To commenorate the 50th anniversary of the publication of Atlas Shrugged I wrote a review for the Review section of the Australian Financial Review. It was posted up at Catallaxy at the time, but I can’t find it in the archive. Given the commentary across recent threads I though it worthwhile reposting it.
Fifty years ago today the architect of ‘Objectivism’, and novelist, Ayn Rand published her magnum opus, Atlas Shrugged. This complex book with its discontinuous narrative and endless pages of awkward monologue was thought by many critics to be unreadable. The key to understanding this novel is the recognition that it is a morality play. The reader is confronted by the personification of various moral attributes representing both good and evil. Hard work, reward for effort, and wealth creation is good.
We are introduced to notions of personal choice, personal responsibility, and personal ownership unlike any in modern literature. Rand preaches hard-line selfishness; “Do you ask what moral obligation I owe to my fellow man? None – except … rationality”. Yet she also provides an enduring intellectual and moral framework for laissez-faire capitalism. Few, if any, other novelists have done that. In Atlas, entrepreneurial individuals are good heroic characters who carry the weight of the world on their shoulders.
Rand’s novel describes a dark and disturbing world. As a consequence of rampant egalitarianism, the entrepreneurs of the world have gone on strike. The welfare state rules supreme in the US – the rest of the world are ‘people’s states’ already. She took the view, “The difference between a welfare state and a totalitarian state is a matter of time”. One character, Jeff Allen, tells how the lights of the world go out, one after another, how the economy grinds to a stand-still “as if some silent power were stopping the generators of the world and the world was crumbling quietly, like a body when its spirit is gone”. That is the nub of the book; What would happen to the world in the absence of laissez-faire capitalism?
In this dystopia “looters” – those who take by force – and “moochers” – those who take by tears – represent that which is evil. They undermine personal effort and wealth creation. They have corroded civilisation. As a consequence, “Society” has a greater claim on the individual than they themselves do. As Jeff Allen says, “no man could claim his pay as his rightful earnings, …, his work didn’t belong to him”. Another character says, “Property rights are a superstition. One holds property only by the courtesy of those who do not seize it”.
Rand is prescient; the modern reader will recognise many aspects of her world. The oddly named Balph Eubank, both a looter and a moocher, rejects consumerism in very familiar terms, “Our culture has sunk into a bog of materialism. Men have lost all spiritual values in their pursuit of material production and technological trickery. They’re too comfortable. They will return to a nobler life if we teach them to bear privations. So we ought to place a limit upon their material greed”. This is a form of anti-consumerism unknown in 1957. Many public intellectuals espouse these views today.
Atlas sets out a moral defence of free markets and laissez-faire capitalism. It could even be “The Entrepreneurs’ Manifesto”. This is a defence that goes so far that most business ethicists, and some economics professors, would reject it. Nonetheless, the popularity of the book probably rests on that point. Another character, Francisco d’Anconia opines, “The words ‘to make money’ hold the essence of human morality”. The pinnacle of human achievement is, “the real maker of wealth, the greatest worker, the highest type of human being – the self-made man – the American industrialist”. Similarly, John Galt argues, “the moral symbol of respect for human beings, is the trader”. Francisco d’Anconia again, “Money is made – before it can be looted or mooched – made by the efforts of every honest man, each to the extent of his ability”. Powerful stuff.
Rand was a woman of firm views. Compromise is dishonourable – “There are two sides to every issue: one side is right and the other wrong, but the middle is always evil”. Looters and moochers stand condemned – usually as being fundamentally dishonest. Some of the minor characters are naïve or misinformed but quickly learn the truth. She had a very poor opinion of professors – described as “those parasites of subsidized classrooms” and “intellectual hoodlums”. We’re told by Jeff Allen, “a village half-wit could see what generations of professors had pretended not to notice”.
The story itself is a 1000 page rambling soap-opera, cum mystery, cum thriller. The character development, apart from the villains who are realistic and recognisable, is shallow and the plot is slow. (We only meet John Galt – Rand’s vision of the perfect man – after 600 pages.) No doubt about it, the novel itself is not good literature. Atlas is not good writing, nor easy reading. It is, however, profitable reading; there are many gems in the rough.
Ayn Rand was a refugee from Bolshevik communism – it is unsurprising that her villains are so realistic. She had experienced them first hand. It is not clear what experience she had of industrialists. It is unlikely that they would ever actually go on strike; the profit motive, and the desire to work, is even stronger than Rand had imagined. Yet we do know that high-income earners do reduce their work effort in response to high levels of taxation. Indeed, Atlas can and does shrug.
Most people who read Atlas do so as young adults – many claim it to have had a profound impact on their lives. Atlas Shrugged is a classic of modern literature – despised by critics and literature buffs, but loved by millions of ordinary readers. Unlike other novels of the same genre, George Orwell’s Animal Farm and 1984, Rand portrays a positive image of humanity: the rewards to hard work, the reward for risk, and the blessings of wealth creation. It is the exception to Ludwig von Mises’ comment “It is not the fault of capitalism that the common man does not appreciate uncommon books”. The common man has very much appreciated this very uncommon book.
