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Tuesday, December 6, 2005 - 10:49amSanction this postReply
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On Chris Sciabarra's Notablog-blog, he recently posted his thoughts on an artcile written in The London Review of Books, by Jenny Turner. Chris's response can be found here .

Mrs. Turner wrote an error filled and vicious article that parades the usual dishonest attacks on Rand's life, and most especially, her ideas. After reading Chris's comments, I made some observations of my own, and added a few questions.

My comments/questions can be found here  .

The heart of my question is: To what degree do you feel that Ayn Rand’s writing style lends itself to "HONEST" misinterpretation of her ideas?

I would be interested in getting some feedback to my questions from the posters on this site, any and all comments would be appreciated. I respectfully request that your comments be directed towards the questions I asked of Chris, and not towards the arguments made by Turner in her article.

Especially welcome, and hoped for, are any comments from Tibor Machan, Robert Bidinotto, Jeff Perren and Adam Reed.

Thank you,

George

(Edited by George W. Cordero on 12/06, 11:54am)


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Tuesday, December 6, 2005 - 11:18amSanction this postReply
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"The heart of my question is: To what degree do you feel that Ayn Rand’s writing style lends itself to "HONEST" misinterpretation of her ideas?"

She did not write with hesitation. She wrote in a direct, *self-assured* style. She made judgements! In a time when intellectuals strive to be inclusive, and, to "see all sides of an issue", she did not blather about, (or rather she looked, evaluated and pronounced desisive judgement). To those who tend to write reviews and critiques this is anathema. So yes the style evokes a knee jerk, bitter, small minded reaction. But there is dishonesty as well, because many do not actually engage the *ideas* themselves. This is dishonest. Honest disagreement is one thing, deliberate mischaracterization is quite another.

regards
John


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Tuesday, December 6, 2005 - 11:33amSanction this postReply
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George,
I can't right now provide you with the length and depth your question deserves. So I limit myself to some brief remarks.

Like Mill(?), Rand wrote "clear enough that [s]he could be found out". Except in her case what one found out was almost always correct.

Almost any moderately intelligent person over, say, twenty, who doubts the fundamentals -- and in many cases many of the applications -- of what Rand wrote is, at minimum, being dishonest to some degree. Mistakes of that kind, to use the sometimes vilified phrase, are not made innocently. (That said, there are degrees of moral breaches.)

To be more specific would require cases, which we can take up later.

Jeff


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Tuesday, December 6, 2005 - 11:38amSanction this postReply
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I've no time now for anything elaborate, but here goes:

Turner's article is primarily a critique of Ayn Rand's politics, severed from the rest of Rand's philosophical thought and from Rand's existential and artistic contexts. It is a predictable result of the destructive disciplinary specialization of contemporary academic scholarship. Ayn Rand at her best presented an integrated world-view with a comprehensive philosophical system, the whole of which would be inevitably inaccessible to a disciplinary scholar who is determined to understand nothing outside her own narrowly specialized field. Truck drivers, at least, are for the most part equally ignorant in all academic directions - which makes a typical truck-driver's understanding of Ayn Rand more holistic than any hyperspecialized academic's.

(Edited by Adam Reed
on 12/06, 11:39am)


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Tuesday, December 6, 2005 - 12:56pmSanction this postReply
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Good morning, George.

Thanks for posing the question.  I think it's fair to say that most people are ruled more by affinity than by ideas.  This goes for the majority of Objectivists I've observed as well as the general population.  People who love The Fountainhead, love it for its style and its attitude, what Oists call its sense of life, first and foremost.  Most people whom I've talked to about the book made up their minds yea or nay within the first 50 pages, often within the first 50 words.  Obviously, their first response is not to the ideas.  Interestingly, the folks that love the thing--these same folks who fell in love with the book on the first page--tend ultimately to endorse the book's ideas as well. 

I think if you were to demand that I make a snap judgement right now of Ayn Rand, it would be that her emotions will always be far more important to people than her ideas.  That's where the fascism connection finds its foothold.  Obviously, Rand's philosophy and it's stated premises are explicitly anti-fascist, but the emotions which she expresses and which she excites in her ardent fans tend toward the fanatical, the absolutist, the condemnatory.  The Fountainhead is full of hateful, rotten characters in positions of power that they don't deserve; misunderstood geniuses who are humiliated time and time again by these inferior men; a whole culture blinded by a lie of compassion and collectivist bleating.  Emotionally, this is a recipe for revolution, reprisal, hatred, and repudiation of one's own culture.  Feelings any fascist would promote in his rise to power.  Only then does Rand come in with her crucial qualification: "in the service of reason."

