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A challenge to Randians
Steve W. writes:
The Randian commenter “Madmax’s” characterization of you as a “vicious racist crackpot,” etc., further illustrates the fact that when it comes to race and race differences, Randians fail to abide by the first premise of Objectivist philosophy.
As Rand herself explained, the starting point of her worldview is that “Reality exists as an objective absolute—facts are facts, independent of man’s feelings, wishes, hopes or fears.”
Yet Randians not only ignore, but are hostile to, many fundamental facts about the world, including the obvious, significant differences among races and civilizations.
Thus, Randians not only ignore empirical evidence of racial differences in IQ and criminality, but accuse those who acknowledge this evidence as “racists.” Most troublingly, Randians, like other liberals and libertarians, completely overlook the historical reality that the political and economic system they cherish—based on individual rights, personal liberty, limited government, and the rule of law—is the product of Anglo-American civilization, which itself is a product of Western Civilization. No other civilization on earth (whether Asian or Hindu or Moslem or African or Native American) developed a remotely similar political and economic system.
To what extent Rand herself shared these ideological blinders, I don’t know. But those who claim to be adherents of her philosophy, as opposed to merely spouting a dogmatic set of “Randian” policy positions, need to reconsider the radical implications of the first premise of her philosophy: Facts, not feelings, must guide our actions. And facts do not always lead to happy conclusions.
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Karl D. writesa:
Here are two quotes (out of several) listed under “Racism” from the Ayn Rand Lexicon:
Today, racism is regarded as a crime if practiced by a majority—but as an inalienable right if practiced by a minority. The notion that one’s culture is superior to all others solely because it represents the traditions of one’s ancestors, is regarded as chauvinism if claimed by a majority—but as “ethnic” pride if claimed by a minority. Resistance to change and progress is regarded as reactionary if demonstrated by a majority—but retrogression to a Balkan village, to an Indian tepee or the jungle is hailed if demonstrated by a minority. [“The age of envy.”]
Like every other form of collectivism, Racism is a quest for the un-earned. It is a quest for automatic knowledge—for an automatic evaluation of men’s characters that bypasses the responsibility of exercising rational or moral judgment—and, above all, a quest for an automatic self-esteem (or pseudo self-esteem) [The Virtue of Selfishness]
Ed D. writes:
Is being called a vicious, racist crackpot the same as being called a “racist turd”?
LA replies:
I’m looking at the VFR entry you linked (and which I recommend to those who haven’t seen it) where we quoted and discussed a thread at the Randian site NoodleFood where a person politely explaining traditionalism was called names and excluded, but how is this relevant to Madmax’s comment?
Ed D. replies:
I merely wanted to point out the hostility that you and traditionalists in general received from the Randians (Madmax, Diana Hsieh, and Andrew Dalton) at the NoodleFood blog back in April. For all their emphasis on objective reality and their capacity to reason as the sole guide in human affairs, they are more hysterical on the subject of race than almost every left-liberal I’ve come across.
I enjoyed Steve W.’s remarks on this:
Yet Randians not only ignore, but are hostile to, many fundamental facts about the world, including the obvious, significant differences among races and civilizations.
Thus, Randians not only ignore empirical evidence of racial differences in IQ and criminality, but accuse those who acknowledge this evidence as “racists.” Most troublingly, Randians, like other liberals and libertarians, completely overlook the historical reality that the political and economic system they cherish—based on individual rights, personal liberty, limited government, and the rule of law—is the product of Anglo-American civilization, which itself is a product of Western Civilization. No other civilization on earth (whether Asian or Hindu or Moslem or African or Native American) developed a remotely similar political and economic system.
My question is why? Why are Randians so afraid of race? Does it threaten the validity of their entire belief system? I think so.
LA replies:
I think your point is correct. They are more outraged (or threatened) by racial realities than even liberals are, because their hyper-individualist ideology is more extreme than right-liberalism and has less maneuvering room. For right-liberals, the most important thing is the individual and his volitional choices. But Randians are more consistent and take this principle much farther. For Randians, the individual with his volitional choices is the only thing that is real and that has value. For Randians, any collective entity larger than the individual that forms the individual and that the individual belongs to, such as a culture, a religion, an ethnicity, a race, threatens to crush the person’s individuality, and so is identical with absolute evil. They cannot imagine the human ego and the human reason existing in relationship to any larger reality. They think that if any larger reality exists or is believed in, it wipes out the individual ego, reason, and will, just as the Soviet state wiped out the individuals under its power. Randians thus see all collectivities—which in fact are just a normal part of reality—in the most extreme, threatening light. So naturally someone who states that race is a part of reality and that race differences matter, especially when it comes to the racial character of an entire people and what sort of society they are likely to create, is the most horrible, hateful, vile thing there could be. If you tell the Randians that the Randian society of individualists that the Randians believe in requires a northern European population base and an Anglo-based culture, then you’re evil and should shut up and go away. The irony is that the Randians, seeing all racial discrimination as evil, would open the nation’s borders to untold millions of Third Worlders and thus consign the society to the very collectivism, backwardness, irrationalism, and poverty that the Randians fear and loathe.
