I just came back from the “Meeting Frost, Hemingway, and Rand” panel discussion. The purpose of the event was to discuss the three authors portrayed in Tobias Wolff’s “Old School.”

Jeff Britting did a great job. When it was his turn to speak about Ayn Rand’s character in “Old School” by Tobias Wolff, he nailed it. Britting started by stating that Wolff’s presentation of Ayn Rand was a “total distortion,” among other words, and then went on in detail to explain who she was, the themes of her four fiction books, and a little bit of her philosophy. Near the end of his presentation he compared Wolff’s “character that shares Ayn Rand’s name” with the actual Ayn Rand and showed a few specific cases where the two are polar opposites. He also asked the audience to not take his presentation or Wolff’s presentation of Ayn Rand on faith by reading Rand’s books for themselves.

Britting’s presentation of Ayn Rand was everything Wolff’s was not. While Wolff presentation Ayn Rand as a mean, dismissive, and rude woman that no rational person would want to be around (except for her dark-clothes-wearing acolytes), Britting presented an intelligent woman who took ideas and her writing seriously. And he did it in a way that would leave someone who knew little about her with a desire to want to know more.

The panel also included a speaker for Robert Frost and a speaker for Ernest Hemingway, and both got a fair amount of time. I think Ayn Rand was the focus of the evening, however. Perhaps I’m a little biased in making that judgement, but the majority of the questions were about Ayn Rand and the more interesting responses seemed to come from Britting.

The surprise of the evening for me was a student who read a few passages from Atlas Shrugged. Before each speaker a student came on stage and read a few passages from that particular writer. The student who was tasked with Ayn Rand’s work came up with three great passages: one from Dagny’s first ride on the John Galt Line, one from the Francico’s money speech, and another from John Galt’s speech. The passages she picked were just perfect, and it was heartening to see them read to the audience.

The panel was taped with two cameras, and one of the camera operaters told me after the event that there might be a chance the video could be released online. I’ll keep my eye out and see what happens.

Overall, it was a great night! Thanks to Jeff Britting for making the trip all the way out to Kansas City. We don’t get events like this very often!

I decided that I’m going to go to a local April 15th Tea Party protest in Overland Park, KS. When I first heard about the protest I thought the organizers were going to include support of the Fair Tax, and since I don’t support the Fair Tax in one bit I decided that I wouldn’t attend. However, after doing a little more investigation I realized that tea party was not going to be a Fair Tax rally, and now I’m going.

I wrote an email to another Objectivist in town, and since it almost constitutes a fun blog post I thought I’d include it here:

—–

I’m not so concerned with Fair Tax supporters being at the protest as much as I am with Fair Tax supporters organizing the protest and turning it into a Fair Tax rally. I think the Fair Tax is, in some ways, much worse than the crazy tax system we have today, and it’s not something that I want to support. Nor do I want to lend Ayn Rand’s name to their cause (as if it were mind to lend). I listen to the Neal Boortz show regularly (Boortz cowrote the books on the Fair Tax), and I think they’re trying to take advantage of the good, honest anger that people feel about what the government is doing to our economy in order to push their fake cure, the Fair Tax. I’m not concerned now that I know that the Fair Tax supporters are actually going to be doing their own thing on the JCCC campus.

If I were to write out the Fair Tax scenario I had in my head, it would be something like this:

FAIR TAX ORGANIZER: We have to stop this mindless regulation of the economy!

ANGRY CITIZENS: Yeah!

FAIR TAX ORGANIZER: We have to get the government out of the economy and our lives!

ANGRY CITIZENS: Yeah!

FAIR TAX ORGANIZER: We have to put the government in its place!

ANGRY CITIZENS: YEAH!

FAIR TAX ORGANIZER: Ok, so now that we all agree, here’s what we’ve gotta do! First, we have to repeal the 16th amendment! Then we’ll get rid of the federal income taxes and start up a 30%…. ERRRRRR 23%……… sales tax on everything you buy! Then we’ll form a government committee to determine how much tax dollars an individual would have to spend to buy the “basic necessities,” and then we’ll deposit that amount in a special government bank account every month, and then we’ll send every citizen their own debit card that they can use to get their government money! Then all companies will flock to the United States, the government will still have the same amount of tax dollars to spend (if not more!), and the poor won’t have to pay any taxes at all! Say it with me! Fair Tax, Fair Tax, Fair T……

ANGRY CITIZENS: ????????????????????????????

