Conservative Critique of Rand

Political Philosophy
1

Here is a critique of Objectivism that I have seen made by both Communitarian Leftists and by the more collectivist Cultural Conservatives. It argues that Rand’s philosophy destroys society because it does not acknowledge the existence of “things outside the self”.

A characteristic and fatal flaw in Randian thought is that it regards all larger or collective entities as evil, insofar as they have any reality or justification beyond the defense of individual rights. The reduction of all values to individual rights, which is the essence of the Randian system, is a form of ideological madness, since collective entities are also real and have intrinsic value. For example, without certain collective entities, e.g., Christendom, Protestantism, the white race, English culture and civilization, American culture and civilization, not to mention the family, the American-style individualism that Rand worships could never have come into existence. At least Athena was born out of Zeus’ head. But Rand treats her heroes Howard Roark and John Galt as though they were born out of their own heads. She doesn’t see that Roark and Galt in their tough-minded, self-controlled, WASPy individualism are products of a particular American culture, and, furthermore, she doesn’t see for that culture to have existed, it had to be valued for its own sake (not valued only to the extent that it supported individual rights), and therefore it had to be distinguished and separated from other cultures. If the particular American culture that ultimately produced a Galt or a Roark hadn’t historically excluded and discriminated against various other cultures, it would not have existed, and so Galt and Roark couldn’t have existed (or, to speak more precisely, Rand could never have conceived of them). But Rand cannot recognize this underlying reality, because that would mean that her heroes are not totally self-sufficient and self-autonomous individuals, but that they depend on certain realities outside themselves. Rand and all her followers see any notion of a reality outside of or larger than the self as the very epitome of evil, an evil equal to Communism.

The Randian vision thus involves murderous hatred of the structure of reality on which all values, including the Randian values of individualism itself, rest. Randianism, like liberalism, is a parasitic ideology which damns and seeks relentlessly to destroy the host on which it feeds.

Here is the link: http://www.amnation.com/vfr/archives/019141.html

I think this is a variation of the Communitarian Critique of individualism. I am looking for the best way to counter this argument. Thanks

2

It’s basically just advocating plumb-line collectivism, the ethical doctrine of subjugation of the individual to the group. To clear it up, one we can start by getting straight Rand’s doctrine of individualism.

First, Rand does not claim all “collective entities” are evil, or that they “have no reality.” The first sentence is correct insofar as it means to say that Rand hold that groups of individuals have no rights other than the rights of its individual members. Rand disavows the notion of collectivized “rights” because: Any group or “collective,” large or small, is only a number of individuals. (see Collectivized ‘Rights,’” Chapter 13 in The Virtue of Selfishness, p. 101) She refutes the idea that groups of people are some kind of emergent, mechanistic organism. Of course, that is individualism. But this is simply stating what it is, so if we are to believe that this is the objection, the “fatal flaw,” or a reason why Rand’s ethics are wrong, then it begs the question here.

Just calling it “ideological madness” doesn’t help, because we need more than that to qualify as an argument. Simply reminding us that “collective entities are also real” doesn’t help either, as again Rand does not deny groups of people exist, just that they themselves are not “entities,” but “groups of entities,” and that they have no rights aside from the rights of the individual entities.

As far as the claim that groups of people have “intrinsic value,” we also need more than just the author’s say-so, as Rand’s ethics denies that values are intrinsic. To attack this notion, we would have to start from scratch and enumerate a coherent intrinsic system of ethics.

Lastly, it is a straw man to claim that the essence of Rand’s system is that all values reduce to individual rights. Rights are norms regarding interpersonal relations. They are strictly a social aspect of Rand’s ethics. Logically prior to them are other social norms, such as justice, and the corpus of individual morals, without which rights would be pointless (and impossible to arrive at.)

Although we’ve only discussed the first few sentences, but I couldn’t really get what the guy was trying to say after that.

