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Thursday
August 4, 2005

The Non-Art of Objectivism by Marcus Bachler

There has been much criticism, on this website and elsewhere over the years, of the moralizing and cultish behaviour of Objectivists who digest and regurgitate Ayn Rand’s opinions and her philosophical pronouncements. I always believed that this dogmatic adherence to Objectivist doctrine was quite a recent phenomenon, probably encouraged by Ayn Rand herself and continued by her protege Peikoff. However, I’ve had to revise that opinion, because in The Art of Non-Fiction, I found exactly the same type of Objectivist cultish behaviour being criticized by Ayn Rand herself. (Read more...)
Discuss this Article (81 messages)

Thursday, August 4, 2005 - 3:51pm

Marcus,
It's so happened that my husband has been my closest collaborator...

PS. "sorbid"??? "extramaritial affairs" in plural? Good God, Marcus, what were you thinking?! Also, aren't there no pleasure in work?

(Edited by Hong Zhang on 8/04, 4:10pm)

Thursday, August 4, 2005 - 4:24pm

Marcus quotes Rand:
"Such a person guards his subconscious, because he worries that if he let himself go he might write improperly. Nothing could be better calculated to stop you from writing."

There has been a lot of supportive comments for this article, and I agree with them.

This self-censorship is very common in Objectivism, particularly in the arts. It is why a movement effectively based on two bestselling novels written half a century ago has produced little or nothing of any artistic note since. This paucity of artistic output should be contrasted with the immense volume of other types of Objectivist writing;political, philosophical, ethical etc, so it is unlikely to be a case of the broader social repression of Objectivist beliefs (it is actually the case that in hostile political and social climates, such as the Soviet bloc, anti-establishment art often *thrives*, albeit underground).

So I tend to think the source of the repression is *internal* rather than external. I tend to think Rand's emphasis on judgment over experimentation, on certain outcomes rather than trial and error, on condemnation rather than criticism, the emphasis on reason and the neglect of imagination, is the source of this.

It creates a climate in which art is judged by "PC" standards - standards of "Philosophical Correctness". You don't even want to put pen to paper creatively because you know that a creative act is always a risky one. You might make a mistake - no, not just might, actually you're *bound* to make a mistake. Because you are trying to do something original, something that hasn't been done before - so you can hardly know exactly what you are doing. Yet Rand often wrote about this sort of thing as if it was a kind of moral error -as if it was a moral error to be unsure, or to guess. And then there's the issue of the secure starting point - the irrefutable foundation your artwork, like your philosophy, must be built from if it is to stand up at all. But where exactly *is* that? How are you to be sure you're in the right place, at the right point in your Objectivist development to begin to create truly Philosophically Correct art? And just to add a disincentive to create, there's always some apparatchik somewhere who will accuse your experiment of being error, and perhaps that error of being evil, of being a "perversion of the principles of Objectivism" etc. etc. Because just about all interesting art has ambiguities and difficulties, it is just about all vulnerable to "cult of moral greyness" style attacks - if an artwork is not the purest "white" - whatever that is# - it is some kind of compromise with evil. And art purged of amibiguities and difficulties, with preset start and end points, and finally cross-checked for its degree of conformity to an ideological template begins to resemble not art at all, but propaganda. And few artists are interested in producing such work.

So, what happens to the creative impluse in this kind of hair-trigger intellectual environment? I suspect it tends to head for safer ground - to be sublimated into the fomulation and reformulation of "rules" and "principles" of art, to endless *analysis* of art, the reflexive *judgement* of art, interminable debate over whether this or that artwork conforms to this or that Objectively "PC" Principle...and the actual *creation* of bugger-all of it. It is once again the endless sharpening of the pencil, without ever getting around to drawing anything.

Naturally, being an artist Rand herself rejected this kind of apparatchik mentality. Her delightfully contrarian stylistic defence of Mickey Spillane in 'The Romantic Manifesto' shows an originality that many of her followers might have hesitated to express had Rand not done it first. But, just like Marx, just as she rejected it she did not seem to realise how powerfully she had encouraged it.

- Daniel

# Come to think of it, the "purest white"is a blank...

(Edited by Daniel Barnes
on 8/04, 4:54pm)

Thursday, August 4, 2005 - 5:59pm

What an insightful article and thought-provoking thread. I've just been through article and posts and given suitable sanctions of approval. :-)

I particularly enjoyed Daniel Barnes's post ruminating on the self-censorship of nominally Objectivist artists.

