Why is Ayn Rand not Accepted Academically?
I think I have the answer: good philosophy - actually good research in any field - doesn't just prey on one's fears or vulnerabilities. Good philosophy really makes you think; it especially makes you question and think critically. Ayn Rand's philosophy fails to really do any of this. There is so much emphasis in her philosophy on selfishness as a 'virtue' and how flawed conventional values are without any solid argument to support either of these notions that it is hard to say that it really makes one think at all.
Now, one could say this is simply because her philosophy questions common values that it hasn't received academic acclaim; it in fact really does "make you think." But consider the theory of 'moral luck' by Thomas Nagel. Nagel's argument is that the way one behaves morally is largely a matter of luck or chance - a simple roll of the dice. In essence, it depends on one's genetics and the environment in which they were raised. For instance, if someone were raised in Nazi Germany, they would have a very different outlook on the Jews, and therefore racism, than if they were raised in 21st century North America. And, in people with ASPD - a trait related to criminal actiivty - evidence shows that identical twins often share the trait genetically. The notion then of luck should apply to almost all moral qualities. We therefore should not punish or reward people for their moral behaviour at all!
Now, I have an argument against Nagel that I'm not going to get into. But you can see the difference between Ayn Rand and Thomas Nagel: even though Nagel presents an unpalatable conclusion, he at least presents plausible arguments and makes you think critically about the issues. I don't feel one can say the same thing about Rand. Her philosophy seems to be just one personal attack after another against human ethics and human emotion; she does not seem to have any real justification for asserting these beliefs.
In any event, this is just my opinion. I am open to hearing yours...
Now, one could say this is simply because her philosophy questions common values that it hasn't received academic acclaim; it in fact really does "make you think." But consider the theory of 'moral luck' by Thomas Nagel. Nagel's argument is that the way one behaves morally is largely a matter of luck or chance - a simple roll of the dice. In essence, it depends on one's genetics and the environment in which they were raised. For instance, if someone were raised in Nazi Germany, they would have a very different outlook on the Jews, and therefore racism, than if they were raised in 21st century North America. And, in people with ASPD - a trait related to criminal actiivty - evidence shows that identical twins often share the trait genetically. The notion then of luck should apply to almost all moral qualities. We therefore should not punish or reward people for their moral behaviour at all!
Now, I have an argument against Nagel that I'm not going to get into. But you can see the difference between Ayn Rand and Thomas Nagel: even though Nagel presents an unpalatable conclusion, he at least presents plausible arguments and makes you think critically about the issues. I don't feel one can say the same thing about Rand. Her philosophy seems to be just one personal attack after another against human ethics and human emotion; she does not seem to have any real justification for asserting these beliefs.
In any event, this is just my opinion. I am open to hearing yours...
Comments (71)
In 2005, I learned in community college I would have to study for three years before I could read Shakespeare again, and I was first required to read Harry Potter for four months with people who could hardly utter more than four words in a row without immense effort. That is the reality of the USA now, and the diminishing number of people here who remember more educated days are slowly dieing off.
I'll take 'Things That Never Happened' for 1000, Alex
I'm not familiar with Thomas Nigel's work, but from what you present it is equally uninteresting as Rand's and for the same reason. The idea our actions are determined by nature and nurture and so morality doesn't really exist, goes back to the ancient Greeks. If is main argument is "luck" then he's presenting nothing original and entertaining his views is just a waste of time for those familiar the works of the great philosophers who have debated this issue.
Though please point out if Nigel does review all this previous material in a serious way and makes some original extension, or at least useful synthesis, of it.
If not, it is a very similar case to Rand. She presents herself as saying something original, but the subject of self interest, that everyone does or then should act only in self interest, again goes back to the Ancient Greeks.
Likewise, Plato has a whole dialogue on whether the "just" only pretend to be just because it furthers their interests.
Worse still for Rand, literally the very first thing Homer thinks needing explaining is why Greek society doesn't always immediately descend into chaotic melee of all against all and the strong dominating the weak and taking what they want. His answer: Theseus and Pirithous killed all the brigands (i.e. expressing in mythological form the theory that the cohesion of society can only be maintained by heroic deeds of the equally strong defending the weak).
The work of Rand is akin to what real scientists -- i.e. those who have bothered to learn the material of their field -- call crank science -- amateurs who have barely scratched the surface of the field of their fancy and who believe they have generated some revolutionary genius concept. Of course, there's no problem being an amateur if one doesn't immediately conclude every new idea one has is original; but, if one suspects originality one bothers to go out and actually check (which is nearly guaranteed to result in finding the idea is not original and probably originated hundreds or thousands of years ago).
Moreover, it is nearly always the case that amateurs who do make some "maverick" contribution, still bothered to learn the material of their field, they just didn't do it in a academic setting; so they are exceptions that prove the rule (the rule being: no one is so smart as to be able to simply skip thousands of years of accumulated human knowledge by millions of participants and just jump straight to profound new insights).
Crank scientists and crank philosophers like Rand basically have the intellectual capacity of children, insofar as their subject matter expertise is concerned.
Someone serious about discussing Rand's contentions would go back to the ancients Greeks, the Tao, the Upanishads, Buddha, Confucius, the Tora and the Gospel, and see, starting from the beginning of written history and in addition what insights archaeologists and sociologists have gained in to pre-history and non-written cultures, and from this starting point see how the issue is debated all the way to the present, then present the results of this inquiry and the critical positions that have been taken over the years and the arguments in favour of preferred premises and conclusions and against the primary contenders with them, followed by one's original ideas, if there be any (there is no problem with novel analysis of old ideas).
This is a significant amount of work, but, if you think about it, it's very likely the only pathway to make some serious contribution to what has been already said. Crank philosophers like Rand don't bother to put in the work to make a serious contribution, so why should serious people take her seriously? There is plenty of crank philosophy out there, as it requires almost no effort to generate more and more or it, and there is simply no time to analyse it all and meticulously demonstrate every recasting of old ideas into new words and uncovering every totally unsupportable argument, false dichotomy and total obliviousness to critical contentions.
Now, the proponents of Rand take comfort in her popularity within the US. "She must have good ideas if she has such a following" is generally the view, implicit or explicit, that they believe is good basis to avoid engaging in the actual philosophical material that has been written about their beliefs. This is of course a foolish view.
edit: it was Theseus and Pirithous not so much Hercules.
(a) initially she wrote fiction and it's difficult to move out of being pigeonholed (she's still popularly thought of as primarily a fiction author),
(b) she didn't develop or emerge from academic philosophy socially, and as unfortunate as it may be, it's much more difficult to "break in" to that world than it is to emerge from within its confines,
(c) she's seen as (i) not being a "systematic" philosopher and (ii) having a lot of wonky notions, having misunderstandings, etc. about previous philosophers and theories, and this is seen as an upshot of and justification for (b). Of course, many philosophers who are studied in universities, who are regularly published in academic journals, etc. also have issues with (i) and (ii), but they developed within academic philosophy.
As you say, its a significant amount of work, and significantly, people who know enough to do that don't want to do it.
Please provide a link and the reasons you believe your answer was complete and correct in the other discussion you mention.
Quoting Terrapin Station
There are plenty of authors, taken seriously in academia, that wrote fiction, from the Greek Playwrights, to Shakespeare and Moliere, Voltaire, Nietzsche, Satre, Camus. Can you provide another example of a supposed relevant thinker, much less great philosopher, who has been pigeonholed as a fiction author?
Furthermore, the reason Ayn Rand comes up on philosophy discussion forums is precisely because she is not pigeonholed as simply a fiction author, otherwise she wouldn't come up at all. She was not interviewed about her views because she is just writing fiction. To her adherents she is the founder of objectivism, a philosophical school; they don't refer to other "real philosophers" that hold these views and then just mention Rand wrote some fiction with the themes. She is not dismissed by academics as terrible philosophy because it is fiction, but because it is terrible philosophy.
