Benevolent Universe Premise

[amadeus-x]

First off, greetings all! I am not an Objectivist. I'm working on it. I have read every book authored by Ayn Rand at least twice however and have read a couple Peikoff books as well. So there is my background.

Anyway, Rand sometimes refers to a "benevolent worldview". I would very much appreciate a definition of what constitutes a "benevolant worldview". Perhaps I am missing the point (certainly wouldn't be the first time). When I see the politicians that get elected, read letters to the editor, watch the news, listen to popular music, watch blockbuster movies and interact with people, it seems as though the overwhelming majority of people either have IQs below room temperature or are just plain evil. Either way, that does not seem all too in line with a "benevolant worldview".

Seriously, I just cannot fathom how somebody can both vote for Bush or Gore and have the mental capacity to drive a car. I just do not get it. Have you seen the "logical" conclusions that people draw when supporting laws? For example, I read a letter to the editor the other day. The purpose of the letter was to address a city ban on movie theatres that have more than six screens (the city partially funded a 12 screen theatre and didn't want the competition). This man supported the ban. His reason..

...you are simply not ready for this..

Hollywood is not making any good movies so we don't need bigger theatres!!!

I nearly fell out of my chair laughing. Then I got pissed off (sorry if that is unacceptable language here).

The sad thing is, that type of "reasoning" is not uncommon. I mean, the paper actually printed it! And not in the comic section! This man can vote!

I am honestly starting to feel very isolated. It is getting to the point where I have a hard time giving anyone the benefit of the doubt. As a matter of numbers, I think it is reasonable to say that if you meet a random person, the odds are that he or she would have the critical thinking skills of a carburetor. And if they did have more than an outdated engine componant's ability to reason, they would likely not even recognize the possibility that humans have rights (gasp).

I am very much looking forward to someone on here giving me a firm-handed intellectual spanking on this topic. I really do want to belive that people are not only good but great. I know very well that there are a few giants among us, but they just seem like such a statistically insignificant number compared to the unholy legions of intellectual toddlers following the commands of the tyrannical leaders whom they adore.

(Corrected typo in title - softwareNerd)

Edited October 15, 2005 by softwareNerd

[Inspector]

As a start, I think one of they keys is that those people don't matter. We do. One of the giants can move mountains of human ballast.

I'm sure the others will chime in with more. Hope that helps as a start.

[mailegreene]

A benevolent world view does not mean that the people you encounter in your daily life will behave in a rational manner. What Ayn Rand reffered to was the benevolent universe premise, which means that your values are actually achievable in reality, provided that they are rational values. The universe actually doesn't feel any type of benevolence toward anybody. It has no emotions of any sort. It just is.

It is true that a great many people make poor choices. But these choices are a consequence of their free will. I could see where the confusion would come in if you believed that people had an innate benevolence. They do not. Some area respectable and some are not.

[jrs]

I would very much appreciate a definition of what constitutes a "benevolent worldview".

The question is how do you think about the world?

If, like Objectivist heroes, you think of the world as providing you with opportunities to do things you like, then you have a benevolent view.

If, like Buddhists, you think of the world as a source of suffering which must be endured until you can achieve nirvana (nonexistence), then you have a malevolent view.

[Captain Nate]

Seriously, I just cannot fathom how somebody can both vote for Bush or Gore and have the mental capacity to drive a car.

Gee, thanks.

I assure you, I can both vote for Bush and drive my car, and make a rational argument in favor of individual liberty. So all is not lost.

[Felix]

I think that one of the main points of a benevolent universe is that it is actually knowable. This is what attracted me to Objectivism in the first place. I confronted myself with Objectivism while being a strong believer in: "Science means that everything is just a hypothesis and that nothing can be proven." and "You cannot trust your senses."... which leads to fear and insanity, I know it.

The other point (that you can attain happiness here) is a result of Objectivist Epistemology.

A benevolent worldview doesn't mean believing that you live in a fairy tale. It means that you live in a world where you can have control over your life and work for your own happiness and succeed. I guess that summed it up.