Well, for a lot of folks and for the world at large, Rand's proviso comes too late.  Rand has made her mark, her emotions are what people love or hate about her.  In this light, of course her personal life is going to dominate the public's understanding of the woman.  For me, it's a cautionary tale of the dangers of sensationalizing yourself and going for shock value, when what you ought to be doing is nurturing a new world into being.  Joe Rowland's Rebirth of Reason is definitely a step in the right direction.

I'd like to make one further observation on the subject of using sense of life as a basis for judgement.  I think this goes both ways.  Both the Randians and the anti-Randians do this.  Jenny Turner makes a study of Ayn Rand and from her earliest contact she's ticking off the outrages to her sense of life (the rape, the greed, the sex between 52 year olds and 27 year old, etc.).  Eventually the study is no longer an honest inquiry but an exercise in case-building; she knew Rand was full of beans from the get go and everything that she reads only confirms her first impressions.  Marty Lewinter's recent war of words with Prof. XXXX is a perfect example of how snap judgement phases into prejudice.  Each combatant believes he's got the facts on his side and judges the other as irrational and flaky and even dangerous.  Every utterance on either side is peppered with so many disputed points strung together by stuff the writer thinks is self-evident, where his rival sees only gibberish.  Every statement by the one is further proof to the other, because both made up their minds about the other person's sense of life at the start.

-Kevin

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Tuesday, December 6, 2005 - 1:08pmSanction this postReply
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Hi George. It’s good to see again.

“From the first day I ever read anything she wrote (The Fountainhead), I can honestly say that I have never got the slightest impression of her suggesting an autocratic or oppressive social order; on the contrary, every page seemed to shout out against anything that smacked of these even in the slightest.” [George]

My reaction was different. Every page shouts out against, for sure, it really stands out. She works awfully hard at it. Why is that? I think she was strongly influenced by him, or just plain shared some of his emotional responses (though her explicit ideology was opposed to Nietzsche’s, of course.)

Jon


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Tuesday, December 6, 2005 - 7:22pmSanction this postReply
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"From the first day I ever read anything she wrote (The Fountainhead), I can honestly say that I have never got the slightest impression of her suggesting an autocratic or oppressive social order; on the contrary, every page seemed to shout out against anything that smacked of these even in the slightest.” [George]
 The same with me - NEVER had any such notion of fascism in it - instead, a paen to individualism the likes never heard before, and so readily agreed with....

To your question - if one pays attention to what is read [and many do NOT, having been taught as such, from the naturalist school, to 'glance' a work], then cannot see how an honest mis-impression can be made...


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Wednesday, December 7, 2005 - 9:35amSanction this postReply
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George:

This doesn't really address your specific question, but I reread The Virtue of Selfishness last month and came across something that I found a bit odd. My copy of the book is loaned out so this is from memory and may not be exact. If someone has the book and wants to validate or correct what I say below, feel free to do so.

If my memory serves me right, in several of the essays, both Ayn Rand and Nathaniel Branden quoted John Galt without any reference to Atlas Shrugged or to the fact that he is a fictional character. It went something like:

"To quote John Galt 'some quote from Atlas Shrugged. '"

That came across as really odd that someone would quote a fictional character like that, as if John Galt were an authority figure one looks to for guidance. I would expect something more like this:

"I expressed this idea through John Galt, a character in my novel Atlas Shrugged, with the following quote, '...'."

Maybe I'm making something out of nothing but if I were a non-objectivist and the following conversation happened, I would slowly back out of the room:

Non-Objectivist: "I believe self-sacrifice is a virtue."
Objectivist: "But John Galt said selfishness is a virtue."



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Thursday, December 8, 2005 - 7:07pmSanction this postReply
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Ryan, that's funny!