Thanks Marcus for this wonderful piece. :-)

Thursday, August 4, 2005 - 6:18pm

Daniel,

Rand also states in the book:

I propagandize for Objectivism constantly, in various degrees. But I bring it in, not by proving it, but by tying a given subject to its wider implications. This is because I am theoretician - and it is something that you should not emulate.

Now, the quote in my article:

The purpose of philosophy is to guide a man in the course of his life. Unfortunately, many Objectivists have not fully accepted, concretized, and integrated this principle.

I think that this is a problem that many Objectivists have with emulating Rand's ideas in their own lives.
Objectivists are not naturally the extreme "theoretician" Rand was and find it harder to "guide" themselves in this way from her wider implications.

Nevertheless, they know that they passionately agree with what she wrote and said - they just can't integrate that knowledge into their own lives.

So as a solution, they copy Rand's own propaganda style and opinions, or those of her fictional characters, or certain authority figures in the Objectivist movement. That type of approach can seem convincing, but it is in fact "ritualistic".

It reminds me of that scene from "the Life of Brian" whereby Brian tells his followers who think he is the Messiah not to fellow him because "you are all individuals". They all chant back to him in unison "yes, we are all individuals". Then he says, "you are all different", and they reply again in unison, "yes, we are all different."

Rand's theorizing in Objectivism could be getting much the same response from some of her followers too.

Thursday, August 4, 2005 - 8:13pm

Excellent article - The Art of Nonfiction, tragically, is one of the few as-yet published Rand works I have not read, so I will take steps to amend that asap. Who knew that Rand was such an anti-acolyte?

Of course, in her Playboy interview, she writes,
"Objectivism is its own protection against people who might attempt to use it as a dogma. Since Objectivism requires the use of one's mind, those who attempt to take broad principles and apply them unthinkingly and indiscriminately to the concretes of their own existence find that it cannot be done. They are then compelled either to reject Objectivism or to apply it. When I say apply, I mean that they have to use their own mind, their own thinking, in order to know how to apply Objectivist principles to the specific problems of their lives."

So, may we hope that this holds true, or are the fanatic "Randroids" unfortunate counter-examples?

Thursday, August 4, 2005 - 8:18pm

We all agree that ritualistic Objectivism is not the right interpretation, and at the same time we all agree that it's a pretty common one. Christians and Marxists, when faced with the way their theories actually work out when they get the upper hand, like to say these results are not what the theory "really" means. This declaration could survive the occasional anomaly, but when it's the regular result you have to figure that the ideals themselves have a hand in the outcome.

The same would seem to go for Objectivism. I think the reason is that, despite pro forma denials (Branden's hit print in 1966), the ur-writings of Rand and Branden judge people for the feelings and thoughts they experience. How do you know that Roark and (Dagny) Taggart and Hank Rearden are good and that Lillian Rearden and James Taggart and the case studies in Branden's Objectivist articles are bad? Far more from their mental states than from their overt acts.

This is going to take decades to work itself out. In the meantime we should do what we can to encourage such a working-out.

Peter

Friday, August 5, 2005 - 1:14am

Marcus, this is the first time I've used my "favorite article" icon. Well done, guy. And Daniel, your reply hits directly on the truth of it. That's no small feat when dealing with this subject-matter.

I am one who has "guarded" my subconscious when writing. It's a terrible experience. In that condition nothing you write works and you have no idea why. You work and work at it and the result is a confused mess. After putting a good bit of work into trusting my subconscious mind I have had a handful of dynamic writing experiences. I'm convinced that she's right about it.

What she doesn't tell you is that what your subconscious spits out might scare the living hell out of you! I consider myself to have it "together" pretty well and the results of my writing are quite distant from what you might expect from Mr. Together. The more freedom my subconscious mind gets the more I hit on taboo subjects in my writing. I know that the process is the best artistically because I look at the off-the-wall stuff and say, "Yeah, that's honest coming from me" whereas the highly analytical stuff seems contrived and fake every time.

A motto: Learn to trust yourself.