Edited October 14, 2005 by Felix

[LaVache]

I think part of what amadeus-x was getting at is that the "the unholy legions of intellectual toddlers following the commands of the tyrannical leaders whom they adore" can effect the level of benevolence in our world. If enough people exercise their free will in a certain way (as they have many times in the past) they can act to remove or at the very least reduce the way others's can excercise their free will. If you live in a totalitarian country that will not hesitate to take your life, then I would be hard pressed to say that you live "in a world where you can have control over your life and work for your own happiness and succeed."

In response to Captain Nate: Both main political parties in the U.S. are openly in favor of growing the government as quickly as possible. Also, in light of the facts that President Bush has signed every spending bill he can get his hands on, would make abortion illegal if given the chance, and has casually tossed out the idea of using the American Army in a domestic law enforcement capacity twice since Hurricane Katrina hit, I seriously doubt that anyone could vote for Bush as anything but the lesser of two evils and make a rational argument for personal liberty that they both understand and believe.

[softwareNerd]

I see that "mailegreene" and other have answered your question about the meaning of "benevolent universe". I'd like to add an example.

Consider the years around 1600 A.D. A man named Galileo lived then -- in an age where people thought the earth was the center of the universe. While we live in an age where many still believe that a jewish guy who lived 2000 years ago was the son of god, born of a virgin, I submit that we live in better times than he. At least we do not have the Inquisition. There were other rational people in Galileo's world, but they were fewer than there are today; and, he did not have the internet to connect to thousands of them. Compared to our times, the 1600s was a less "rational world" to live in.

Enough about us though. I ask: why did Galileo do what he did? He knew what he was facing, why did he not shrug and give up his quests as pointless? as something that would come to naught? I submit that he held a benevolent universe premise: the world makes sense (even if other don't see it, I do); it makes sense and I can discover it's meaning; my mind is such a great tool; I'm discovering about the world, because I want to discover about the world.... this is such fun!

True, if one reads the daily headlines they're mostly depressing. One wants to scream at the world: "How can you not see?" "How can so many millions read Atlas Shrugged and not 'get it'?" "How can you live in the 21st century with ideas that were debunked centuries ago? "

I think we live in "the best of times" yet, and they will only get better. In every generation rational men have fretted about the state of the world. The world keeps getting better. I do not think this is by accident. Good ideas win in the end, even if the progress is not always in a straight line. We'd like things to change faster? Good. Then, we do things to help it along. However, we cannot tie our existential happiness (or lack of it) to the slow way at which the world is improving.

From the perspective of action, you need to create your own little benevolent "universe": with goals, things and people you value... that make you happy. You can do it. Galileo did.

[JMeganSnow]

If you live in a totalitarian country that will not hesitate to take your life, then I would be hard pressed to say that you live "in a world where you can have control over your life and work for your own happiness and succeed."

Re-read We the Living; one of the main ideas of the book is that a statist regime cannot change the nature of the universe. All three of the main characters (Andrei, Leo, and Kira) had control over their lives and worked for their own happiness and succeeded. That they died in the end is simply an illustration of the culmination of statism, not of the fundamental nature of the universe.

[Felix]

Hi everyone!

I've been wondering about that for quite a while. So now I finally have come up here with some questions regarding this "benevolent universe premise":

1) Where exactly does Rand refer to this? I have never seen her actually saying something like this. Is there a quote somewhere? Can you provide one?

2) How can the universe be benevolent? It's not conscious. A benevolent universe is primacy of consciousness, isn't it? I can understand that the universe is understandable. I can understand that man is well-suited to live in this universe. I can also understand that emergencies only happen on occasion. But a benevolent universe says something completely different, doesn't it? It means that the universe understands (how?) what man's needs are and helps him meet them (how?). This just makes no sense to me.

I rather see the universe as neutral. Nietzsche once said about nature: "Take indifference as a power." I think that sums up my point pretty well. It's a feature of man's ability to live that living on earth is such a nice thing. I seriously doubt it's the universe's benevolence as I doubt that such exists in the first place.

Any thoughts?

[DavidOdden]

Where exactly does Rand refer to this?

The Journals and Letters. Here is a quote from p. 555 of the Journals:

• "These three steps are the essence of the process. But now man must remain convinced consciously of the validity of what he's learned in that process. It implies: free will, self-confidence (confidence in one's own judgment), self-respect (the conviction that the preservation of his life and the achievement of his happiness are values, are good), and a benevolent universe in which he can achieve happiness (if he remains realistic, that is, true to reality observed by his reason)."
  

