Ayn Rand Gets (Some) Free Publicity

Blair over at Secular Foxhole is unhappy with two articles he encountered recently which both smear Ayn Rand. While I'm not happy to see Ayn Rand get smeared either, I take the long view and ask whether such attempts actually succeed.

I say that he's only half-right to be unhappy. Both articles did so poorly in the business of smearing Rand that I would urge him to take heart. Neither article will carry any weight whatsoever with anyone outside the narrow ideological confines of the audience for which it was written. The second is the more "successful" in smearing Rand, but this is only by accident: That author was aided by David Kelley and his pals in the Libertarian Party.

Consider the first article, which takes the form of a mock advice column and appears in a publication whose liberal slant is so over-the-top that nobody to the right of Noam Chomsky is going to be able to bear reading it for more than a paragraph or so. The first paragraph alone will tell anyone with a modicum of common sense that this is a publication with nothing of any substance (or humor, for that matter) to offer.

Rand['s] Objectivist credo made a virtue of selfishness and [her] fiction fawned over powerful "Individualists[sic]" like architects, capitalists, war-mongers, defense contractors, Joint Chiefs of Staff, flyboys with codpieces, white collar criminals and other cheery human-monsters bearing resemblances to Donald Rumsfeld and Dick Cheney.

Why are architects, a harmless breed from what I can tell, being lumped together with criminals and war-mongers? This fails to be funny because the grouping neither makes sense nor artful nonsense. What's intrinsically wrong with a defense contractor? "Cheery human-monsters?" This is too mean-spirited and stupid to be funny. Anyone who can bear reading past this first irritating, insulting paragraph is beyond hope anyway. (I forced myself to and got treated to something that made me wonder for a moment whether Aristophanes was the genius behind Beavis and Butthead.) The chances are that if the members of this audience have ever heard of Ayn Rand at all, they already hate her. Anybody else might be made curious about or reminded of Ayn Rand and, as a result, might read or re-read one of her works. Or end up at the Ayn Rand Institute's web site.

The biggest laugh from this piece comes from the realization that its author has not only failed to be funny, but has probably aided the cause of someone he so clearly despises.

Of course, it is not just the mindless, nihilistic left who attack Rand. The religious right can't stand her either. The left is today at an intellectual dead end. People who want and appreciate the value of ethical guidance aren't going to turn to an ideology whose ethics is best summed up in the phrase, "Whatever waxes your lance, man." Unfortunately, the only alternative that people are widely aware of to the nihilism or self-indulgence offered by the left is religion. As a result, attacks from the religionists will often carry more weight because they are usually arguing from some systematic ideology.

But I said, "Often." The second article (by one Rev. Mike Macdonald) cited by Blair is, fortunately, not that "good:" The weakness of the religious viewpoint, epistemology, is far too obvious here. Consider two passages that occur just five very short paragraphs apart.

(1) Objectivists reject the idea that anything called the "common good" exists. Though claiming to be totally rational and objective, the philosophy is based on faith in a proposition that contradicts the empirical evidence.

(2) Those of us who believe God reveals his will to humanity through the Bible also believe that all of our humanity has been marred by sin, including our rationality. It's not for nothing that "rationalize" means "to devise superficially rational, or plausible, explanations or excuses for one's acts, usually without being aware that these are not the real motives." Objectivism rationalizes the choice to be selfish. [italics and numerals added]

Well. Either faith is a means of knowledge or it isn't. If it is, how the hell can this minister complain about what he feels (incorrectly) is the Objectivist reliance on faith? If it isn't, then why should we listen to him at all, given that he "buttresses" his position with faith in the Bible? Indeed, if faith is a means of knowledge, why is he crafting this argument at all? If "God reveals his will to humanity through the Bible," what truth is there to be found in this man's profane scribblings? Anyone reading this piece critically at all is going to have questions like this.

And this blatant leap of faith is on top of the fact that this author admits he is arguing against some positions that are not exactly rare among Americans these days.

Many of these ideas have been absorbed by people who have never heard of Rand or Objectivism. The rejection of a common good, the rejection of taxes for any purpose other than the police and national defense function of the government, the notion that business should be totally unrestrained by government regulation, and the belief that all charity should be completely private are views held by many voters and politicians.

And his rebuttal? "I often hear Libertarians [sic] ask the rhetorical question, 'Am I my brother's keeper?' We should remember this question was first asked by Cain after he murdered his brother Abel (Genesis 4:9)," thumped out in Morse code against a Bible, no doubt. All this man has is faith and guilt, which are remarkably ineffective against average Americans, thank God.

But Americans do have an immense respect for reason. I have seen much more effective attacks against Rand leveled by religionists who buried their unfounded assumptions under many more layers of argument, making their objections seem much more formidable to the unwary or intellectually undisciplined reader.

As with the leftist smear, this attack might ordinarily only remind readers of Rand. Interestingly, this article does have an added wrinkle caused by its author's cluelessness with respect to Objectivism: He confuses Libertarianism with Objectivism. This can be blamed at least in part on his source for what he takes to be Objectivist positions, The Objectivist Center. (For an imperfect religious analogy, TOC would be like a "Bible Center" that issued "Bibles" with some pages from an actual Bible, some pages from other sources, and some pages to be filled in as you please. Would you be studying a Bible or not? TOC would say that you are.) This confusion might cause readers who would otherwise be receptive to Rand's ideas (after being reminded of them or made curious about them only to visit TOC) to confuse them with Libertarianism and, rightly in that context, reject them.

So, Blair, I'd say the lefty unintentionally gave a weak plug for Rand, and that the righty almost did, but was thwarted by David Kelley, Murray Rothbard, and their ilk at The Objectivist Center. The blame for the damage done by that otherwise ineffective article lies entirely at their feet.

For our culture to change for the better, a philosophical revolution must occur. This means that we must introduce better ideas into the culture. Kelley to the contrary, old ideas packaged as new will not work. This approach and its result, the politics of Libertarianism, may look like a shortcut, but they will lead to a blind alley every time.

When people are so obviously hungry as they are today for an alternative to the nihilism of the left and the blind obedience of religion, the proper course of action is: Offer them an alternative rather than more of the same. (And my readers know what "alternative" I mean.) Thanks to Rev. Macdonald, we see the importance of making sure that what is offered as "Objectivism" really is what it's supposed to be: the philosophy of Ayn Rand.

-- CAV

PS: Andy Clarkson of the Charlotte Capitalist reports that the Charlotte Observer published no less than four letters to the editor by Objectivists who picked apart the second editorial, by the Rev. Mike Macdonald.

Updates

6-28-05: (1) Corrected typo and some wording. (2) Added PS. (3) Crossposted to the Egosphere