Friday, August 5, 2005 - 1:29am

To Daniel's point about the lack of quality Objectivist art, all the greats allowed their subconscious mind to run wild. Victor Hugo is a great example. Though he was certainly a brilliant and highly educated man he was not bogged down intellectually with the "Philosophical Correctness" that Daniel describes. The bad thing about that is that his philosophical premises were erratic. The good thing is that he could write, write, write free of the worries that so many Objectivist-types place on their each and every move.

Shakespeare afforded himself the same freedom. I'm a musician and can see that the same dynamic occurs with composers. They are not bogged down with morality. Beethoven worried but he wasn't worried about "Philosophical Correctness." When Paul McCartney was writing Eleanor Rigby he was not bogged down by worries over epistemology.

So the question for Objectivist-types is: how do we (1) maintain good premises and (2) dance in and out of the altered state of subconsciousness without detaching from those premises?

(Edited by Lance Moore on 8/05, 1:31am)

Friday, August 5, 2005 - 2:41am

Thanks, Marcus, for bringing these invaluable passages to our attention. For young, deeply-involved Objectivists, this is must-reading.

Of course, this isn't the only case in which Rand's actions had the tendency to contradict her own wisdom. (What comes immediately to mind is her disgusted reaction at the "cultish" atmosphere surrounding Frank Lloyd Wright at his school!) She would extensively edit every contribution to her magazine to come out looking the same stylistically, and just look how she made Peikoff rewrite his already-unoriginal "Ominous Parallels" over and over for 14 years before he finally completed it.

But that's not important. What is important is that deep-down she knew what was right in this regard. The corruption of art by ideology is one of the main reasons contemporary art is so awful (see Tom Wolfe's "The Painted Word"), and it's sad to think that most Objectivists are guilty of it in their own way.

I'll also add that at the essence of any story -- fiction or non-fiction, but especially fiction -- is conflict. Individualism versus Collectivism is a big one; but there are many more conflicts in life that need not be artistically shunned merely because they are not the most fundamental in the structure of Objectivism.

Alec

Friday, August 5, 2005 - 3:54am

So the question for Objectivist-types is: how do we (1) maintain good premises and (2) dance in and out of the altered state of subconsciousness without detaching from those premises?

What Rand was proposing is that you just write first naturally from your sub-conscious. Then you look over what you have written and analyse if it is good or bad - try to work out why it is bad and then change it.

That is what she claims to have done in her own writing. First she just wrote however it came to her (of course with a theme and plan or plot already in mind) and then she looked at every sentence and wondered to her self - is that good or could it be discarded or improved?

Friday, August 5, 2005 - 5:37am

Marcus,

I have only skimmed the article, but already I think it is excellent and I look forward to reading it more closely. I have definitely self-censored my contributions to this site, based on a concern about what I should be thinking and writing.

Have a drink on me (metaphorically of course, not literally - in case that smut-fiend Perigo starts getting the wrong idea :-)).

F.

Friday, August 5, 2005 - 8:08am

Jason,

Yes, of course, but you are preaching to the choir.

There is no demand for perfection or omniscience, but there is a clear demand for intellectual honesty. Intellectual honesty cannot take place when one is encumbered by silly emotional attachments to some group identification and worshipful deference to ideological authority figures.

Try telling it to ARI, or the Objectivist Forum. You'd be banned before your second post.

Friday, August 5, 2005 - 9:22am

Katherine,

You are right that there are many terrific people in ARI. I've met many of them first hand. I simply have disagreements with them about whether Objectivism is an open system, how to relate to other classical liberals, how Objectivism relates to science. I also think ARI Objectivists have a tendency toward confirmation bias when considering evidence that would support alternate viewpoints than their own.

I think it's terrific that you've done what Rand suggested and seen for yourself. You should also go to a TOC function if you get the chance and continue exploring SOLO to get a flavor of the differences and decide for yourself.

Jim

Friday, August 5, 2005 - 9:45am

I have definitely self-censored my contributions to this site, based on a concern about what I should be thinking and writing.

That's your problem Fraser. You spend too much time posing with wineglasses and not enough time losing your rag and posting drunken rants on SOLO ;-)

(Edited by Marcus Bachler on 8/05, 10:29am)

Friday, August 5, 2005 - 11:11am

Marcus, you have contributed what has to be one of the most important posts ever on this or any other Objectivist forum. Bravo! In addition to the sanctions I've just sent your way, this essay will become my "Favorite."

