[A different version of this rejoinder was published as several posts on Starship Forum in 2002 December.]
On Friday, December 06, 2002 2:57 PM Andre Zantonavitch
zantonavitch@yahoo.com
wrote:
> All the above, obviously, contradicts the CURRENT
> meaning of the term which says classical liberalism
> is either the politics of Locke or -- if we're very lucky
> -- the politics and philosophy of Bacon, Hobbes,
> Newton, and Locke.
I've never heard Newton and Hobbes being called liberals in any sense of the term. Bacon, at best, might be implicated as a liberal in Andre's sense, but it would take a lot of fancy footwork to make it stick. In all three cases, he provides none of this. (It's not very important here, though it reveals Andre's method: bold assertions with nothing to back them up.)
> Objectivism isn't so much wrong in its belief system
> --altho' it is that -- as it is in its tone, atmosphere,
> approach, organization and leadership. The main
> illiberalism of Objectivism lies, not with the
> philosophy itself, but with the movement.
His terminology is slightly off here. Objectivism is a system of philosophy -- or better, a set of systems of philosophy. What he's talking about, mainly, are certain Objectivists or specific strands of the Objectivist movement -- not Objectivism per se. Granted, these individual Objectivists or groups of them who have the reprehensible traits he lists are vocal and large (how large is another matter; do they make up the majority?), but they're not the whole movement and they are not the philosophy itself.
An analogy might prove helpful here. Science, as an idea or system of thought is one thing. Those who practice science -- scientists, researchers, scholars, etc. -- are another. One might find, e.g., looking at most scientists, etc. that they're a) theists and b) politically Left of Center. Would this mean that science itself is theistic and Leftist? Not at all, any more than most scientists wear pants or can read means science itself wears pants and can sit down and read a book.
This terminological problem, however, is not minor, since Andre constantly thinks of Objectivism and Objectivists as one in the same. He has demostrated an inability to separate the two -- to separate ideas or systems of ideas from the people who hold them. (This is very important because people tend to hold many ideas, often contradictory ones at the same time. Also, one would not want to confuse a logical relation with a contingent one. That a person holds idea X and idea Y at the same time does not mean X and Y follow from each other. I believe that the current downturn is, to some extent, cause by inflation. I also Andre is wrong about the Middle East. Are these two beliefs related? Can someone hold one and not the other? Surely, people can because the views are not closely related.)
> #1. Objectivism is generally timid, inhibited and
> conservative -- not free-thinking, open-minded,
> high-spirited, dynamic, and exuberant, as
> it should be.
Again, changing the wording from "Objectivism is" to "Objectivists are" would be more precise above. Even so, one would have to do a good survey of people calling themselves Objectivists to find out. (I bet Andre hasn't done this because I doubt anyone really has. (He can always prove me wrong here by showing me his data.) It would be interesting to carry out such a study to see just where most Objectivists stand here. My own experience here has been highly varied. I've met Objectivists who would Andre's view -- at least, for the most part -- but they are not the norm among the ones I've met. In fact, when I was involved with the Central Jersey Objectivists, I was surprised to find how varied lifestyles were among Objectivists.)
> #2. Objectivism is semi-cultist still: "brave, fair,
> and true" dissidents still get "purged" and
> "excommunicated" as being "enemies"
> of Objectivism and intellectually dishonest --
> even tho' it's usually the expungers and corrupt
> would-be puritans who are thus.
This is mainly true of one faction of the movement -- again, not the philosophy, but the individuals who hold it. (To get this point across, imagine Andre's nebulous form of liberalism takes off and many millions of people hold it. One faction forms a think tank centered on his writings and jealously guards them. It purges people who don't accept their meaning of them. Would this mean Andre's form of liberalism is semi-cultist -- or just one faction of those who claim to practice it are?)
> #3. Objectivism is not near respective enough
> of the limitless possibilities and power or science.
> Science is philosophy's and Objectivism's best
> friend and strongest ally. Yet Ayn Rand, the founder
> of Objectivism, doubted Evolution, Relativity, and
> the Big Bang. She was, in the words of Nathaniel
> Branden, "curiously conservative" about seminal
> scientific issues which have enormous cultural implications.
Two points here. The important of the two is, again, conflating individuals with philosophies. Ayn Rand does not equal Objectivism any more than Isaac Newton equals science or Aristotle equals reason. Rand's particular views on science must be distinguished from how Objectivism as a system deals with science.
The second point here is basically that Rand avoided science for the most part not because she was disrespectful of "the limitless possibilities and power or science." Science figures strongly in her magnum opus and she praises its achievements in many of her nonfiction works. However, from what I've read and heard, she wanted to avoid getting bogged down in scientific debates and also in having Objectivism as a system of thought being tied too closely to any particular scientific theories. As Tibor Machan, Chris Sciabarra, and others have noted, her metaphysics was ruthlessly minimalist. She did not, unlike many previous philosophers, tie her metaphysics to a specific theory of physics -- unlike Bertrand Russell, Leibniz or Rand's hero Aristotle.
