Of Heretics and Pagans
by Kernon Gibes
It's a curious thing. You might think that if you were, say, running a discussion group or choosing places to speak at, that you'd be more interested in people at least somewhat sympathetic to your positions than those diametrically opposed. For example, if you were going to have people "sign" a loyalty oath, would you -- as an avowed Objectivist -- be more concerned about closet communists or lurking libertarians? Is it naïve to think it would be the former?
The Ayn Rand Institute (ARI) is sometimes likened to the Catholic Church and Leonard Peikoff as its pope due to its treatment of Ayn Rand's writings as if they were holy script, laying down the "good word" of Objectivism for all time, immutably and absolutely. Often this comparison is just a joke, but perhaps the analogy hasn't been taken far enough.
After the Catholic Church came to power in Europe, it was common for it to be far more concerned with heretics than with pagans. Although pagans, in terms of church canon, were far more nonconforming than heretics, it was heretics that were rooted out and excommunicated or killed. Heretics directly threatened the power of the church hierarchy. Pagans, on the other hand, were not going to replace a church leader. And they weren't much of a real threat to the church itself, at least not after it had become the state-sanctioned religion of the Roman Empire.
Along similar lines, a communist is not much threat to the power or self-esteem of ARI officialdom. Socialists of all denominations can easily be dismissed. There is not much chance of a communist even appealing to, much less "winning over", an Objectivist. But a heretic -- an out-of-sanction Objectivist or a libertarian scholar -- is a much different matter. They are nothing less than a hurricane to a house of cloistered cards.
Ayn Rand advised people not to examine a folly, but to ask what it is aimed at accomplishing. If any political persuasion is permitted but libertarian, what does that suggest? Ask yourself the following question. If you were more interested in protecting your position than in spreading ideas or collecting converts, who would concern you the most... heretic or pagan?
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