I'm also encouraged by Katherine's report from the recent ARI conference. Jim Heaps-Nelson (post 32) lists some of the substantive differences that remain between ARI and TOC, but I'm glad to hear that the dogmatism that characterized the former organization's earlier years is apparently waning. (I'd like to think that our criticism may have had something to do with that.) After a generation or so has come and gone, I'd love to anticipate a time when the factions within the movement wither away, and that good people from all sides can cooperate to advance Ayn Rand's heroic vision of Man's nature.

Finally, your post prompts me to make something clear about The New Individualist magazine, as it will emerge under my editorship.

The magazine will not be aimed at the tiny Objectivist subculture, but at much broader readership of intelligent and intellectually active people. To that end, I am actively seeking to feature individual voices -- not tape recordings of Ayn Rand's. I'm also seeking contributions from people who don't feel compelled to pepper each paragraph with citations from the Sacred Texts, "insider" Objectivist jargon, mentions of "Objectivism" this and "Objectivism" that, or sentences that begin, "As Ayn Rand once said..."

Such copycat ritualism will not be welcome in a magazine promoting rational individualism. I do welcome contributions from those who look at the world through the filter of the virtues and values of Objectivism; but what's important is their individual vision, not the propagation of the "ism" at every turn. I also welcome contributions from non-Objectivists whose positions and outlooks happen to coincide with ours on specific topics and issues.

For revised writer's guidelines that spell out what the magazine is all about, and exactly what I'm looking for from authors, please send me a note at:
rbidinotto@objectivistcenter.org.

I'll send you the revised writer's guidelines ASAP.

Once again, Marcus -- outstanding! And invaluable: Your post ought to be mandatory reading within the first year of everyone's first encounter with Ayn Rand's work.

Friday, August 5, 2005 - 11:17am

Daniel-

I think that most all of the points you make are spot on. After that though, it becomes pragmatic to me. "Don't fix the blame, fix the problem." -Henry Ford.

Now granted, Ford wasn't perfect. He was a fairly rabid anti-Semite, for one thing. But, the man was one of the greatest industrialists ever, and in this case, I think he was being very practical. So, these things we talk about speak to the situation, but how useful the view, our tone is, justifiable though it may be, comes into question in terms of solutions.

What you say rings true to me, though, and, from my vantage point, particularly so in terms of art, although right now I think that art, while so vital and important, is sitting backburner to so many other things. But that's kind of a status quo situation.

I know that reading the books profoundly affected the way that I approach both encountering and creating art. Over the years, I have come to the conclusion that it would be difficult, if not impossible, to make art that would somehow directly resemble the influence of Ayn Rand. I think the whole idea of that is kind of weird. As far as anything significant goes in music, maybe look at the band Rush, when they did what they did. There has been some writing on the entire topic.

As far as painting goes, the reactions have annoyed me. It seems like if it's not hardcore realism, it gets attacked from many angles. Personally, I think there's even room for artists like Jackson Pollock, under some circumstances. There's room for everybody in art. My stance is along the "But I don't think of you" kind of feeling, when some Objectivists have attempted to level standards at artists. They have been particularly brutal with Impressionists. I also found the recent article posting/discussion of Henri Matisse to be pretty much a big pile of it- that was just fucking silly. I suppose the only reason pointillism never took any big hits is because it is crafty and takes a lot of time to do. What other people think about abstract art doesn't concern me; I think sometimes people might buy abstract art because they just like it. There has been too much done trying to establish what is acceptable in terms of pallette, and that is just as foolish as tyring to get someone to enjoy green beans, when they don't. It gets people away from the fact that art, music, painting, etc. fill many needs, the least of which isn't just making people happy. It's hard enough to take a critic who makes their own art seriously, and for the most part I have found the whole thing to look like armchair football. It got literal, and that's predictable. I'm suprised there aren't more people out there trying to collect authentic "tiddlywinks music", whether they enjoyed it or not once they heard it. I probably would enjoy it, but I'm easy like that. Objectivism is at the point where most of its practicioners don't choose to learn how to interpret sacred art, because of their atheism, and that's their loss, as it was once mine. You don't have to be a, er, non-atheist to get sacred art.