[...] has written a cracking follow-up post to his earlier effort over at Catallaxy. Well worth a read. This entry was written by [...]
skepticlawyer » Books with ideas
15 Mar 10 at 7:06 pm
Rand is prescient; the modern reader will recognise many aspects of her world. The oddly named Balph Eubank, both a looter and a moocher, rejects consumerism in very familiar terms, “Our culture has sunk into a bog of materialism. Men have lost all spiritual values in their pursuit of material production and technological trickery. They’re too comfortable. They will return to a nobler life if we teach them to bear privations. So we ought to place a limit upon their material greed”. This is a form of anti-consumerism unknown in 1957. Many public intellectuals espouse these views today.
wow. That’s Hives Hamilton to a single hair.
Balph Hamilton sounds much better than plain old Hives… the bald galoot.
JC
15 Mar 10 at 7:08 pm
No offense intended Sinc, but after reading this I’ve become an Objectivist. Where do I sign up
She had a very poor opinion of professors – described as “those parasites of subsidized classrooms” and “intellectual hoodlums”. We’re told by Jeff Allen, “a village half-wit could see what generations of professors had pretended not to notice”.
JC
15 Mar 10 at 7:12 pm
Only had a quick read, but I think the review is actually quite good considering the many bad reviews I’ve seen. eg/ I’ve seen people mistakenly draw the distinction between rich and poor instead of the intended distinction between producers and moochers.
I think you may not appreciate what Rand was trying to do and her views on art. According to Rand the theme is “The role of the mind in man’s existence”. She concretises this highly abstract idea by describing the ideal man, John Galt.
Ayn Rand calls her art romantic “realism” in the sense that she is taking real world attributes and re-creating her own universe out of them. But she would have hated literal realism in art. This is what photography or journalism is for. Could you in our world get together the most productive business tycoons and get them to abandon their own businesses? – I strongly doubt it but I don’t think that’s the point.
The novel contains many characters of various moral shades. Two of the main characters Dagny and Rearden have moral flaws even though they are clearly good people. It’s not that black and white.
From memory there’s even a character that switches from mostly good to bad, (the aging professor) during the course of his life. But it’s been a long time since I read the book.
Anyway, I’ve had far too much commenting for one day.
Tim R
15 Mar 10 at 7:14 pm
I still suspect her main virtue may be in providing some great comedy. From the Cracked.com entry on Ayn:
“Atlas Shrugged follows Dagny Taggart, railroad heiress/author self insertion, on her quest to have sex with (“get raped by”) a series of increasingly powerful men. Also, there’s a minor subplot about the economy collapsing because of a guy called John Galt….
Of that 1100[pages], about 25% is comprised of monologues on the virtue of selfishness which characters launch into whenever they are faced with staunch opposition, a large group of people or a shiny object. This culminates in a speech in which Rand Galt describes why every economic, political and philosophical idea ever taught is wrong.”
http://www.cracked.com/funny-304-ayn-rand/
steven from brisbane
15 Mar 10 at 7:23 pm
Steve:
So you identify with the moochers I guess.
JC
15 Mar 10 at 7:31 pm
I agree that Atlas wasn’t a great work of lit. but it sure had a truly powerful freaking story to tell. In fact it one of the best stories ever told.
The people that really hate Atlas are those that identify with the moochers for the most part.
JC
15 Mar 10 at 7:34 pm
So it’s quasi-Randian JC. Who’d have thought?
steven from brisbane
15 Mar 10 at 7:52 pm
I dunno, would it be fair just to put it this way?:
Marx had one extreme take on capitalism and Rand argued for a diametrically opposed take on it. Both philosophies were fatally flawed simply by being so extreme; they don’t accord with the lived experience of humans and societies.
As such, I don’t see the “power” in Randian analysis. Capitalism and enterprise kind of arise naturally in the right circumstances, and as such both undiluted glorification or undiluted condemnation of them are equally undeserved.
steven from brisbane
15 Mar 10 at 8:06 pm
In practice Rand’s philosophy is no more extreme than many hard core libertarians. She advocates a limited night watchman state, not anarchism. Nor does she advocate thoughtless pacifism. She recognised the importance of rule of law in sustaining capitalist societies. The ‘extreme’ bits were her own pronouncements on an objective ethics but this can be separated from what she advocated the State actually do or not do.
What is it with AGW that has turned righties like Steve and rog into doctor’s wives on almost every other non-AGW related issue?
Jason Soon
15 Mar 10 at 8:13 pm
Jason, that’s rubbish and you know it. I hardly ever agree with Rog, who has indeed (it seems) turned 180 degrees. The fact that I don’t rush, CL-like, to dance over every mistake and error of the Rudd government is not to be taken to be an endorsement of it. If Turnbull were leading the Liberals, and they had a decent CO2 policy, I would be perfectly happy to vote for them this election.
The fact that I am cynical/critical of the value of Rand hardly puts me in some weird category on my Pat Malone, even on the right.
