"Again poor AYN missed the pint.. sad litte woman... "The only purpose of education is to teach a student how to live his life" The purpose is to impart knowledge and HOW TO THINK for oneself.. AND NOT to follow a doctrine .. ANY doctrine or dogma .. JUST think ! .. Rand would have been a Twitterfool looking for flowers
Or, perhaps, as one part of teaching someone how to live, by thinking, expect them to learn the value of quoting others truthfully, in actual context, as: "how to live his life—by developing his mind and equipping him to deal with reality. The training he needs is theoretical, i.e., conceptual. He has to be taught to think..."
So, which is worse... deliberately quoting a person out of context to wrongly change their meaning... or claiming ownership of the very idea being advocated by that other person while doing so...
Anyone who believes Rand advocated indoctrination... of any dogma... has not paid attention... at all... not even a little bit...
There is plenty of room to criticize Rand... but, note, even her critics fail miserably in getting to that argument that might work. William James, quoted in the link, starts out in the right direction, as "a certain insincerity in our philosophic discussions: the potentest of all our premises is never mentioned"... but then immediately fails as he allows that one useful insight to devolve into Ad Hominem... which, in the article, seems to be the full substance of his own potentest premise. ?
Rand's objectivism ultimately fails... as James suggested it must... but his words, and the rest of that article, entirely fail to identify or address that root or sub-basement they only suspect... while pursuing their own failed premise into a dark hole, rather than address the reasons hers might or must fail ?
Randian objectivism... ends in an essentially circular argument... as if followed to its logical conclusions, in practice, what it delivers is what we have... the full range of what we have and have had... leaving the question of why any product enabled by its original non-interventionism... should be opposed now by objectivists who extoll the process of enabling that... while opposing every feature in the result enabled...
If we began in a state of nature, as free men... how did we get where we are... other than as a natural result of that original pursuit of self interest ? Clearly, that's giving us a flawed and incomplete view of reality.
Or, in the alternative, leaving us the conundrum of non-violently opposing violence... which, when it works, is only enabled in working, not by radical individualism, but by high level social activism and organization... to counter others efforts in organizing to apply force, which others use to impose what their own free will has them decide to do to you, and others.
Rand thus gets it almost exactly backwards... by declaring the egg definitely existed before the chicken... as her desire for a free society composed of free people... her advocacy for it... could only exist in a society that already had it in large enough measure to tolerate her advocacy of it... humans achieving that in only limited instances... without any "help" from her ideas.
The claim that love of others is pure self interest in reward seeking behavior... is again a circular argument that fails in refusing to define boundaries that do exist between the self and others... and self interest and a selfless interest in others... in a social context that does include a wide latitude to exercise individual choice... which in this one instance only Rand would seem to deny as legitimate. Her assertion... is not an argument... and the point is one of opinion about the ideal "in a balance" that cannot be resolved in debate... and otherwise, is another assertion of her own utopian ideal in what "should be".
That self interest is biological in origin... does not dictate selflessness is either unreal, or corrupt, or not just as much biological in origin ? And neither does any of that dictate that choice cannot exist above it.
Her confusion about the nature of the human character... combining self interest with selflessness in some balance... leaves her muddled, as with similar failures in relation to the personal and social aspects of the role of violence and non-violence in society. On those issues, Jordan Peterson is superior in his more correct non-utopian observations of "society as it is, in context of reality"... preventing him making the common errors of utopians... of all stripes... as "wouldn't it be great if"... collides with reality in a way that unfortunately has reason and reality win the day less often than is useful. Innovation and creativity, imposed as art or experiment in that part of human endeavor we call political philosophy... is much less useful than simple clarity in observation... to see "what is true" and "what works" more clearly than others have before.
That is not to say Rand's ideas are without merit... only to say that the merit they have could not survive in the society her ideas, alone, would produce... thus the benefit in those ideas there is, still depending for survival on others who value the ideas... enough to protect what they can enable... without letting them destroy themselves, or the society that values them. The right question is... Confucian in structure... what's the right balance... between the individual and society... while tolerating choice in a range with a wide latitude... but avoiding the extremes, that must inevitably fail under the weight of their errors. Seeking to find some optimum... maximizing freedom... yet defending it well enough to survive... and avoid (1) Rand's Darwinian end game... that is both (2) the origin of "what we have now'... and (3) the parent of its opposite, that is wholly intolerant of individual rights. That duality in the extremes, should have occurred to the critics... as the likely origin of Rand's thinking, and her choices ? It seems easily enough explained... as the natural reaction in the Randian extreme... to the errors of the opposite.
And, that's the reason her critics prefer the Ad Hominem... as deep down in the sub-basement, their own errors in premises have more in common with Rand's own overly utopian ideas than is useful to admit... even if Rand's utopian ideal eliminates society and its control as evil... rather than make it perfect and all powerful in the ideal. That utopian ideal, despite massive evidence it is never "good" let alone near perfect... blinds the vision, clouded by wishful thinking.... of those hoping and pretending it might be so.
A split occurs, there, in which error in the extreme is the more dangerous to the rest of us. "Lone wolf gunmen" may pose a minor risk to society... that a better society could avoid... but they are not wrong in seeing flaws, nor capable of genocide, as that is enabled by the error of not seeing the flaws.
We are not Randian wolverines... ranging a wide territory as individuals, living on our own without fear in a vast wilderness... and neither are we Socialist hymenopterids... ants or bees, filling preordained roles in a rigid social structure with a conformity that must be enforced, sacrificing the individual "for the benefit of the colony or hive", or whatever it is someone claims that to be, your "rights" be damned.
Instead, we are social animals, like other primates... some of us more like other primates than others, some few thinking it would be better if we acted more like wolverines or ants and bees... when that is not what we are. But humans are primates... who have unique capacities as individuals... and a unique ability to recognize and value that fact... without feeling a need to force others into conformity... which is, our free choice, above all else, what makes us human... and greater than the insects. That difference is also both the origin of and the product of our intellect... and in our tolerance of free thinking... the origin of all art and innovation. |