Seriously, I don't find any problem in citing Galt by name. If people understand that Atlas Shrugged is Rand's novel, they shouldn't view this as particularly strange. But then I live in a fairy-tale universe, so I'm probably not a good person to ask. Btw, I ran into Galt the other day at a shopping mall, where he was hawking copies of the book. I was going to ask for his autograph, but I wasn't sure if I had earned it. Damn! There I go again, blending fact with fiction. Must be the constant reference to Rand's fictional characters as real people that's got me confused. Don't know what to believe anymore! :-)

- Bill

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Thursday, December 8, 2005 - 7:27pmSanction this postReply
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It's deterministic anyway, isn't it - so what's the difference................;-)

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Friday, December 9, 2005 - 1:12pmSanction this postReply
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It's deterministic anyway, isn't it - so what's the difference................;-)

There's an answer to this that I'll be happy to provide, but it'll be on the Determinism and Free Will thread.

- Bill

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Saturday, December 10, 2005 - 3:29amSanction this postReply
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Adam: “Turner's article is primarily a critique of Ayn Rand's politics, severed from the rest of Rand's philosophical thought and from Rand's existential and artistic contexts.”

Personally, I found the article wide-ranging and quite compelling. My reading is that Turner is viewing Rand within the cultural context of her times, a context that encompasses social, economic, artistic, moral, as well as political themes.

This period -- the mid-20th century -- was dominated by Modernism, and since the review is of a biography of Rand, Turner is seeking Rand the person. She believes the best way to know Rand is to analyse the novels: “But really, storytelling was Rand’s talent, and it is in her novels that her vision takes its truest shape.”

What she finds in those novels are a number of themes that exemplify Modernism, the movement that dominated Anglo/American and European culture from the 1920s through to the 1950s.: “…an extreme version of the Modernist morality-and-architecture trope, that, as Roark puts it, ‘a house can have integrity, just like a person.’”

Besides purity and simplicity in architecture, other Modernist themes include: the artist as revolutionary; radical emancipation from traditional values and social arrangements; a spirit of movement and change; the superiority of the planned over the organic; a preference for the urban over the rural; glorification of the machine; a desire to dominate the natural environment.

Rand’s fiction displays enough of these qualities, and in sufficient strength, to qualify her as a Modernist in outlook. This is not to say that Rand was in total accord with Modernism; we know her views on modern art, for instance. But Modernism was not a unified movement, and there were as many currents and cross-currents – including fascism -- as in any widespread cultural movement.

But Rand’s fiction also displays additional themes: the hero who disdains conventional morality; glorification of the untrammelled ego; life as struggle; sex as conquest; the eroticisation of technology; an elite who command by right of natural endowment; society organised in a hierarchy of superiors and inferiors; the creation of the Ideal Man.

These themes are the sharp strokes that give the novels their power, and which reveal Rand’s world-view. They also happen to be themes that are regarded as culturally “fascistic”. That doesn’t necessarily mean that Rand had any sympathies for the fascist political regimes of her time, or that she desired an oppressive social order. But it does reveal an affinity with the fascist cultural world-view.
Brendan


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Saturday, December 10, 2005 - 4:15amSanction this postReply
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That doesn’t necessarily mean that Rand had any sympathies for the fascist political regimes of her time, or that she desired an oppressive social order. But it does reveal an affinity with the fascist cultural world-view.
Define, then, 'fascism'.... and how there is a 'fascist cultural world-view'...


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Post 13

Sunday, December 11, 2005 - 1:23amSanction this postReply
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Robert: “Define, then, 'fascism'.... and how there is a 'fascist cultural world-view'...”

A definition is just a précis of an already existing theory, so one may as well cut to the chase and deal with the theory, or theories, directly. But I think I understand the point you’re getting at: fascism is usually associated with an authoritarian social and political order and opposition to individualism.

In their politics, most Objectivists probably think within the framework of classical liberalism, and assume that Rand’s context is the same. I’m not so sure. Since Rand’s politics is grounded in her ethics, it may be helpful to consider her ethical formulation, which begins: “Man’s life is the standard of value…”

Now, Rand’s epistemology claims that a concept means all the concretes that it refers to. In the case of “man’s life”, those concretes would be the lives of all existing men, past present and future.

But the lives of men are many and various, and Rand would regard many lives as falling short of the standard. In that case, the concept “man’s life” cannot refer to all actual existing men. It must refer to something else. My guess is that the referent is an abstraction: Rand’s ideal man, as exemplified in John Galt.