However, personally I would agree that she is simply a fiction author with as much philosophical relevance as Daniel Steel, and even writing in the same genre; just Steel writes eroticism for women, whereas Rand wrote erotic fantasy for young men wanting to masturbate to the contours of unfettered power.
Quoting Terrapin Station
You seem to agree that she is not very learned, yet lament that she is not counted amount the learned. Is the criticism you mention correct but somehow irrelevant to the value of her arguments? Or is it incorrect and she does indeed accurately understand previous theories and philosophers? If the latter, please provide a citation of a typical supposed misrepresentation of previous thinkers and explain why it's in fact accurate. If the former, please explain why dealing essentially in strawmen doesn't impede relevant, much less brilliant, philosophy in Rand's case; would this be a general rule for every similar case?
Quoting Terrapin Station
Yes, please provide a list of these many academic philosophers who are as poor thinkers as Rand but are not only published but seriously studied by other academics. Let us compare the errors of the one with those of the latter and see for ourselves if they are similar and Rand is indeed unjustly not counted among the incompetent philosophers.
Quoting boethius
Didn't I write the word "initially"?
What does this change? There are plenty of authors that likewise wrote initially fiction that are taken seriously, in some cases only fiction. If you wrote a masters or PhD thesis on some philosophical nuance in Aristophanes, Shakespeare, Dante, Goethe, Hesse, Tolstoy, and many others, academia would not frown upon you for addressing a fictional author; rather they would be weary that you can find any nuance that has not already been addressed many times over, precisely because these authors are taken so seriously a significant body of work already exists about them that one should be cautious about making any new addition. And if one was criticized for addressing one of these or other works of fiction, the criticism wouldn't be that fiction is not a suitable form of philosophy but that the content is simply not original nor substantive and there is simply far better material available dealing with the subject matter; can you find any academic that has criticized Rand for being fiction rather than this latter form of argument?
If other fictional authors are taken seriously in academia, what is your argument about pigeonholing? which seems to imply it is a pattern of the academic philosophy community or then an exception was made in Rand's case? If there's a pattern there should be other examples. If an exception was made, why was fiction suddenly a factor in this case and not in others?
Edit: also, if we're solving one thing at a time, why skip over my first question of "Please provide a link and the reasons you believe your answer was complete and correct in the other discussion you mention." If you've already made a great defense of this issue, it seems a labour saving device -- which seems the presumed goal of "solving one thing at a time" is to save on labour -- to reference your existing defense and summarize your success; a victory lap is rarely considered onerous to the champion.
Which of those authors are you claiming are taught in philosophy departments as philosophers?
You might as well ask, why is Mein Kampf not part of every syllabus.
I didn't make any such claim, only that they all wrote initially and in some cases only fiction and are taken seriously in academic philosophy (your retort to my previous list of philosophers who also wrote fiction seemed to be that Rand is different because she initially wrote fiction). Why move the goal posts from "taken seriously" to "taught as philosophers"? Does it make a difference to the debate?
Now, I have no problem moving the goal posts and answering your question, but, first, taking one thing at a time, how does it even support your position one way or the other?
Since you want to save time, it should be pretty clear that if I answer "they are not taught as philosophers, just considered as serious philosophical material as I stated" this advances your cause, or perhaps some other answer would.
Whatever the case: How? How is this not completely irrelevant to the debate at hand?
And if it's not relevant, is not engaging in "the 'philosopher' label game" -- who of the thinkers taken seriously by academic philosophers is really a "philosopher", not just great writer, historian, intellectual, etc. and who isn't -- just petty deflection (i.e. to start a new debate about something else to avoid the substantive criticism already offered on your views)?
Of course, I'll also accept "ahhah, just wait and see what awaits you once I have your answer on this point" or some such variation. If you are certain your question is critical, I have no problem seeing where it goes.
What I was answering is why Rand isn't taught in an academic phil context.
You're agreeing that the authors you mentioned aren't taught in an academic phil context. Yet you're saying "they're taken seriously." I don't understand what "taken seriously" refers to there. They're not taught in a philosophy context, as philosophers. What do we do with them in an academic phil context that equates to "taking them seriously"?
Yes, this is the debate. You've advanced the theory that it's for reasons extraneous to the quality of her arguments: that a. she wrote fiction or then "initially fiction" (and so presumably academic philosophers will pigeonhole her as a writer of fiction and unlikely to take her fiction or later non-fiction work seriously due to the starting point), that b. she developed outside academia and so it's hard to "break in", c. and she had wonky and erroneous notions about previous theories and thinkers.
Now, if your saying she has the problem of the overwhelming point of d. creating very low quality arguments filled with fallacies and strawmen at every turn, then we are in agreement. However, based on your comments you seem to believe she is generally excluded from academic philosophy for your points a, b and c primarily, which leave the possibility she has great philosophical material to engage with but has been overlooked due to the biases of the academic philosophical community.
Quoting Terrapin Station
I do not say this, I said I would answer after you explained why we should move the goal posts and why it's relevant to the debate even if we do move the goal posts. I feel I was pretty clear about this, but please point out where the ambiguity arose.
These authors are all taken seriously as philosophers, and taught as philosophers in the history of thought, and you can find plenty of academic dissertations on the philosophy of each one expressed in their fiction as well as use of their fiction to illustrate various philosophical themes. I would be surprised if you found a philosophy professor that dismissed any one of these thinkers as a just poor writing and arguments, nothing interesting philosophically, and really amazed if you found a professor that dismissed all five of these authors as "not philosophers; not relevant to philosophy departments".
They share in common with Rand writing fiction, but what they don't share is consistently misunderstanding previous thinkers and theories and formulating and attacking an entire field of strawmen.
But again, let's say you find a professor that does view Aristophanes, Shakespeare, Dante, Goethe, Hesse, Tolstoy just as irrelevant to philosophy as Rand's fiction, what about Rand's non-fiction? Your contention 'a' seems to be it's dismissed because of her previously writing fiction, that the academic community tends to pigeonhole fiction writers who try to break out of this philosophically irrelevant genre, akin to a signer trying to expand into acting and directors and the public not giving fair treatment; what's your supporting evidence? Are there other authors that fit this pattern, or just Rand?
No, I didn't. That was part of the reasons that I gave.
I only read the above by the way.
One thing at a time. Of course, you can type and blah blah blah on and on as much as you want, but I'm only doing one thing at a time. I see it as more or less a disease to have to type so much in response to simple comments. Aren't you capable of keeping things brief and focused?
Your points a, b and c, are all extraneous to the quality of argument. One can write fiction and have high quality arguments. One can develop outside of academia and have high quality arguments. One can misunderstand previous thinkers and theories and nevertheless have high quality arguments (bring plausible premises to sound conclusions).
But if you also agree with my point d. that the overwhelming factor why Rand is not taken seriously is that she makes low quality arguments that have no merit to be taken seriously, then what is there to debate?
Sure a, b, and c add some slight additional obstacle for Rand to "break in" to academia on top of point d. but who cares. Shakespeare is relatively recently looked at very seriously as presaging many philosophical movements that developed later, such as existentialism (perhaps he was a very serious and dedicated philosopher that used fiction so as to avoid being burned at the stake), Spinoza and Schopenhauer were initially dismissed as irrelevant outsiders, and accusations of misunderstanding or misrepresenting previous thinkers and theories is exchanged between many schools of thought all the time (he who has "gotten" Nietzsche, cast the first stone).
(c) is about the assessment of her content.
It's assessment of only part of her content, the part dealing with views of other thinkers, it says nothing of what arguments she presents herself from first principles, the much more important part.
What does (c)(i) have to do with other thinkers?
"(i) not being a 'systematic' philosopher" also says nothing about quality of arguments.
