (as I am), and points to a more emotional need than a rational assessment.
Though obviously we live in a society dependent on the assumption of free will as the foundation for holding folks accountable, there exists no empirical evidence that free will is possible. In my admittedly limited understanding of Rand, I felt she often had a need to blame those that were unable to compete, rather than understand the cause-effect sequences that made it impossible for them to keep up.
Hope I haven’t further confused the discussion. At any rate, thanks for the feedback
To have do dump free will in order to alleviate the hurts of an unjust natural world containing ‘differences of ability’ or to avoid judging individuals seems a heavy price to pay. Wait, let me correct that: it is fatal.
Do you make a distinction between a moocher (Rand’s unashamedly radioactive term) and a ‘worthy” (someone of good integrity who can only achieve modest success? Rand does. Her vitriol is reserved for the moochers only, regardless of on what rung of the ladder they stand.
Besides the horrific corollary to “free will is impossible”, namely the requirement to unblame tyrants, abusers, etc., you might have to forgive Rand for “beginning with a premise of emotional blame and rationalizing all else”; she could not help it, no free will. I will categorically posit back: She does have an emotional negative charge on moochers, but not on those of lesser accomplishment whom she honors frequently in Atlas Shrugged.
For the purpose of the discussion: I make no hierarchical distinction re: any human behavior. I contend they are all the sum total of every variable that led up to that particular piece of behavior at that particular moment in time. The behavior itself has no ingredients of good, bad, right, or wrong except in the eyes of the actor, and the eyes of those that observe, based on the needs of each at that moment in time. As social groups we devise methods of holding one another accountable based on the agreed to norms of that particular social group. Behaviors then get defined as good, bad, right, wrong, etc., especially in those social groups that have religious foundations, and thus where the use of right, wrong, good, bad, reflect the need for absolutistic moral/legal standards. I don’t happen to support that because, I believe, it lends itself to simplistic interpretations of complex human behaviors. I don’t pretend to understand all those complexities, but I find free will to be just as inane an explanation as is “God’s will.”
I would contend that the killer in Colorado, at the moment in time he fired the first shot, had no choice but to fire the first shot, and each shot thereafter had a cause and effect sequence that was unique to his psyche (brain chemistry?) at that particular moment. Does that mean he is not responsible for his behavior? He will be held accountable, ie responsible, within our social group. I support that because it meets my needs for safety as it does for the majority of our social group. Within a different social group (say the Caribs of the East Indies?) might be a whole different story!
As for Rand, I have no more need to forgive her than to forgive myself. With regard to moochers v well intentioned under achievers, neither Rand nor myself have our needs met by moochers. The difference is just that she rejects them with a moral/ethical base, and I reject them because at this point in time they just don’t meet my needs. As a child in Chicago when my parents would escort me through a poor area, I was ready to give anything and everything to the beggars we came across (anything my parents had, of course!). Now I step over them as if they don’t exist, unless I decide to buy one a cup of soup. Stepping over them is not cruel, and buying them a cup of soup is not kind. It just reflects my different needs at different moments. No good, no bad, no right, no wrong – just ever evolving, often changing, needs that are determined by the unique variables that each of us experiences.
“I was briefly enamored with “objectivism” as a teenager (who wasn’t?).”
Me. As far back as I can remember, I have always thought of us as social animals and sided with the weak, the oppressed and the exploited – which I guess is none too difficult for a working class child, as you are one of the weak, oppressed and exploited.
To claim that imperfections don’t exist reifies the nothing that is orthogonal to the Absolute: parasites are imperfections, my schizotypy is an imperfection, and so forth. White-washing them cannot overcome Hume’s dysteleological argument and cannot vouchsafe free will and soul-making!
” Life is its own validation and reward and ultimate meaning to which neither God nor the future state can further validate!”
Therefore, Augustine, Francisco Jose Ayala and William Lane Craig, with their unsubstantiated argument from angst, just uselessly whine about this one life, not being enough. Augustine came up with this argument by prattling that he had to be in the bosom of Sky Pappy Being Itself]. Ayala’s in ” Darwinism and Intelligent Design” whines that most people need God for values and purposes, and Craig whines that even without the future state, we’d need Him!
And the unsubstantiated argument from happiness-purpose fails.
Both arguments led me to compose the Lamberth non-genetic argument that theists themselves unwittingly affirm our naturalistic arguments about how they come to faith, and thus those arguments don’t commit the genetic fallacy!
Others,please vet this argument!
A parasite is an imperfection in relationship to what? Is there a menu somewhere for perfection, and if so, how could we recognize it.
By the way, great use and adaptation of “Schizothymic”!
Ayn Rand wasn’t always a friend of reason and science either.
For instance, she and her disciples appear to have rejected the mainstream view from physics on quantum mechanics for the simple reason that quantum mechanics contradicts Objectivism’s axioms.
Rand also embraced Aristotlean teleology in biology and expressed the view that homosexuality violates “natural law” and is “disgusting.” Rand’s attachment to “natural law” was a key component of her political philosophy and her view that selfishness is a virtue.