The last instance here is a telling one. Many people today who know a little about Aristotle tend to dismiss his views because of certain scientific beliefs he held, such as those on the nature of matter, the Earth being at the center of the universe, and his, well, Aristotelean physics. Quite a few believe Rand was trying to avoid that.
> #4. Objectivism is still suffering from the founder's
> moralizing, psychologizing, judgementalism,
> emotional repression, sexual repression, and
> over-intellectualism-yet-under-scholasticism.
> Rand
> and Objectivism don't sufficiently respect nor
> believe in the human heart and soul. They don't
> much want you to trust your instincts or gut. They
> don't really want you to follow your heart and free
> spririt -- and try to live out your dreams.
If one changes "Objectivism" above to "The Objectivist movement" or even just "The spread of Objectivism," the claim would be closer to the truth. (It might still be debatable though. After all, part of the Ayn Rand Institute (ARI) faction's allure for many people are just these traits. Some people, sadly, want those kinds of things in life. Put another way, it's dialectical. People who are attracted to that are more likely to join that faction and to have its beliefs reinforce their bad character traits than those who are interested in, say, a dispassionate pursuit of the truth.)
On Monday, December 09, 2002 5:23 PM Andre Zantonavitch zantonavitch@yahoo.com wrote:
> [Denis Diderot] was just as fierce a writer and
> independent a thinker as Rand -- yet was still
> known as "the laughing philosopher." And he
> accomplished all this despite social loathing
> and political death-threats on a level almost
> unimaginable to us or Rand.
Not to belittle Diderot, who I kind of admire too, but Rand did live in the Soviet Union for a time. Now, granted, the Soviet Union, a mere totalitarian dictatorship, was never ever as bad as Pre-Revolutionary France.
> Dan Ust correctly points out that neither I nor
> anyone else has firmly established Bacon,
> Hobbes, and a few others of the early
> 1700s, as truly "liberal" thinkers.
Some would actually count Thomas Hobbes as an anti-liberal thinker. Some see him as the antithesis of John Locke, who is considered by many to be the quintessential liberal thinker. Here's a thinker [Hobbes] who invented an philosophical bulwark for absolutist government. Andre's putting him in the roster of liberal thinkers is akin to putting Mussolini on the list of great libertarian thinkers.
> Even more so Democritus,
> Socrates, Aristotle, Epicurus, Zeno, etc. But all of
> this is a
> scholarly activity which takes time and which no-one is
> paying me to do. So it'll have to wait.
At the very least, if Andre is going to make these claims -- that thinkers X, Y, and Z are liberals -- he should tell us where he gets the notions from not just assert it. Why does he believe a given thinker is liberal? I don't need elaborate details here, just some backing evidence. To me, so far, it just appears that he's reading some stuff, making a rash judgment and moving on.
Also, no one is paying me to take apart Andre's claims. I do it as a public service.:)
> It's worth noting that I tend to think and write in
> very broad strokes, inasmuch as my favorite
> subject matter is such a wide-open and little-
> explored field.
The "wide-open and little-explored field" of culture criticism has been around for years. At least, people like Mencken, Nock, Rand, and the like had more than just hot air and self-promotion to back their critiques. (Again, we have Andre ignorantly portraying himself as a pioneer as he travels down well worn roads.)
> To get bogged down in detail
> at this early juncture of the liberal movement
> would be wildly inappropriate and the antithesis
> of fun.
Then he should not bother making claims he can't back up. Stick to the broad ideas and don't mention individual thinkers and the like.
> My concern, as always, is to LEARN the truth,
Learning the truth is often done through familiarity with it. If one wants to learn what, to stick to one instance, Hobbes' thought -- in other words, the truth about Hobbes -- then one must read Hobbes and probably some of the secondary literature on him as well as grapple with the issues Hobbes grappled with. Andre has not done this. He blindly asserts and whines when people ask him to back his assertions.
> not PROVE it to the satisfaction of others.
> Especiallly not in that terrible, sterile, fraudulent,
> academic way which is currently accepted and
> which Rand semi-wisely eschewed. So this too
> will have to wait.
This is merely an rationalization for not doing any work here.
> As for my confusing Objectivism with Objectivists,
> this is almost entirely a rhetorical device to speed
> up the discussion -- and add energy and life to it.
