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Wednesday
April 17, 2002

Dogma and Development - Thoughts on the evolution of Objectivism by Barry Kayton

Four decades after the publication of Atlas Shrugged, the groundswell of people familiar with Ayn Rand and Objectivism continues to grow. Year after year, Ayn Rand's fiction attracts bright, eager, young people, many seeking a golden highway to Galt's Gulch. But beyond Ayn Rand's fiction lies a disappointingly narrow land of interesting articles, abstract philosophy and, for many, authoritative dogma. (Read more...)
Discuss this Article (33 messages)

Friday, May 24, 2002 - 6:13pm

Hi Barry,

I have to say that this is an excellent and quite comprehensive article! I wish I had said all that, and I agree with all of your points whole heartedly.

I don't have anything to add, but had to say that this is a source I have to keep coming back to as it does encompass all the thoughts I've had on the Objectivist movement (and some I hadn't thought of :) and even possibilities of where it can go. I hope to find a niche in the 'translation' area of Objectivism and hopefully I'll have lots of good, clean competition and even helpful criticism!

What an article!!! What an inspiration! And motivation to do more, add a personal spin to a very personal philosophy!

Joy :)

Thursday, May 30, 2002 - 1:00pm

Hello Joy,

Thanks for the compliments. As I mentioned in the article, I probably won't make a habit of writing too many more like it. I'd much rather spend my time developing new ways to present objectivist ideas creatively.

Wait til you see "Discover Freeland"!

Barry

Tuesday, June 4, 2002 - 5:33pm

Barry, I believe you have found many better ways to promote Objectivism. I intend to take a similar approach with my music. I think I have found a similar idea vacuum in pop music. I believe that if I were to promote my music not as classical music (as most producers and labels would undoubtedly try to do), I would just promote it as being represenative of a new fresh style and sound and seek to gain a share of the pop-culture market. I believe they could use it the most. I have been told by audience members that my compositions have made people "feel good in a way that [they] had never felt before." I want to help them identify that feeling and where it comes from. I want to be able to use that as a basis for spreading Objectivism. Wherever I see evidence of true exahltation, I know that I have seen evidence of a functioning mind. I plan on saying more in the music section of the general forum if anyone is interested.

Pianoman

BTW "Discover Freedland" sounds like it is going to be AWESOME! Good luck with it! I look forward to finding it in Barnes and Noble someday.

Sunday, June 9, 2002 - 2:54pm

Pianoman,

What you say about your music sounds intriguing. Let us know how to buy a CD.

With respect to "Freeland" -- I'm aiming to make it available to order over the Internet before Christmas.

Barry

Monday, June 10, 2002 - 6:42pm

The whole CD thing will probably take years as I need money. I plan to go commercial in about five years, as I want to make sure I have at least my bachelor's degree in music composition (my goal is a doctorate so I can teach if my career doesn't pan out). I have a lot of midi files that I could probably make into a CD (if I convert the files to huge mp3s) or I could just email the midi files to those that want them. They are very small files (around 20 K per file) and my whole collection is about 2 megabytes at most. If I was good with HTML, I would just make my own webpage with the files available for download. I've already got another thread going in the general forum though. I hope Freedland turns out to be the success I'm thinking it will be.

Pianoman

Tuesday, July 16, 2002 - 6:57am

I just wanted to comment that Barry's points are well taken. At The Objectivist Center we aren't not doing the things Barry suggests simply because we love criticism. It's because we don't have the projects to support and especially the skilled people to execute them well. I would love to have or simply know of a Tony Robbins-sized operation that taught Objectivist principles: but as yet neither I nor anyone else working with TOC has the skill to create such a thing at the nuts-and-bolts level.

We at TOC have a standing, if occasional, fellowship program to support the creation of viable intellectual and activist publications that develop, apply, or promote Objectivist ideas. I invite anyone reading this who can undertake a such a project with strong publication potential to contact me to discuss the possibility of working with TOC to make it happen.

Sunday, December 15, 2002 - 9:06pm

An informative article... though in the realm of new media I think it's a shame that objectivist Cartoonist Steve Ditko didn't warrant a Mention. He was the co-creator of Spider-Man and sole creator of such objectivist heroes as The Question, Static, and Mr. A. As an aside he was the reason I (as an individual) originally studied objectivism and the works of Ayn Rand in the first place, so he must be doing something right.

Monday, December 16, 2002 - 10:30am

The omission of Steve Ditko was an unfortunate oversight. His work does indeed warrant a mention. I recall that Dr Chris Sciabarra was doing some research on Ditko and others working in the sphere of popular culture. If my memory is correct, I look forward to hearing more about that.

Friday, January 21, 2005 - 7:45am

I encountered this article buried in the archives, and given our most recent poll and the recent call to revive old threads, it struck me as desireable to comment here. I think this article is insightful in its analysis of issues hindering modern Objectivism.