2) How can the universe be benevolent? It's not conscious. A benevolent universe is primacy of consciousness, isn't it?

It would be even stranger than simple POC kind of a Star-Warsy force be with you thing. Peikoff explains it well, I think, on p. 342 of OPAR:

• "Benevolence" in this context is not a synonym for kindness; it does not mean that the universe cares about man or wishes to help him. The universe has no desires; it simply is. Man must care about and adapt to it, not the other way around. If he does adapt to it, however, then the universe is "benevolent" in another sense: "auspicious to human life."
  

[Bold Standard]

2) How can the universe be benevolent? It's not conscious. A benevolent universe is primacy of consciousness, isn't it? I can understand that the universe is understandable. I can understand that man is well-suited to live in this universe. I can also understand that emergencies only happen on occasion. But a benevolent universe says something completely different, doesn't it? It means that the universe understands (how?) what man's needs are and helps him meet them (how?). This just makes no sense to me.

I rather see the universe as neutral. Nietzsche once said about nature: "Take indifference as a power." I think that sums up my point pretty well. It's a feature of man's ability to live that living on earth is such a nice thing. I seriously doubt it's the universe's benevolence as I doubt that such exists in the first place.

Any thoughts?

She definitely didn't mean the universe is literally "benevolent," which would be attributing teleology or final causation to inanimate matter, which is a premise she consistently rejected. As David pointed out, she mainly used the term in private discussions and journal entries, and I think it was somewhat of a joke. But the reason she used that specific term, as far as I can gather, is to emphasize that hers is the antithetical view of that which she called "the malevolent universe" view.

This is a term she used frequently in her official works (The Romantic Manifesto, The Virtue of Selfishness, The Voice of Reason, Atlas Shrugged, The Fountainhead, The Obj. Newsletter, The Objectivist, Art of Nonfiction, Ayn Rand Letter, Journals of Ayn Rand, and Letters of Ayn Rand all come up with hits for "malevolent universe" on my ORCD, as compared to the two works David mentioned coming up for "benevolent universe.") I'd say the important thing is that she rejected the malevolent universe view, not only because it attributes motives to the universe as a whole, which is non-living, but also because it assumes man is not fit to live on earth, when in fact, he is.

I think that's why she used "benevolent universe," to emphasize that not only are the advocates of a malevolent universe premise wrong because things are "not so bad" for humans who want to live on earth, but that actually, things are good for such people. I would even try to argue that only if you assume the benevolent universe premise (which you seem to have no problem with, beyond its understandably misleading name) can you really get anything out of Nietzsche's descriptions of an ambivalent universe. Because, the way I think he actually meant it (not that he made any effort to be clear), the universe is sometimes "benevolent" (sometimes accommodates man) and sometimes "malevolent," (sometimes frustrates man in the deepest sense) and that you can't predict how it's going to be in any given instance, so it's "ambivalent." I would interpret this to be an example of Nietzsche's Romanticism, because he apparently thinks that even the assumption of the universe always adhering to principles of intelligibility or metaphysical non-contradiction is assuming too much good will on the part of the universe, only because those are the conditions that would be necessary for us to successfully live. My impression is that he would consider a proposition such as Descartes' daemon, and would refute Descartes' position that a benevolent God wouldn't fool us by showing there is no God, and then refute the antithetical, pessimistic view (Schopenhauer?) by showing there's no devil either, and concluding that there's some kind of distorted mixture instead (but just what that means, is where he gets really unclear, and so it's controversial to say what his position was exactly, as far as I can tell). So I think the difference between Nietzsche's "ambivalent" universe and Rand's "benevolent" one is that Nietzsche threw reason and reality out the window along with God, as all being equally naive, whereas for AR, the universe is "sympathetic" to reason, because the mind is part of reality, and part of the universe, and the universe isn't controlled by ambivalent whims, or warring wills, which is the primacy of consciousness and ultimately what Nietzsche (as much I understand him, which is limited) amounts to, but is consistent and causal, and actually is everything that humans need it to be in order to survive. Nietzsche is right that it's not that way because we need it to be that way, but he's wrong to imply that it might not be that way at all, because it indubitably is.

Edited August 1, 2006 by Bold Standard