And that’s a problem, both for Rand’s epistemology and her ethics. If she is to retain her is/ought integration, she must be able to ground her standard in the actual lives of really existing men. But many of those men will fail to embody the standard.

On the other hand, if her standard is to encompass the values she thinks we should pursue, she must ground that standard in the abstraction of the ideal man. But she achieves the latter at the cost of divorcing her ideal man from the general run of actual men: her ideal man exists only as words on a page and images and emotions in the mind.

The assumption is that when Rand speaks of individual rights, by “individual” she means each and every existing man. But she often gives the strong impression that the “true” individual is far removed from the common stock. Galt’s Gulch is the prototype of the new society, inhabited by the elite few. The common run of men are “savages”, “parasites”, “grotesque little atavists”, fit only for pushing machine buttons and sweeping factory floors.

As for authoritarianism, when he speaks to the nation, Galt is not inviting his opponents to a debate, nor is he giving his listeners handy hints on rational living. He’s commanding his listeners, telling them what they should be thinking and how they should be acting. 

This is the fascist cultural world-view I was referring to: the authoritarian division of society into an elite who dominate by natural endowment, and an underclass who are fit only to follow commands.

Brendan


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Sunday, December 11, 2005 - 5:52amSanction this postReply
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Always wondered how a relativist got 'fascism' from Rand...

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Tuesday, December 13, 2005 - 1:44amSanction this postReply
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“Always wondered how a relativist got 'fascism' from Rand...”

I can’t speak for “relativists”, but my preferred method of analysis is to examine the evidence and construct a reasoned argument. I highly recommend it.

A major advantage of this approach is that it enables one to recognise the same in others, and to distinguish rant from informed opinion. Three examples from the article in question illustrate my point.

Turner says: “As well as being a happily married woman, Rand was unhappily in love.” In replicating Rand’s habit of inverting orthodox pieties, Turner achieves three effects: she shows that she understands this aspect of Rand’s thought; she gives those readers unfamiliar with Rand a taste of the latter’s thinking processes; she piques the reader’s interest, and moves the narrative along.

The second example is a comment about Rand’s style: “The combination of sex, melodrama and architecture too is utterly un-Hollywood: it’s European...” This is about The Fountainhead, but when I read Atlas Shrugged, I was struck by this very aspect: the Atlas heroes are intense, grim, aloof, self-contained, principled. They’re the classic stereotype of the Russian intellectual, in marked contrast to the stereotypical American hero: relaxed, cheerful, friendly, open, pragmatic.

The third example has some direct relevance to this site: “Post-Rand, Objectivism has become more secular and suburban…” In Atlas Shrugged, Francisco gives up Dagny and risks his reputation and wealth in pursuit of his values. This site is dedicated to “activism”, but the activism has a marked sedentary character: writing articles, discussing articles, forming clubs, leading clubs, and of course, creating more websites so that the same people can continue to write and discuss yet more articles in a different location.

I have a strong suspicion that Objectivists prefer fantasising about a post-Atlas world rather than taking the risks required to create one, most likely because they have a greater stake in the existing order of things than in the uncertainties of the hypothetical new world. In other words, more Eddie Willers than Francisco.

Brendan


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Tuesday, December 13, 2005 - 6:37amSanction this postReply
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Robert said:
Always wondered how a relativist got 'fascism' from Rand...

I was about to sanction this post when I realized that I had read "rationalist" in place of "relativist".  I sanctioned it anyway, even though I found Brendan's post to be quintessentially rationalistic.

