Final Reply To A Wannabe Freedom-Denier

Final Reply To A Wannabe Freedom-Denier
by Manfred F. Schieder

Vienna, September 11, 2004

Dear Mr. Stolyarov:

This replies your message of August 31, 2004.

“For nine months they all care for me: the Church, the State, the doctors and the judges. After this I’ll have to look for myself how I will go through life. For the rest of my life nobody will care for me. But for nine months they are ready to kill themselves should somebody want to kill me. Isn’t this really a very strange way of caring?” (Kurt Tucholsky, 1890-1935).

One of the most valuable consequences of Objectivism is goodwill. Benevolence – not to be mistaken with charity - is the expression that no matter what terror, falsehood, and evil exists, somewhere on Earth - even if not anywhere in one’s surrounding or within one’s reach - there is a proper, human way of life possible to human beings where justice matters (Ayn Rand). This benevolent sense of life unites all Objectivists world-wide, wherever they may be and even if they have never heard of Rand’s philosophy.

Unfortunately there are also those who, under a disguise of Objectivism and confusing benevolence with simplicity, use this façade to carry out a destruction of Ayn Rand’s philosophy. I have known many and they happen to appear everywhere any now and then. I understand that I am right now facing such a case.

Being benevolent by reason I have offered you a workable solution so that both positions (abortion vs. anti-abortion) can be available to the choice of every human female. Unfortunately I have been disappointed once more. Evidently, it will take a longer time than expected to spread “the good news”, as my unfortunately already deceased acquaintance Beatrice Hessen told me with good humor when she visited me in Argentina. Your insistence of anti-abortion is just gruesome.

But I have noticed your position against Rand’s ideas not only in this instance. Also in several other instances, marriage for example, are you trying to establish an exclusive viewpoint which Rand herself never defended. On top of this you glorify Napoleon, one of the vilest criminals in history, and this speaks whole chapters on your true intentions.

In several parts of your messages, particularly in the one I am replying now, you try to show that Rand did not provide in-depth philosophical analyses of the Objectivist abortionist position. My, my, I have already mentioned all the articles where she did just that but, of course, stating that an argument is no argument is a very simple way to dismiss what Rand proved.

Beyond this and against your allusion that I accepted the Philosophy of Objectivism through a blanket judgment I stated already in an earlier message, that I came to Objectivism after a long process of rational considerations that started almost 20 years before I ever heard of Ayn Rand. Besides: what can you mean with “blanket judgment”? A blanket acceptance involves no judgment at all, so we are here confronted with a contradiction in terms so one of the underlying premises is wrong!

You state yourself that an Objectivist must adhere to the fundamentals of the Randian thoughts. But to adhere to these fundamentals demands the acceptance of the consequences of these thoughts: in the present precise case the acceptance to the right to abortion which, of course, does not and never went against the right to bear children if the mother wants it, as Rand herself very sensitively stated.

Both possibilities agree with another direct consequence of Objectivism which, for your own purposes, you conveniently try to evade: THE RIGHT TO OWN ONE’S OWN BODY AND THE CONNECTED RIGHT OF PERSONALLY DECIDING WHAT COURSE OF ACTION TO TAKE IN RELATION WITH YOUR BODY AND SELF. Your insistence to apply force against abortion, with the resultant fines, imprisonment or probably even death sentences for the mother, goes directly against the mother’s rights. It establishes FEAR as the social environment and this goes directly against the PERSONAL HAPPINESS which is one of Objectivism’s main premises. Fear also goes, of course, against the mother’s potential happiness. But you don’t care for the mother’s considerations taken in relation with her own and the child’s future under the present conditions of her life. Will she be potentially (to use a word you like so much) happy? Evidently not, else she would not be considering the option of abortion.

Further on, your continuous insistence of giving the child to adoption shows an appalling callousness for the conditions in which a human being might find itself at any time in its life. As a solution you offer abstinence as the sure birth control prescription. Here you go full throttle against the principle of lust and pleasure which Nature implanted in the very center of our brain as a principal motivating force for our search for happiness. Hence you give not just another evidence of a lack of gentleness but also of stalking against Nature. It has been proved since long that a state of pleasure is what our hypothalamus craves for continuously and it has also been proved that the suppression of pleasure generates societies where pathological remorse, gloom, irascibility, hate, desperation, bellicosity, despotism and warmongering dominate. Such societies are the worst human societies existing and they all have a religious undercurrent and are lead by religions of all kind and for their own malevolent purposes. Anti-abortionists are, of course, among those promoting the continued existence of such “cultures”. Stalinism, Nazism and so forth are a direct consequence of such religious currents, so there is no error in my arguing that there’s a direct relation between anti-abortion and dictatorship, whether you want to recognize this or not.

Can a standpoint of anti-abortion be maintained? Of course it can, but to do so one must reject the rational considerations which support abortion as a free, personal choice. Within Objectivism such a position cannot be held. Supporters of anti-abortion must then, necessarily, accept another “philosophy” which is not based on reason. Those who are atheists are then really, as I read somewhere, conservatives who don’t go to church.

Why should such another “philosophy” be not permitted to remain within the rational frame of reference of Objectivism? The explanation to this takes us to a long road which I will do my best to reduce to its essentials. First of all, if one favors Objectivism one must also accept its consequences. Whoever wants to attain certain goals must also accept the means to achieve them. What is not allowed is to change the consequences of Objectivism. The part cannot contradict the whole nor the whole the part.