To borrow an idiom from FreeRepublic, bump!

Friday, March 3, 2006 - 2:21pm

This is indeed an EXCELLENT article - one which should never be buried in the pile, but brought forth more often than not, just to keep re-inspiring this kind of outlook..... as with 'pianoman', so with me as an artist, am going forth spreading a rational, uplifting, pro-human view of the world - 'showing' as it were possibilities and aspects of that 'idealized world in which our values have been achieved'.......

I particularly enjoyed the use of ARDS........ terrific.......

(Edited by robert malcom on 3/03, 2:33pm)

Friday, March 3, 2006 - 11:20pm

Oddly, this article follows a similar reasoning I've taken with the majority of so-called Objectivists that see themselves as Christ returned, insomuch as I take only their opinion as such until they are capable to explain their point of view on the issue or issues discussed. One thing that bothers though, about the majority of the Objectivistic or Objectivist organizations is the need to force complex issues into uncomplex ideas, assuming that all ideas are some how reducible as if we're all logical positivists just without the name attached. And, that bothers me greatly since there are indeed principles to human action, especially morality and knowledge, but these principles in themselves are not as simple or as unsubtle as many a so-called Objectivist would assume.

I think the biggest reason for the misunderstandings is also that often I've seen neophytes to Objectivism or any philosophy take upon one key idea without seeing how that idea evolved or developed in the first place. And how it connects to other ideas. Thus, such people set themselves up for a fall anyways, and often such people will try to defend the indefensible despite the plead to reason and sound argumentation.

Although, I do think the divisiveness as it is right now is beginning to wane since many a non-Objectivist is interested in the philosophy from an academic point of view, without going all Shermer on us too, and are willing to logically debate issues out. It's not to say that tommorrow at some big name university there will be a professor teaching Objectivism to students in the philosophy department, but I think professors of philosophy are becoming more than willing to hear out our point since the fad of Post-Modernism is becoming tattered and fruitless for them...And I think that is where it all counts, getting a voice where we had none to begin with...

-- Bridget

Monday, March 6, 2006 - 7:43pm

Bridget, your post was interesting. But, because you haven't provided details and have been deliberately vague it's impossible to understand what you're talking about.
Can you give us examples of complex issues being forced into noncomplex ideas?

Monday, March 6, 2006 - 8:43pm

The article, without question, has its merits.

From my observations, as an Objectivist political activist, the problem of atomistic individualism is a real concern. This was his strongest point. He also offered great suggestions.

Unfortunately, however, he offers up the same old straw-man arguments we have all heard before by those amoung us who claim to have a better way.
I think it is always important to remember that complex abstract knowledge needs to be communicated in plain language so that our ideas can convince the masses. The choir, of course, can now applaud! Yet, we know that Ayn Rand was not Heidegger. Ayn Rand was a fiction writer. She convinced others because of her accurate"plain talking" style of writing. So what's his problem with Ayn Rand's methods of persuasion? It seems to me he has a problem with the legacy of Ayn Rand's ("malevolent") style of pronouncing moral judgment on certain ideas. Confusing altruism and benevolence is a false concern. Rand made it clear that she was attacking self sacrifice, not egoistic kindness. In "The Fountainhead" Rand gave examples of benevolence.

(Edited by Wayne Simmons on 3/06, 10:36pm)

(Edited by Wayne Simmons on 3/06, 10:39pm)

(Edited by Wayne Simmons on 3/06, 10:43pm)

Saturday, March 11, 2006 - 5:12pm

There's nothing wrong with "plain talking" to get a general idea across. But then, the questioning must occur as well to unpack the "general idea" a.k.a. "plain talking" into depth and wisdom. The axiom "consciousness is identification" is true (you've got to be 'conscious' to identify something-- including yourself), and is straightforward *generally*. People can get what it means with one or two descriptive sentences. However it can be unpacked, with questioning not of the axiom's truth, but critical thinking to gauge its depth. The point I see here is the questioning part. That's important-- to know why something's true, in one's own proactive mind, rather than just accepting it without thought.

Saturday, March 11, 2006 - 6:12pm

Jenna wrote,

The axiom "consciousness is identification" is true (you've got to be 'conscious' to identify something-- including yourself), and is straightforward *generally*. People can get what it means with one or two descriptive sentences. However it can be unpacked, with questioning not of the axiom's truth, but critical thinking to gauge its depth.

It is true that you have to be conscious to identify something -- that consciousness is a necessary condition for identification -- but that's not what the statement "consciousness is identification" means. It doesn't just mean that consciousness is necessary for identification; it means that consciousness is both necessary and sufficient for identification. In other words, it means that to be conscious of something is to identify it. Similarly, to say that existence is identity does not simply mean that existence is necessary for identity, but also that it is sufficient for identity. In other words, it means that to be is to be something in particular.