Here’s the seventh, and final, post in my series about the “Objecting to Objectivism” show, hosted by by Matt Dillahunty and Russell Glasser of the Atheist Experience group.  I’ve spent a plenty of time pointing out inaccuracies in the hosts’ presentation of Objectivism, so to finish this series I want to point out a revealing admission Dillahunty made during the show, briefly address what Ayn Rand meant by “second-handed” (which Glasser didn’t bother to offer the viewers), and offer some closing comments.

Criticizing a book you didn’t read

If an individual want to learn something about any subject, he has to gather facts related to that subject.  For example, if I want to learn more about cats, I have to gather data by looking at cats, reading books about cats, or talking to feline experts.  If I want to learn how to change my oil in my car, I have to open the manual and read the instructions.  If I want to learn what Matt Dillahunty stands for, I have to listen to his podcasts, read his internet postings, or even talk to the man.  And of course, if I want to learn what Atlas Shrugged is about, I have to read the book.  Right?

Apparently not.  Around minute 84 of the video, Dillahunty made the following statement (emphasis mine):

And yet, there’s no particular original idea, I find no particular original idea in Atlas Shrugged, the Fountainhead, or Objectivism.

This is Dillahunty’s opinion, and I wasn’t going to respond to this because I want to focus on the the inaccuracies in his and Glasser’s show.  However, hearing this statement reminded me of something that he said earlier in the show.  Around minute 60, Dillahunty and Glasser said the following (emphasis mine):

Dillahunty: Yeah, and this promotion of oligarchical ideas where the intelligent are the ones who rule or these separatist societies where we’ve taken all the geniuses off… having not read Atlas Shrugged, and… I have no idea how John Galt’s little experiment worked out.

Glasser: Oh, of course, he took over the world.

I think the presentation Dillahunty and Glasser gave of Objectivism is evidence enough that their opinion of Objectivism is not based on facts, but here’s an explicit admission that Dillahunty’s opinion isn’t.  He said he didn’t find an original idea in a book he had never read.  I don’t know what else to say.

Except this, that is.  Immediately before he made the minute-84 minute I quoted above, Dillahunty said the following:

She wrote a book or something about “Philosophy, Who Needs It” and she consistently railed against the ideas of various philosophers including some reportedly, like Kant, she had never even read.

This is Dillahunty criticizing against Ayn Rand for railing against the ideas of philosophers that she hadn’t read, all while deriding the ideas of a philosopher that he hadn’t read.

By the way, Ayn Rand did not promote oligarchy.  And Atlas Shrugged did not end with John Galt “taking over the world.”

Second-handers

One of the big false statements that Russell Glasser repeatedly made was about second-handers.  According to Glasser, Objectivists use the term “second-handers” in a similar way that scientologists use “suppressive person,” and that Objectivists can split people into three classes:  the geniuses, the “useful” people like Eddie Willers, and second-handers.  He addressed “second-handers” so many times that I could have made it a separate post in this series, but frankly I feel that his assertion is so ridiculous I don’t want to spent much of my time to address it.  I will, though, do something that Glasser wouldn’t do:  Use Ayn Rand’s own words to identify how she used the term.  By doing a quick search on the Ayn Rand Lexicon website, I was able to find the following quote from Ayn Rand from “The Argument from Intimidation” in her book “The Virtue of Selfishness:”

A [second-hander] is one who regards the consciousness of other men as superior to his own and to the facts of reality. It is to a [second-hander] that the moral appraisal of himself by others is a primary concern which supersedes truth, facts, reason, logic. The disapproval of others is so shatteringly terrifying to him that nothing can withstand its impact within his consciousness; thus he would deny the evidence of his own eyes and invalidate his own consciousness for the sake of any stray charlatan’s moral sanction. It is only a [second-hander] who could conceive of such absurdity as hoping to win an intellectual argument by hinting: “But people won’t like you!”

Final comments

There are enough problems to write more posts in this series, but I believe that by this point I’ve shown that the two hosts gave a very inaccurate presentation of Objectivism.  It’s one matter to discuss whether Objectivism is right or wrong, but it’s an entirely different matter to misrepresent what it is and what Ayn Rand stood for.  The former is a great thing, and it’s something that I still question even today as I learn more and more about Objectivism.  The latter is a bad thing, no matter what you’re discussing.  It’s a matter of intellectual honesty.  I think the viewers and listeners should expect more from the Atheist Experience than they received from the “Objecting to Objectivism” show, and I hope I’ve helped to correct some of the bigger factual errors.