To my knowledge David Kelley never made clear what he meant by saying that since Rand urged us to check our premises she never exempted her own. Rand meant by it that we had to check irrational premises against the rational premises on which Objectivism rests and from which the various issues involved are considered. Whenever a contradiction between Objectivism and our thoughts appears we have to change our thoughts, not the other way round. Changing the Objectivist premises would be to step back into irrationality.

Rand didn’t allow us to keep our cake and eat it too. Hence, what can never be meant (and should Kelley wanted us to do this he really made a monumental blunder) is to change the premises within the system for this equals changing the fundamentals of Objectivism. It is not necessary to write a whole treatise for every subject involved as other “philosophers” did and still do. A short sentence suffices, particularly in the case of Ayn Rand who basically started her literary activity as a script writer, an activity through which she learned to be concise and precise at the same time. For example, it sufficed for Rand to mention her position on actual-potential in a passing comment during a discussion held with several professors to clear the issue. Likewise, she never favored marriage as the only existing possibility either, a subject she took up during the “Playboy” interview. Many such instances can be found in all her writings, which is what makes Rand’s ideas so dynamic and fresh against the staleness of the other “philosophies”.

Observe that what you propose is to change Objectivism. Observe that no Neo-Platonist or Neokantian (or Neoyoucallit) will ever try to change Plato’s or Kant’s thoughts. If someone does he will clearly state that he opposes Plato, Kant or any other thinker and establish his own “philosophy” in opposition. What Neo-Platonist or Neokantians (or Neoleftists for that matter) do is to search and add additional arguments to sustain Platonism, Kantianism or, for that matter, Marxism. They look for other sources or “philosophies” that support or parallel what their guiding masters said and they will apply the ideas of their master-“philosophers” to subjects that came up after Plato, Kant, etc. had died, for example the Marburger School or the Badische School in the case of Neokantianism. So a different line of thinking than Objectivism can be created but I deeply doubt that it has then any right to claim to be rational. We had this part already in another message, so it is not necessary to repeat the issue.

(What is more: I hate repetitioning for it is unnecessary and does not replace argumentation. My brain still functions quite well so I see no reason whatever why you had to repeat your list of “potentials” in your last message!)

Let’s proceed. Your allusions that I am siding with hippies, feminists, etc. are wrong and completely out of place even where Objectivists and such creatures were to agree on a certain issue. Objectivism rejects such anti-cultures completely. I have often found that for certain issues Objectivists find themselves defending the same position as, for example, communists do. Barbara Branden herself wrote once in “The Objectivist Newsletter” that Objectivists can side with religious people if these defend Capitalism as the proper economic system, but the statements of both must then be issued separately and not be allowed to mingle. Why can there be such correspondences between opposing positions? Because their goal might be the same but the starting point is exactly opposite. Let’s reduce taxes, cry the conservatives. So do the Objectivists, but both start from totally opposing standpoints.

You also suggest that I side with eugenicists. If you mean by this those who propose to lead mankind’s procreation in a certain racial or ideological direction, as Lysenko did under Stalinism or Hitler’s “Lebensborn” or the elimination of Jews, demented people, homosexuals, etc. was, I must say that you are totally wrong. Objectivists never had and never will have this in mind. However, if we take eugenics as a natural phenomenon I must accept that Nature has been using it, through natural selection, along thousands of millions of years … and humans do so too. Else, we wouldn’t have the pleasure of so many beautiful women around us and, for that matter, horses would still have the size of dogs, cattle would not be able to yield so much milk nor wheat and other cereals, etc. have the size and taste they have. So much for your accusation of me adhering to eugenics. I haven’t decided on this. Nature did and much earlier at that.

Am I psychoanalyzing again? Call it as you may, I merely state facts, and it is a fact that your soulwretching for embryos and fetuses comes to siding with altruists. Besides you state that they have a volitional consciousness; I suppose that if you push it a little farther back you would come to agree that spermatozoa also has it for, else, how could it advance so decidedly towards the egg?

Against altruists Objectivists are SELFISH people and so is the philosophy which upholds them. To us everybody has a personal right to decide what to do and what is or isn’t convenient for his present and his potential future life. We don’t dictate over any other body but our own and self.

Did I forget something else in this writing? Oh, yes: Smoking. Since this is a symbol in the philosophy of Objectivism I look at it differently from you. Objectively I will have to live with this symbol. The Dollar-Sign cigarette is a symbol and as such stands as the fire in man mind. Since Rand mentioned it sufficiently often Objectivists will have to live with accepting it as a symbol… whether an Objectivist smokes or not. It will be used as a symbol and be understood as such, whether we actually smoke or not.

Should something have been left in the inkstand it will remain there for there is now something else I have to say:

I am thoroughly sick of people who state to be Objectivists and then run amok against the ideas of Objectivism. I am sick of living in a world of irrationality and violence and having to fight against people who promote even more violence and fear as their beloved type of society. I am sick of having to deal with powermongers and supporters of present or future dictators of all kind who want to impose their views against personal liberty and personal choice. I am sick of force and violence. I am sick of those who either will not or cannot think rationally.

Hence, this is the last communication exchange with you. A reply from your side will not merit any reply.

For I MEAN it!

Manfred F. Schieder

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