3

Well first of all, it is not even clear exactly what this person is arguing, as he does not elucidate precisely what aspects of which collective entities Rand and her “Randian values” relied upon (he seems to think it evident to the reader?) in between his rhetorical jabs at her depiction of individualism. I take his argument to be something like the following:

The development of the ideas of individualism which Rand embraces are dependent for their existence on some form of western cultural context (which is unspecified). Because Rand acknowledges only the protection of individual rights as a justification for government activity, she does not ‘properly value’ this wider cultural context by advocating its protection through the state, and establishment within the state in some form. Thus, a Randian society would destroy itself.

The obvious and glaring fallacy which is being made here is that culture and the state are two different things. To say that the only justification for collective action through our government is the protection of individual rights is not to say that the only values that our culture can hold are related to individual rights. Culture and society are much wider and more encompassing than simply the actions that the state takes. In fact, Rand acknowledges the massive importance of achieving the right cultural context for a society of freedom to take root and flourish. This is reflected in the focus of places like the Ayn Rand Institute, which do not primarily aim at changing today’s legislation, but rather at affecting cultural change. Rand explained again and again specifically what values need to be upheld in our culture in order for a beneficial society to flourish, and for a minimal state to be stable. Saying that she “ignored” culture simply because she did not advocate legislating it is to grossly conflate state and society. The state is a specific institution, with a specific purpose, and that purpose is not to promote a certain culture, despite the fact (heartily acknowledged by Rand) that culture is extremely important for a society’s success.

This author simply doesn’t know the first thing about Rand or Objectivism. Take this statement: “The reduction of all values to individual rights, which is the essence of the Randian system, is a form of ideological madness…” This is simply a ridiculously false claim (It is true for some libertarian systems, but certainly not for Rand). Rand carefully outlined a proper moral system on an individual level, and considered the political principle of individual rights derivative of this more fundamental moral structure. The structure of her ideas is concisely summarized in this quote of hers: “I am not primarily an advocate of capitalism, but of egoism; I am not primarily an advocate of egoism, but of reason. If one recognizes the supremacy of reason and applies it consistently, all the rest follows.” The critic simply fails to understand her ideas.

4

Objectivism claims collective entities such as countries, religions and cultures are epistemological and denies they are ontological. It does not deny they exist at all. Because they are epistemological, they cannot be considered ends in themselves and are in no way above individuals. Objectivism broadly denies any form of metaphysical hierarchy, not just that social constructs are more real than the people comprising them. The hierarchy that Objectivism acknowledges and explores is epistemological hierarchy.

There actually are people who think as Lawrence Auster describes. The real social atomists are the anarchists. Objectivism opposes anarchism.

The more fully developed argument behind what was linked in the OP is developed here: The Myth of Social Atomism. Note that rightists and leftists both argue in favor of collectivism in similar fashion.

5

This argument boils down to “Institutions exist, there for Rand is wrong”. Institutions are just activities that individuals participate in. Yes Howard Roark probably participated in a in a somewhat decent family, but he had to be there and learn from it himself, he could just have easily not gotten anything out of it.

6

A characteristic and fatal flaw in Randian thought is that it regards all larger or collective entities as evil, insofar as they have any reality or justification beyond the defense of individual rights.

I don’t think Objectivism regards any larger entities as evil, it is specifically the government that must be limited to upholding individual rights.

The reduction of all values to individual rights, which is the essence of the Randian system, is a form of ideological madness, since collective entities are also real and have intrinsic value. For example, without certain collective entities, e.g., Christendom, Protestantism, the white race, English culture and civilization, American culture and civilization, not to mention the family, the American-style individualism that Rand worships could never have come into existence.

Nothing has intrinsic value, everything has value in a context, the ultimate context being existence. And all those things (skin colour, relgion) are inessential attributes of the culture that created the modern world. It was reason that was the driving force, the scientific and industrial revolutions.