Of course, most cultures have been suppressive of individuality. That’s why we love the West and particularly America, which freed the individual as never before. But the individual does not exist in a void. He is part of and is formed by a multidimensional reality larger than himself. So, on one hand, the individual must asset himself against his environment, in order to discover and to become who he is. On the other hand, the individual participates in and indeed derives his very being from that environment. But to ideologists like the Randians this actual complexity of reality is anathema. If you grant any reality and value to the collective aspect of existence as distinct from the individual aspect, you’re the same as a Communist.
LA continues:
And let me emphasize that it’s not just the “big bad things” like race and religion that the Randians detest and block out. It’s any structure or entity larger than the individual. Take Eric Voegelin’s discussion of how a political society is a “society organized for action in history,” and how a political society comes into being when it acquires a representative that acts in its name. These principles refer to a democracy as much as to a dictatorship. Without a representative that acts in its name and whose pronouncements are taken as authoritative,, there is no political society. How can Randians grasp society in this sense? They cannot. Because for them, the only thing society can legitimately be is a group of individual organized solely for the protection of individual rights. Any assertion that the society has a valid reality larger than the sum of its individual members is the moral equivalent of Nazism and Communism, blah blah blah.
LA continues:
Also, in looking for references to Randians at VFR, I came upon this, by me, from last July:
They [the Randians] don’t understand that tyranny is nothing other than the complete freedom of the will, namely the will of the tyrant himself. They don’t understand that the more radically free society becomes, the more its individual members become like little tyrants, so that the only person who truly represents them and can rule them all is a big tyrant. They don’t understand that true freedom means self-restraint. “Confirm thy soul in self-control / Thy liberty in law,” wrote Katherine Lee Bates in “America the Beautiful.” To the Randians, such traditional American and Christian sentiments are not only weird and alien, but menacing—in the same way that, to Henry Louis Gates, a policeman knocking on his door to investigate a burglary was menacing. And that’s just the smallest cross section of the liberal ideologues in our society who, in one way or another, see normality as evil.
Randians see normality as evil. That’s the point I wanted to bring out.
RV, a female reader, writes:
I find most libertarians petty and I don’t see much of a difference between them and liberals, except a better understanding of economics. They actually fail to understand what Rand wrote, which is quite sad.
Also, as a white woman, I’m not racist if I avoid black men. I make a proper assessment: I’m 20 times more likely to get raped by a black guy. I’d be biased if I’d consider the same odds regardless of race.
Kidist Paulos Asrat writes:
This is great. I don’t have much background in the history or philosophy of libertarianism. These posts are helping me to understand a lot.
Slowly I’m beginning to understand Ilana Mercer’s absolute about-face, after about a year of pleasant email communications when I voiced a couple of things to her:
1. That Jews are better than Chinese—I didn’t mean this in any moralistic sense, just practical: like what actual things the Jews have achieved vs. the Chinese.
2. That collective grief (e.g. for a leader) is possible.
She discreetly called me an idiot. I was a little shaken, then I realized what had happened. Fast learning curve! I kind of figured out her attempt to narrow everything down to the individual, although she is more versatile than that—I’m still trying to figure out how she works that out.
And now, after dallying with paleo-libertarianism and even classical liberalism, she’s happily publicizing the re-publishing of her book, calling it her libertarian manifesto.
It is sad to observe this, but once someone takes a stand, it almost seems permanent. E.g., once a libertarian, always a libertarian.
I don’t mean to be saying negative things about people. I’m just glad I’m understanding things better now, and the example of what I experienced with Ilana helps me explain it.
Josh F. writes:
Add the Randians’ acceptance of abortion and one suddenly realizes most Randians are radical autonomists (extreme liberals) masquerading as Objectivists. When one takes into account the Randians’ acceptance of abortion then Randianism is shown to be nothing more than “might makes right.”
December 8
Mike writes:
The only ideologically pure form of Libertarianism is anarchy.
Therefore, non-anarchist Libertarians only disagree on what should and shouldn’t be controlled by the government—which is basically the same territory that all other ideologies traverse. Thus “Libertarian” is a label adopted by cop-out artists who are too cowardly to self-identify with one side of the argument, like “moderates” and “centrists”. The biggest dealbreaker, for me, is that the Libertarian ideal of anarchy within a nation does not provide a counter for hostile forces outside the nation. That makes Libertarianism a doomed pacifist ideology.
Edward D. writes: You have a way with words, Mr. Auster. Your response was spot on.
Posted by Lawrence Auster at December 07, 2009 02:29 PM | Send
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