The other way of putting this is that Rand and her followers start from certain conclusions and then spin elaborate philosophical arguments to justify those conclusions. If the facts appear to violate some of their premises, that’s just because the facts are wrong. It has a rather strong resemblance to monotheistic religion in that sense. Objectivism even has its own schismatic controversy!
@mark:
“The other way of putting this is that Rand and her followers start from certain conclusions and then spin elaborate philosophical arguments to justify those conclusions. If the facts appear to violate some of their premises, that’s just because the facts are wrong. It has a rather strong resemblance to monotheistic religion in that sense. Objectivism even has its own schismatic controversy!”
Watch out, positing this psychologism engenders toxic backwash. Every position of every thinker becomes suspect. Further, your statement pivots on the word “fact.” Per your premise, validation of truth would thus be subsumed under the “disciple’s” (your word) world view. Complete with schisms.
I have a rejoinder to your three specifics, but they are moot due to your psychologism riding herd on them.
You have the causal arrow backwards. I find Rand’s philosophy unconvincing for a variety of reasons — some hinted at in the comment above — and it is for those reasons that I hold Objectivism in low regard. The fact that many Objectivists bear a striking resemblance in their tone and rhetorical style to religious commentators strikes me as an interesting parallel worth mentioning on a site popular with atheists but is not the main point.
Then why did you post the comment about her backing into her philosophy to fit her preconcived conclusions?
Because it is my conclusion from reading Rand’s writings.
This isn’t an appropriate forum to be debating philosophy. Rather, as I have already noted twice, I offer my observations because they are relevant in a forum where reason and science are held to be the most important sources of knowledge.
Readers are invited to read the writers of Rand and her disciples for themselves and form their own conclusions about how closely she adheres to reason and science.
Your repeated use of “disciples,” a crude, charged pejorative insult, and the flimsy support supplied in justification of the major charge that Rand constructed her philosophy merely to justify her preconceived emotional conclusions drains your opinion that she did so of any credibility. Hopefully the others who you now invite to inspect the record will act somewhat more seriously when evaluating.
It is not appropriate for me to lower the boom on your quantum physics and teleological/natural law beliefs with respect to Objectivism, since you have already made up your mind and are sticking to your psychologistic characterization.
Ayn Rand has been hijacked by the Right and lazily dismissed by the Left.
Once right-wingers find out she’s an atheist, they do back off from the hijack. See Paul Ryan.
He didn’t back off because he “found out” she was an atheist; he knew that all along. He backed off because of pressure from the lefist faction of the Catholic Church and others.
This is oversimplified and, like many influential people, some of her critics have been lazy but others have been considerably less so.
One of the harshest critiques of “Atlas Shrugged” came from celebrated man of the right Whittaker Chambers and was published by William F. Buckley’s magazine. Libertarians like Murray Rothbard and Milton Friedman also harshly criticized her. Other conservatives have found her a useful ally because of her anti-Communism and celebration of free markets but she deliberately courted that alliance herself. It’s not a hijacking so much as an awkward marriage.
Rand dabbled with courting conservatives, for instance Barry Goldwater. She soon grew ‘disenchanted’ and remained a consistent denouncer of conservatives after that.
However, currently there is a different story. Some Objectivists have consciously and proactively made common cause — even sharing podium — with Tea Party-ish activists. This is not lazy, ignorant, or hypocritical on either side.
It is a coalition. It has a specific goal: defeat Obama and reverse Progressivism in politics.
The first host is also Phil Donohue, without his glasses
Yes, although she was a hack philosopher, and although her libertarian influence (e.g., in promoting the currently popular notion that anything other than laissez-faire is “socialist”) is lamentable, Alisa Rosenbaum (under the pen name “Ayn Rand”) did make important points about rationalism in a compelling way that brought these issues into public conversation.
So, for example, in the first interview with Donahue, she points out that faith gives people permission to be irrational. This is very relevant to what we see in society and politics these days, isn’t it?.
When Sarah Palin, Rick Perry, Mitt Romney or whoever else says that they just choose to ignore what biologists say about evolution, what climate scientists say about greenhouse gases, or what economists say about the need for big government spending programs in a recession, where did they get that willingness to just brush off things that are intellectual and existential worries for others? From their training as children to accept religious faith as a substitute for confidence in reason.
In the Tom Snyder interview, Rand claimed that a philosopher (whose name, she says, she can not remember) said that in death it is not I but the world that will come to an end. I don’t know who might have said this, although she might have been thinking of the words often attributed to Epicurus: “Where death is, I am not; and where I am, death is not.” (See the link below.)
http://www.humanism.org.uk/humanism/humanist-tradition/ancient-world/epicurus
By the way, the very first guest Donahue had on the air was Madalyn Murray O’Hair. These days, we have much better representatives of atheism than Rand or O’Hair. Not just the Four Horsemen, but also Julia Sweeney.
http://www.newstatesman.com/blogs/the-staggers/2011/12/richard-dawkins-issue-hitchens
http://www.juliasweeney.com/letting_go_mini/