At least Athena was born out of Zeus’ head. But Rand treats her heroes Howard Roark and John Galt as though they were born out of their own heads. She doesn’t see that Roark and Galt in their tough-minded, self-controlled, WASPy individualism are products of a particular American culture, and, furthermore, she doesn’t see for that culture to have existed, it had to be valued for its own sake (not valued only to the extent that it supported individual rights), and therefore it had to be distinguished and separated from other cultures. If the particular American culture that ultimately produced a Galt or a Roark hadn’t historically excluded and discriminated against various other cultures, it would not have existed, and so Galt and Roark couldn’t have existed (or, to speak more precisely, Rand could never have conceived of them). But Rand cannot recognize this underlying reality, because that would mean that her heroes are not totally self-sufficient and self-autonomous individuals, but that they depend on certain realities outside themselves. Rand and all her followers see any notion of a reality outside of or larger than the self as the very epitome of evil, an evil equal to Communism.

This is a misunderstanding. It is not Rand’s heroes’ independence that is their primary virtue but their rationality (independence is just one aspect of this). And this is indeed a matter of individual effort to acheive, as evidenced by the many irrational people who exist in that same culture.

The Randian vision thus involves murderous hatred of the structure of reality on which all values, including the Randian values of individualism itself, rest. Randianism, like liberalism, is a parasitic ideology which damns and seeks relentlessly to destroy the host on which it feeds.

That is not true. On the contratry, Objectivism celebrates Western civilization, but it celebrates the essential causal things that make it great, not the inessentials such as skin colour.

7

Oh I get it now. This is the same exact thing as the “Is collectivism necessary?” thread a while back. The argument basically equivocating “collectivism” as “any old thing that involves two or more people.”

8

Oh I get it now. This is the same exact thing as the “Is collectivism necessary?” thread a while back. The argument basically equivocating “collectivism” as “any old thing that involves two or more people.”

Right. They use an invalid concept of collectivism that includes sports teams and orchestras and economic comparative advantage and civilization itself and then wonder how anyone can be against collectivism.

9

more smearing: http://www.american.com/archive/2011/april/atlas-shrugs-off-an-opportunity-alienates-viewers

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/04/17/opinion/17dowd.html?_r=3&src=ISMR_HP_LI_LST_FB

10

I am going to digest the responses given so far and post my thoughts. But for now, here is more from this same Conservative essayist.

Here is an example of Ayn Rand’s hatred and rejection of the structure of being. There runs through both The Fountainhead and Atlas Shrugged the theme that the world of nature–earth, trees, plants, animals, birds–has no value whatsoever apart from what man makes of it by re-forming it into objects for the satisfaction of his own needs. Nature has no value in itself, and, moreover, in the Randian moral code it is a sin to think that it does. Thus when Dagny wakes up in the mornings in John Galt’s house in the valley and looks out the window and sees the sky, trees, sunlight, etc., she immediately rejects any idea that these things are beautiful or worthwhile or enjoyable in themselves. They are only valuable as material to be shaped by man into manmade things. There is even a passage (I don’t have the book with me now so I can’t cite it) where Dagny expresses positive hatred for the idea of enjoying nature for its own sake.

Now of course man shapes non-human nature to his ends, and this is essential to man’s nature. But to deny that the things of nature–animals, plants, trees, rocks, mountains, leaves blowing in the wind, a sea lion playing delightedly under the ocean–have a reality and value in themselves apart from man is a form of madness. It constitutes a rejection of the world in which we live and of its meaning and beauty.

The attitude I’ve just described exemplifies Rand’s ideological reduction and totalization of the world, in which (1) all the things that exist must be reduced to what man can make of them with his reason and his productive capacity; and (2) what man can make of things with his reason and productive capacity represents the totality of all value. In order for man to worship himself and his own reason and ability, everything outside man–i.e., the world itself–must be denigrated. Which, further, is in keeping with the Randian compulsion, stemming no doubt from Rand’s somewhat twisted psychological make-up, to imagine oneself to be completely self-sufficient and in absolute control of one’s own existence.

Furthermore, it’s not just the natural and biological realm that Rand rejects (except insofar as it serves the satisfaction of man’s rational needs). She also rejects the realm of society and culture (except insofar as they protect man’s individual rights), and, of course, she also totally rejects, as the epitome of anti-life evil, the realm of the transcendent, the objective good, and God.

