Rant about Rand
Our economy is suffering. Our country is less powerful internationally. Yes, we can thank the conservative movement led by people like William Buckley and George W. Bush for those things. But let us not forget Ayn Rand, who inspired so many conservatives to believe that it is a morally right to destroy society for their own self interest. (For example, Alan Greenspan was a disciple of Rand’s who believed that the economic bubbles just correct themselves. The larger self interest of companies would compel them to avoid excess and over leveraging.)
What passes as critical thinking for Ayn Rand, and her followers, is really just a circular idiocy. The main tenet of her thought is that people should do what is in their own best interest only. The philosophy of “Objectivism” is neither objective nor a coherent philosophy because all inconsistency in the argument (i.e examples of collective good) is brushed away by saying “they are acting collectively out of self interest.” The examples of using the public sphere to provide for the greater good are dismissed as wasting the individual’s true productivity. In Rand’s utopia people ONLY do what is best for themselves, and somehow a civil society can function. Here is a good quote about Rand over at Metafilter.
My basic problem with her philosophy as I understand it, is that it somehow entirely discounts humanity somewhere along the way. It is like the economists who assume that all people make decisions based entirely on rational processes and anything else is just friction or error in the system. It is apparent that this is incorrect, but because the error is hard to quantify they can persist in the wrong approach.
For an individual who is suitably sophisticated and dedicated you could, I suppose, use Objectivism to assess the myriad benefits of apparently altruistic or self-sacrificial actions in order to determine those that are in your self-interest (preferably through the use of many measure and spreadsheets I suspect) and then engage in them. That way you would be a functioning member of society, reap the benefits of our social organism, and still be true to the inherent selfishness of Objectivist philosophy. Except, this is a purely academic view of the issue. Most people have a philosophical world view precisely because we can’t make this in depth analysis of every little action. We need heuristics and assumptions to guide us. And used that way Objectivism has huge and apparent flaws. Also, it encourages a world view that it is ok to put yourself above other people, as in actually see them as worth less as a human being. I find more reward in being thankful for my gifts than in using them to claim that I’m worth more than someone else.
So, in sum, interesting, but not very useful. Destructive in the wrong mind.
Destructive indeed. And now the American economy and our country’s self interest has been hurt by that lame philosophy. Rant on Rand over.
There’s a chapter in Michael Shermer’s book Why People Believe Weird Things, titled “The Unlikeliest Cult” regarding Objectivism and, generally, the cult of Ayn Rand. He has some fairly insightful things to say about them, but I’d like to add…
This whole philosophy of ‘everyone for themselves’ as espoused by Rand and some members of the modern conservative movement who have been influenced by her, blatantly ignores the fact that nothing, no action at all, is done in a vacuum. Your actions have consequences, on the environment, on other people, on the society around you. Yes, they may be small, but they’re not ignorable. There is no such thing as acting only for yourself, as looking out only for yourself, because, when you start doing that, you turn your back on those around you. And they notice.