I use visual art in most of my arguments, because it is a lot easier to find commonality when talking about music, and sometimes even books.

Art is way too open for people to fuck with; you just shouldn't do that! I don't care if you get garbage out of it. Art is a very busy, wide thing. It has a lot of truth in it, because it is able to withstand just about any kind of standard that someone imposes on it. Those in the community who spend a lot of time doing this confuse me as to purpose, right out of the gate. F.L. Wright was an awesome architect. It doesn't mean everything else sucks. It even means that you could do period architecture and it might not suck. Not easy, not my favorite, but it might not suck. Art is always derivative; if you get too close to the source and wind up doing a tribute, or so far away from it that no one knows why, that's your business as an artist.

(Edited by Rich Engle on 8/05, 11:37am)

(Edited by Rich Engle on 8/05, 11:46am)

Friday, August 5, 2005 - 12:28pm

Robert D -- Actually I have seen many cases of this here at SOLO. But you are right and you are welcome to forward my words on to Peikoff, Schwartz and Binswanger.

For those of you who have not read this before here is one more set of quotes in the same section of The Art of Nonfiction that Marcus used in this article. These very simple set of quotes get to the heart of what Ayn Rand attempted to explain and demonstrate in her different writings and why philosophy (and our constant, individual, contextual application of it) is the critical element in every decision we make no matter how simple or complex and no matter how important or unimportant that decision is. I have never seen a more perfectly worded description of the proper function of the human mind. This is from page 27 at the very beginning of chapter 4.

"First you need to grasp that there is no such thing as Objectivism or any other philosophy. Philosophy is the study of the fundamental nature of reality. "Fundamental" refers to a principle or truth which is present in a vast number of concretes. To say something is fundamental is to say that many truths depend on it. To say philosophy studies the fundamentals of reality means that it studies those facts presented in, and those principles applicable to, everything that exists.

Every abstraction, and thus every principle, is manifested in an incalculable number of concretes. It is what the concretes have in common -- but it does not exist apart from them. An abstraction is a form of human classification by which man integrates evidence provided by his senses. Man rises above the perceptual level by integrating his percepts into concepts, his concepts into principles, his principles into sciences, and all of his sciences into a philosophy. Abstractions are objective, ie., based on reality. But abstractions, including simple concepts of concretes, do not exist as such. What exists is only the material from which a concept is drawn."

So whether "Objectivism" is or isn't an open system is an irrelivent and silly question -- and this comes directly from Rand's mouth. Philosophy is always an open system because human beings will ALWAYS be integrating new knowledge and will be required to apply all old knowledge to brand new contexts. So I hope that this useless question will be considered closed once and for all.

- Jason

Friday, August 5, 2005 - 12:37pm

Jason wrote: "So whether "Objectivism" is or isn't an open system is an irrelivent and silly question -- and this comes directly from Rand's mouth. Philosophy is always an open system because human beings will ALWAYS be integrating new knowledge and will be required to apply all old knowledge to brand new contexts. So I hope that this useless question will be considered closed once and for all."

In an ideal world full of rational people, maybe. But since institutes like ARI have so much invested in being the carriers of the torch, guardians of the closed system of Ayn Rand, and holders of the copyright and collector of the money, I doubt that we'll see an epiphany any time soon...

Friday, August 5, 2005 - 2:16pm

Here is another great quote from The Art of Nonfiction,

No beginner should write without an outline. If I could enforce this as an absolute I would...

An outline is a plan of mental action. All human action requires a plan - an absolute projection. People tend to be aware of this in the physical realm. But because they believe writing is an innate talent, they think it does not require an objective plan. They think writing is inspirational. Yet trying to write without an outline is even more difficult than attempting some physical action without a plan.

I think she's right. Planning is very important, not just for Teutonics ;-)

Friday, August 5, 2005 - 2:23pm

Marcus -- A very fine post indeed!!! You really nail the problems of what Rand herself called ritualistic Objectivists and how, when we are trying to communicate to a particular audience, reciting Objectivist beliefs as if they were magic formulas just won't work. I'm inspired to reread the Art of Non-Fiction.

I also wonder if a certain Noodle on another website -- who is always bashing me and others like me for not making each op-ed either a philosophical treatise or litany of moral denounciations -- has read that book, much less understood it.