Objectivism Redux

Sir Arthur Streeb-Greebling writes:

Heavens, thirty-four comments and a few blog links, I am impressed. I'll try to address some of your points to sort of wrap things up (although you're all most welcome to keep on going).



Josh.
I don't agree with your objection to "sheeple" so much, I kind of like it, along with "Helengrad" and "Nanny State" because it confronts people without, being abusive or over the top. And Objectivism does belive in fallibility. They just don't shout it from the rooftops so much.

My take is that Objectivism is a virtue based ethic, because rights come after the virtues, and you have a fair way to go before you even get to the virtues.

Rand starts off with the question "What gives rise to ethics". From there she goes on to the fact that Life is a conditional form of existence, that human beings have free will, and that human life is the standard of moral values. To go to the next step, the virtues, you have to make the choice to live. If you chose "Yes", then you move on to the sort of actions that you must take to sustain your life. If "No," then you can stop here..

The Values in Objectivism are Reason, Purpose, and Self Esteem. After the Values come the Virtues. Virtuous, acts involving Rationality, Independence, Integrity, Honesty, Justice, Productiveness, Pride, The Trader Principle, and Benevolence, are that enable us to keep our values. After this, and after establishing Rand's concepotion of Egoism, do we move on to Rights. Objectivism defines Rights as a moral concept that defines how individuals should act towards each other in order that each person can freely act out the virtues and values.

Rights come a fair way through the system, before the virtues, which themsel;ves come after a fair bit of (dare I say it) philosophical work, and so I would term Objectivism as more virtues than rights based. But I think your misunderstanding serves my point well. Objectivists spend far too much time banging on about Rights, and not enough on establishing why and they are rights, and on living out the virtues - especially benevolence and the Trader Principle - themselves.

That Morthos Stare.
Sure Perigo was a pratt here, but as Josh points out Nola was hardly at his best either. Perigo, to be fair, does have good quailities. The fact that there is libertarianism in New Zealand to the extent that it is - my guess is there are around 6,000 of us - for starters, the Libertarianz political party, the Free Radical magazine, "sheeple" and "Helengrad".

I look forward to your take on Objectivist Epistemology. I haven't looked at it much myself, the ethics and politics are more my thing.

Apathy Jack.
Good story, and one where Bates provides an excellent example of how to make sure your political philosophy never gets any traction. Simply don't show any interest in solving the problems people have with it.

Far too many libertarians, myself included as I have done the same thing Bates did, make no effort at persuasion. You need to sell your ideas to your audience, you can't just be an arse and hope that the truth of your conclusion will do all the work, fighting through your lack of argument and hopeless presentation. Effective persuasion is as simple as following Harry Browne's points here.

Hewligan.

And, personally, I refuse to believe that "Freedom" just refers to paying less income tax.

It doesn't. It does to the National Party, who are happy to keep government the same size but with less income tax, but to a libertarian "freedom" is less income tax, but also a much smaller government. And of all the viewpoints on the spectrum I would class a liertarian as the least likely to sell his principles out.

Rich.

One problem with libertarianism is that it's unattractive to most rational voters.

True. And libertarianism is unattractive to most rational voters because libertarians are often unattractive to most rational voters - the explanation of why being the point of this exercise :-). You are right later on where you claim that people often benefit from government services - they do, and they will keep voting for government services unless the libertarian manages to sell them the idea that not only will those services still run under a libertarian system, but they will be better, cheaper, more efficient, and moral.

Anonymous.

I think you go too far, at least with how the party is at present. If you go to the Libz site and look at the people currently involved you would find an overwhelming majority of good people. Bernard and Julian are of very high calibre, as is Scott Wilson and yes even Peter Cresswell (despite his odd irritating snipes at academic philosophy). Bates is a good guy as well, and Nik Haden also came across as perfectly sane when interviewed about his census burning on the radio.

Paul.

I think your first point is correct. From what I have gathered Objectivists don't like how in Philosophy you spend a semester being presented with all sorts of viewpoints and arguments, be it in ethics or philosophy of mind or whatever. To them, Philosophy is pretty much settled now and it should be taught as a science like geology where you learn how the world works.

Re: Humanism, you might find this interesting. I don't know how you can put Humanism in the same cluster as Marxism and Objectivism myself, Humanists don't actually believe in anything. You might not like Objectivism but at least there is something there.

Lyndon.

Firstly, Objectivism is not a cult. This explains why not. Unfortunately the orginal seems to have been taken down, so a google cache is all I could find.

Discussion between Duncan / Josh / That Morthos Stare / Rick.

Duncan, thank you for coming in to bat for Objectivism (lighten up about the cartoon though).

Josh, I think Objectivism puts certainty and context together by saying that something is "contextally absolute", as in "to the best of our knowledge at this time 'x' is the truth". But I haven't relly studied Objectivist epistemology and we await That Morthos Stare's take on it.