If it is, it's a failed one. I've pointed out how this does not work and it would be easy for Andre to either qualify his terms or to change them. Those duped by such devices, likely, are not the deep thinkers needed to change the Objectivist movement -- a movement, in my experience, too full of fluffy rhetorical ranters and few deep thinkers. Instead, they're more likely to be the types who follow the speaker with the loudest voice.
> So too with confusing sad, cultesque ARIians
> with the rather heroic TOC, JARS, and SOLO
> partisans. The most important point here is even
> the BEST of Objectivists still suffer significantly
> from Randroid type maladies -- including me.
Who are the best? Name names! What are these maladies?
On Friday, December 06, 2002 2:57 PM Andre Zantonavitch
zantonavitch@yahoo.com
wrote:
> But aside from the "bad attitude" of the
Objectivist
> movement, how is the Objectivist PHILOSOPHY
> irrational and illiberal? These points are subtle too,
> but a beginning would be:
I wanted to get to the rest of these points too.
> #1. Objectivism's abstract PHILOSOPHY badly
> underestimates the importance and malevolence of
> the phenomenon of religion. Rand called Objectivists
> "intransigent atheists, not militant ones -- the enemy
> is too unworthy." This is a gross error: no opponent
> is more worth killing, or harder to kill, than god.
Okay, regardless of whether one agrees with the specific point Andre makes here, would this make "Objectivist PHILOSOPHY irrational and illiberal" in and of itself? I would think that what would make any philosophy "irrational and illiberal" would be its holding stances that were irrational -- not merely mistaken -- and lead to illiberal policies -- not merely tactical errors in identifying the enemy. (E.g., I might believe there's life on Mars. The jury is still out on that one, but would my belief be irrational as such? If it turns out there's no life on Mars, am I irrational or merely mistaken? Likewise, imagine I believe that while Zimbabwean President Mugabe is a threat to freedom -- certainly in Zimbabwe -- he's not the number one issue in my life, so I attend to other concerns. Am I illiberal because my priorities might not agree with those of, say, a Zimbabwean farmer? Maybe the latter is right here and I should focus more on Mugabe, but would my being right or wrong here mean I'm illiberal -- or just that I had a different set of priorities?)
> Rand
> also confused and conflated mythology and religion,
> calling both "mysticism" -- another gross error.
> Mythology began BEFORE philosophy in around 3300
> BC and is relatively benign (as Joseph Campbell
> taught us in the '80s). Religion began AFTER
> philosophy in around 200 AD and is completely
> malignant.
This is funny. Andre will have to define both terms and explain why religion and mythology are so different. From my view, there's a category error afoot here. Religions have mythologies. Of course, there can be mythologies without religion. Since Andre won't define his terms ever, let me throw out some standard definitions:
Myth: "a usu[ally] traditional story of ostensibly historical events that serves to unfold part of a world view of a people or explain a practice, belief, or natural phenomena."
Mythology: "an allegorical narrative."
Religion: "the service and worship of God or the supernatural."
As one can readily see, the terms are not in contradiction. Religion under this definition probably goes back to the beginnings of humanity -- definitely pre-3300 BC (or, as those of us prefer to term that time 5300 BCE [Before Common Era]). In fact, it would seem Neanderthal burial sites tens of thousands of years old are evidence of religious beliefs back then. (Certainly, such things are formally no different than many religious rites of today with those religions Andre would agree are religion, such as Christianity.)
Also, notably, religion and myth seem intertwined. The archetypal myths are stories about gods or God, such as the various creation myths or the Christian myth of God being born as Man in the person of Jesus Christ. Earlier myths were no less religious, such as those embodied in the Epic of Gilgamesh.
Perhaps Andre has different notions of what mythology and religion are, but he'll have to explain here before one can judge if he does. One needs this before one can say he's right to make such a separation. Also, one needs this if one is also to understand and judge that such a separation is something that fundamentally flaws "Objectivist PHILOSOPHY" as well as makes it "irrational and illiberal."
> #2. Objectivist MORALITY doesn't include idealism,
> courage, or benevolence in its seven cardinal virtues.
> Nor does it have a place for Greek "moderation in all
> things" and "know thyself". Nor can it
successfully
> integrate Benjamin Franklin's (and Junto founder's)
> super-simplified ethos of "industry and
frugality". All are
> considerable lacunas.
Andre shows his ignorance here. David Kelley actually includes benevolence among the cardinal virtues. Moderation is, at best, a limited virtue. Would one want to be moderate in honesty? in rationality? in goodness? (Would Andre want to be moderate in liberalism?:)
"Know thyself" was not a virtue per se, but a Socratic commandment -- not a bad one at that -- and, if some were to argue it was a virtue, would neatly fit under rationality (which demands one know reality and not fake it; reality including one's self) and integrity (which would need one to be aware of one's convictions and beliefts in order to be practiced; one can't have integrity without some degree of self-knowledge). Adding it to the list is debatable, but its absence by no means is a fatal flaw for Objectivism. (Its inclusion would, likewise, not create such an instability in the roster of virtues that Objectivism would collapse.)