Many philosophers are not considered 'systematic' in their process or world view, even disagreeing that a system is desirable or even possible. Academic philosophers do not view non-systemic thinkers as creating low quality argument simply because they work outside or even repudiate a systemic view. This is also extraneous to quality of argument. A philosopher may have positive argument for believing a system is desirable and possible and their system is correct, and so by inference, if this is correct, all non-systemic philosophers are wrong, but even in this case it's not cause to assume the non-systemic philosophers are making poor quality arguments: philosophers can make extremely high quality arguments requiring extremely careful consideration -- merit very serious review -- and still be wrong.
It's an impression of her quality as a philosopher, which is about argumentation.
You didn't comment, by the way, on the fact that (c) (i) has nothing to do with her views of other philosophers. You had just said that's all it was about.
You also never responded to me asking you about the claim about Shakepeare, etc. being "taken seriously."
Let's solve one thing at a time. So we don't have to keep going back and forth.
Yes, I thought this was your method. And yet you make 3 successive posts about more than one thing. What gives? I thought you only ever did one thing. Furthermore, you skip all the way to point c (i) yet we haven't solved (a) much less (b).
To make matters worse:
Quoting Terrapin Station
Three comments in succession doesn't seem like one at a time. Or is it? One at a time but three times in a row? Are you being consistent here, or is it terribly not brief.
"You also never responded . . ."
Ok, have you responded to my very first question for you?
Quoting boethius
I don't see how you have progressed by methodically dealing with things one at a time.
I have only a glancing acquaintance with Ayn Rand, but my understanding thus far is that she tends toward fascism, not socialism. Selfishness, which she proclaims as a virtue, is anathema to socialism, a social, communal, political ideology. :chin:
I didn't respond to that because it made no sense to me. What relevance would a "link" be first off?
Quoting Terrapin Station
Implies you've already made answers that you consider satisfactory with respect to the issues raised here and are only here providing the nutshell version. Or at each time you only provide a nutshell version of a more complete answer you choose to withhold and never elaborate? If not, what could be more relevant than a link to both satisfactory and more complete answers that you've already made?
Or did you mean to say, "This question comes up periodically, and periodically I am unable to provide a good answer and make as poor a showing of my critical thinking abilities as will demonstrate for you here". If so, we've reached complete agreement. If not, it's certainly easier to reference material you have already made than to remake it from scratch.
Ah, a link to other threads specifically for my answer. For one, I'm pretty sure the last time it came up the thread was deleted. The mods seem to get annoyed that Rand is asked about so frequently--I know other Rand threads have been deleted, too. Partially because it's the same thing over and over again. You could search for other Rand threads if you're that interested. I think the longer version of my response here may have been deleted with that other thread though. I'm not that interested in it, really, but I enjoy going back and forth with people who act like as much of an unjustifiably arrogant asshole as you do, especially when I can goad you into typing so much in response to short answers.
Re "the reasons I believe my answer was 'complete'"--what the heck would a "complete" answer be for this?
She was neither. I would say she was a writer that more of right-wing libertarian conservative who invented her own philosophy of objectivism, which typically is just a resell of older classical philosophy done in a light-weight manner. And when her actual work are works of literature, so her philosophy is quite weak.
But as typical, everything on the right is fascism according to many people...
But people should ask about it from Benkei. Benkei struggled through her works and can exactly say what he doesn't like about Rand. Not many have read Rand so much.
Quoting Terrapin Station
Yeah.
I can imagine the poor person who first picks up some of Rand's book, or listens to libertarians talking about Rand and then goes to this kind of Forum and asks quite innocently: "So, what do you guys think about Ayn Rand? Doesn't she have some good thoughts?"
Exactly.
There's a geographical element to it too. From my political perspective, here in the UK, even America's left wing appears extreme-right-wing. So someone an American describes as a "right-wing libertarian conservative" is pretty much a fascist, when seen from here. If things go right, we here in the UK may soon see our first-ever socialist leader! I never thought I'd be lucky enough to get the chance to vote for one.
Ayn Rand is to philosophy what L. Ron Hubbard is to religion.
Because a sting has to look believable.
I see more than one point in the rest of your comment, why not be focused and brief dealing with one thing at a time?
Seems your standards of focused and brief are fairly arbitrary, only applicable when it suits you.
Quoting Terrapin Station
What's your standard of "unjustifiably arrogant asshole"? Elaborate your criteria and what statements of mine fall into it.
Quoting Terrapin Station
Have you really goaded me? What would lead you to believe that? What are my aims here, why would you believe I haven't attained them?
Or, have I goaded you into demonstrating you don't follow your own demands of dealing with things "one at a time".
And goaded you into responding to a criticism of your ability to think critically with a pathetic Ad hominem of "arrogant asshole".
Maybe your posts are deleted because, failing to engage in critical thinking in good faith, you must find shelter in insults.
Maybe I have goaded you into demonstrating that you are unable to deal with the substance of my criticism of your points a, b and c, and so are simply trying to derail the conversation instead.
I provided a list of authors that wrote fiction and are taken seriously. You have not provided a single example, other than Rand, of an author "pigeonholed" as not-serious-philosophy because they "initially wrote fiction", by the academic philosophical community. If it's a pattern, certainly there are other examples; if it's not a pattern then why did this only befall Rand? If you want to progress one at a time, then first backup your claim 'a'.
Quoting Terrapin Station
You refer to your own comment as a "nutshell", which implies it's a summary of some more complete answer. Since you yourself make this claim, why not back it up and show what your nutshell comment is a summary of. You also make the implication that you have nothing else to say on the matter, therefore these previous answers, whatever they are, are also complete in the sense that they satisfactorily deal with any criticism ... But since this great work of yours has been lost, and your objective here is only to goad people into writing philosophy on a philosophy forum and not to try any serious re-attempt of defending your position, it seems we may never know.
People who stumble into a Scientology center (as alludes to), a meeting about the "Chronicles of the Girku", some evangelical group preaching the earth is 6000 years old, or that ISIS is the new caliphate and soon takeover the middle east and destroy all the infidels there and beyond and we should all submit ahead of the curve, or various online pseudo "quantum spiritualities", or any number of other crank philosophies -- many people may also be quite impressed and come here and say "don't they have some good ideas that should be taken seriously by this forum and academic philosophers?" as well as "there's a lot of people believing this and taking it quite seriously, isn't that evidence it has good arguments?".
What would you say to such people?
If you read my first comment on this thread, would you say something similar to someone impressed by any of the above, or is it not a good approach?
I think the mature thing to do is leave them alone and ask that they reciprocate. If they find meaning in it somewhere that is pertinent to their own lives, then good for them. We only ask they dont impose their beliefs on us. Thats all.
As the late Umberto Eco noted, Fascism is a synecdoche. A "fuzzy totalitarianism" with "no quintessence". This is useful in both theoretical conceptualization, and as a bulwark against an encroaching fascism. Ayn Rand's ideal reification of her Objectivist philosophy would effectively suspend representative democracy, given that the government would be relegated down to a regalian function of maintaining property rights and a military for defense and security (primarily for upholding property rights). Those with the only substantive power in society would be those with who own the means of production, accumulating wealth, and hiring those whose only means of obtaining sustenance would be to sell their labor power, and all without any third party oversight, or interference and no meaningful way to enact change should conditions be subpar at best and hell at worst. Sound fairly adjacent to fascism to me.
You're being too generous. If Rand's ideal was realized (nearly everyone believed in objectivism because, being objective, nearly everyone arrives at the conclusion it's true; as is the case with other beliefs we consider objective -- such as there is some force gravity force us toward the ground, that the sun rises every day, and our our bodies die), then there would be no police, soldiers, judges (or politicians managing them) willing to carry out any "duty" toward the government, other people, much less some conception of justice based on the interest of the collective. If a police or soldier takes some risk to themselves, it's because there was payment proportional to the risk to render it rational for the maximization of their own gain. If a judge rules the only principle demonstrated is the ruling maximized the self interest of the judge. Moreover, there would be no "state ideology" determining some preference of where payment for service should come from (i.e. no police or soldier would believe they should work with preference for the state where they live, rather than who can pay the most), and so these police, soldiers, judges and politicians would be open to business to the highest bidder, as any good businessman is, with zero qualms over origin or their values (measured in something other than money, which they clearly have the most, and so the most value, being able to place the highest bid).
