Sunday, August 11, 2013

Selfishness: The beginning of a series



Since the release of the film version of “Atlas Shrugged”, I’ve noticed a marked uptick in conversation about philosopher Ayn Rand. The dialogue varies depending on who you are speaking with; noticeably two camps: the pro and anti Rand crowds. It seems as though Ayn Rand is continually misunderstood, even in libertarian circles. It’s trendy to dislike her, and anti-capitalists revel in quoting her out of context; maiming her message of non-violence.

This morning I was reading an article titled, “5 Myths About Libertarianism”. Which you can read here The article has made its way from Reason, to the Wall Street Journal, and finally to my own local paper. It’s a light read, detailing (as the title would suggest) 5 common myths about Libertarians. Overall it was a good article, although I couldn’t help but thinking that it railed pretty hard against Ayn Rand, even quoting her out of context (further perpetuating what the anti-capitalists have so enjoyed using to defame her philosophy).

I thought it only proper to reply in kind, with 5 myths about Objectivism. So I’m using my blog to mull over the idea, in order to write a concise, clear, and only slightly biased article to share on a larger scale. Since I have small children it’s hard to do any prolonged critical thinking. Today I am focused on selfishness.

Objectivism is Ayn Rands own philosophy, which she writes about via both fiction (Atlas Shrugged, Fountainhead) and non-fiction (Virtue of Selfishness, Capitalism: The Unknown Ideal, etc.). The idea of selfishness, as espoused by Ayn Rand’s philosophy, is blatantly and purposefully belittled by the intelligencia. It’s only with an open mind, and full research into Objectivism that we are able to paint a clear picture of what Rand was really talking about. 

So let’s begin with a quote from that article I read this morning, in which the author purports, “And given the influence of Ayn Rand among many libertarians, it’s easy to think that they care only about themselves. “I will never live for the sake of another man,” runs a characteristic line from Rand’s 1957 novel, Atlas Shrugged.

…. Objectivists only care about themselves

This is the most commonly held belief about Ayn Rand’s philosophy. Ayn was careful to explain such ideas in her non-fiction writing. Let’s take a few quotes from the Ayn Rand Lexicon to clear up this conundrum.

On “Selfishness” Rand writes:
“The meaning ascribed in popular usage to the word “selfishness” is not merely wrong: it represents a devastating intellectual “package-deal,” which is responsible, more than any other single factor, for the arrested moral development of mankind.
In popular usage, the word “selfishness” is a synonym of evil; the image it conjures is of a murderous brute who tramples over piles of corpses to achieve his own ends, who cares for no living being and pursues nothing but the gratification of the mindless whims of any immediate moment.
Yet the exact meaning and dictionary definition of the word “selfishness” is: concern with one’s own interests.”

On “altruism” Rand writes: 
“What is the moral code of altruism? The basic principle of altruism is that man has no right to exist for his own sake, that service to others is the only justification of his existence, and that self-sacrifice is his highest moral duty, virtue and value.
Do not confuse altruism with kindness, good will or respect for the rights of others. These are not primaries, but consequences, which, in fact, altruism makes impossible. The irreducible primary of altruism, the basic absolute, is self-sacrifice—which means; self-immolation, self-abnegation, self-denial, self-destruction—which means: the self as a standard of evil, the selfless as a standard of the good.”

It’s clear why this line of thinking would baffle and offend the simple minded. Isn’t altruism a good thing? Ayn Rand insists it is not only a bad thing, but a blight on the human race. While Rand did not object to charity, she did object to forced charity. And the difference between the two are immeasurable.

On “charity” Rand writes
“The fact that a man has no claim on others (i.e., that it is not their moral duty to help him and that he cannot demand their help as his right) does not preclude or prohibit good will among men and does not make it immoral to offer or to accept voluntary, non-sacrificial assistance.
It is altruism that has corrupted and perverted human benevolence by regarding the giver as an object of immolation, and the receiver as a helplessly miserable object of pity who holds a mortgage on the lives of others—a doctrine which is extremely offensive to both parties, leaving men no choice but the roles of sacrificial victim or moral cannibal . . . .”

