[MD] Can you teach an old dog, new tricks? (Part 3)

[Hamilton Priday]

Hi Ant --

On May 28 3:46 PM, Ant McWatt <antmcwatt at hotmail.co.uk> wrote:

> Ham,
>
> The impression I have of Ayn Rand is derived from two sources;
> two authorities if you like:
>
> The first is an article termed "Confessions of a recovering objectivist"
> by Victoria Bekeiempis.  It can be found via the following link:
> http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2012/jun/10/confessions-recovering
> objectivist-ayn-rand
>
> The second authority is Dr Greg Alvord (the guy who wrote the Pirsig
> PhD Commentary which can be found via the following link:
> http://robertpirsig.org/PhD%20Addendum.htm ).

It comes as somewhat of a disappointment that someone of your intellect and 
philosophical learning would "derive his impression" of so well known an 
author as Ayn Rand from a third-party source.  I'm sure you must have read 
"For the New Intellectual", "An Introduction to objectivist Epistemology", 
or "The Virtue of Selfishness", or are at least familiar with "Fountainhead" 
and "Atlas Shrugged" which, much like Pirsig's novels, express her 
philosophy in terms of character relations.

> Now the Guardian newspaper is a little bit "establishment" for my liking 
> but,
> as Pirsig also recognises, its opinions can - on the whole - be trusted. 
> I therefore
> didn't get a good impression of Rand (or her ideas) when I read the 
> following:
>
> "Much to the lament of my philosophy classmates, I was that girl who 
> frequently
> (and loudly!) argued in favor of Rand's illogical claims that altruism 
> doesn't exist;
> that selfishness is a virtue; and that 'rational egoism' is the only right 
> way to live."
> "Thankfully, I grew out of that phase. ..."

Forget what the "authorities" say; what impression did you get from her 
actual writing?

The central principle in all of Rand's works is Individualism.  She believed 
that we are born as free individuals with the capacity to live by the 
morality of our own rational self-interest, that we have no moral duty to 
sacrifice our life for others, let alone share our wealth for the sake of 
social "equality", which only stifles individual initiative and fosters 
dependency.  You and your politically correct authorities may regard that as 
"selfishness", but it is the natural order of human achievement and free 
enterprise that, until recently, contributed to America's success as a free 
nation.

You quote Bekeiempis as saying, "Go ahead and claim all human acts come from 
self-interest, fine. This seems kind of silly, however, when the morality of 
said selfish acts will still be measured by how altruistic they seem."

Who cares "how altruistic they seem"?  Since when is altruism the measure of 
moral behavior?  Self-interest "should absolutely not play a role in 
policy-making – especially when the end result would be disastrous, " she 
says.  Has free-market capitalism ever been a disaster?  This statement is 
sillier than the examples she gives.

> Now my second authority for Rand is Dr Greg Alvord, who like Bekeiempis
> "fell under Rand's spell" as a young undergraduate and then "grew out of"
> her ideas when he discovered East Asian philosophy and then Pirsig.
> Alvord read "Atlas Shrugged" in his 20s, took the protaganist in the book
> as a role model for a few years but now dismisses it as young person's 
> folly.
> Likewise only a fool would dismiss Alvord's opinion in this regard; he has
> published over a 100 academic papers (not even many full-time academics
> do that in a lifetime!) and is now Director of the National Cancer 
> Institute in
> Maryland.
>
> I therefore have difficulty in taking Rand seriously as a philosopher even
> worth looking at.  I hope you can also see from the above why I defined
> Rand as essentially a hippy; that is to say essentially "a freedom loving
> irresponsible drag on society"!

Alvor's success demonstrates the practicality of following one's rational 
self-interest.  To use that as the reason "only a fool would dismiss 
Alvord's opinion" is ingenuous and sounds to me more like cronyism than a 
logical conclusion from a Ph.D.

> The more worrying issue - as an outsider to American politics - is that
> such a writer is being taken seriously (at least on the surface) by some
> elements of the Republican party.  Then again, maybe this should come of
> no surprize because if the American Right took on board a philosopher
> (such as Noam Chomsky) who promoted global intellectual values (such as
> free speech and justice for all) rather than biological or social values
> (as Rand seems to be doing) then its policies would be in danger of 
> becoming
> too progressive!

"Free speech and justice" are guaranteed by the U.S. Constitution, not 
global intellectualists, and Chomsky is a left-wing anarchist who thinks the 
United States is a major source of international terrorism!  We have enough 
of a problem funding our current Commander-in-Chief to micromanage America's 
economy without adding a philosopher of Chomsky's brand to the White House 
staff.

I appreciate your taking the time to defend the Ayn Rand snippets, Ant. 
But, frankly, I'm not impressed with this critique.  Perhaps we would 
accomplish more by sticking with RMP's Qualityism, which you know well, 
rather than attempting to reconcile opposing political ideologies.  I'm sure 
Horse would agree.


Essentially speaking,
Ham