That said, I’d like to speak positively about one of the hosts, Matt Dillahunty, especially because I’ve spent much of the past few posts tearing down things that he said.  Putting his show on Objectivism aside, he actually seems like a pretty rational guy.  Just check out the following from his bio on the Atheist Experience website:

I was raised in a loving, Southern Baptist home and was a fundamentalist Christian for over 20 years. [...] After the first couple of years, reason forced me to acknowledge that my faith had not only been weakened by my studies – it had been utterly destroyed. The thoughts, writings and wisdom of people like; Robert Ingersoll, Voltaire, Dan Barker, Richard Dawkins, Farrell Till and many others, helped free my mind from the shackles of religion without a single moment of despair. I continue to study philosophy, religion, science, history and the many other topics which have helped me to understand reality and enjoy my life.

Having spent the majority of my life compartmentalizing my religious beliefs to keep them safe from skepticism, it’s thrilling to leave the critical, investigative, hungry portion of my brain turned “on”.

I have respect for people who are able to take those overcome those types of influences in their lives for the sake of the truth.  That’s not only an act of intellectual honesty, it’s an act of courage.  I know that when I visit my family for Thanksgiving and Christmas, I don’t have to worry about hiding parts of my life so I don’t make anyone cry and worry over my soul.  I think that if he took that same approach to Objectivism, he’d have a different opinion than the one that he gave on this show.  He’d at least see that her books were different than his co-host described them.

I don’t know anything about Russell Glasser except what I’ve heard on this show.  And that he considers Objectivists “foolish atheists” who make other atheists look bad.

Part 1: Objecting to Objectivism – The King’s Rational Self-Interest?
Part 2: Objecting to Objectivism – Cooperation
Part 3: Objecting to Objectivism – Objective Reality
Part 4: Objecting to Objectivism – The Train Scene
Part 5: Objecting to Objectivism – Teaching, Altruism, and the Profit Motive
Part 6: Objecting to Objectivism – Did Ayn Rand Read Kant?
Part 7: Objecting to Objectivism – Matt Doesn’t Like the Book He Didn’t Read

This is my sixth response to the “Objecting to Objectivism” show, hosted by Matt Dillahunty and Russell Glasser from the Atheist Experience show in Austin, Texas. If you would like to read my previous responses about inaccuracies in their presentation of Objectivism or why I’m even writing this, links will be included at the bottom of this post. For now, though, I will continue as promised and point out a couple of the most ridiculous statements made by the two on the show. Not only are they completely false and show that the two don’t understand much about Objectivism, but they might even be enough evidence by themselves to prove that the two haven’t even opened the Ayn Rand books they were criticizing.

What did they state?  Two whoppers:

1.) Ayn Rand never read Immanuel Kant.
2.) Ayn Rand often disparaged philosophy in her writing, including writing a book against it titled “Philosophy: Who Needs It.”

Anyone familiar with Ayn Rand’s non-fiction now understands why, in my last post, I said I saved the most “groan-worthy” statements for last. Arguing against these two statements is the equivalent of arguing the sky is blue. All of the evidence points in the exact opposite direction, and all one has to do to find that evidence is open their eyes and look. Still, not everybody has read Ayn Rand and might be willing to take Dillahunty and Glasser’s word for it, so for them I’ll lay out the facts.

Judge this book by its cover

A little after minute 84, Matt Dillahunty said the following (emphasis mine):

She tried to disguise philosophy as art while deriding philosophy. She wrote a book or something about “Philosophy, Who Needs It” and she consistently railed against the ideas of various philosophers including some reportedly, like Kant, she had never even read.

If there is one thing one can gather from the Ayn Rand’s Philosophy: Who Needs It, it’s the fact that Ayn Rand understood the incredible important role that philosophy plays in every individual’s life. Here’s a small snippet from the first chapter:

Philosophy studies the fundamental nature of existence, of man, and of man’s relationship to existence. As against the special sciences, which deal only with particular aspects, philosophy deals with those aspects of the universe which pertain to everything that exists. In the realm of cognition, the special sciences are the trees, but philosophy is the soil which makes the forest possible.

and:

A philosophic system is an integrated view of existence. As a human being, you have no choice about the fact that you need a philosophy. Your only choice is whether you define your philosophy by a conscious, rational, disciplined process of thought and scrupulously logical deliberation—or let your subconscious accumulate a junk heap of unwarranted conclusions, false generalizations, undefined contradictions, undigested slogans, unidentified wishes, doubts and fears, thrown together by chance, but integrated by your subconscious into a kind of mongrel philosophy and fused into a single, solid weight: self-doubt, like a ball and chain in the place where your mind’s wings should have grown.

