Your critique here is based on incorrect assumptions about Objectivism.
I’ve read my OPAR and have a somewhat-decent-understanding of objectivism. I was not criticizing objecting though, only the broader enlightenment heading which Objectivism is definitely nestled under. You might be slightly annoyed that I nestled Objectivism as just some school under the enlightenment. Traditionalists tend to do that (look philosophies in a broader sense) to find their historical context.
To review, here is what a traditionalist reacts against:
- Man has rights.
Traditioanlists think that men have conditions under which they flourish, but nothing like Lockean rights that are just granted to them because they are men. Objectivism at least understands that rights are conditions of flourishment and not some gift granted from the heavens.
- Man’s own reason is sufficient to understand the truth.
Traditionalists obviously accept reason as a mode of finding the truth, but they use their inherited traditions as a starting point for exploration. De facto, this is mostly what everyone does anyway, but traditionalists emphasize it because it plays into their overall reaction against the enlightenment.
- It’s man vs. all.
Traditionalists think that the language of American liberalism (classical and modern) has deemphasized the important task of living: pursuing the good. When you talk constantly about the politics of empowerment, you tend to forget what it is you want to be empowered to do. Objectivists aren’t necessarily in this camp but most certainly the libertarians are (ie, at least objectivism is a comprehensive philosophy that proscribes what one is to do once he is empowered with his “rights”).
Now on to a few specific things as this is an interesting discussion.
Man survives by the use of his reason. Due to the division of labor, living in a community makes things easier, but it is not a necessity.
Now this is the single most important thing you stated in your response. What exactly do you mean here? Man cannot under any circumstance survive or thrive without a community.
Even if you were stranded alone on a desert island and managed to live a somewhat-fulfilling life (say eating, building, and thinking), you would have depended upon your parents and former community for giving you the capacity to fend for yourself, and you most certainly would have depended on your cultural inheritance to be given the ability to think and meditate productively.
Objectivists, and indeed most members in the school of enlightenment premises, have a very hard time explaining child-rearing. Everyone here knows that Rand brushed this issue aside. But even after that, nobody has given much of a sufficient explanation for why children have rights or even basic dignity. Most objectivists admit that they don’t based on their lack of rationality (although some have given silly defenses for child protection laws).
In conclusion:
Why have children, Mr. Objectivist?
Answer: Well, I don’t know. Maybe it might add to your long-term-self-interest by giving you a fulfilling experience? (never mind that in reality this would not hold water, at least it certainly didn’t for Howard Roark or Hank Reardon). Families in Rand’s novels, like in most enlightenment settings, are mostly portrayed as stifling, archaic institutions that hinder one’s ability to be fully empowered (aka, Reardon’s family, Keating’s family, etc.)
Again, for my entire life as well as for the entire life of everyone on this forum, we have been “coerced.” We have been guided. We have been taught. Now that we are capable of being self-sufficient with the great inheritance of our culture and traditions, we are told by the enlightenment to free ourselves from the bonds of the very communities that got us here to begin with.