On “hedonism” Rand writes
“I am profoundly opposed to the philosophy of hedonism. Hedonism is the doctrine which holds that the good is whatever gives you pleasure and, therefore, pleasure is the standard of morality. Objectivism holds that the good must be defined by a rational standard of value, that pleasure is not a first cause, but only a consequence, that only the pleasure which proceeds from a rational value judgment can be regarded as moral, that pleasure, as such, is not a guide to action nor a standard of morality. To say that pleasure should be the standard of morality simply means that whichever values you happen to have chosen, consciously or subconsciously, rationally or irrationally, are right and moral. This means that you are to be guided by chance feelings, emotions and whims, not by your mind. My philosophy is the opposite of hedonism. I hold that one cannot achieve happiness by random, arbitrary or subjective means. One can achieve happiness only on the basis of rational values. By rational values, I do not mean anything that a man may arbitrarily or blindly declare to be rational. It is the province of morality, of the science of ethics, to define for men what is a rational standard and what are the rational values to pursue.”

Not only does Ayn Rand decry hedonism as morally illegitimate, but declares that objectivism is its opposite. She opposes altruism, but maintains that charity (when voluntary) is good. She believes that self-esteem and self-love are highest values for man, but in the same breath states clearly that one cannot use other men to achieve their goals. Ayn Rand was staunchly anti-collectivist, and it is easy to see why those with a pro-socialist/pro-collectivist agenda would vilify her philosophy of non-aggression and self-esteem.


Overall, I believe that the argument that Objectivists only care about themselves is a logical fallacy and serves beautifully to promote the statist agenda. After all, if we followed the objectivist philosophy we wouldn’t need to rely on the benevolence of politicians. And they’re counting on that: our need for them. Merely saying that objectivists only care about themselves writes off the philosophy, before even taking into account its message and its potential to improve our world.

More to come on this topic. For more Ayn Rand visit the Ayn Rand Lexicon (where all of these quotes were rounded up): http://aynrandlexicon.com/lexicon/


3 comments:

  1. Nice! Two pieces of input. I think the article actually started at the Washington Post (not the WSJ) and then hit Reason. Also I think that "strawman" or similar is more appropriate (and specific) than "logical fallacy" in the final paragraph. The problem is not really one of logic, but understanding.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Thanks Ethan. I will double check the order in which it was released. As for the logical fallacy, I wasn't sure which one was most appropriate to this specific situation. I agree at the root it's a problem with understanding, but Objectivism being written off via logical fallacy (be it strawman or ad hominem, etc) struck me as a grave injustice.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Ayn Rand exposes the essence of the big government zeitgiest, that fallacy, and wrests away their wrong-headed claim to morality. She argues with better words than I, on the role of personal efficacy, that the individual is the retainer of their own energies and are the rational determiner-creator of any energy expression one chooses to make. To her, I have to presume(since I have only some samples of her writing as reference), this is a cardinal axiom.

    It is also the axiom, a cardinal principle--and, yes, here I go on open system governance again haha--to a form of government that is an open system: one that offers greatest viability since it does not hoard, waste nor deplete the over-all energy in the system. In the case of a national government, as an open system, no energy is principally retained in the system except by the membership. Whatever energy is borrowed to an administration or agents/agency would be an artifact created by allowance of the membership, and that energy-sharing is conditional, reciprocal or else revocable.

    Good government, by this standard, is only achievable where the membership retains the attribute of personal efficacy.

    No member, agent or agency may lay claim to the energies of any other member; since to threaten the efficacy of the one is to defeat, by that much, the efficacy of the entire system.

    A member system that lacks efficacy will lack equilibrium, will lose it's feature of complex energy diffusion (individualism), will lose it's viability therefore, and will, resultantly, suffer catastrophic collapse. This awareness should alarm us since our republic is right now and intentionally being morphed from a more open system, a constitutional republic, into a non-viable authoritarian closed system.

    ReplyDelete