Ayn Rand believed that philosophy was a life-or-death matter that should be given serious consideration and thought. Just look at what she compared philosophy to: Soil which makes the special sciences possible, and wings to let your mind fly high (or stay grounded like her ball-and-chain example). And these are just two paragraphs written by Ayn Rand. She commented on the importance of philosophy repeatedly in her writing, in this book and others. And, oh yeah, she was a philosopher.  Have either Glasser or Dillahunty read anything she wrote?

“You can’t judge a book by its cover” is a popular saying, and it would appear that it could be applied here. Anybody who only reads the cover of “Philosophy: Who Needs It” might think that Ayn Rand was, as Dillahunty stated, deriding philosophy. Perhaps the two hosts just read the cover? No, I don’t think they even read that. You see, most book covers have two sides, a front and back. If they had bothered to just read the back of the book (while being very careful not to crack the book open) they would have probably seen this:

For anyone who can’t see the image in their browser, it’s a scan of the back of my copy of “Philosophy: Who Needs It,” which states the following:

Who needs philosophy? Ayn Rand’s answer: Everyone.

Despite the title’s clever twist, this is still a book you can judge by its cover.

Did Ayn Rand read Kant?

I’ll need to use the same Dillahunty quote, but with a different emphasis:

She tried to disguise philosophy as art while deriding philosophy. She wrote a book or something about “Philosophy, Who Needs It” and she consistently railed against the ideas of various philosophers including some reportedly, like Kant, she had never even read.

Ayn Rand did not like Immanuel Kant, and she let people know. Often. She is probably his biggest, most thorough critic. Why? Her first quote in the “Immanuel Kant” section of the Ayn Rand Lexicon says it all:

On every fundamental issue, Kant’s philosophy is the exact opposite of Objectivism.

But did she ever read Kant’s writings? If she hadn’t, it would seem very strange that she would be so vocal about someone of which she had no first-hand knowledge, and it would cast serious doubt about many of the assertions she made about him. How could she even know that Kant was the exact opposite of Objectivism?

And for that matter, who wrote the parts of her books in which she quoted from Kant?

What’s the truth? This question immediately made me think of the following quote from Francisco d’Anconia in Atlas Shrugged:

I’ll give you a hint. Contradictions do not exist. Whenever you think that you are facing a contradiction, check your premises. You will find that one of them is wrong.

Ayn Rand either read Immanuel Kant’s writings, or she didn’t. I don’t have a hidden-video of Ayn Rand reading Immanuel Kant nor a notorized statement from her stating that she has read any of his books. If you think that Ayn Rand made up everything she wrote or said about Immanuel Kant, or got it second-handed, or if you think that the parts of her books in which she references Immanuel Kant weren’t really written by her, I don’t know what to say to convince you otherwise.

I want to add one thing, though. In “The Letters of Ayn Rand,” a book which includes many letters that Ayn Rand wrote to a number of people, there is some correspondence between Ayn Rand and John Hospers. In the first of those letters printed in the book, she answers what she feels is a challenge to her knowledge of Kant’s philosophy. She responded:

When I characterize or summarize any theory, I expect to be able to demonstrate the validity of my estimate to anyone in the field who cares to challenge it. Or, in colloquial terms: when I talk, I know what I’m talking about. Have I given you grounds to accuse me of ignorance or of rash judgments? If so, please name these grounds. The fact that I reach conclusions opposite to the generally accepted trend, is not one of them.

She can’t defend herself today, but she was definitely prepared to do so then.

“Reportedly”

Yes, I know that Matt Dillahunty used the word “reportedly” when saying that Ayn Rand had never read Kant. And technically, what he said is true. I looked at the Wikipedia page for Ayn Rand and found the following:

According to Fred Seddon, author of Ayn Rand, Objectivists, and the History of Philosophy (2003), Nathaniel Branden stated that Rand never read any of Kant’s works.

Does this fact absolve Dillahunty for making, or at least repeating, what is obviously a false statement? No. Anyone concerned with the truth needs more than one person to attribute and back something up, especially when that one person says flies in the face of the facts that he or she has already seen. If Dillahunty was familiar with Ayn Rand’s writings at all, he would know — as a solid, indesputable fact — that Ayn Rand quoted Immanuel Kant. He would combine that fact with the fact that one must have read Kant in order to quote Kant, and he would know that Ayn Rand had, indeed, read Immanuel Kant. That would be the truth, and nobody could tell him otherwise.