Likewise, if there is any democracy at all to try to select the few non-Randians who would risk gaining less by taking less bribes -- or, much worse, risk assassination -- to uphold some governing principle (whether it is fair property rights, fair trials to resolve contract disputes, or the fairness of the voting process; for fairness is it a pitiful cry of the weak), the people counting the votes would be as open for business to count in one way or the other, as police willing to arrest, plant evidence or assassinate if the right price right, to, among other things, get rid of these crazy non-Radians who would stand in the way of a rail project and other great deeds of the wealthy -- if sufficient payment is offered or violence threatened then not only are the votes counted in favour of who's bribed and threatened (and indeed carried out the threats on anyone that doesn't cooperate) the most, and the police and judges supposed to monitor the vote counters are as easily bribed or threatened to act in a rational way to both maximize their gain and minimize their personal risk.
Will "enlightened self interest" save the collective governing process? It can help in certain circumstances when it's clear to an oligarch that going too far in placing only Randians in positions of power will lead to chaos in the short term, but there are a few problems. First, what about the long term? if, as an oligarch, out of enlightened self interest and, in collaboration with my fellow oligarchs, we strike a truce amongst ourselves to place only enough Randians so the system offers little resistance to maximizing our own living conditions while minimizing the system itself falls apart to the point we too are affected, but placing the government on this trajectory things take this turn after we die, why would enlightened self interest prevent this scenario? Likewise, if we can extract all the value we can from the state and then just leave and go live in Switzerland to enjoy a stable society other people have foolishly built with democracy, why would enlightened self interest stop us? Also, what if the process of corrupting and pillaging the state is already underway, why would enlightened self interest compel me to take some risk to reverse the corruption rather than simply join in the fray and get out while the ports still function?
Really? You think Ron Paul is a fascist? How bizarre.
Quoting Pattern-chaser
First ever??? What happened to Clement Attlee?
You give people respect by making a well thought, informative response to their questions.
I think your first answer is the way one should answer any discussion thread started from either a new or old member. The kind of condescending type of answer where the underlying answer is "Christ, not one of these again..." is not only hugely arrogant, but simply unhelpful counterproductive. It just pushes us to think that those on the opposite side are simply jerks.
And typically if someone starts a discussion either to troll people or they have an agenda to promote, they aren't going to actually listen to other views. Then the discussion is quite useless and you can simply wait for the thread to slowly retreat to the back pages.
The minimal role of the government is the way a lot of right-wing libertarians especially in the US think. Not to be confused with the Libertarians-in-name-only type who talk about libertarian values and are for something else. Yet it's wrong to think that libertarians are fascists. Fascists believe in a strong centralized power, in big strong government. It's a typical charge that libertarians are against democracy. Yet what I've noticed this to be is just a critique about how well democracy actually functions.
Libertarianism has an inherent structure that makes it most difficult if not even impossible for totalitarianism to emerge and that is because it's central focus on freedom of the individual. And with individual rights and hence democracy there is always the opening for other views and typically socialism or some socialist thought will be popular. In a way, a true libertarian society that gives prosperity to it's people would be a huge disappointment for libertarians as people wouldn't necessary be libertarians at all. Closest country to libertarianism would be Switzerland (not Somalia, as the leftist trope goes) and it has a multitude of left-wing policies in place and a quite virile left.
Quoting Maw
A lot of things sound fairly fascist to you. Especially much seems to be adjacent to fascism. Yet what yougave as example would be a plutocracy, which inherently isn't fascist.
Yes, we agree here. I also believe it is not constructive to simply list negative adjectives without context, pointing to further resources, or backing up the claims.
I also very much share your empathy for confused or misguided people.
Nevertheless, we may differ in how far it is practical to making an encounter with critical thinking, such as on this forum, psychologically easy for people who are certain their beliefs are not only true but hold up to critical scrutiny, and are equally certain that if "academic philosophers" or "people who have read books" disagree then those people must have ulterior motives, bias and arrogance -- anything other than the merits of the content -- to not treat their cherished material with the same reverence and respect that they do and it.
It's simply not feasible to make it a pleasant and welcoming experience. Just like when someone with zero mountain climbing experience shows up in Nepal insisting they can climb Everest, all on their own. If they go to the Sherpa society in order to verify that they know how mountains are climbed and challenges dealt with from watching Into the Void, that they have the levels of courage and grit required, and that they just want a friendly check that they can easily converse and banter as an equal (with respect to mountain climbing) with the most seasoned Sherpas and toast the mountain before setting off to conquer new heights, it's unlikely to be as pleasant an experience as they imagine. I would wager they will almost immediately encounter the comments that they're beliefs are a danger to themselves and to others.
Sure, it's better to try to be civil and talk them down from essentially committing suicide and endangering the lives of others that will be compelled to try and save them when they call for help over their radio or sat-phone, but if the "mountaineer" persists in insisting they're just as good a mountaineer as anyone else, and they're going to prove it, I think we should err on the side of forgiving the Sherpa's their frustration with this disrespectful individual than be overly concerned that the "mountaineer" has their feelings hurt in the exchange.
Quoting ssu
was clearly referring to the libertarian Randians. And you yourself made this close association by beseeching us "imagine the poor person who first picks up some of Rand's book, or listens to libertarians talking about Rand".
Though I agree it's in principle possible for a libertarian to see Randianism as contradictory and poisonous to any governing principle, whether big of small, and that sufficient number of people following Rand, especially in government, will undermine the libertarian idea of property rights as well as the political process that we might otherwise hope to rectify the situation, by pursuing their idea of justice, which is to maximize their own gain, but we would otherwise call corruption.
In the case of Randian libertarians, they are Randians first and believe that the strong should dominate the weak. This is the essence of Rand's so called "philosophy", that "real men" do what they please and the weak shouldn't band together to protect their collective interests (either as individuals much less to further some idea of a justice independent of their individual interests), but rather should either join the rich and powerful if they can by too becoming "real men" or then just get out of the way and watch the many more wonders industrialists will make for us when freed from the obstacles of taxes, regulation and voters.
That the strong should dominate the weak and pay no head to what the weak and their allied misguided wealthy "do-gooders" think of as morality (that this form of morality is just the weak trying to trick or beg the strong into caring for them when they shouldn't, when they should only care about themselves), is the heart of fascism. To the elites trying to move a country towards fascism it's simply the pathway that gives themselves the most power; to the poor asked to support this fascist movement, of course the ideology of self interest isn't offered but rather whatever ideology is at hand that will lead the poor to support the fascist takeover against their own interest: racism is often handy, unquestioning patriotism is a must, idolizing the leader always useful.
Ironically, in post-WWII united states, it was also useful to promote an ideology that lionizes personal profit above the general interests of society, indeed denies any such general interest can be conceived, while simultaneously insisting that people following this ideology will create the most public good of any ideology (of which any standard of public good is denied, and so if asked to backup the claim, there is nothing to backup or verify i.e. whatever results from people following their own interests is for the public good, as there is no possible standard of public good other than people following their own interests QED; if someone takes all the power and all the wealth and rules like a king for their own pleasure, torturing and killing those that would oppose them, even carrying out the killings in foreign embassies rebuking and taunting the whole world and their precious diplomatic civility and charter of human rights, well power to them: they're a winner, you should try to be a winner too next time ... just not through collective action but as a rich industrialists who can compel cooperation through payment, bribery and violence when required or for the heck of it).
And what alternative is there?
