| Topic: |
Religions > Atheism |
| User: |
"words of truth" |
| Date: |
20 Oct 2005 03:00:35 PM |
| Object: |
Examining the Flaws of Ayn Rand's Atheist Philosophy |
http://www.evangelicaloutpost.com/archives/000707.html
Ayn Rand Shrugged:
Examining the Flaws of Objectivism
There once was a time when I was enamored by the philosophy of Ayn
Rand. An =E9migr=E9 from the Soviet Union, the influential novelist and
founder of Objectivism had an enthusiasm for market capitalism and a
hatred of communism that I found entrancing. I discovered her two major
philosophical novels, The Fountainhead and Atlas Shrugged, in my early
years in college as I was beginning to wake from my enchantment with
liberalism. I was instantly hooked.
Rand's ideas were intriguing, yet she harbored sentiments that made
it difficult for a young Christian to accept. She was an atheist who
despised altruism and preached the "virtue of selfishness." She
believed that rational self-interest was the greatest good and sang the
praises of egoism.
In retrospect, it appears obvious that any attempt to reconcile these
ideas with my orthodox evangelicalism was destined to fail. Still, I
thought there might be something to the philosophy and was particularly
intrigued by her defense of capitalism. My understanding of our
economic system was a rather immature, though, and I failed to
recognize that Rand had an almost complete misunderstanding of
capitalism. She believed it is rooted in selfishness, when, in fact, it
is based on giving.*
Many people, of course, share this profound misunderstanding of
capitalism. For some peculiar reason they act as if Adam Smith's
invisible hand has the Midas' touch; that it can alchemically
transform the vice of avarice into the great goods of capitalism. Like
most proponents of capitalism, Rand never explains how this magical
process occurs. Instead she just accepted this sleight of hand as a
matter of brute fact.
It is true, of course, that self-interest is the engine that drives
capitalism. But self-interest is not the same as selfishness, at least
not in the way that Rand would use the term. In her novel The
Fountainhead, Rand's protagonists are portrayed as the epitome of the
capitalist intellectual hero. In fact, they rarely act less like
capitalists, choosing instead to behave like spoiled, egotistical
artistes.
Consider, for example, the novel's main character, an architect named
Howard Roark. In one particularly illuminating passage, Roark is told
that his job as an architect, the primary purpose of his work, is to
serve his clients. Roark responds by affirming, "I don't intend to
build in order to serve or help anyone. I don't intend to build in
order to have clients. I intend to have clients in order to build."
While such egotistical bluster may make for an interesting fictional
character, this attitude can hardly be considered a solid foundation
for capitalism. As economist Mark Skousen observes in a critique of
Rand:
the goal of all rational entrepreneurship must be to satisfy the needs
of consumers, not to ignore them! Discovering and fulfilling the needs
of customers is the essence of market capitalism. Imagine how far a TV
manufacturer would get if he decides to build TVs that only tune into
his five favorite channels, the consumer be damned. It wouldn't be long
before he would be on the road to bankruptcy.
This leads us to one of the primary misunderstandings held by many of
Rand's admirers. Although she is widely praised for her defense of
the capitalism (she was famous for wearing a gold broach in the shape
of a dollar sign), she viewed it as subservient to a greater ideal:
I am not primarily an advocate of capitalism, but of egoism; I am not
primarily an advocate of egoism, but of reason. If one recognizes the
supremacy of reason and applies it consistently, all the rest follows.
This - the supremacy of reason - was, is and will be the primary
concern of my work, and the essence of Objectivism. ("The Objectivist",
September 1971)
On this point Rand is quite mistaken. Reason, applied consistently,
doesn't lead us down a straight path to egoism, much less to
capitalism. Examined closely, we would find that her entire Objectivist
philosophy is founded on this simple question begging premise. Rand, of
course, would claim that it was a self-evident truth. But this requires
us to believe that no one who ever came to a different conclusion was
following reason where it leads. She might have no problem accepting
such a conclusion -- Rand was never one to tolerate dissent -- but we
don't have sufficient justification for doing so.
This veneration of egoism also lead her to consider altruism to be a
form of evil. As she explains in The Virtue of Selfishness:
Altruism declares that any action taken for the benefit of others is
good, and any action taken for one's own benefit is evil. Thus the
beneficiary of an action is the only criterion of moral value--and so
long as that beneficiary is anybody other than oneself, anything goes.
At first glance it appears that she has built a strawman by redefining
"altruism" in a way that is not commonly used. But she does have
justification for her claim, for her idea of altruism is based on the
ethical system of Auguste Comte and the English positivists. Comte's
system, which considered that only actions that benefited other could
be considered moral, was both ethical and religious. As the Catholic
Encyclopedia explains:
Not only is the happiness to be found in living for others the supreme
end of conduct, but a disinterested devotion to Humanity as a whole is
the highest form of religious service. His ethical theory may be
epitomized in the following propositions.