It would seem Hari’s criticism was in factual error; as I said, that’s fine. But I tell you what: I’ll still choose to not care for the writings of a quasi Neitzchean serial killer admirer who wrote (by virtual unanimous agreement) turgid, barely readable 1,000 page novels, because I don’t have any particular interest in moral justifications for capitalism and limited government. I thought I made a reasonable stab at explaining why.
steve from brisbane
15 Mar 10 at 9:25 pm
Yes Steve I was just teasing though I was seriously taking issue with your claim that Rand’s political philosophy is particularly extreme relative to any of the thinkers that have been discussed here. As I said, in practice Rand has never advocated any ‘direct action’ of the sort found in her fiction. I am also going to assume that the alternet article that THR linked to has taken Rand out of context until someone shows the full quote. For all we know she was looking for a character study for her fictional hero who by necessity had to have outlandish psychological qualities and settled on the serial killer as an approximation. I don’t think that’s necessarily anymore morally problematic in practice than the fact that Truman Capote was obviously fascinated by the psychology of the killers he profiled in In Cold Blood.
Jason Soon
15 Mar 10 at 9:32 pm
Further to my point as to Rand lending herself to funny criticism:
“There are two novels that can change a bookish fourteen-year old’s life: The Lord of the Rings and Atlas Shrugged. One is a childish fantasy that often engenders a lifelong obsession with its unbelievable heroes, leading to an emotionally stunted, socially crippled adulthood, unable to deal with the real world. The other, of course, involves orcs.”
http://kfmonkey.blogspot.com/2009/03/ephemera-2009-7.html
steven from brisbane
16 Mar 10 at 10:33 am
well steve Alan Greenspan made it to the Fed
jtfsoon
16 Mar 10 at 10:38 am
More:
“Atlas Shrugged is not just awful, it is godawful. It does not need to be read or analyzed, much less lived; it exists for only two reasons: first, to demonstrate that economic conservatives can be just as annoyingly self-righteous as liberals and religious conservatives, and second, to show you whom you should avoid getting involved in conversations with at parties.”
http://heyjennyslater.blogspot.com/2009/03/atlas-sucked.html
Jason, can’t you both sort of like bits of the book, but find some of dissing of it funny too?
steven from brisbane
16 Mar 10 at 10:50 am
Or are you a bit like the bishops who got stuck into Life of Brian?
steven from brisbane
16 Mar 10 at 10:55 am
Steve: “Both philosophies were fatally flawed simply by being so extreme”.
Extreme is not equal to bad or flawed. Logically there’s no reason to think perfection is always a golden mean between positions A and B.
Pragmatitist epistemology?
I do find it surprising to think that people find Atlas Shrugged “god awful”. I don’t expect people to love it but god awful? Some people don’t like the length but there are far more lengthy, descriptive writing styles from my experience eg/ Dickens.
I certainly enjoyed the novel but if others have a bad reaction to it, so be it.
Lastly, Greenspan was not an objectivist. Objectivists have been denouncing him for decades and Ayn Rand was openly opposed to the existence of a Federal Reserve – she believed in a total “separation of economy and state” in her words.
Tim R
16 Mar 10 at 12:01 pm
Logically there’s no reason to think perfection is always a golden mean between positions A and B.
- Tim R
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The virtue of justice consists in moderation, as regulated by wisdom.
- Aristotle.
Adrien
16 Mar 10 at 12:06 pm
Tim R
A bit disingeuous I think. Rand attended Greenspan’s swearing in ceremony. What does that tell you. It’s true she opposed the Fed but she would presumably have seen one of her disciples running it as a second best option.
jtfsoon
16 Mar 10 at 12:06 pm
Extremism in the pursuit of liberty is no vice. Moderation in the pursuit of justice is no virtue
Barry Goldwater
jtfsoon
16 Mar 10 at 12:07 pm
There are two novels that can change a bookish fourteen-year old’s life: The Lord of the Rings and Atlas Shrugged.
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There are hundreds of books that can change a bookish 14 year old’s life. Mine where: Catch 22 and Lolita. 1984 having changed my life the year before.
Adrien
16 Mar 10 at 12:07 pm
Extremism in the pursuit of liberty is no vice. Moderation in the pursuit of justice is no virtue
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Yes indeed. After all Robespierre practiced the first and Aurelius practiced the second. Obviously we’d all rather living under Max then Marc ‘ey.
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How about this: Soundbytes by American Politicans are no philosphy. Only soundbytes from Czech politicians.
Adrien
16 Mar 10 at 12:09 pm
In 1966, influenced by Ayn Rand, Greenspan authored “Gold and economic freedom” arguing for a gold standard.
I think that his actions once at the Fed show he had changed considerably compared to his 60s ideas.
I wouldn’t regard Greenspan as an Objectivist, I’m pretty sure he doesn’t either. Greenspan was definitely criticised by Objectivists when at the Fed.
Of course Objectivists certainly dislike him these days:
eg/ Yaron Brook: “Should it be any shock that Greenspan now blames the free market for today’s meltdown-rather than the Fed’s policies, which fueled an inflationary housing boom, which rewarded reckless lenders and borrowers from Wall Street to Main Street? Greenspan didn’t mention the word ‘inflation’ once in his testimony.”
“Whatever Greenspan’s economic philosophy is, it is not anything resembling a free market.”
Anyway, this man’s actions don’t have very much to do with the validity of Rand’s philosophical ideas or how good or bad a book Atlas Shrugged is.