To say "hey guys, help me seize power and remove all constraints to my own freedom that the laws and the government now impose on me, which is so painful and onerous I can barely bare it (woe, woooeee is me), because this is rational for me to want, total and unfettered freedom ... but also don't consider if it is rational for you to support this cause and, most of all, I want you to happily sacrifice your own lives, in foolish service to ancient and savage tribal idealism that I personally despise and you have not yet learned enough to hate too but still believe there is a land worth anything more than a place to put my billboard (and if I myself were called to serve I would seek deferment of the draft until the war is over, but do what I say not as I do) -- I ask this so I can increase and then protect my property, which will soon be de facto the whole of the country when I control all the organs of the state and there are no constraints to my freedom. Step up, step up! brave idiots and do what is best for me with no thought of yourselves: for it is the individual, in particular my individual, that has alone any value (it's as clear as day to me and indeed the only thing that I can see and the only truth that I could ever call objective)".
This is why:
Quoting Maw
What nonsense is this? Apart from the multitude of fallacies in her work, like deriving ethics from a logical tautology (I mean, wtf?!). She further grounds ethics in Aristotlean biology (eg. teleological) while that was totally debunked by Darwin well before she started writing.
Glad to know though I can from now on ignore everything you ever write here since you're incapable off recognising bullshit when it hits you in the face every third paragraph.
But I am a jerk to people who think Rand has anything useful to say. That's not for their benefit but for this site as to minimise their presence by making sure they don't feel welcome.
I'm not sure you understood what I wrote. Did what I write come off as an endorsement of Rand for some reason?
But at least you have given the credible impression that you have still actually read her work. :halo:
She's not taken seriously because objectivism is crap. When she's right, she's unoriginal and when she's wrong, it's clear she isn't aware of philosophical history and so obviously wrong it just makes her look stupid. Hence anyone downplaying the reasons for this by suggesting she's not taken seriously for irrational reasons is tacitly endorsing crap.
That's not the only reason, though. Surely you don't think that everything that's "taken seriously" by philosophy departments, peer-reviewed journals, etc. is not crap, right? If that's the case, then work being crap isn't sufficient to explain this.
Oh, so you agree with my point 'd' that the overwhelming reason Rand isn't taken seriously by academic philosophers is the low quality of her arguments. I'm glad our little discussion has come to a close.
Quoting ssu
Please point out who in the discussion does not give a credible impression of having read Rand's work? Ambiguous and loosely ended criticism I'm sure you agree in just bad taste.
And what is even your position here? That Rand should be taken seriously?
Demonstrate your case, cite her passages that are serious philosophy and explain to us why.
Or is your case only that we should be very, very concerned that the poor innocent ivy league freshman that attends the local "council of Rand" to quickly verify that there is no possible criticism of how money is accumulated, either by his family or anyone else and he should never for the rest of his life reflect on his devotion to whoever pays him the most as he launches his brilliant career in corporate America, and he can simply brush aside thousands of years of political philosophy that has grappled with the problem of corruption in government and vulnerability to a full take over by rich and powerful citizens, because it is easily solved by just viewing money as votes and "influence" is what everyone is doing anyway (look, these "philosophers" are doing it right here!), the rich just win while the poor lose -- that we should be overly concerned this poor boy with the depth of knowledge of a frisbee and the innocence of a soft eyed lamb will be slightly taken aback to find out that critical thinkers on the internet don't just throw out thousands of years of political philosophy when they hear "greed is good" and "altruism is evil" and "dollars should be votes" and "taxes are immoral and robbery ( ... but also deny any moral code that would be the basis to assert anything at all is immoral apart from self-interest ...)" and "there is no public good apart from the interest of individuals! ... construed in whatever way is needed to remove constraints on the rich while protecting their property, whether it's in the interest of anyone else or not, of which we will always claim they are policies for the public good anyway even though we literally just said the public good doesn't exist, only individuals. I. I am an individual."?
What is NOT fascist about Paul?
Tons of stuff that's in the canon consists of low quality arguments.
I've already requested of you on this point in my first response to you:
Quoting boethius
Are you unable to satisfy a simple request to backup your claim?
If indeed you can show "the cannon" is filled with as bad thinkers as Rand, I have no problem petitioning the community of academics to enshrine her among the "low-quality argument shelf". If it's her due to be "officially bad philosophy", it's her due. I agree there.
But, if it's more goading your after, I'm ready for round 2 too.
I never read that. Again, you can type as much as you want--of course. It's just that I'm not about to read more than what I quote from you. "As poor thinkers as Rand" is a bit different than "low-quality arguments" isn't it? I just want to clarify that first.
Let's start with his views and ideology for starters.
?
Actually I stated what I thought quite clearly about her if you would mind reading what people say. But seems like your hunting for some Rand supporter to attack. To unleash some wait, it's coming...
Quoting boethius
Wow, you got it on paper, no, to the internet. In three or four sentences? That weed had to be good. Or was it just booze?
Yes, please defend your thesis by referencing Rand's material.
Quoting ssu
If I was hunting for Rand supporters to attack I'd be on Reddit, not here.
The question here is "Why isn't Rand taken seriously by academics?".
As you are aware, I'm defending the position that she's not taken seriously because she has no material that merits being taken seriously.
It follows from this that her arguments are comically easy to show have no merit (otherwise they would have merit and should be taken seriously).
Therefore, I should have a comically easy time of it, which I do.
If the results seem a strawman, it's up to you to demonstrate that.
People who want to defend the position that her material should be taken seriously -- or from what I understand of your position, maybe shouldn't be taken seriously as philosophy but we should go through the motions of taking it seriously to spare the emotions of people who erroneously take it seriously due to being poor and innocent in the ways of philosophy? (But please make your view more clear if this isn't the case) -- people who want to defend she should be taken seriously, to one degree or another, need to do actual defense of her material, not flail their arms around in the meta realm of arguments about her arguments that don't reference her arguments.
However, the only other position here, of you and , seems to be she should be taken "a bit seriously", but not serious enough that you or Terrapin would quote anything she says to defend your view.
If there are Randians on the forum, or who read this thread and join the forum, that want to defend her arguments, maybe you should leave space for them to do it, rather than step in to ... well I still don't know what your trying to do here ... which might leave the impression that the serious ssu is their shield and the very fact you seem (maybe? from a distance?) on the side of the Randians (in some subtle way) shows, again in the meta realm of flailing about with arguments about arguments, that Rand has some merit.
Or, if you want to play devils advocate, well an advocate needs to do some actual work to defend a case.
I'd never use the phrase "take seriously," and I've not said anything even slightly supportive of Rand.
Which is why I used the words "a bit seriously".
Respond to Benkei:
Quoting Benkei
If you want to defend your claim that:
Quoting Terrapin Station
Are you an Aspie?
Ok, so now I have to defend my argument. With references. With Detail. So be it, Boethius.
So I said Quoting ssu
So I'll defend my argument. With "neither" above refers to the earlier arguments that she was a socialist or a fascist:
1) Ayn Rand is not a socialist
This might be obvious to any Rand reader as she is devoted in seeing Laissez-Fair Capitalism as far more than private ownership of capital and resource allocation through using the market mechanism, but truly an ideal in political economic system, which has good philosophical ramifications. Her hatred of socialism ought to be evident, but if not, just one quote from many:
Reference to Rand,
2) Ayn Rand is not a fascist
As Ayn Rand champions the individual and is against centralized government, it should be obvious that she isn't for fascism either, an ideology that believes in the strong government that has a central role in nearly everything. Basically Rand see's socialism, communism, fascism and nazism as a similar thing, basically as the collectivism and 'statism' that she opposes. She's against the idea that they actually would be any kind of opposites (fascism and socialism that is).
A quote from Rand:
And if that line isn't somehow enough, well, just listen 12 minutes to the following:
It's quite ridiculous line that Rand would be a fascist. This assumption perhaps starts from the idea that when she is so much for capitalism, then she actually wants fascism. Idea of hidden agenda or adjacency or something as loony is similar to the traditional line that 20th Century communists saw fascism.