As for "industry and frugality," well, "industry" means about the same thing as Rand's "productiveness." So, this must be either ignorance on Andre's part or a regrettable slip of the tongue. As for frugality, the list of cardinal virtues is not meant to exhaust all the virtues. One might have a virtue of cleanliness. Is this a cardinal virtue or a minor one? It certainly seems a virtue, but the point of the cardinal ones are ones that explain the most and give the most moral bang for the buck. That Rand and other Objectivists have not attempted an exhaustive list of all virtues should not be taken a sign that Objectivism is complete or that it needs to be comprehensive in this area.
This does not mean Rand's cardinal virtues are not in need of close examination. I urge those interested in this subject to see also Peter Saint-Andre's 1992 essay "A Philosophy for Living on Earth" (in _Objectivity_ 1(6)). I can't find it online right now, but a brief discussion by Saint-Andre is at
http://objectivism.cx/~atlantis/objectivism-l/msg03145.html
> #3. Objectivist POLITICS condemns "force and
fraud"
> but NOT the clearer, cleaner, fuller, more explicit
"taxation
> and regulation of economic and social behavior". Nor
can
> it solve the tax problem.
Rand explicitly condemns taxation in her and Branden's essay collection The Virtue of Selfishness. She does so arguing from Objectivist tenets, specifically that taxation is a form of force. So, taxation is treated explicitly and forthrightly in an Objectivist founding text.
As for regulation, again, it's a species of force and Rand and other Objectivists treat that too. For example, the judge in Atlas Shrugged -- I forget his name at this point -- is rewriting the Constitution to forbid the government from interfering in -- i.e., regulating -- trade. Leonard Peikoff argues in Objectivism: The Philosophy of Ayn Rand that capitalism requires the absence of economic regulations in chapters 10 and 11 of that book. That Andre doesn't know this is a big lacuna on his part. These are two major texts of Objectivism that he either doesn't understand or hasn't read.
> #4. Objectivism ESTHETICS is a rather bland, robotic,
> unimaginative, one-size-fits-all heroicism lacking certain
> amounts of innovation, creativity, intelligence,
perceptivity,
> realism, practicality, subtlety, nuance, complexity, and
> sophistication.
I agree that Objectivist esthetics -- no need to capitalize here:) -- are in need of refinement and I've devoted long hours to these issues. I don't consider my work outside the ambit of Objectivist philosophy, but this is a point of debate. Even so, I wonder if Andre is
> #5. Objectivist SPIRITUALITY is virtually non-existent.
No
> Objectivist 'church' exists or is even on the horizon. This
> abdication to religion is a huge tactical error
collectively, just as
> it starves the Objectivist soul individually.
The last thing I want to see is an Objectivist or atheist church. I don't know what Andre means by spirituality, but Rand meant by it, IIRC, the values of the mind. As such, since Objectivism is basically a thisworldly philosophy, these values are embodied by deeds and accomplishments here and now. In other words, spirituality results from one actualizing one's ideas in one's life and in the world of the senses. At its most abstract level, this means living one's life according to one's beliefs, in pursuit of one's values. It does not require a church, though it could and probably should involve being in a community with others. However, such community is not a church -- any more than a friendship or a family is a church.
> Finally, Objectivism is somewhat irrational and illiberal
in that
> it's rather ahistorical: it doesn't see itself in the proper
> historical context. Objectivism doesn't really know it's
part in the
> great Western liberal tradition. The philosophy of
Objectivism is
> illiberal in that it doesn't truly know it's merely a
subsidiary part
> of the culture of liberalism.
Not surprisingly, I'd disagree. Chris Sciabarra has spent a good chunk of his career in illuminating how Objectivism is at its core much in tune with context-keeping, especially historically. See his Ayn Rand: The Russian Radical and Total Freedom: Toward a Dialectical Libertarianism. But I await Andre's pointing out specifics here before returning to this subject. (Of course, specific Objectivists are ahistorical and acontextual on many issues, including Objectivism, but I don't judge an idea system by whether people who claim to hold it haven't grasped it's methodological essentials.)
Also, would such ahistoricality mean "Objectivism is somewhat irrational and illiberal"? Not at all. It would merely mean the system needs upgrading -- not that it needs to be totally rejected.
Perhaps this is the problem with Andre's view of Objectivism -- and that of many critics and not a few proponents of the philosophy. He seems to see it as a complete, finished, dead catechism -- not a living, growing system. Such a Platonic view of Objectivism should be combatted everywhere.
Works Cited:
.