The reason I am commenting is because many people, especially lefties try to mock or discredit Rand and Objectivism based on Greenspan. That’s a lazy argument, but I’ve seen it a lot on the web and I hope it doesn’t put people off.
Tim R
16 Mar 10 at 1:40 pm
Tim
I agree but it’s clear that Ayn Rand herself still regarded Greenspan as an objectivist when he accepted his position at the Fed. After that all bets are off.
jtfsoon
16 Mar 10 at 1:41 pm
Greenspan and Rand with Gerald Ford
http://www.nytimes.com/imagepages/2009/08/02/business/02bbt_CA0.ready.html
jtfsoon
16 Mar 10 at 1:47 pm
An interview with The Galt Society:
http://www.pjtv.com/v/3237
Infidel Tiger
16 Mar 10 at 1:54 pm
The general thesis here is that Atlas Shrugged is ‘important’. It’s still not clear why. I can accept that Rand is important insofar as there are many Anglophone free marketeers looking for a ‘philosophy’ to substantiate their views. Call it Marx-envy, if you will. But precisely how is this book important?
It doesn’t rank with the great philosophical novels of the past century. In fact, it doesn’t rank as a great novel at all. Literature does matter, but not mediocre literature designed to put one’s prejudices on display in the form of cardboard cutouts. Philosophically, the situation for Rand is no better. Wittgenstein, Heidegger, Rawls, Russell, Sartre – these were ‘important’ philosophers. There’s no serious philosopher on earth who would put Rand in remotely the same category.
THR
16 Mar 10 at 2:02 pm
I think that his actions once at the Fed show he had changed considerably compared to his 60s ideas.
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No-one, no matter how absolute their power, can transform reality to suit their purpose. We should never expect anyone to live up entirely to their ideals in office. We should be pleasantly surprised if they manage to put one into effect somehow.
Adrien
16 Mar 10 at 3:27 pm
Wittgenstein, Heidegger, Rawls, Russell, Sartre – these were ‘important’ philosophers
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Heidegger is intentionally incomprehensible self-appointed High Priest To Nietzsche who as Hannah Arendt said “didn’t know what he was talking about”. He couldn’t possibly understand Fritz if he joined the Nazis.
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Ditto Sartre the dirty little toad-faced slime.
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Jaspers and Camus’s how it’s done for my money. And de Beauvoir whose lousy taste in toads deprived us of who know what work and her of I don’t know how many orgasms.
Adrien
16 Mar 10 at 3:32 pm
I agree with Adrien’s assessment.
My list of great philosophers would go something like this (in no particular order):
1) David Hume
2) Karl Popper
3) Wittgenstein
4) Nietzsche
5) Plato
Sartre doesn’t rate at all. he’s more a mediocre novelist who tried to be a philosopher (whom some on this thread would argue best characterises Rand, I think there’s more to Rand that that).
And yes there could be no greater inability to understand Nietzsche than that exhibited by joining the Nazi party and going along with the herd out of intellectual cowardice.
jtfsoon
16 Mar 10 at 3:38 pm
Heidegger is intentionally incomprehensible self-appointed High Priest To Nietzsche who as Hannah Arendt said “didn’t know what he was talking about”. He couldn’t possibly understand Fritz if he joined the Nazis.
Heidegger’s politics were rephrensible, the more so since he never recanted them. And a good deal of his later work was rubbish. That said, Being and Time stands among the great works of 20th century philosophy. It’s challenging, but far from incomprehensible.
Sartre’s output as a novelist and playwright wasn’t bad. Certainly far better than Ms Rand’s. His existentialism has persisted as a ‘mood, if not as a philosophy.
I believe Hume is around the top of the list for Rand’s axis of evil. It’s a pretty long list.
I think Wittgenstein ought to be in any list for the past century’s greatest philosophers. As I said, Heidegger deserves a place (with a few caveats) for B&T alone. Freud was not strictly a philosopher, but did an enormous amount to influence philosophy. Russells ‘History of Western Philosophy’ was the biggest-selling philosophy text of all time, I believe, and he remains the only philosopher to win a Nobel.
Adorno, Foucault and Husserl also deserve a place on the list. Honourable mentions for Kuhn and Kojeve.
THR
16 Mar 10 at 4:07 pm
I thought it was more Neitzsche’s sister who had involvement with the Nazi party.
Jtfsoon, Aristotle beats Plato any day of the week in my book. Plato’s thoughts on topics like art and politics for example.
If you accept the idea that philosophy (as the science of the most fundamental and broad abstractions to human existence) is the “prime mover” of civilizations and individuals, then you can argue that the revival of Aristotlean logic by Acquinas brought about the renaissance and enlightenment. The revival of ancient Greek culture generally had a positive effect on the western world too of course.
Acquinas was pro-reason in his epistemology and was even convinced he could prove the existence of God by this method. This is in stark contrast to the idea of devine revelation as a means to achieving knowledge. Christianity moved away from the influence of Augustine (influenced by Plato) and the world became a far better place because of it.
http://www.aristotleadventure.com/
Tim R
16 Mar 10 at 4:40 pm
Nietzsche’s sister was married toa prominent anti-semite of the time, and re-edited some of Nietzsche’s works in such a way to reflect her sypmathies. Various Nazis claimed to be fans of Nietzsche, but were also fond of name-dropping Schopenhauer, Wagner, Beethoven, Goethe, and plenty of others. Mussolini was more literate than Hitler, and liked to quote Nietzsche and Macchiavelli on occasions.