3) Ayn Rand's objectivism is a resell of older classical philosophy done in a light-weight manner
With light-weight manner I refer to the fact that Rand first stated her philosophy fictional novels, not philosophical works. In a fictional novel it's even more easy to assume extremely unrealistic narrative than in some historical or philosophical text. And why it's a resell of older classical philosophy:
In my view perhaps this would have been something modern yet mediocre in the time of the Enlightment, but saying facts are facts is very amateur (perhaps not understanding the circular reasoning). Statement 2) comes close to something like naive realism with the spin on the importance of the individual. It also simply disregards traditional philosophy. Statement 3) is just part of the appraisal of laissef-faire capitalism and individualism to a larger than life philosophy. In my view this is quite shallow. And then one quote that does show Rand's shallow and limited understanding of philosophy.
Of course, philosophy seems for Rand not to have advanced since Aristotle... before her, at least.
Do I favour Rand? Hell no. But I won't agree with stupid arguments like "Rand is a fascist/socialist" because they go against her thinking totally and thus just shows an ignorant and condescending attitude that actually Rand followers will be waiting to hear especially from the left. Hence it's actually counterproductive. Far better to attack the loony side of her ultra-individualist ideology, which smells being a motivational book for the American travelling salesman.
Hopefully this would clarify my argument, Boethius. Because from your response I think you haven't even bothered to look at what I wrote. (So that you would read this long answer is, well...)
Yes, you do actually have to defend your argument. I think that's what we do here.
Quoting ssu
You are free to defend your case by flipping the burden of proof on me.
But I think you know where that would lead and why I first responded to your concerns by listing a whole list of crank philosophies. But since you mention it in passing as a implied criticism, I think we should deal with it as explicit debate.
For, if I need to prove in the positive sense Rand is a crank philosophy, by going through all her work and listing all the contradictions and writing a whole thesis PhD style on each one to definitely show that, almost certainly, there is no possible interpretation that makes sense, then I'd hold you to the same standard for any other crank philosophy.
Demand you read through all 7 volumes of The Chronicles of the Girku before dismissing it.
Do you not know ssu, that the Girku Chronicles is just a rehash of the work of Carl Sagan? Sagan also talked about aliens, so does the Girku. Anything wrong with the Girku is because it's fiction! dumb dumb! you also need to read through all the other published commentary, the online forums, go to several years worth of meetings, directly connect to the alien sub-quantum-frequency broadcast*, to have any chance of understanding what the Girku really means. The arrogance of these philosophers!
Now, the Girku might be true. I don't dismiss the Girku because I have an arrogant epistemology where I'm right and everyone else is false. The Girku makes little sense (and I read the first volume to better understand what humanity gets up to); but the truth might make little sense. The Girku reinterprets all history as the work of aliens and dismisses thousands of years of non-alien based explanations for things by nearly all historians past and present; well, aliens would certainly have that power to both determine our history, hide their involvement and individually manipulate each of our historians if they must and then choose the Girku author to reveal themselves.
Given this, that we cannot be certain the Girku is false. Why haven't you read it and are not continuously proposing to the forum to, if not believe it, at least take it a bit-seriously as just a variation of Saganism?
And this is a serious question, I require your answer in order to apply a common (and fair) standard to Rand.
Once we agree on this standard, then I will respond to the idea that Rand is just an enlightenment thinker transported to the 20th century.
I know why I dismiss the Girku "Without references. Without Detail.", do you?
Now, is Rand more serious simply because we are discussing it here? Well, I just brought in the Girku so we're now also discussing the Girku here; the Girku is a newer revelation and so naturally takes time to be discussed as much as Rand on philosophy forums.
*I have zero clue if you really need to connect to the sub-quantum-frequency-broadcast to understand the Girku, or if I just did connect and I've just been told that all humans can now connect if they want as an additional avenue and easier way to just download the information into their brains (seven volume of non-sequitur was only for the courageous pioneers). So, if you haven't connected, well that's your choice to continue to grope around in the darkness, cherish your ignorance.
Edit: I'll of course address the "she's not fascist argument" (and we will find some common ground there, though not much) but my position is her philosophy is crank level and not "Ayn Rand's objectivism is a resell of older classical philosophy done in a light-weight manner" or "In my view perhaps this would have been something modern yet mediocre in the time of the Enlightment"; I view this as a gross misrepresentation of classical philosophy and associating Rand with the enlightenment is ridiculous, so I definitely want to deal with that first, which requires a criteria to distinguish "enlightenment quality" if only written yesterday, and crank quality both yesterday, today and tomorrow. To give a preview of my next arguments after that; I agree that Rand doesn't "want fascism", the issue is whether her philosophy, if taken to heart, leads to fascism anyways regardless of what she wanted and if there's anything in her philosophy, other than blatantly contradictory statements or simply flatly denying it, that would lead us to conclude otherwise.
Really? Address something that I actually wrote in the edit section? Gosh.
Quoting boethius
Good you had the answer in parentheses and added "though not much". Otherwise it would have been really awkward. There is obviously no reason whatsoever to discuss the thoughts of a crank.
Quoting boethius
And obviously that is the most effective way to counter the ideas is to call her a crank. Now why didn't I think of this when somebody starts to talk silly things like Marxist economics. Just denote the Marxists to be cranks. They'll surely notice their error, apologize and change their views. Problem solved boethius style.
Quoting boethius
Of mediocre 18th Century philosophy? No. Because she's a crank, got it.
Quoting boethius
But she's a crank.
Quoting boethius
Is this good English? (As a stupid foreigner, how could I now?)
Still, it's a whimsical idea that has been reurgitated so many times that it starts to sounds like it would be true (for leftists, thati is): that laissez-fair capitalism and individualism "anyways regardless" transforms to fascism. Yet wasn't it that libertarianism lead to Somalia-style situation? I remember that meme widely cherised in the left also. Oh, that might be so yesteryear. Now it leads to fascism, got it.
And of course, if Rand's views are silly, then we can refute her views with equally silly arguments like she is a fascist. Sounds really convincing.
Ok, you have no standard of what is crank philosophy.
You've obviously thought about it, and perhaps you offer no standard because you realize a lot of what you already said about Rand would fit snugly into that standard.
Quoting ssu
I have zero problem recognizing we have common ground, it's not awkward to for me to say you do have points I agree with and points that I don't.
Quoting ssu
This is not my position. I think the Girku is crankish, but I still read the first volume even after it passes my standard of crankishness with flying colours on the first one or two pages.
Why did I read it then? Because others believe it. If no one believed it, or everyone who liked it viewed it as just entertaining fiction and nothing more.
And this is why Rand is discussed more than the Girku on philosophy forum, since enough people believe in Rand's ideology to have political force. If Rand really was just a "mediocre Enlightenment author" that no one studied or believed; it was just a footnote to historians that someone advocated that "altruism is evil", but no one believed it because it's as absurd on the surface as completely devoid of any meaning at all when unpacked, then no one would care, least of all me. But people do believe it and these people have real consequences in the world. Though simply "number of belief" and "political consequence" shouldn't change what academic philosophers view as crankish material, as that would be to admit that content has not much relevance and only popularity and further to admit that any similar material should be taken as seriously because it might one day become popular.
If adherents of the Girku developed into a political force and, after merging with Scientology, wanted to start simulate the drowning of people to purge them of Thetans as this they have discovered was the best way to deal with dissenters, I'm fairly confident that you would suddenly view their ideology as warranting discussion. You don't have any desire to discuss the Girku now because, for now, they represent no political force.
But, again these questions are serious, would you change your opinion of the Girku being crankish material just because it developed into a political force? Or, would you say your opinion of the material has not changed?