Or, he may not be familiar with Ayn Rand’s writings, in which case someone could tell him that Ayn Rand never read Immanuel Kant and he’d believe it.

In closing

I said this would be my last post on this issue, but while listening to the video again this evening I came across two small things I missed the first time I listened, and they are too big not to include in this series. They’re not even about Ayn Rand so much as they are about basis upon on which the hosts are criticizing Objectivism. Just a few choice quotes (and in-context, too) that anybody who has read this far might want to hear. I’ll repeat those and offering some closing comments next.

Part 1: Objecting to Objectivism – The King’s Rational Self-Interest?
Part 2: Objecting to Objectivism – Cooperation
Part 3: Objecting to Objectivism – Objective Reality
Part 4: Objecting to Objectivism – The Train Scene
Part 5: Objecting to Objectivism – Teaching, Altruism, and the Profit Motive
Part 6: Objecting to Objectivism – Did Ayn Rand Read Kant?
Part 7: Objecting to Objectivism: Matt Doesn’t Like the Book He Didn’t Read

This is my fifth response to the “Objecting to Objectivism” podcast/video by Matt Dillahunty and Russell talks about Ayn Rand’s objectivism and some of its problems. The Atheist Experience is a weekly cable access television show in A…all » Russell Glasser from the Atheist Experience, a cable-access television show in Austin, Texas. In case you haven’t read the previous posts, I started this series about a month to offer some corrections to some of the inaccuracies in their presentation of Objectivism. This time, the subject that I’ll be addressing is Teaching and the Profit Motive.

During the show, Dillahunty suggests that choosing teaching as a profession runs contrary to the ideas exposed by Ayn Rand. According to Dillahunty, since teaching pays less than other professions, Objectivists who value the “profit motive” must choose the non-teaching professions. He also states that if teachers can derive happiness from teaching others, then it’s valid for others to be altruistic so long as helping others brings them happiness, too. And on top of this, he thinks that Ayn Rand’s decision to use her knowledge to spread her philosophy instead of using it to make more money contradicts her own philosophy.

Before I start, I should make sure it’s known: There are Objectivist teachers. And from what I hear, they are darn good teachers.

Objectivists in education

Around 48:30 in the show, Dillahunty started…

Dillahunty: Here’s where I start to see internal conflicts with this idea that comes out, perhaps not explicitly in opposition to altruism, but certainly implicitly in opposition to it, and yet advocates self-interest and seeking personal happiness. If, in fact, you were to look at more of a “what’s best for me?” world-view then I don’t think we’d have people teaching.

Glasser: Right.

Dillahunty: Because you’ve gained some knowledge, and why would you then accept sub-standard pay and conditions to teach when you could use that knowledge in order to earn?

The fastest answer I can offer is to say that money isn’t everything, even to an Objectivist. People have their own interests and goals, and satisfying those goals (i.e. living your life) will have different results for different people. Some people may choose professions that they love and that also earns them a large amount of money, and sometimes they’ll choose professions they love and earn little money. Even Howard Roark himself sometimes struggled to earn money. According to Objectivism, it is completely rational for someone who has a legitimate interest in teaching to pursue that profession, even if he or she could make more money doing something he hates.

Leonard Peikoff addressed this in Chapter 8, titled “Virtue,” in Objectivism: The Philosophy of Ayn Rand, emphasis mine:

Wealth, to give another example, is a moral value. But this does not imply any categorical imperatives, such as: “Amass as much money as possible,” or “The richer you become, the more virtuous you are.” A given individual may choose, for good reason, to pursue a line of work that brings in little money. This is an optional matter, as long as the individual does have a good reason. The reason might be the fact that, given his interests, it offers him the fullest scope for the creative use of his mind. He may not, however, properly forgo a lucrative career because he is lazy, or fears to provoke the jealousy of his friends, or wants to show off his nonaffluence to Francis of Assisi or John Kenneth of Cambridge.

For some people, teaching is the type of work that matches their interests. And those interests might not be an altruistic desire to help random children, either. I’m not one of those people, though, so I did a little research. I’ve read a few great articles on education written by an Objectivist, Lisa Van Damme, so I ran a quick search for some writing of hers that might explain it better than I. It didn’t take long. From an interview in EducationNews in April of 2008, she was asked what interests her about education and teaching. Here’s a small exerpt from her answer:

Though in a sense I stumbled upon my career, with that out-of-the-blue call from California, it is the perfect integration of my love of children and my passion for philosophy. I have the opportunity to contemplate, research, write about, and then apply my most deeply held philosophic convictions to the proper education of children, and then the joy of observing the results in year after year of students.