THR
16 Mar 10 at 4:45 pm
TimR
I don’t necessarily base my assessment of philosophers on whether I agree with their ideas. Plato’s dialogues and Bertrand Russel’s History was my first introduction to philosophy in my teens. His Socratic dialogues were a joy to read whereas I couldn’t get past the first few pages of Aristotole. That’s shaped my prejudices since.
jtfsoon
16 Mar 10 at 4:46 pm
It terms of importance, it is really still too early to judge the value of any philosopher that wrote in the 20th C. I think that Rawls, for instance, is overrated; and I think the same is true, though less so of Adorno and Foucault. I agree with THR about Heidegger, Sartre and Wittgenstein.
My top 20 would include: Aristotle, Plato, Augustine, Aquinas, Hobbes, Montaigne, Pascal, Descartes, Hume, Kant, Hegel, Husserl, Croce, Nietzsche, Wittgenstein.
dover_beach
16 Mar 10 at 4:48 pm
No Popper but you have Kuhn THR?
Don’t ever bump into Rafe in a dark alley
jtfsoon
16 Mar 10 at 4:50 pm
Aristotle, Plato, Augustine, Aquinas, Hobbes, Montaigne, Pascal, Descartes, Hume, Kant, Hegel, Husserl, Croce, Nietzsche, Wittgenstein, Russel, Heidegger, Adorno, Foucault, Sartre, and Husserl
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Forget ‘em all.
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the truth the whole truth and nothing but and more besides can be found in the most excellent beauty of The Man’s language:
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Such stuff as dreams are made on, and rounded by a sleep. In the words of Run-DMC: It’s like that, and that’s the way it is.
Adrien
16 Mar 10 at 4:57 pm
Aristotle is very trying until it clicks that he is trying to build a ‘theory of everything.’ So physics, theology, mathematics, cosmology, aesthetics, ethics, law, government, medicine all have to be consistent with each other.
When that clicks you start seeing how incredibly ‘practical’ his reality is. Not for him the mumbo-jumbo of perfect ‘forms’ and the distrust of the human senses, nor faffing about with the ‘one soul of mankind’ and ethereal supernatural ‘Demiurge’ emanating hocus-pocus. Aristotle is more ‘what can I see, what can I do with this, what have you done for me lately?’
Peter Patton
16 Mar 10 at 5:00 pm
I don;t don;t know her work but from Sinclair’s article I can comment on her views:
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The words ‘to make money’ hold the essence of human morality”.
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Nonsense. Making money is preceded by morality by thousands of years. Of course money making is simply complex society’s answer to hunting and gathering which precedes morality. For me tho’m making money is neither moral nor immoral but amoral. It simply has to be done. This fact creates a moral problem. How much do we owe others, how much ourselves.
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Her answer is that we owe no-one anything but rationality. This is foolish for two reasons. The first is that we are not entirely reasonable. Political opinion, ethical action often boils down to how we feel. All sorts of to her thing do as well. To declare one’s self entirely rational is merely to present one’s feelings as objective truth.
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That is a lie. We cannot but have limited perceptions and small knowledge. Existentially we owe nothing to anyone not even rationality. But we need to be loved and if you want to be loved you better figure out how to love in return.
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“There are two sides to every issue: one side is right and the other wrong, but the middle is always evil”.
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Excellent sample of not getting Fritz at all. I have, and at length expressed hostility to thios view. For good reason. Outside mathematics there is no entirely right answer.
Adrien
16 Mar 10 at 5:04 pm
Her answer is that we owe no-one anything but rationality. This is foolish for two reasons. The first is that we are not entirely reasonable.
Yes, Rand’s ‘heroism’ does seem to amount to little more than childish narcissism and bravado. Nobody is autonomous and rational, except by degrees, and even then, ‘reason’ contains a good admixture of all kinds of ‘irrational’ stuff. For instance, even if you hate psychoanalysis, there’s a strong body of research from psychology and neuroscience examining the (large) extent to which humans are guided by unconscious processes. These processes are not only not ‘irrational’, they’re actually hugely beneficial in virtually all facets of life. Rand doesn’t seem to have an answer to this, other than to rubbish counter-arguments as ‘evil’, and to say to the neuroscientists ‘No you are lying’.
THR
16 Mar 10 at 5:15 pm
Wouldn’t unconsciousness processes simply be non-rational? The other thing that bugs me here is not merely the duality of reason and unreason but that between consciousness and unconsiousness as well. And although I’m not aware of an example of these so-called unconscious processes, I think it may be more accurate simply to say that we are not self-consciously aware that we are performing them. In the martial arts, the highest state of awareness is one in which your reactions to your opponents movements are mirrored (you often here them talking about the soul being a mirror; you might notice the influence of Zen here) unselfconsciously but I do not think that these reactions are unconscious; and this state of mind is the apotheosis of consciousness.
dover_beach
16 Mar 10 at 5:29 pm
I agree, the division between reason and passion/irrationality also irritates me, and strikes me as false.