Based on your answer, I think it very likely we can quickly close the chapter on "is Rand crankish material or not", which has been my position I have been defending, and move onto what you find most important which is "should people be calling her fascist or not". (of course I'll also briefly go over why she's no "mediocre enlightenment material" or "rehash of classical philosophy", which are both in my view completely ludicrous statements, that shouldn't go unchallenged)
I'm sure you are aware I have not once called her a fascist in this argument nor bring the word "fascist into the argument", just that, once the word appeared and you took issue with it, explained my own view that fascists saw it convenient to promote her ideology (does this make her a Fascist yes and no. No, to the extent "she doesn't want fascism in her heart", yes to the extent she was promoting an ideology and cooperating in processes that lead to fascism). So this is our common ground: that we both don't just call her a fascist because she "wanted fascism". Do you see a lot of common ground beyond that, or agree with me that it is "not much".
For, as you are certainly also aware, "well meaning" and "what we want" (absent any critical thinking that would what our actions are likely to lead to) are tricky concepts in moral philosophy. Is the SS officer taking his coffee on the Fields of Mars and seeing Jews and other riffraff being assembled to be sent to the East somewhere, morally exculpated because he might "means well" and "wishes them no harm".
Rand is one of these typical immigrants to the US who praise the exceptionality of the American system. She makes this mix of individualism, libertarianism and capitalism in a way that obviously some Americans like. I think it is simply counterproductive brush this of as ludicrous humbug of one crank. You Americans genuinely voted Trump to be your President, so that tells a lot. And people here are discussing solipsism, so...
Quoting boethius
Your lurid example of merging with Scientology is beside the point here, so I'll answer to this above.
If many people believed in Girku or whatever whacky movement, I wouldn't just skip their ideas being baseless. You see, I genuinely believe in democracy. And I believe that the vast majority of at least my fellow adult citizens are sane and aware of political realities hence capable of choosing their elective representatives and upholding the nation of ours. And things have gone here quite fine. If they would start believing in Girku, sure, I may not agree with them, but simply stating that they are CRAZY doesn't get us anywhere else than in a worse fix. For some movement to become a genuine political movement, it simply cannot be an eccentric cult, but something that ordinary mentally stable people will adhere to. Calling then those ideas (that you don't support) ideas of a crank / madman is just part of the typical political tribalism of today that doesn't see a need for any dialogue. Naturally just sidelining them being cranks and crazies would be extremely arrogant and condescending. You see it's one thing to argue "I disagree with you, you are confusing" than to say "You should get help because you are mentally ill." The latter is not dialogue.
Quoting boethius
Look, I just made a comment that she isn't a fascist to Pattern-chaser's comment, It's you that is making a huge fuss about it.
Quoting boethius
This is this strange adjacency accusation which I actually don't like at all. That basically what you actually say doesn't matter, but if the wrong people (who you don't have things in common) refer to you, quote you or whatever, then YOU have common ideologies and sympathies with them. Even if you have said you oppose them. This is simply ludicrous and utterly illogical.
First of all "promoting an ideology and cooperating in processes that lead to fascism" is the typical "political gateway drug"-argument used by intolerant, narrow minded and typically ignorant people on both sides who really share a hatred of the other side (but I don't think you are one of these however). The other side hasn't just bad ideas about policies that in the end won't work, no, they have this evil covered up agenda that they try to sell in sheep's clothing. It would be TOTALLY SAME as to make the case that Bernie Sanders as a "socialist" is "promoting an ideology and cooperating in processes" that leads Communism and totalitarianism to come. And many Trumpist will definately be thinking so, if Bernie would some day become President.
And it's absurd, but that's the way the World is.
Of course you did have the declarations in Soviet Union of it being "the real democracy" and similar stuff can happen (like neonazis saying that actually they are for libertarianism), but the likely reason is just there is absolutely no ideological backbone, but only issues are given to people to what they like. As I said, it's absurd. Yet in a Philosophy Forum we might discuss the actual ideologies and what people actually say...
Quoting boethius
It's not tricky, it's a historical fact that many ideologies have started from the simple idea that making the World better, some people simply have to be killed. And many people have accepted these kind of ideas, unfortunately. And on both sides of the political divide.
And why would the SS officer even think so? If he would be a devoted nazi, he would likely understand that someone has to do the ugly stuff, but he has to be strong as he, after all, is an ĂĽbermensch. Just as the NKVD officers liquidating peasants as class-enemies could find solace, being a true communist fighting for the revolution, in the theories of Marx that the class enemy has to be dealt with and this will happen in a violent way.
If you want to psychologize Rand, open a new thread in the psychology section.
She's dead, so will not be able to benefit from any psychological analysis you have in order to amend her biases.
Quoting ssu
It's not ludicrous why people believe ludicrous humbug of a crank, it happens all the time, and we should take it seriously.
I agree it's counter productive to brush aside this fact in political analysis, for it makes up the political world, in this specific case but also a general case.
The question of the OP is why is the material, as such, not taken seriously by academic philosophers. And the answer is that it's ludicrous humbug of one crank: otherwise they would take it seriously.
To say otherwise is to mischaracterize the views of most academic philosophers. And if they say otherwise, I would say nearly in every case, it's to spare feelings, as you suggest, but if you then ask "if you saw this material today, and it was presented as new, would you take it seriously or would you dismiss it as crankish?" the answer is, very likely, they would dismiss it as crankish and they would point to the obvious errors in reasoning that the whole purpose of academic philosophy is to strive to avoid.
Quoting ssu
Sigh ... not an American ... don't live in America ... don't see how that would change the discussion. I suppose it's some sort of ad hominem referencing the American left's unhealthy obsession with the health of their political system.
I recommend you introspect why you would just wantonly assume false premises and if it has only ever occurred this once or whether it happens all the time. Now, I don't expect you to share the results of this introspection today, nor tomorrow, but some day perhaps, and on that day I do not expect you will give me credit for having pointed you in this direction. But will that be just another false premise? I know not these things.
Quoting ssu
Why is it lurid? People believe it, we can psychologize about why Scientologists like Scientology just as much as Randians like Rand.
You seem to agree with the entirety of my methods, dismiss a movement's content as lurid or wacky, when they are not a political ally of yours.
If they are a political ally of yours, promoting policies that sometimes align with your position, then, regardless of why they promote these policies and who might be paying them to do so, we need to put on the kitten gloves and stroke their hair and keep them around on the forum as some sort of pet, that, sure, the meows and purrs aren't participating in philosophy but doesn't mean we can't have cute philosophical names for these kittens.
But, prey tell, if you really do use the same standard for all, tell us why Scientology's content isn't "baseless"? Tell us why the Girku's content isn't "baseless".
As I said, to make any advancement I will need a common and fair standard in order to tell the difference between crank and not crank, between rehash of classical philosophy and crank, between mediocre enlightenment and crank. Propose a standard and we can go from there vis-a-vis the OP's question.
Quoting ssu
Then render to Pattern-chaser what is Pattern-chaser's.
Though I didn't bring in the word fascist, I didn't say it's an irrelevant topic to discuss here. My position is more nuanced than Pattern-chaser's, at least as first presented, if you want to debate against Pattern-chaser, do so, if you want to debate against me, then expect me to present my own position and to clarify it when it seems misunderstood -- I think you would do the same.
Quoting ssu
Following this reasoning, if Stalin said he was opposed to tyranny, he is not a tyrant, case closed. It would be completely illogical and ludicrous to say otherwise.
There are in fact two other logical possibilities:
A. Stalin is lying when he said he's opposed to tyranny.
B. Stalin does not understand what is meant by tyranny and is in fact commenting on something else.
Furthermore, I choose my words carefully, why not carefully reflect upon them?