That Morthos Stare is also correct with his philosophical elitism. I can't stand people just bandying the word about "This is my philosophy" "Deepak Chopra is a philosopher" Fuck off. Whether government run or private, "Philosopher", just like "Doctor" and "Lawyer" should have something behind it. You can't call yourself a botanist because you have a vege garden, you are a gardener. You can't call yourself a philosopher because you've had a bit of a think, you've just had a bit of a think.

That should do for now. If I get another thirty comments we might keep on going, but I think I've made my point and everyone else has made theirs so we'd all end up going around in circles. I'll try and find a video on Youtube of a baboon masturbating into a car at one of those drive in zoos for my next post for a bit of balance.

We don't take kindly to Objectivists round here.

Sir Arthur Streeb-Greebling writes:

UPDATE!: See that, that up there, see what Josh did!

Back in November, That Morthos Stare enlivened us all with a collection of snippets, unfinished musings on assorted topics, one of which was this bit on Objectivists.

"I'm not fond of Libertarians in general, although I do respect some (read: few) of their intuitions. The Randians, however, get no sympathy from me whatsoever. I'm not sure that they mean to act as religious zealots (indeed, I would imagine that they would be horrified by the suggestion) but Objectivists, with their character worship of Ayn Rand, one of the last century's dullest writers, would most resemble a Roman Catholic's devotion to the Pope... except that Catholic's, by and large, ignore the Popes for the out-moded fuddy-duddies that they tend to be.

Still, blind devotion to an author doesn't necessarily make you a bad person. I don't dislike goths due to their insistence that Anne Rice is worth reading. I pity them, just as I pity anyone who decides to read a Poppy Z. Brite novel (the short stories are another matter entirely). No, it's the insistence that Rand's philosophy has real world relevance. Well, that and the claim that Rand's aphoristic style is philosophy.

Let me put this into perspective. Philosophy is a dialectical discipline in which we trade and develop ideas. One of our chief virtues is the ability to be wrong and admit to that fact. Objectivism, however, is a dogmatic belief system best analogised with a Jack Chick tract. I don't whether Objectivists think that it is immoral to show dissent from the official view or whether their intellectual poverty is so great that they have to toe the party line, but such strict adherence to a distinctly impoverished ideology isn't philosophy. I suspect that what appeal Objectivism has is psychological; if you think being a prick is a good thing then Objectivism gives you nice variety of shallow reasons to do so."

Hewligan concurred, goading Morthos to more fully explain why Objectivists are bad people. A task I volunteered myself for in my December Commentfest after he inadvertently answered his own question. And so, here we are.



Before we get started, for those who want to know what Objectivists belive in, go here. This post would also be good to gain some New Zealand context.

Although it should be obvious, not all libertarians are Objectivists, and not all Objectivists are pricks. I have met many fine normal Objectivists, this post only targets those who fit the bill.

Ayn Rand

First off, are some Objectivists pricks because Ayn Rand was a prick. Well no, because she wasn't. Not that she was perfect, she had flaws like anyone, some wrong ideas, a few character flaws, but she still falls within the range of normalcy and wasn't a bad person, or a prick. Ayn Rand's life and personality won't enlighten us in our quest.

But what of her writing? Here we are on firmer ground. I think the origin of many Objectivist's prickishness lies in her fiction. When you watch a normal TV program or read a normal novel, the main characters go through "an arc", I think it is called. They start off with personality / beliefs "a", go through various experiences, and end up with personality / beliefs "b" And it is through watching them go through that change that we find reading novels enjoyable. Ayn Rand's novels don't have this. Her protaganists seem to be like T 34 tanks. They start off as they finish, and everyone else just pings off them or goes under their tracks.

Ayn did this for a reason, she wrote that the goal of her fiction is to project her vision of an ideal man: not man as he is, but man as he might and ought to be. The problem is that Objectivists use Ayn’s characters as a template for how they should be. This, unfortunately leads to this by Kane Bunce. which is absolutely tragic because it is not (please surely not) the view that Ayn had or wanted her followers to have, but given the flaws in her fiction is what you can get.

Objectivism isn't about having a low opinion of and indifference to your fellow man, but of having a high opinion of and will to engage them to use their full potential, but unfortunately since Ayn's characters are so one-dimensional and un-engaging, Kane Bunce’s view is often the end result. Andrew Bates also deserves a kick up the arse for concurring. And that is the first reason why Objectivists are bad people. Since the characters in Ayn's novels are indifferent and one-dimensional, then people who use those novels as guides will end up in danger of being the same.

Objectivism

Morthos has claimed that Objecivism is a mock philosophy. Does this make Objectivists bad people? I don't think so. It isn't so much that Objectivism is not as developed in the "formal academic philosophy", but how Objectivists have dealt with that fact. Another aspects are that Objectivism is a meta-narrative.