There are several different ways of carving up the different conscious and unconscious processes. Other than consciousness, I think we could describe some phenomena as preconscious or simply as non-conscious, in that it may not be directly ‘in mind’, but are, in principle, amenable to conscious awareness. A whole range of things could fit here, such as stuff that doesn’t slip past one’s perceptual filters, or things like ‘intuition’ and ‘gut feelings’. I think this could be contrasted with an unconscious, which could be defined as that which is, in principle, unknowable, much like the Kantian ‘in itself’, or the psychoanalytic unconscious. These are my thoughts on the topic, anyway.
THR
16 Mar 10 at 5:43 pm
I’m reading Human, All To Human now. So far it’s my favourite Fritz tome. In it he writes of dreams. Dreams, he says, are the source of metaphysics, of religion and of science. Thru dreams we have the capacity to imagine an other world and from that to conceieve of the supernatural, the life of the soul and so forth.
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What does this have to do with science? Well consider Aristotle’s perfect forms. Consider the circle, the straight line and the rest. None of it actually exists in nature. These are ideals we project onto the world, they never quite fit.
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I think the error Rand makes is imagining that we can conceive of the world with perfect knowledge and that this conception somehow adds up to her notions of perfection and her idealization of American industrialists that reminds one of the way minstrels used to sing of knights.
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I think ideals are very important but one should be aware that that’s what they are. That facts don’t gel with them and that we, in fact, invent them.
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What Rand is doing is actually following the fotpath of Rousseau and Robespierre, Marx and Lenin. She imagines the world can be perfect. Or should be. It can’t. And it shouldn’t for two reasons: 1. One person’s Utopia is Hell for everyone else and 2. We’d all die of boredom.
Adrien
16 Mar 10 at 5:53 pm
I agree, the division between reason and passion/irrationality also irritates me, and strikes me as false.
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But it’s true there is an opposition. On the surface it works like this. But if you dig deeper then it gets much simpler.
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Whenever I’m tempted to think that there is no oppositon between reason and passion I just contemplate some of my ex-girlfriends.
Adrien
16 Mar 10 at 5:58 pm
THR
Come on, surely you are being just a tad disingenuous here? You clearly read a lot of philosophy. So I know you cannot read these high falutin’ books as though they are a book of recipes or a law reform report.
Surely, you derive some more abstract insights, cognitive processes, perspectives, and narratives than just legislative-style dicta. So criticizing Ayn Rand, Mises, Hayek, etc. the way you do here cannot be how you treat all philosophers, right?
I am no libertarian, and in fact support the welfare state (just not the mechanisms or the political ends it is usually associated with). However, one of the more stimulating and intellectually provocative exercises I have done is study Robery Nozick’s Anarchy, State, and Utopia. To the extent I read it as an existing or feasible polity I was horrified and repulsed, but it forced me to sharpen many of the ways I had previously thought about social organization before. It certainly confirmed my fear that Socialism would be Hell on earth, but it also affirmed my support of the welfare state, except not the way it is conventionally run.
At the same time, I studied John Rawls’ A Theory of Justice and could feel my brain turn to pudding. Give me the welfare state over Workchoices any day. But even more, give me ‘the night watchman state’ over the ‘veil of ignorance’ everyday.
Peter Patton
16 Mar 10 at 5:58 pm
Human, All Too Human is a key work for N. It’s kind of a turning point for him, where he abandons Wagner and Schopenhauer, and starts developing a philosophy from psychological observation.
But it’s true there is an opposition.
As far as I can tell, the opposition can be traced back as far as Aristotle’s Rhetoric. It’s persisted ever since, though different thinkers have tries to find ways of uniting the opposition. Nietzsche made several comments in this vein (i.e. ‘In your body is your best reason’).
What Rand is doing is actually following the fotpath of Rousseau and Robespierre, Marx and Lenin.
This is a little unfair. Lenin at his most polemical is still pretty nuanced compared to Rand. And Marx was a lot brighter and well-read.
Surely, you derive some more abstract insights, cognitive processes, perspectives, and narratives than just legislative-style dicta. So criticizing Ayn Rand, Mises, Hayek, etc. the way you do here cannot be how you treat all philosophers, right?
Rand is a special case here. I’d put Mises and Hayek in a different category. I’m still waiting for somebody to explain precisely how Rand’s work is ‘valuable’ or ‘important’, except in so far as right-liberal free marketeers seem to like it.
THR
16 Mar 10 at 6:08 pm
Disclosure: I have never read Rand, so I apologize if what I say is way off base. The one theme of Rand’s I gather from others is the ‘industrialist as hero.’ Now, that was a very exciting concept for me intuitively, as I had been basically brainwashed to think all such people are filthy racist capitalist parasites and so on.
And I have heard a lot of people say how powerful discovering Ayn Rand as a teenager was. But they all say that now they think she was a crank and a lightweight.
Peter Patton
16 Mar 10 at 6:14 pm
THR:
I agree, the division between reason and passion/irrationality also irritates me, and strikes me as false.
Adrien:
But it’s true there is an opposition.
To my mind, there is no division between either since they are the poles of a single continuum. To be human involves, to take a Aristotelian position, the mean between the two extremes, which is nothing more than to exhibit an educated sensibility.
