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New attack on Rand gaining steam...

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truths-seeker

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There is an attack on Ayn Rand and Objectivism right now that is gaining popularity. It's full of misrepresentations of her ideas, but to the lay-people it is proof that she was wrong. Lots of media out-lets are jumping on this too saying "Ah ha! We were always right, she was wrong!"

It's all centered around articles written by Eric Michael Johnson, an Evolutionary Anthropologist.

Here are some links:

http://www.slate.com/articles/health_and_science/human_evolution/2012/10/groups_and_gossip_drove_the_evolution_of_human_nature.single.html

http://healthland.time.com/2012/10/08/is-human-nature-fundamentally-selfish-or-altruistic/

http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/primate-diaries/2012/10/05/ayn-rand-on-human-nature/

http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/crux/2012/10/05/yes-ayn-there-is-a-social-instinct/

http://io9.com/5950256/evolutionary-anthropology-to-ayn-rand-you-fail

His Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/groups/primatediaries/ & https://www.facebook.com/eric.michael.johnson

I'm seeing links to these articles posted all over the place. Anyway, I'm hoping this will stir an overwhelming number of comments from members of this forum posted on those sites defending Rand, and pointing out Mr. Johnson's misrepresentations.

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Doesn't look like an attack on Rand to me. The problem is the guy is apparently a strong supporter of evolutionary psychology/anthropology, which are highly questionable methodologies for the conclusions that those fields make. All Rand really ever claimed about human *nature* is that humans have the capacity of rationality. I can't tell what the claim of the writer even is. That not everyone is an egoist? That tribalistic cultures didn't go extinct, so altruism can't be all that bad?

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On the strength of the first few sentences of each of the first two links, I can make a few points, the first of which is that the earlier posters are right: you needn't worry.

Rand was talking about learned, chosen behavior specific to rational beings, not instinctive (to use a dangerous term) behavior of non-rational species. What goes for one does not go for the other. If one of us is talking about chess and the other is talking about banking, and we both use the word "check," you can be confident that we aren't talking about the same object. So with "selfish" or "altruistic" behavior.

The articles conflate altruism with cooperation or good will. Rand dealt with that one long before evolutionary biology became middlebrow trendy.

Rand did not say that human nature is naturally selfish. She said that we have to identify the selfish thing to do and commit to it deliberately, all by a voluntary process. To say that it comes naturally is a deterministic position that would have been odious to her. The standard way of putting across this bit of misinformation used to be to call her a Hobbesian.

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See my concern isn't that he's right. I can spot his misrepresentations, as can most of the people on this forum. We all can read it and know right away that he is making false statements about what Ayn Rand believed.

The problem is that he is making these claims somewhat unchallenged. Others who might be on the fence about Rand will read this and think, oh she was wrong. Or people who read this now and later come across Rand will just remember that she was disproved, so why bother listening to her ideas... etc.

The lay-people who read these articles will come away with one message: "Ayn Rand was wrong." The author of these articles is working very hard toward that end.

However if the vast majority of comments under these articles are pointing out the dishonesty, then just maybe some of these lay-people will have second thoughts.

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If tribalism and altruism are so innate in us why does most of the world's population participate in our greed driven civilization?

This guy is so backwards. Nietzche and Herbert Spencer have already talked about all of these issues more than a century ago.

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The problem is that he is making these claims somewhat unchallenged. Others who might be on the fence about Rand will read this and think, oh she was wrong. Or people who read this now and later come across Rand will just remember that she was disproved, so why bother listening to her ideas... etc.

Personally, my concern is not about (mis)representations of Rand, but the attention evolutionary psychology/anthropology receives these days. Evolutionary psychologist claim to be able to explain modern observations of behavior by means of pre-civilization survival in the wilds. "We have a stone age mind in a modern environment," as it could be phrased. Behaviors are not explained with cognition, reasoning, or choice. Rather, behaviors are explained by what human ancestors did and what happens when that brain is shoved into a modern environment. There are many problems, but one is a lack of consideration for human cognition and choice. If people are swayed by this, the real concern is bad science getting popular, positive attention.

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What you describe in #6 is the pattern of over half a century. Most people will read pieces like this and figure that Rand is wrong. A few will follow up and learn better. Johnson is just another iteration of what's been going on since the Eisenhower administration.

Edited by Reidy
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  • 2 months later...

It's clearly a misunderstanding of Rand. She was not saying that we should live independently, an island unto ourselves. She was saying that our social interactions should be voluntary. It's as though these evolutionary psychologists (and I value greatly the field of evolutionary psychology) believe Rand was against distribution of goods in any form. She was not. She was absolutely in favor of distribution of helpful goods in a society, but done on a voluntary basis, where a maintains a right of self-ownership. And this is good, because when you consent to the concept of altruistic communal deontological ethics (obligation), then that perspective will inevitably extend to more than just economic goods of survival. That altruistic deontological ethic will extend to personal life decisions, to the point where you are not free to make decisions over your own life, and essentially do not own yourself. That's immoral, in Rand's thought. Rand's ethic of self-ownership will in no way prevent social interaction.

On a quick reading of the articles you posted, it seems to me that they are committing a sort of is ... ought fallacy. They are pointing to how societies have historically suppressed self ownership and liberty, and then seem to say that therefore it's morally preferable to suppress self-ownership and liberty. As though they are not considering the possibility that humans may find better, more moral ways to organize themselves socially. And it's here where I think Rand's argument prevails. She argues not only that societies based on the morality of self-ownership are practical, but that they are moral. I don't see that the "is" that evolutionary psychology points to necessitates an "ought."

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