I said:
Quoting boethius
I used the words "yes, to the extent", meaning it is up for debate to what extent it is. If she had no participation in fascism or creating fascist ideology, then the term fascism would indeed be this adjacency fallacy. However, if she created a fascist ideology that she simply didn't refer to as fascism and does not understand what historians understand by the word fascism, then she is a fascist in this sense; likewise, if she knowingly helped fascists then she is a fascist in this sense of participation in a fascist movement. If she helped fascists, but not knowingly, I agree we cannot say she is fascist to this extent, only that she was a useful idiot of fascists.
Since this seems your main concern, whether we "call people names" which I agree we shouldn't if those names are only insults and provide no insight. I agree that we shouldn't call movement's making use of, or or entirely based on, crank material as "crazy" movements.
However, we can not simply call no one names at all, that people aren't people, that children aren't children, that a socialist is not a socialist, that a fascist is not a fascist. What matters in these cases is if the name is useful, does it express some useful meaning, and of course whether there's any actual evidence the meaning is useful in describing the person.
You seem to want to live in a world where all fascists and all fascist ideology simply vanished after World War II. This is a dangerous world view.
I will deal with other trivia, and then present my position on the matter in my next post, though it may take a few days; as I have promises to keep, and miles to go before I sleep.
Quoting ssu
It is tricky if "well meaning" and "what we want" is morally exculpatory as all these movements you refer to will all say "ah, we meant well" and "ah, we didn't want our actions to result in a totalitarian hellscape". If "well meaning" is sufficient for moral exoneration, this applies to nearly everyone. If we want to condemn the SS officer we need more, as someone can simply insist he "means well" and we cannot be sure he "doesn't mean well".
:blush: First-ever in my lifetime. :blush: Typing fingers got ahead of brain. As for Ron Paul, the only (left-wing) US politicians I know are Warren and Sanders. And some of their ideas are still scary, coming from 'socialists'. But that's just my perspective. At least they have some concern for the American working man and woman.
Please let's be clear: I commented that the vast majority of American politicians - even the supposedly left-wing ones - look like fascists to me, here on the edge of Europe, on the other side of the Atlantic. And there are plenty of people here in the UK who don't share my opinions. :wink: (Even) I wouldn't've been rash enough to call an individual politician "fascist" without just a little more thinking about it first. :smile: Sorry for my loose tongue! :wink:
I have returned from my travels, and finally have the time to deliver the promised goods of why Ayn Rand is neither a rehash of classical ancient Greek philosophy nor can be somehow associated with the enlightenment, lest anyone fall upon this thread and believe there's no backing up these claims when the bill comes due.
Though I think we have come to agree on most things, I think it's important to clarify that Rand isn't "light weight" good classical philosophy in a novel form, but completely incompatible with the positions of any classical philosopher.
Now that I'm back home, I even have my copy of the Fountain Head to draw on, that some misguided economically irrational person left at a "take a book / leave a book" -- the worst insult I have ever seen thrown at an author's message -- which I needed to rectify by taking it without leaving anything.
The reasons are very simple.
The core theme of classical philosophy is the tension between the interests of the individual and the interests of the group. As society's became more complex, the link between the interests of the individual and the group became more indirect and abstract, and classical philosophers took note of this and tried to resolve the issue. The classical thinkers are unanimous that some sort of "virtue" (what we call social norms) is necessary to maintain society as they knew it, what we would call civilization.
There are really only two sides to the debate in classical times:
One side accepts the virtue needed to maintain society (honest trading and non-corrupted politicians, abstaining from thievery, soldiers dying in wars, general loyalty to the government and society, striving for excellence in ones domain to contribute etc.) and their differences are in how to argue for the general framework (why exactly it's reasonable to be virtuous) as well as what exactly is virtuous. All these virtue theories of one form or another are completely incompatible with Rand's thinking; they are all collectivist, differing only in how the collective is defined, why act in its interest, what is exactly the collective interest and to what extent one is morally bound to do so.
The second group reject the framework, as does Rand, but unlike Rand they take the credible next step of completely accepting that getting rid of the rules upon which society is based gets rid of that kind of society. The best example is Diogenes who rejects all "your rules man" and on a first analysis we may see the attempt to make the Randian style ubermensch once free from social constraints. But after 2 seconds we quickly see there is no common thread between Diogenes and Rand. Diogenes lived as a beggar, and viewed civilization as basically a moral illness, whereas Rand believes rejecting society's rules can somehow deliver a better society in line with those social values she's rejecting. Diogenes does not actually reject virtue based ethics of acting in the best interest of society, just that those rules have been corrupting, and his own actions he justifies as teaching society (like Socrates) as a doctor healing wayward morals (i.e. he selflessly takes risk exposing the unjustifiable social norms and teaches real moral philosophy for the good of the collective).
In other words, it's completely credible philosophically to reject social norms ... if one then accepts the corollary that those social norms would then radically change society if rejected on mass. Likewise, it's philosophically credible to claim one should reject social norms and take advantage of the people that keep to them (entering deals with no intention of honoring them; seeing no problem of stealing, murdering and raping when one can get away with it, and pursuing one's fancy without any reference to what most people would call "morals", whether in business or crime or government, getting ahead with unconstrained ruthless efficiency), and again accept the corollary that this only works because there are many fools to keep perpetuating the value of society. What's not credible is to reject social norms, such as selfless actions required to preserve society and perpetuate the value within, and then claim this will through some obscure convoluted process, that is never developed, result in a better version of that society: more creativity and inventions, less poverty (eventually), in short more peace and prosperity as the West understands it.
Discussions with Randians just go round in circles from blaming any obvious example of greed resulting in bad social outcomes for the group (e.g. the Mafia) on the greedy, lazy selfishness of politicians and bureaucrats for not implementing the "right system" (legalizing drugs) that align incentives for the social good, with the irony completely lost on them.
Rand's thinking only seems plausible if the basic structure of society is taken for granted: that impartial courts with uncorruptible judges will determine what belongs to who with impartiality, that police will take great personal risk to enforce these court definitions of property and not take bribes, soldiers will sacrifice their lives when needed (and follow lawful orders rather that stage a coup) to protect the entire system, and politicians will honestly manage these institutions for the good of all.
No classical philosopher had such a preposterous view that these institutions could be maintained somehow without anyone taking personal risk for the good of the group (i.e. acting not for the preservation of the self but for the preservation of the collective), nor believed that some magical alignment of incentives could be created that keeps society humming along without anyone acting outside there self interest (and even less believed the more absurd implication of Randians views that such a system could come into existing by a similar process of people only looking out for themselves). To academics, the problems are so obvious that there's simply nothing to debate.
Comparing to the Enlightenment is largely a repetition of the above. Nietzsche is the obvious candidate to substitute for Diogenes, but again we find Nietzsche is completely aware that the rejection of social norms will result in radical changes to society, that by definition are not evaluated as good from the perspective of those collapsing social norms: that the definition of "good" will become unmoored. There's of course lot's that is up for interpretation and debate of what Nietzsche believes is "actually good" or if he is even concerned with that question but just observing what's happening; but what is clear is that Nietzsche doesn't make any completely absurd claim such as "Christian norms collapsing will result in an even better Christian society!" much less anything remotely similar to the even more absurd claims of Rand.
Rand can claim "greed is good" but the corollary is that judges accepting this idea will be greedy, as well police, soldiers and politicians, and civilization will quickly disintegrate if this idea is adopted en masse. She can say such a process would be good and that would be a credible positions; but she doesn't, she simply denies the obvious implications of her claim. If we look at figures such as Machiavelli we find similar incompatibilities with Rand.
Randians think that an obvious fatal flaw in a position isn't a problem, that they just don't have to explain why public servants should serve the public good (they respect the troops, and that's enough), but that's not how academic philosophy is discussed: flaws need to be mended, and if they aren't a position loses credibility; and if there's not even an attempt then the proponents of that position are identified as crankish and delusional.
However, if there is any issue with the above, or any other classical philosopher who is proposed as pre-saging Rand, it's best to discuss that first before rehashing the above argument vis-a-vis the enlightenment.