I’m reading Human, All To Human now. So far it’s my favourite Fritz tome.
These are no bad Nietzsche books. My favourites incl.:
Dawn/ Daybreak; Untimely Meditations; Human, All-too-Human; The Gay Science; Beyond Good and Evil; and Twilight of the Idols. He also wrote an unpublished manuscript criticising the direction of university education that is worth reading.
What does this have to do with science? Well consider Aristotle’s perfect forms.
Don’t you mean Plato?
None of it actually exists in nature. These are ideals we project onto the world, they never quite fit.
This is a common misunderstanding. The forms are not projected so much as derived from their worldly exemplars (that is why the forms are otherwise referred to as abstractions; they are abstracted from the forms that actually exist).
dover_beach
16 Mar 10 at 6:34 pm
I see that Johann Hari has been criticising Rand for years. Here’s a piece he wrote in 2005 (even if it doesn’t describe the train wreck correctly):
http://www.johannhari.com/2005/12/26/don-t-give-to-tsunami-victims-the-message-of-the-american-right-s-philosopher-queen
In that article, he refers to a “famous” anti Atlas article in National Review by Whittaker Chambers in 1957, in which he describes the ending thus:
“So the Children of Light win handily by declaring a general strike of brains, of which they have a monopoly, letting the world go, literally, to smash. In the end, they troop out of their Rocky Mountain hideaway to repossess the ruins. It is then, in the book’s last line, that a character traces in the air, over the desolate earth,” the Sign of the Dollar, in lieu of the Sign of the Cross, and in token that a suitably prostrate mankind is at last ready, for its sins, to be redeemed from the related evils of religion and social reform (the “mysticism of mind” and the “mysticism of muscle”).”
It really sounds laugh out loud risible, the more I read about it. But it’s true, I haven’t read it for myself, so it may be that all these negative reviews are wrong. Or maybe not.
Chambers also goes on to note, in terms I assume will annoy even heavily qualified Atlas supporters:
“From almost any page of Atlas Shrugged, a voice can be heard, from painful necessity, commanding: “To a gas chamber — go!” The same inflexibly self-righteous stance results, too (in the total absence of any saving humor), in odd extravagances of inflection and gesture-that Dollar Sign, for example. At first, we try to tell ourselves that these are just lapses, that this mind has, somehow, mislaid the discriminating knack that most of us pray will warn us in time of the difference between what is effective and firm, and what is wildly grotesque and excessive. Soon we suspect something worse. We suspect that this mind finds, precisely in extravagance, some exalting merit; feels a surging release of power and passion precisely in smashing up the house.”
http://old.nationalreview.com/flashback/flashback200501050715.asp
Having said that, I assume Jason is right that in her philosophical books she did not encourage the technocratic aristocracy to do what they did in her novels. Otherwise I would have heard about it, I guess.
steven from brisbane
16 Mar 10 at 6:34 pm
Maybe Rand is ‘valuable’ for the ideological function she performs. After all, in the Randian universe, if you find yourself poor, destitute, or bombed at, you have only yourself to blame.
THR
16 Mar 10 at 6:37 pm
THR – As far as I can tell, the opposition can be traced back as far as Aristotle’s Rhetoric.
.
I put it to you that in can be traced back to the first time someone contemplated a dream they’d has whilst awake.
.
I’m still waiting for somebody to explain precisely how Rand’s work is ‘valuable’ or ‘important’, except in so far as right-liberal free marketeers seem to like it.
.
It’s a fictional and mythic treatment of a certain perspective. A perspective that sees the entreupreneur not as nefarious but heroic.
.
I don’t s’pose either you or me take much to heart from Rupert Murdoch’s editorialists but I do admire the guy for turning an Adelaide newspaper into a global media empire. And, despite my repugnance to yellow journalism and concerns that his over-influence is too distortive of Anglosphere politics, I think generally he’s a force for internationalism. You can see this as heroic in the way that Napoleon and Caeser were heroic. Call it constructive evil.
.
I didn’t mean to suggest Rand was as smart as Marx or Lenin. Or that Lenin was impractical. Just that they all committed the same error. There was a lot of it going around c.1776-1945.
.
We’re over that now aren’t we?
Adrien
16 Mar 10 at 6:43 pm
I put it to you that in can be traced back to the first time someone contemplated a dream they’d has whilst awake.
Well, I’ve got my own take on these things. Dreams have a kernel of sense in amongst the non-sense.
It’s a fictional and mythic treatment of a certain perspective. A perspective that sees the entreupreneur not as nefarious but heroic.
That’s the thing. In spite of everything, I don’t actually regard the average industrialist as evil or nefarious. If anything, I’m struggling to understand why some guy who manufactures ball-bearings or something ought to be considered a tragic hero. I mean, it’s a jaw-droppingly mediocre conception of heroism.
THR
16 Mar 10 at 6:48 pm
To my mind, there is no division between either since they are the poles of a single continuum. To be human involves, to take a Aristotelian position, the mean between the two extremes, which is nothing more than to exhibit an educated sensibility.
.
Well said. You’ve read more Fritz than me. Now I know where your ‘postmodernism’ comes from.