In his last post, Brendan said:
I have a strong suspicion that Objectivists prefer fantasising about a post-Atlas world rather than taking the risks required to create one, most likely because they have a greater stake in the existing order of things than in the uncertainties of the hypothetical new world. In other words, more Eddie Willers than Francisco
I'd be curious to know what Rand character Brendan would use to describe someone who prefers to spend his time criticizing those who "prefer fantasising about a post-Atlas world".  But I'm not curious enough to read any more of his posts.  Have a nice life, Brendan.
Glenn


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Post 17

Thursday, December 15, 2005 - 1:42pmSanction this postReply
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Brendan wrote,
"In their politics, most Objectivists probably think within the framework of classical liberalism, and assume that Rand’s context is the same. I’m not so sure. Since Rand’s politics is grounded in her ethics, it may be helpful to consider her ethical formulation, which begins: “Man’s life is the standard of value…”

Now, Rand’s epistemology claims that a concept means all the concretes that it refers to. In the case of “man’s life”, those concretes would be the lives of all existing men, past present and future. But the lives of men are many and various, and Rand would regard many lives as falling short of the standard. In that case, the concept “man’s life” cannot refer to all actual existing men. It must refer to something else. My guess is that the referent is an abstraction: Rand’s ideal man, as exemplified in John Galt.
Brendan, how much of Rand's writing have you read?--because it's clear from your comments that you don't understand what she's saying. By "man's life," as she uses the term in her standard of value, she does not mean the life of one of her heroes or heroines. She means the life proper to a rational being--in other words, the life that is most conducive to the survival of a human being qua human being (versus the survival of a non-human organism, such as a bird or a fish). For any living organism, there is a mode of survival that is appropriate to its nature as that kind of organism. Just as a fish cannot live out of water, so a human being cannot survive, as animals do, by the guidance of mere percepts. For man, the basic means of survival is reason. He cannot provide for his simplest physical needs without a process of thought. He needs a process of thought to discover how to grow food, how to build a shelter, how to make weapons for hunting, etc. By "man's life (qua man)," Rand means a life lived in accordance with the requirements of his survival as a certain kind of living organism.
And that’s a problem, both for Rand’s epistemology and her ethics. If she is to retain her is/ought integration, she must be able to ground her standard in the actual lives of really existing men. But many of those men will fail to embody the standard.
You're missing the point of her argument. But that's okay; you just need to become better acquainted with what it is that she's saying. A good place to start is her essay "The Objectivist Ethics" in The Virtue of Selfishness. As for her "is-ought" integration, it is the nature of a living organism that determines what it ought to do--that determines the conditions appropriate for its survival.
On the other hand, if her standard is to encompass the values she thinks we should pursue, she must ground that standard in the abstraction of the ideal man.
No, not "ideal man" in the sense of her heroes and heroines.
But she achieves the latter at the cost of divorcing her ideal man from the general run of actual men: her ideal man exists only as words on a page and images and emotions in the mind.
An ideal is that which one should strive to achieve, but, for Objectivism, it is achievable. The purpose of Rand's literature is to dramatize it, but that doesn't mean that in order to adhere to the ideal, one must have the same extraordinary talents and abilities as Rand's heroes and heroines. All it means is that one must practice the Objectivist virtues at the level of one's abilities, however great or modest those abilities are.
The assumption is that when Rand speaks of individual rights, by “individual” she means each and every existing man. But she often gives the strong impression that the “true” individual is far removed from the common stock. Galt’s Gulch is the prototype of the new society, inhabited by the elite few. The common run of men are “savages”, “parasites”, “grotesque little atavists”, fit only for pushing machine buttons and sweeping factory floors.
When she speaks of the latter, she is referring to those who have no respect for individual rights, those who are opposed to rationality, independence, productiveness, etc., not simply to anyone other than her heroes.
As for authoritarianism, when he speaks to the nation, Galt is not inviting his opponents to a debate, nor is he giving his listeners handy hints on rational living. He’s commanding his listeners, telling them what they should be thinking and how they should be acting.
True, but that does not imply that he's being "authoritarian," unless you want to say that anyone who gives a speech or expresses a point of view outside the context of a debating forum is being authoritarian.
This is the fascist cultural world-view I was referring to: the authoritarian division of society into an elite who dominate by natural endowment, and an underclass who are fit only to follow commands.
Brendan, are you being serious, or you just having fun pushing Objectivists' buttons, because if you're being serious, you're not getting it. To say that this is not a proper characterization of Rand's philosophy is an understatement. My suggestion is to familiarize yourself with her philosophy before criticizing it; otherwise no one is going to take you seriously. There are enough people who hate Rand on general principles who are making inane, ill-informed critiques of her philosophy. You don't want to put yourself in their camp, do you?