I don’t know what research Dillahunty and Glasser did before their show on Objectivism, but they obviously missed a lot. Try reading what Dillahunty asserted about Objectivism again. Is it true? Were those criticisms specifically addressed in the same book that was referenced in the same show? Could an Objectivist, even one without an interest in teaching, have been able able to offer a rational, non-altruistic reason why one might want to be a teacher?

Profit motive

Dillahunty continued (emphasis mine, as always):

Dillahunty: And especially if you have specialized knowledge. This philosophy seems to promote the idea of specialized knowledge to help each individual rather than community knowledge that would help the society as a whole and thereby help each individual.

Glasser: In fact, from what I’ve gathered from reading a lot of Ayn Rand’s books, a big characteristic of evil people in the Ayn Rand universe is that they do something without a profit motive.

Dillahunty: Well, the type of contradiction that I was actually getting to was that Ayn… is doing that. Yes, ok, she wrote a book and she made money for it. But there’s no guarantee that she’s going to get profits from it. She is teaching people her particular philosophy. And if it is somehow ok for her to do that, or for someone to teach and make some profit rather than use that knowledge and make more profit…

I don’t understand, at all, what Dillahunty means when he says that Objectivism promotes the idea of specialized knowledge to help the individual. Objectivism holds that productive work, which usually includes educating oneself, as a very good thing, but I don’t see why the knowledge one gains is considered “specialized” and an alternative to “community knowledge” (whatever that is…). This is a good example of an assertion about Objectivism from Dillahunty or Glasser that deserved some sources and further explanation.

The profit motive is something that Ayn Rand specifically talked about, though, and Glasser is correct that some of the bad guys in Ayn Rand’s books denounced the profit motive. However, I think he’s incorrectly latching on to a monetary profit, as if earning money for its own sake should be a motive. Which, of course, disregards the fact that Objectivism is a philosophy for living on earth, not hoarding money, and that living and satisfying one’s goals requires consuming value that one has produced. Leonard Peikoff addressed the profit motive in Chapter 11 of OPAR when he stated (emphasis mine):

The “profit motive,” speaking broadly, means a man’s incentive to work in order to gain something for himself—in economic terms, to make money. By Objectivist standards, such a motive, being thoroughly just, is profoundly moral.

Like Leonard Peikoff stated, in economic terms it means to make money, but we’re not talking in just economic terms when we’re talking about what one should do with one’s life. At that level, the “something for himself” that Leonard Peikoff is talking about could be anything a rational individual values (a big family, a happy marriage, a successful law career, a fancy sports car, etc.), and profit motive is that individual’s incentive to work towards obtaining it.

Doesn’t it sound strange initially to think how the concept “profit motive” can be applied to things like marriage and family? Well, if those are things that *you* value, if you understand that it’s a good thing to work for your own values, and if you acknowledge *you* must work to obtain and maintain them, it doesn’t sound quite as sinister. It’s good to work for the things you want!

Altruism as a source of happiness

I need to use the above quote from Dillahunty again, but with a different emphasis this time:

Dillahunty: Well, the type of contradiction that I was actually getting to was that Ayn… is doing that. Yes, ok, she wrote a book and she made money for it. But there’s no guarantee that she’s going to get profits from it. She is teaching people her particular philosophy. And if it is somehow ok for her to do that, or for someone to teach and make some profit rather than use that knowledge and make more profit… if they derive happiness from teaching, if they derive happiness from sharing this information, then one can also derive happiness from truly altruistic acts, and therefore if I am working towards my own self-interest that includes my happiness, then altruism can’t be written off as a bad thing.

At this point, it might help to define some terms. Not in order to steer the conversation in a particular manner, but just to define how Ayn Rand used some of the words Glasser and Dillahunty are also using. The Objectivist definition of a few words, like “happiness” and “altruism” might offer a more accurate picture of what Objectivism stands for. And that’s what the two were trying to do, right?

First, altruism. From Howard Roark’s courtroom speech, Ayn Rand wrote:

Altruism is the doctrine which demands that man live for others and place others above self.