.
they are abstracted from the forms that actually exist
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Which we then project back onto the imperfect forms and so forth. I think the best way to understand how this works is to draw the in manner of Neoclassical art. They made sexiness from math.
.
A Chinese friend of mine is fascinated by German culture. He reckons the essence of it comes from the fact that they don’t blend Apollo and Dionysus. They keep them in very seperate compartments so they are either totally robotic or dangerously insane.
.
He means music mostly.
Adrien
16 Mar 10 at 6:48 pm
I mean, it’s a jaw-droppingly mediocre conception of heroism.
.
Well that’s the bourgeoisie innit? Knights aspired much higher. That wasn’t a good thing.
Adrien
16 Mar 10 at 6:49 pm
The binary of reason/rationality vs. irrationality/passion is a legacy of the triumph of the Homeric sky-gods over the chthonic Titans born of Gaia.
From the classical period on the chthonic earth gods became associated with the female worlds of birth, death, violence, calamity, and shrillness, while the sky gods became associated with the masculine spheres of detachment, poetry, philosophy, rational – democratic – government, justice and law, etc.
5th century BC tragedy is drenched with this gender symbolism.
Peter Patton
16 Mar 10 at 6:54 pm
How about, when bashing Rand, at least get the facts right and dispense with the strawmen arguments?
Tim R
16 Mar 10 at 7:02 pm
Well said. You’ve read more Fritz than me. Now I know where your ‘postmodernism’ comes from.
I did get it partly from Nietzsche but this is a point common to most idealist philosophy. It pre-dates post-modernism by about a century.
Which we then project back onto the imperfect forms and so forth.
But if they were abstracted from the ‘imperfect forms’ they were already a part of those forms. There really is nothing ‘imperfect’ about them; their ‘imperfection’ is simply the appearance of local style. Again, you’re falling for a common misunderstanding of the difference between the actual and the ideal.
dover_beach
16 Mar 10 at 7:02 pm
Hey JC, I didnt “really hate Atlas” I just found it pompous, tedious and boring
I really liked Tolstoy and Solzhenitsyn because they had some experience, Rand was always an existential wannabe
rog
16 Mar 10 at 7:03 pm
their ‘imperfection’ is simply the appearance of local style
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I knew there was a reason I come here all the time. Local style. Where does that come from? That’s outstanding.
Adrien
16 Mar 10 at 8:30 pm
I must admit that I think Nietzsche made all the postmodernists’ points for them before any of them came along. Could be wrong but that’s just my impression.
I also rate On the Genealogy of Morals, which I know people do some very strange things with, but is actually a very good piece of standalone classical scholarship. People in antiquity really did think like that, and to the extent that Christianity deviated from that pattern of thinking, it changed the world.
Nietzsche didn’t like the change, and when one considers the persistent and ongoing evasion of personal responsibility one sees everywhere, along with victimology (my supervisor calls it ‘The Oppression Olympics’), he may have a point.
Jason, are you allowed to have ‘economic philosophers’ in your top 5? (They were called ‘moral philosophers’ back in the day).
If so, my list would be:
1. Adam Smith
2. David Hume
3. Karl Marx
4. J.S. Mill
5. F.A. Hayek
I put Hayek last in my top group because he’s a 20th century philosopher, and I think the point was well made above that we don’t actually know what posterity will do with 20th century philosophers.
If you’re not allowed economic philosophers, then my list would be:
1. David Hume
2. Nietzsche
3. H.L.A Hart
4. Karl Popper
5. Robert Nozick
Once again Nozick is last for the same reason that Hayek is last in the top group.
skepticlawyer
16 Mar 10 at 9:04 pm
Although that said Hart is very much 20th century, although he builds on a much older tradition in jurisprudence.
skepticlawyer
16 Mar 10 at 9:05 pm
I knew there was a reason I come here all the time. Local style. Where does that come from? That’s outstanding.
It’s from Oakeshott’s On Human Conduct, p. 109.
dover_beach
16 Mar 10 at 9:43 pm
The Oppression Olympics
.
N’uk. And now for the opening ceremony of this great global ritual where people from all nations gather to whine… Sing the song:
.
Jerry! Jerry! Jerry! Jerry! Jerry! Jerry! Jerry! Jerry! Jerry! Jerry! Jerry! Jerry! Jerry! Jerry! Jerry! Jerry! Jerry! Jerry! Jerry! Jerry! Jerry! Jerry! Jerry! Jerry! Jerry! Jerry! Jerry! Jerry! Jerry! Jerry!
Adrien
17 Mar 10 at 1:44 pm
<i.It’s from Oakeshott’s On Human Conduct,
.
Cheers, DB. I’ll have a look.
Adrien
17 Mar 10 at 1:46 pm
The Oppression Olympics.
Priceless.
Peter Patton
17 Mar 10 at 3:39 pm
Peter & Adrien:
It’s a phrase that deserves to be more widely known, at least in that context.
skepticlawyer
17 Mar 10 at 9:21 pm
Daniel Barnes, a sometime commenter on this site, has a good Ayn Rand blog, he is not a fan but he is interested in the ideas and he wanted to create a forum for civil discussion of Rand’s ideas.
http://aynrandcontrahumannature.blogspot.com/
Rafe
17 Mar 10 at 10:35 pm