- Bill


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Friday, December 16, 2005 - 10:05pmSanction this postReply
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Bill: “By "man's life,"…she does not mean the life of one of her heroes or heroines. She means the life proper to a rational being…the life that is most conducive to the survival of a human being qua human being…

As I said: “Rand’s ideal man, as exemplified in John Galt.” Galt is an example of the ideal man. And as you say: “An ideal is that which one should strive to achieve, but, for Objectivism, it is achievable.” In other words, you clearly believe that it is possible to achieve the status of an ideal man. In that case, the only difference between the ideal Objectivist and Galt – apart from ontological status -- is one of degree, not of kind. 

Another way to look at this is to ask: do Rand’s heroes exemplify such things as 1) The standard of value? 2) The life proper to a rational being? 3) The type of life worth striving for? I would say yes. In that case, “man’s life”, “standard of value”, “life proper to a rational being”, “survival of a human being qua human being”, “John Galt”, are different ways of saying the same thing: “An ideal …that…one should strive to achieve…”

“As for her "is-ought" integration, it is the nature of a living organism that determines what it ought to do…”

A feature of is/ought claims is that “is” statements invariably presuppose the “ought” statements they are trying to establish. Attila was a man. So was Frank O’Connor. Which one represents the nature of man? The answer to that question will determine what man ought to do, but it will also presuppose the values one is trying to establish.

“There are enough people who hate Rand on general principles who are making inane, ill-informed critiques of her philosophy. You don't want to put yourself in their camp, do you?”

Argument from intimidation, Bill? That’s just so…authoritarian.

Brendan


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Post 19

Sunday, December 18, 2005 - 12:15amSanction this postReply
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Brendan wrote,
As I said: “Rand’s ideal man, as exemplified in John Galt.” Galt is an example of the ideal man. And as you say: “An ideal is that which one should strive to achieve, but, for Objectivism, it is achievable.” In other words, you clearly believe that it is possible to achieve the status of an ideal man. In that case, the only difference between the ideal Objectivist and Galt – apart from ontological status -- is one of degree, not of kind.

Yes, one of degree, meaning both practice the same virtues, even if both don't have the same abilities. You don't have to possess the same extraordinary talents as a John Galt in order to live an ideal life, according to Objectivism. Are you disputing this?--because it sounded as if you were in your previous post. You continue:

Another way to look at this is to ask: do Rand’s heroes exemplify such things as 1) The standard of value? 2) The life proper to a rational being? 3) The type of life worth striving for? I would say yes. In that case, “man’s life”, “standard of value”, “life proper to a rational being”, “survival of a human being qua human being”, “John Galt”, are different ways of saying the same thing: “An ideal …that…one should strive to achieve…”

Yes, but you have to identify what the ideal is that you're striving for. It isn't to be exactly like John Galt, especially if you're not John Galt. It's to practice the virtues that Galt and Rand's other heroes exemplified.

I wrote, “As for her "is-ought" integration, it is the nature of a living organism that determines what it ought to do…” You replied,

A feature of is/ought claims is that “is” statements invariably presuppose the “ought” statements they are trying to establish. Attila was a man. So was Frank O’Connor. Which one represents the nature of man? The answer to that question will determine what man ought to do, but it will also presuppose the values one is trying to establish.

Neither one "represents the nature of man." You are being what Rand would call "concrete-bound." The nature of man is an abstraction that applies to all individual human beings. In any case, when you say that "is" statements presuppose the "ought" statements they are trying to establish, you are saying in effect that they imply them. True enough, and that's how they establish them--by implying them. It is the kind of living organism that a human being is that determines how he ought to live in order to ensure his own survival. There is nothing particularly mysterious about this; the important point is that it's true. You can say that it's obvious, if you want, but the most obvious things are often not obvious until someone points them out.

I wrote, “There are enough people who hate Rand on general principles who are making inane, ill-informed critiques of her philosophy. You don't want to put yourself in their camp, do you?”

Brendan replied,
Argument from intimidation, Bill? That’s just so…authoritarian.

Oh, come on, Brendan, can't you take a little dig?! I must say in all honesty, however, that I find your misunderstanding of Rand rather surprising for someone whom I would have expected to be more familiar with her philosophy. The point is that it wouldn't hurt for you to become better acquainted with Objectivism before criticizing it. And that's not an argument from intimidation.

- Bill



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