Now the statement, "existence is identity" seems clear enough. Something cannot exist without possessing identity. So, in that sense, we can say that existence is identity. But what about Rand's statement that "consciousness is identification." That statement is less clear to me, for it seems that consciousness could exist at a certain stage of development without involving identification. In fact, Rand herself says that "Reason is the faculty that identifies and integrates the material provided by [man's] senses." She elaborates: "The task of his senses is to give him the evidence of existence, but the task of identifying it belongs to his reason; his senses tell him only that something is, but what it is must be learned by his mind." (AS, p. 1016). But then it would seem that, according to Rand, consciousness is not necessarily identification, since (as she says) one can be conscious on a sensory level that something is without identifying what it is. So why, then, does she say that consciousness is identification?

Any thoughts?

- Bill
(Edited by William Dwyer
on 3/11, 6:21pm)

Saturday, March 11, 2006 - 6:23pm

Bill,

In other words, it means that to be conscious of something is to identify it.

People can make false identifications, and when they do, I'd still call it consciousness. Any thoughts?

So why, then, does she say that consciousness is identification?

I think the mistake here is that she didn't see that there are different levels of identification-- or mainly that she didn't consider sensory as identification. Sensory is the lowest level of identification. Politics, social interactions, more abstract physics, etc, are all much higher levels of identification. So then, I'd say that there are also different degrees or levels of consciousness. A thing that senses and only has very action-reaction type behavior has the lowest level of consciousness.
(Edited by Dean Michael Gores
on 3/11, 6:33pm)

Saturday, March 11, 2006 - 8:42pm

["Consciousness is identification"] means that to be conscious of something is to identify it.
People can make false identifications, and when they do, I'd still call it consciousness. Any thoughts?

I guess it depends on what is considered the object of your consciousness. Suppose I see someone who, I think, is my friend, Mark. But when I get a little closer, I see that it's not Mark at all. I did not (correctly) identify my friend, even though I thought that I had, and therefore it is also true that I was not aware, or conscious, of my friend. But I was conscious of the person whom I falsely identified as my friend. So, to falsely identify someone as your friend is not to be conscious of your friend, but it is to be conscious of the person whom you falsely identified as your friend.

So why, then, does she say that consciousness is identification?
I think the mistake here is that she didn't see that there are different levels of identification--or mainly that she didn't consider sensory as identification.

But she says that consciousness is identification and that sensory awareness is a form of consciousness, while also saying that identification does not occur on the sensory level, because one's senses tell us only that something is, not what it is, which is what identification consists of. So she is really saying that rational consciousness is identification, except that she doesn't say that. She says that consciousness is.

Sensory is the lowest level of identification.

It's not identification, according to Rand.

- Bill

Saturday, March 11, 2006 - 11:50pm

Then Rand was wrong: or her definition is not the same as mine, and less useful than mine.
(Edited by Dean Michael Gores
on 3/11, 11:52pm)

Sunday, March 12, 2006 - 4:17pm

Then Rand was wrong: or her definition is not the same as mine, and less useful than mine.

Identity means sameness. When we talk of two "identical" twins, for example, we are saying that they are both the same. Similarly, when I "identify" someone in a lineup, I'm saying that he is the same person that I saw commit the crime. I "recognize" him from my previous observation. But not every act of awareness involves identification. For example, awareness that is limited to sensations does not. According to Rand,

A sensation is a sensation of something, as distinguished from the nothing of the preceding and succeeding moments. A sensation does not tell man what exists, but only that it exists.)
The (implicit) concept "existent" undergoes three stages of development in man's mind. The first stage is a child's awareness of objects, of things--which represents the (implicit) concept "entity." The second and closely allied stage is the awareness of specific, particular things which he can recognize and distinguish from the rest of his perceptual field--which represents the (implicit) concept "identity."
The third stage consists of grasping relationships among these entities by grasping the similarities and differences of their identities. This requires the transformation of the (implicit concept "entity" into the (implicit) concept "unit".

So the concept "identity" implies the concept of "recognition"; to identify something is, in some sense, to recognize it as the same as some other (previous) object of awareness. A pure, isolated sensation does not constitute identification. But neither is reason required for identification. I would say that my cat recognizes, and therefore identifies, me as the same person she saw yesterday. But I don't think that insects are capable of recognition or identification, as their awareness is restricted to the level of sensations.

So I don't think there's anything wrong with Rand's concept of identification. I just don't see how consciousness can be equated with identification, as she says in Galt's speech.

- Bill

Sunday, March 12, 2006 - 4:22pm

I just don't see how consciousness can be equated with identification, as she says in Galt's speech.

It is is you recognise she's referring to the explicit, not the implicit.