I say "isn't so much" because it is still a factor. One of Objectivism's difficulties is that there isn't/wasn't a good, academic quality, setting out of it's beliefs. This has led to a) academic philosophy pretty much ignoring it, and then, b) an air of anti-intellectualism among Objectivists due to academics ignoring or deriding their philosophy. More specifically there is an unfortunate distrust of Philosophy departments and contemporary philosophers, viewing them all as a Caligulan orgy of subjectivism and relativism.

This should improve over time. There is no reason why Objectivism can’t be tidied up and presented academically, and this is slowly beginning to happen. People like, unfortunate Tibor Machan , Chris Sciabarra, and Tara Smith are presenting Objectivist ideas in a format that people like Morthos could engage with.

Secondly, and briefly, being a meta-narrative, makes Objectivism prone to the usual schisms and denunciations that other meta-narrative’s like Marxism and Christianity suffer. This is normally fine, since it only affects how believers deal with each other. Problems arise because meta-narratives tend to have their own vocabulary and terminology, meaning that when others try and engage them they need to get to grips with how terms are being used (as Morthos found himself doing here, and here) and are also in danger of having their beliefs misconstrued and often end up just talking past each other (see the exchange between Robert Nola and Lindsay Perigo one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, oh, dear, god)

And, in case anyone was thinking it, Objectivists are not pricks because Objectivism is a cult or because Ayn Rand was cultish. It isn’t and she wasn’t, despite the ferocious arguments amongst her followers. Read this for more.

Objectivists

Lastly, and most importantly, the reason why many Objectivists (and in the New Zealand context “Libertarianz” since the two are linked here more than anywhere else) come across as being pricks or bad people is simply how they present their ideas. Curiously, and perhaps fatally for people who profess their admiration for a free-market system, mnay Objectivists feel they are at war. This is wrong for many reasons.

Firstly, almost no-one is actually fighting against you. At the recent Libz conference, attendees were told by one speaker:

“We must Attack! Attack! Attack! With your dying breath! Attack!
This aint no game people! This is war!”

God only knows why, or against whom. The vast majority of the voting population are not in metaphorical opposing trenches doing all they can to combat reason and laissez faire economics.

Most people are in a marketplace for ideas and political philosophies. They have a set of requirements - they want law and order, to have a comfortable standard of living, well educated kids, and for grandma to get a hip replacement of she needs it – and shop around for whoever will offer that to them. Almost everyone, even parties opposed to markets, grasp the importance of marketing their ideas so they are the most persuasive they can be.

This is often a matter of language, and no I don’t mean lying or Orwell, but using the language of the marketplace rather than that of the battlefield, and of avoiding needless use of terminology that has negative connotations.

Look at Peter Cresswell’s admiration for Barry Goldwater’s statement that "Extremism in the defense of liberty is no vice". The sentiment is admirable, but why call yourself an extremist? What do your customers, the people who you want to sell your ideas to, think of when you use the word extremist? They think of lunatics, hijackings, bombings, and violence. So why use that word? Why not “principled”? This isn’t being deceptive, or Orwellian, it’s just a better word.

What really makes the “battlefield” view of many Objectivists, and libertarianz, so devastating is that it is polarising. With war, there is no middle ground. You are either with us or you are against us, and if you are with us, you are with us the whole time, 100%, there are no weekend soldiers. And so not only do you come across as a lunatic / extremist to your potential customers, you find yourself in constant battle with your own side to keep them on a war footing.

Large parties, like National and Labour, are successful because they are a broad church. You are valued no matter how large or small your contribution or skills. If you are out there every weekend doing a sausage sizzle to raise funds for the electorate, fine. If all you do is send in $5 with your membership form in June, fine. If you think you’re at war, then anyone who doesn’t go to war with the same fervour as you is guilty of cowardice, or if they leave because of your behaviour, then they are guilty of treason. The punishment for that in real war is death. However for a small political party / movement the punishment is a small divided membership, and severely disabled organisation. I should point out again that there are many good normal Objectivists and Libertarianz to whom this does not apply.

Which brings us to Hewligan’s observation. The context he was using was the invasion of Iraq, but the principle is the same.

“If you can't convince people of the rightness of the invasion, the question is: "Why can't you convince them?"

or rather “If you can’t convince people of the rightness of your position, the question is: “Why can’t you convince them?”

If you are at war, the answer is often “Because you haven’t attacked with enough strength and fervour”, and the solution is to attack harder in your black and white world view, coming across as a prick, and selling your philosophical wares to few.

If you are in a marketplace, the answer is “Because I have not been persuasive enough” and you work harder to offer what your customer wants, and are happy even if he only buys part of your philosophy because he is welcome to come back any time for more, or even a look around, since you have been so pleasant. And your staff retention is better than on the battlefield where you keep killing them.