Not only is the happiness to be found in living for others the supreme
end of conduct, but a disinterested devotion to Humanity as a whole is
the highest form of religious service. His ethical theory may be
epitomized in the following propositions.
--The dominion of feeling over thought is the normative principle of
human conduct, for it is the affective impulses that govern the
individual and the race.
--Man is under the influence of two affective impulses, the personal or
egoistic, and the social or altruistic.
--A just balance between these two is not possible, one or other must
preponderate.
--The first condition of individual and social well-being is the
subordination of self-love to the benevolent impulses.
--The first principle of morality, therefore, is the regulative
supremacy of social sympathy over the self-regarding instincts.
To bring about the reign of altruism Comte invented a religion which
substituted for God an abstraction called Humanity.
If Howard Roark was the incarnation of Rand's egoistic ideal, then
Ellsworth M. Toohey was the exemplar of Comte's religion of Humanity.
Toohey was the antagonist in The Fountainhead and the embodiment of all
that Rand would consider most base and unworthy in a person. His
altruistic behavior and self-sacrifice is portrayed as loathsome. The
reader is meant to despise him as weak and unmanly and, thanks to
Rand's powers as a novelist, we have no trouble seeing him in this
way. By rejecting Toohey, we reject altruism.
Those who fail to notice the way that Rand defines altruism often
mistake her critique as an argument against Christian morality. This
isn't surprising when we consider that Rand herself seems to make the
same error. But the Christian view of altruism is not predicated on an
obligation to love others more than we love ourselves. While there may
be instances where such self-sacrificial love is appropriate, it is not
an absolute duty. What we are commanded to do is love others just as we
love ourselves. We are to love other humans in the same way, taking
into account their interests and needs. We are not to treat them, as
Comte would have us, in a disinterested manner.
Fully considered, it becomes obvious that Rand's views congeal into a
fatally flawed philosophy. Even when stripped of its atheistic
elements, Objectivism's focus on radical individualism cuts it off
from reality and causes it to wither under scrutiny. And as much as we
might admire Rand's deep-rooted hatred of collectivism, her
philosophy is still just another utopian dream, a transvalued Marxism.
Ultimately, Rand's egoism is irreconcilable with both Christianity
and capitalism. In fact, since the system fails to have any true
explanatory value, it's difficult to find any reason to adopt
Objectivism at all. Fortunately, we don't have to buy into Rand's
philosophical errors in order to appreciate her fiction. We just have
to keep in mind that instead of reading a "novel of ideas", we are
reading a work of fantasy.
*While some people will regard this as obvious it will probably require
some defending. I'll be taking up that topic in the near future.
(Digression: Rand's works, especially her novels, have been
surprisingly influential, particularly among those already inclined to
favor political libertarianism. Speaking from my own experience, I find
that her characters, especially the gangly and unattractive yet
supremely confident Howard Roark, make it easy for young,
semi-antisocial, self-involved geeks to identify with. Add to this her
apologetic for capitalism and you have an enticing entry point to the
world of libertarian politics.)
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| User: "Paul Duca" |
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| Title: Re: Examining the Flaws of Ayn Rand's Atheist Philosophy |
20 Oct 2005 07:04:47 PM |
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If she had combined avarice with plastic piety, she'd be a Christian
heroine...
Paul
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| User: "Malcolm" |
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| Title: Re: Examining the Flaws of Ayn Rand's Atheist Philosophy |
21 Oct 2005 02:48:00 PM |
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"Paul Duca" <p.duca@comcast.net> wrote
If she had combined avarice with plastic piety, she'd be a
Christian
heroine...
But not a saint. The conditions for canonisation are quite stringent, and
weed out this type of person who, whatever their personal relationship with
God is like, encourage a cynical attitude to religion.
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| User: "xyz" |
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| Title: Re: Examining the Flaws of Ayn Rand's Atheist Philosophy |
20 Oct 2005 08:10:10 PM |
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Good article, thank you.
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| User: "raven1" |
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| Title: Re: Examining the Flaws of Ayn Rand's Atheist Philosophy |
21 Oct 2005 11:17:24 PM |
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On 20 Oct 2005 13:00:35 -0700, "words of truth"
<wordsoftruth21@lycos.com> wrote:
In retrospect, it appears obvious that any attempt to reconcile these
ideas with my orthodox evangelicalism was destined to fail. Still, I
thought there might be something to the philosophy and was particularly
intrigued by her defense of capitalism. My understanding of our
economic system was a rather immature, though, and I failed to
recognize that Rand had an almost complete misunderstanding of
capitalism. She believed it is rooted in selfishness, when, in fact, it
is based on giving.*
BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!!!!! Please, stop, you're killing me!
---
"This is how liberty dies: with thunderous applause"
- Padme Amidala, Episode III
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