In Capitalism: The Unknown Ideal, Ayn Rand added:

Many people believe that altruism means kindness, benevolence, or respect for the rights of others. But it means the exact opposite: it teaches self-sacrifice, as well as the sacrifice of others, to any unspecified “public need”; it regards man as a sacrificial animal.

As for happiness, Leonard Peikoff gave Ayn Rand’s definition in a chapter in OPAR titled “Happiness:”

“Happiness,” in Ayn Rand’s definition, “is that state of consciousness which proceeds from the achievement of one’s values.”

He added (emphasis mine):

When happiness is said to proceed “from the achievement of one’s values,” this does not mean that it follows from the gaining of any ends, rational or otherwise. If a man holds and achieves rational values, he will be happy as a result, and his happiness will reflect the fact that his course of action is pro-life. If he holds irrational values, however, he may attain a particular, out-of-context goal(s); but he cannot “achieve his values,” because irrational values, involving as they do inbuilt contradictions and chronic clashes with reality, cannot be achieved.

If you take these two definitions and add in the fact that Objectivism holds that man’s life is the standard of value when it comes to determining right and wrong (which I addressed in my first OTO response), the answer to the question why Objectivism “writes off” altruism as a valid goal to work towards should be pretty clear. If your own life should be your main concern, it’s obvious that altruism is a bad thing because it states the exact opposite: Everybody except you should be your main concern. And if sacrificing yourself — i.e., giving up your life for the sake of others — makes you happy that’s a bad thing, too, because sacrificing yourself is the exact opposite of living your life.

The end

Like my previous posts about this show, I’ve spent most of my time just addressing the inaccuracies in Glasser and Dillahunty’s presentation of Objectivism. I haven’t validated any of the Objectivist positions, and I’m sure that the average person (let alone Glasser and Dillahunty) would still have objections to the Objectivist position. Still, I hope that after reading this that average person would at least have a better understanding of what Objectivism stands for, which frankly would be more than anybody who watched the “Objecting to Objectivism” show.

It would take many more posts to try to correct the entire show (it was almost a 90 minute show), and I’m not going to take this that far. I have one more post in my queue, and I’ve saved the most groan-worthy false statement made about Ayn Rand and Objectivism for last. Next up: Judging a book by its cover!

Part 1: Objecting to Objectivism – The King’s Rational Self-Interest?
Part 2: Objecting to Objectivism – Cooperation
Part 3: Objecting to Objectivism – Objective Reality
Part 4: Objecting to Objectivism – The Train Scene
Part 5: Objecting to Objectivism – Teaching, Altruism, and the Profit Motive
Part 6: Objecting to Objectivism – Did Ayn Rand Read Kant?
Part 7: Objecting to Objectivism: Matt Doesn’t Like the Book He Didn’t Read

WARNING: ATLAS SHRUGGED PLOT SPOILERS!

I read The Fountainhead when I was 16, and it was an enormous waste of my time. I say that not because the book wasn’t great (because it is), but because I didn’t take ideas seriously at that age. To put it in another way, *I* was a waste of my time. I could tell you wBuyho all the characters were and how the plot progressed, but when it came to analysis or thinking about what the author was saying the book might as well have been written in Greek. I just didn’t get it, and I didn’t try. Fortunately, I started to see the real value of ideas in college, and once I did it was like I burned down everything I thought I had read, watched, or heard. I could see ideas oozing out of everything. Needless to say, my second reading of the Fountainhead was much different than the first.

I’m starting with this because, in a way, I relate to the way Russell Glasser explained the meaning of the train wreck scene in Atlas Shrugged. When I hear him describe the event and his assertion of what Ayn Rand meant by it, I can almost hear myself at 16 explaining the difference between Howard Roark and Peter Keating to my sister. I don’t mean that as an insult to his intelligence or even a judgement of how he values ideas. I’ll repeat: I don’t meant that as an insult to his intelligence or even a judgement of how he values ideas. I have never met the man. What I have done, though, is just finish re-reading the scene in Atlas Shrugged, and the meaning seems to jump off the pages, and it’s not what Glasser described.

I want to address the summary and meaning Glasser provided in his “Objecting to Objectivism” show. This will be a departure from my previous three posts in which I’ve tried mostly to correct some of the mis-statements Glasser and Matt Dunahunty provided. And hopefully, this one will be more fun to write, too.

Quick warning: my bachelor’s degree is in computer science, not literature!

