Unquestionable Irrationality
by Joseph Rowlands
Ayn Rand warned her readers to distinguish between the metaphysical and the man-made. The metaphysically given are facts of reality outside of our control. You can't get angry with gravity for existing. You can't get angry at the sun for shining. The man-made, on the other hand, is chosen and doesn't have to be that way. You should evaluate the man-made, and not assume it as an unchallengeable fact of reality. The man-made is not necessary, and can be changed.
I bring this up because lately it seems that there is an instance of the man-made that is being treated as if it were metaphysical. People don't bother evaluating it or disagreeing with it. They accept it as a firm fact of reality, and they learn to adjust to it. I'm talking about irrationality.
For whatever reason, people accept irrationality in others as an unchangeable fact of reality. When they find an irrational person, they don't think to oppose that irrationality. They accept it as a fact that you just have to get used to. They treat it as the metaphysically given. They adjust themselves to the irrationality, despite the fact that it's fundamentally at odds with reality.
Let me give an example of this. We frequently hear that if we retaliate against terrorist attacks, we'll just make more of the Muslims angry with us. It will create more terrorists. We can't oppose them in any way, or they'll get angry. We can't even tell them that reason and democracy are better than faith and dictatorship, or we're cultural imperialists. The terrorist's irrationality is taken as a given, and we need to work around it. Instead, we should buy them off. The rational are asked to compensate for the irrational.
There are other examples. I'll often hear a guy talk about his irrational girlfriend. She can act completely irresponsible, and he feels obligated to fix any problem she generates. He could let her suffer the consequences of her actions, but doesn't think there's a point. She's not going to learn from it, and she'll probably just take any frustration she feels out on him. So he treats it as just another fact of reality, something that can't be opposed or changed, and instead adjusts himself to it.
Or perhaps there's a manager at a company who stymies a project. Maybe he punishes the most productive people by making them do the most undesirable tasks. Maybe he micromanages people who don't need or want it, causing pointless distractions. Maybe he requires compromises between the competent and incompetent so the latter feels like they are contributing. In countless ways managers make a mess of things. But the usual response is to accept it as a given. "That's just his management style", they say. You have to get used to it. That's just the way things are.
Why is it that irrationality is taken as a metaphysical given? Why is the thought of opposing such irrationality deemed irrational itself? Why do we treat minor forms of irrationality as something we should oppose, but major forms of irrationality as something we should accept and adapt to?
I suspect the answer is simple. People think that you can't change someone who's irrational. And if you can't change it, you have to live with it. It may not be the metaphysically given, but it's pretty close.
"God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference". This is how Rand started her essay "The Metaphysical versus the Man-Made". You can see how it would be easy for others to lump irrationality into the things we cannot change.
Consider the perversion of justice that results from this view. Those who are completely irrational are accepted the way they are. There's no anger or desire to punish them, since it would do no good. But the closer someone is to being rational, the more likely they can be changed, and so punishment and moral indignation are reserved for them. An example common to anarchists is hatred of the US because "we should know better", whereas dictatorships around the world are shrugged off and excused because they don't have the history of reason and freedom that we do.
Similarly, terrorists can run around burning embassies and threatening lives when confronted with cartoons they find distasteful, while the Western nations are judged as villainous for hurting their feelings. There's an inversion of morality that takes place when irrationality is taken as a metaphysical fact. The more rational you are, the higher the standard you are judged by. The more irrational, the less moral judgments apply to you.
You can see this kind of inversion happen all the time. When someone is strongly irrational, people turn a blind eye to it asking "What did you expect?". When someone is mostly rational, they're held fully accountable for their actions. Take a pair of siblings. One is responsible, the other irresponsible. If the responsible one does something wrong, they get to hear "We expect that from your brother. But we expected better from you".
When irrationality is accepted as metaphysical, you don't argue or fight about it. You don't punish the person for their choices, since they'll just get mad at you. You forgive them and withhold judgment. You adapt to their irrationality, accepting it and learning to live with the inconvenience of it. You also probably rescue them from the results of their actions because they'll just take it out on you.
Understanding that irrationality is the man-made, and not the metaphysical, doesn't mean you can change the person. But it does mean that you shouldn't accept it. If someone is irrational, you shouldn't sacrifice yourself to let them live without consequence. You shouldn't protect them from the results of their choices so they can continue the illusion that irrationality is the easy way to live. You should not pervert justice by treating the irrational by a more generous standard. While we may not be able to make them be rational, they have the choice themselves, and we should acknowledge it and judge them accordingly.
Discuss this Article (19 messages)
|