I have often said that there three orders of reality in which man lives–the natural or biological; the social or cultural; and the spiritual or transcendent, and that the liberal belief in equality and non-discrimination denies all three. Randianism also denies all three, on a more profound level than liberalism does. Randianism, like liberalism, is at war with the structure of reality.

Does Ayn Rand deny the reality of nature apart from man? This Conservative says this:

But to deny that the things of nature–animals, plants, trees, rocks, mountains, leaves blowing in the wind, a sea lion playing delightedly under the ocean–have a reality and value in themselves apart from man is a form of madness. It constitutes a rejection of the world in which we live and of its meaning and beauty.

As I understand Objectivism, this is all wrong. The non-living world has a reality all its own regardless of man. I believe for Objectivism, all living things have values, but only man has volitionaly chosen values. So the sea lion has values apart from man. Objectivism does not deny that man is part of nature. That’s its starting point, yet this Conservative has placed Objectivism “at war with the structure of reality.”

11

Objectivism denies intrinsic values, that is, that earth, trees, plants, animals, birds have value apart from the relation of their natures to the nature of man, and their effects upon the survival and flourishing life of man.

The viewpoint of intrinsic value is essentially mystical and usually accompanies religious ethics, such as Christianity, Buddhism, or environmentalism, and lead to a collectivist politics. The intrinsic theory holds that the good is good in itself, apart from its relation to or effects on man, apart from man’s understanding of it, or even apart from the existence of man, or from one man to another. Rand, to the contrary holds that values presuppose a valuer and a purpose, which renders intrinsic values impossible and ultimately self-contradictory (it reduces, as all dogma, to subjectivism.) Anyways, Dante and Grames will probably drop an infobomb after this to flesh out the details of these things, I will content myself to pointing out the inconsistency in the argument presented. In any event, a refutation of intrinsic values can be found by Rand in The Virtue of Selfishness and Capitalism: the Unknown Ideal, Peikoff in OPAR, Smith in Viable Values, Biddle in Loving Life, and by plenty of non-Objectivists elsewhere (although it may generally be referred to as agent-neutral values by non-Objectivists.)

The glaring mistake here is that the author changes his argument right before he exclaims Rand’s ethics are “madness.” First he correctly states Rand’s denial of intrinsic values, but then he throws in the word “reality.” So now, Rand denies not only the intrinsic value of these aspects of nature (earth, trees, plants, animals, birds, frolicking sea lions) but the reality of these things. How did we get to value-judgments about things in reality being equal to the existence of things reality or of reality itself? How did we equate metaphysics with ethics? He doesn’t explain, he just throws the word in there, then declares all else madness and war against reality. Just like earlier he designated as “collectivism” any interpersonal cooperation whatsoever and wondered why Rand hated civilization, now we designate as “intrinsically valuable” everything that exists in reality and wonder why Rand hates reality.

Of course Rand would not deny the reality of reality, just any supposed moral value in facts of reality apart from a human conscious. And of course other living things, such as plants and animals, have values, but not morality, as they lack the necessary natures that would present a capacity or need of morality. (Which is the same reason why intrinsic values are impossible. Would the Mona Lisa be valuable to a plant? For what purpose? How would the plant recognize this?)

This is really an egregious act, which leads me to believe that this person is not at all interested in representing Rand accurately, much less critiquing her justly.

12

Objectivism claims collective entities such as countries, religions and cultures are epistemological and denies they are ontological. It does not deny they exist at all. Because they are epistemological, they cannot be considered ends in themselves and are in no way above individuals. Objectivism broadly denies any form of metaphysical hierarchy, not just that social constructs are more real than the people comprising them. The hierarchy that Objectivism acknowledges and explores is epistemological hierarchy.

There actually are people who think as Lawrence Auster describes. The real social atomists are the anarchists. Objectivism opposes anarchism.

The more fully developed argument behind what was linked in the OP is developed here: The Myth of Social Atomism. Note that rightists and leftists both argue in favor of collectivism in similar fashion.

how are anarchists atomists?

13

how are anarchists atomists?

By denying the morality and legitimacy of private property rights and a government that defends such rights they destroy any possibility of a peaceful non-coercive civil society.