RoR: Forum

Nice article. I recently watched Yaron Brook give a wonderful talk to a Minnesota Tea Party group. The group "always start with a prayer," and they did that time, too. I actually wondered why this is necessary when guests are present. Wouldn't it be more appropriate to pray after the event instead of holding everyone hostage during the ritual? It reminded me of stories I've heard of church groups who claim to be helping the hungry by making them sit through a sermon before giving them a sandwich.

Anyway, MOA missed a huge opportunity by withdrawing. Surrendering (thus, sacrificing) ground rightly owned by them isn't conducive to either group. Big mistake in my view.

Post 1

Friday, November 4, 2011 - 8:26pm

More on this:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xwfH0MUqK34&feature=feedu

Post 2

Friday, November 4, 2011 - 11:12pm

As the article mentions, Rand wrote a letter to a Reverend Dudley in 1943, explaining why her philosophy poses no threat to the practice of religion among free men.

I believe that my statement of man�s proper morality does not contradict any religious belief, if that belief includes faith in man�s free will. My morality is based on man�s nature, on the fundamental attribute of his nature which distinguishes him from the animals � his rational faculty. Since man is a rational being, his morality must be individualistic, for the mind is an attribute of the individual and there is no collective brain. If it is held that man is created by God, endowed with an immortal soul and with reason as an attribute of his soul, it still holds true that he must act in accordance with his nature, the nature God gave him�.

She went on to acknowledge Christianity as a religion which respects the free will of individuals:

Christianity was the first school of thought that proclaimed the supreme sacredness of the individual. The first duty of a Christian is the salvation of his own soul. This duty comes above any he may owe to his brothers. This is the basic statement of true individualism�.Christ did say that you must love your neighbor as yourself, but He never said that you must love your neighbor better than yourself � which is the monstrous doctrine of altruism and collectivism. Altruism � the demand of self-immolation for others � contradicts the basic premise of Christianity, the sacredness of one�s own soul."

However, in her 1964 PLAYBOY Interview, she said the following:

PLAYBOY: Has no religion, in your estimation, ever offered anything of constructive value to human life?

RAND: Qua religion, no � in the sense of blind belief, belief unsupported by, or contrary to, the facts of reality and the conclusions of reason. Faith, as such, is extremely detrimental to human life: it is the negation of reason.

Evidently Rand's view of religion had evolved into something less complimentary. Accordingly, ARI takes a dim view of religion, and does not consider it compatible with a morality of rational self-interest.

For example, here is what Objectivist Craig Biddle has to say about religion vis-a-vis the Tea Party.

http://fightinwordsusa.wordpress.com/2010/02/25/tea-party-needs-new-morality-claims-objectivist/

(Edited by William Dwyer on 11/05, 12:04pm)

Post 3

Sunday, November 6, 2011 - 5:05am

Thanks for the link, Tress. I usually do not invest much in talking heads, but I was pleasantly surprised to learn that I had not understood the spin, "Love thy neighbor as thyself" to mean "... but not more than thyself." So, that was interesting.

Coincidentally, when I logged out, this was the Random Blast from the Past:
http://rebirthofreason.com/Articles/Parille/Ayn_Rand,_Objectivism,_and_Religion_(Part_2_of_4).shtml
(change the URL to 1_of_4 etc, or link back with a Search, for the whole thing. I did not. This was enough for now.)

It suggests the obvious claim (as from William Dwyer above), that Ayn Rand solidified her personal philosophy into the formal presentation of Objectivism the 1950s. We know that she considered (and ultimately rejected) Nietzsche. It would be surprising that no other reformulations took place. Just speaking aesthetically for myself, from the first time through the last that I read Atlas Shrugged cover to cover, the characters got younger and more heroic. We live and learn.

This also casts a light on taking Objectivism as it existed in 1957 as the full and final embodiment of rational-empiricism; certainly, it would also be possible to retrace the roots and tendrils to check the premises for other conclusions. Objectivism - like logical positivism or perhaps any such body of thought - cannot be just whatever the heck you want it to be. Nonetheless, no such philosophy can be limited to ex cathedra rules and warnings.

I am currently reading works by and about Karl Popper. I do not intend to defend him or speak to his ideas, but only to say that I found his explanation of Immanuel Kant as the epitome of the Enlightenment to be, well, "enlightening." As I have been reading Popper, he is not speaking to me of absolute truths - even when he claims to be - but only revealing himself. I see that now in Objectivism as expounded by Ayn Rand. It was, indeed, her philosophy. It may well resonate with others. It does with me. But two guitar strings resonating are not the same string.

The point here is that in this debate in Minnesota, both sides were intransigent and. as TSI notes, both lost. Perhaps that speaks deepest to the limits of political process versus market actions. In commerce, money price lets us meet in the middle without compromising principles. Once you remove price, negotiations can only be about principles. What price freedom? What profit it a man to gain the world and lose his soul? What does it mean - as expounded and declared by all of self-proclaimed high moral status - that our beliefs are not for sale?

