Principles at Work Again

I recently posted on a bit of squabbling among the Libertarians and got comments from both the author of the post and one Xrlq. Neither understood my point at all, which, given the point, came as little surprise to me.

Also coming as little surprise is the following emotionalistic, snide, and apparently gratuitous comment about Ayn Rand on a further elaboration (via Instapundit) by Xrlq on the matter:

If you're like me, you might read the above "questions" (or very thinly-disguised statements) and wonder if Mona is in some kind of competition with this chick over who can get higher on herself, or maybe against this chick [Ayn Rand. Who else? --ed] over who can be the more sanctimonious, self-righteous twit in the name of an ideology ostensibly based on tolerance. [Ayn Rand not only explicitly denounced Libertarianism, she did not base her philosophy, Objectivism, on "tolerance". --ed]

This is not just a pale imitation of the way my first wife's burned-out, pot-smoking, PLO-loving hippie of a Libertarian father would describe Ayn Rand with epithets at every opportunity, it illustrates beautifully a point Peter Schwartz once made about the relationship between Libertarianism and Objectivism. I quote the following from the condensed version of "Libertarianism: The Perversion of Liberty" found in the hardcover version of The Voice of Reason.

So while Libertarians believe there are many avenues to their notion of liberty, they apparently draw the line at Objectivism -- and they are entirely right to do so. Objectivism is incompatible with Libertarianism, on every philosophical issue. Objectivism says: live by reason, follow a rational code of morality, practice self-interest as a virtue, establish the principles of limited government to define the appropriate uses of retaliatory force. As its name implies, Ayn Rand's philosophy upholds an objective reality, objective cognition, objective values, and objective law.

Libertarianism's relationship to Objectivism is not merely that of an enemy, but of a parasite. Without Objectivism, there would, ironically, be no Libertarian movement today. It is Objectivism that has offered a moral defense of liberty -- which Libertarianism has stolen and mutilated. It is Objectivism that has imbued so many young people with a deep commitment to capitalism -- which Libertarianism has seized upon and corrupted.

Libertarianism seeks to appropriate some of the fruits of Objectivism while trying to uproot the tree. Its anti-conceptual nature makes it consistently desire effects without causes -- politics without ethics, liberty without reason, social change without philosophy. It wants to use the words of Objectivism's noninitiation-of-force principle, but not the ideas that give them meaning. It wishes to feed off the by-products of Objectivism's defense of capitalism, while repudiating the nature and roots of that defense. (332) [bold added]

One wonders whether Xrlq is "tolerant" enough to include Ayn Rand in his "big tent". If he does, one wonders why he heaps such scorn on someone he regards as a "fellow traveler" rather than calmly explaining for our edification how she went wrong. (Or why one would, after seeing his method of enforcing by insults the orthodoxy of "toleration", wish to travel with him.) If he does not, then he should shut his pie-hole about self-righteousness at once.

This also reminds me of another thing: Ayn Rand's observation that all men are guided by philosophical principles whether they admit as much or not. The only thing Ayn Rand and the other "chicks" Xrlq attacks have in common is, as far as I can tell, the insistence -- irritating to Xrlq -- that members of an ideological movement actually stand for the same thing. What an odd thing for a crusader for "liberty" to get one's panties in a wad about! Unless one remembers that the principle uniting all fervent Libertarians (besides the occasional naive newcomer) is the conviction that abstract principles are irrelevant.

As Nick Provenzo once put it so well, "Want to enrage a Libertarian? It's easy. Just have standards." That's all this stupid "schism" is ultimately about.

And it seems that, at least on that score, they no longer need help from Objectivism!

-- CAV

Updates

8-18-06: (1) In an update, Xrlq uses the "R-word" on me. How "tolerant" -- we both say we support "liberty", after all! -- and how predictable. "But what will most Libertarians do upon reading [something like] this? Sneer and mutter 'Randroid', most likely. Like I'm the one who can't or won't think."

Ho hum.

(2) He comments further here.

(3) Corrected Xlrq to Xrlq.