(Edited by Michael E. Marotta on 11/06, 5:09am)

Post 4

Sunday, November 6, 2011 - 4:55pm

Still more: http://www.frumforum.com/ayn-rands-atheists-are-crashing-the-tea-party

The mischaracterization and ignorance within the Tea Party continues...

I wish this stuff didn't piss me off the way it does.

(h/t Yaron Brook)

Post 5

Sunday, November 6, 2011 - 5:44pm

Teresa,

I react the same way... feeling disgusted or irritated.

It is the social conservatives, the religious right, that is trying to take over and own the Tea Party which has only been about small government, spending no more than you take in, and living within the constitution. Libertarians and Objectivists have just collaborated because of the existing overlap - the total agreement in those goals.

These people would walk all over their grandmothers like she was a door mat if it would let them force through laws on gays, prayer or abortion. If the left were the friendlier of the two to religion, social conservatives would become social progressives in a flash - whatever would let them move a step closer to at least a partial theocracy. They talk about secular societies lack of tolerance for religion, but they have no tolerance for any deviation from their view of a nation of evangelical Christianity.
---------------------------

Here is one of the comments following that blog post (with my comments interspersed - inside brackets):

"You can indeed behave morally without subscribing to any religion. Absolutely." [True]

"The Ten Commandments did not invent morality, any more than a physics book invents the speed of light. Both merely describe what already exists." [True, to a degree]

"We find condemnations of murder, lying, stealing and adultery in the Bible before the Ten Commandments were pronounced. The Ten Commandments are a distillation of moral concepts already long held." [What? 'Thou shalt have no other gods before me.' That was part of morality before it was made a commandment? What about, 'Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image, or any likeness of any thing that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth'?]

"But, in the absence of some external basis for morality, it is meaningless to claim that your concept of morality is binding on anyone else. So you can behave morally in the sense of following common moral precepts, but you have no basis for calling it �morality� or claiming anyone else is obliged to take it seriously. It�s what you prefer to do, nothing more. And if you invoke societal standards, then you�re merely substituting group preferences for individual ones. No doubt, if the Nazis had won World War II, we�d have a very different set of societal standards. In the absence of any objective external standard, their morality would be just as valid as ours." [So, they have been inscribed on stone tablets and carried down Mount Sinai by Moses or they have no "external basis"? If it isn't in the bible, then it is no more valid than whatever the Nazis lived by! Note the word "binding" in the first sentence. In their minds their morality has this special "basis" and because of that they get to make it "binding" on everyone else. That is the heart of their arguments.]

"There�s objective reality and solipsism, and it doesn�t matter what rhetoric you use to support your solipsism. If it doesn�t have a basis outside yourself, it�s merely solipsism."

For people like this, they are right that Rand was their enemy.

Post 6

Sunday, November 6, 2011 - 5:50pm

I think of those whose primary political objectives are based upon Christianity, like the hard core religious right, as being outside of the Tea Party and trying to get in, or trying to capture the Tea Party, or trying to 'cleanse' it of non-evangelicals.

Post 7

Sunday, November 6, 2011 - 6:21pm

Ayn Rand said that politics is not the place to start. Whatever her views on religion were (over time), the fact remains that outside of what she would have labeled a folksy crackerbarrel advocacy for small government, they lack a logically coherent philosophy. Consider this CBS poll from 2010.

http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-503544_162-20002534-503544.html

Compare and contrast McCain's numbers versus Paul's - especially the "unsure" - and it obvious that these pragmatic, range-of-the-moment gatherings would eventually be antithetical to the essential elements of Objectivism, despite their borrowing from it. The same was true of the Libertarian Party, which is why Ayn Rand never endorsed it, and was hostile to it.

If asked, "What do you think of Immanuel Kant's theory of noumena versus phenomena as it relates to the Bill of Rights?" what range would the replies of self-indentified Tea Party protestors include?

On another note entirely, look again at the video from TSI in #1 and note the body language:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xwfH0MUqK34&feature=feedu

The host is stretched out. The Objectivist is balled up; he has his feet hooked into the chair's footrest. I think that this is deliberate. The show producers put guests in these chairs. They put their feet on the rests, and then their own feedback tells them that they are on the defense, as, indeed, he was.

Post 8

Sunday, November 6, 2011 - 7:55pm

The founding fathers were a minority, but bright, articulate and effective. They lived in an era where personal responsibility wasn't an option - it was mandatory - it was the norm.

Add a couple hundred years of government schools and look at a society where technological innovation and massive amounts of national wealth have separated most of us from direct contact with the earth our sustenance requires, from making a living with our own hands, and personal responsibility has become nearly optional - very, very few in our country can even envision life without big government.

To get back to the principles that need to be applied will take time and it will require that a significant portion of the population catch up on just a basic understanding free enterprise and small government.

Never will a large portion of the population understand Kantian philosophy. Nor is it required.

The Tea Party is an EXCELLENT start. Anyone that wants to wait till the majority of Americans are all knowledgeable Objectivists before starting to make changes to the political structure shouldn't hold their breath - and doesn't understand what political change requires.

Post 9

Monday, November 7, 2011 - 6:28pm