What Glasser said:

As usual, this transcript was done by me, and he is quoting Atlas Shrugged:

Basically, there’s a sequence with a train wreck. And what comes about, this happens about halfway through the book, and it’s basically shown to be the natural consequence of all the stupid people who are dragging the geniuses down. And obviously, a train is filled with random people who are just going about their lives. And Ayn Rand sets up a train wreck which is a result of all this bad stuff that people have done, but then she goes out of her way to make sure you know that every single random stranger on the train deserved it.

It is said that catastrophes are a matter of pure chance, and there were those who would have said that the passengers of the Comet were not guilty or responsible for the thing that happened to them.

The thing that happened to them, being, that everybody’s about to die.

The man in Bedroom A, Car No. 1, was a professor of sociology who taught that individual ability is of no consequence, that individual effort is futile, that an individual conscience is a useless luxury, that there is no individual mind or character or achievement, that everything is achieved collectively, and that it’s masses that count, not men.
The man in Roomette 7, Car No. 2, was a journalist who wrote that it is proper and moral to use compulsion “for a good cause,” who believed that he had the right to unleash physical force upon others—to wreck lives, throttle ambitions, strangle desires, violate convictions….

Blah blah blah. So anyway, there’s like three pages of this where she goes through like various parts of the car and just says, “Here’s the guy who was riding there, and boy did he have some bad ideas.”

[...]

Anyway, she goes through all these passengers, and concluded with,

These passengers were awake; there was not a man aboard the train who did not share one or more of their ideas. As the train went into the tunnel, the flame of Wyatt’s Torch was the last thing they saw on earth.

Now the impression I get from this passage, I don’t know about you, is, boy did all these people have it coming. That creeps me out. That she would set up all these strangers and take such obvious glee and delight in how much they deserved to die.

Now some needed context

The chapter that Glasser is referring to is “The Moratorium On Brains,” which is in the middle of the book. The “bad stuff that people have done” to which Glasser refers are laws that prevent people from acting according to their own judgement. It’s so bad, at this point in the story it’s literally illegal to quit your job, fire an incompetent worker, hire a worker of your choice, or even create a new product or invention. And it’s illegal for everybody, not just the “geniuses.” Those who pushed these laws said that it was for the benefit of everybody, but it only caused misery, massive failures, cronyism, etc. And what’s worse is, there was no escape. The one thing that individuals would need to use to correct their situation — their minds — was not permitted. The title of the chapter says it all. The men and women of ability, of responsibility, and of knowledge were being replaced by those who had political pull, an ability to duck responsibility, and who would mindlessly obey — no matter how irrational the order.

By this point in the book, these types of laws have nearly destroyed Taggart Transcontinental, a company that offered train transportation for much of the country. The incompetent, government-established management of the railroad by had let the quality of its rail system disintegrate to the point where its flagship train, the Comet, derails, and there’s no replacement diesel engine available for many hours. And to make matters worse, a powerful politician was on board by the name of Kip Chalmers who wasn’t happy about being late. (emphasis mine)

Slowly, patiently, with contemptuous politeness, the conductor gave him an exact account of the situation. But years ago, in grammar school, in high school, in college, Kip Chalmers had been taught that man does not and need not live by reason.
“Damn your tunnel!” he screamed. “Do you think I’m going to let you hold me up because of some miserable tunnel? Do you want to wreck vital national plans on account of a tunnel? Tell your engineer that I must be in San Francisco by evening and that he’s got to get me there!”
“How?”
“That’s your job, not mine!”
“There is no way to do it.”
“Then find a way, God damn you!”
The conductor did not answer.

To catch you up on the story a bit, the only available engine was a coal-burning engine. Normally it’s suitable for moving a train, but not for making it through the tunnel to which they’re speaking. Coal-burning engines kick out too much smoke, which will suffocate the passengers before the train makes it through the tunnel. But Chalmers wasn’t concerned about facts like these, and it was men like he that had power at that time.

A good, quick summary of this point can be made by just telling the story of the man who drove the Comet to its demise:

The station agent turned to him. “Will you do it, Joe? Will you take the Comet?”
Joe Scott was drunk. There had been a time when a railroad man, reporting for duty with any sign of intoxication, would have been regarded as a doctor arriving for work with sores of smallpox on his face. But Joe Scott was a privileged person. Three months ago, he had been fired for an infraction of safety rules, which had Caused a major wreck; two weeks ago, he had been reinstated in his job by order of the Unification Board. He was a friend of Fred Kinnan; he protected Kinnan’s interests in his union, not against the employers, but against the membership.
“Sure,” said Joe Scott. “I’ll take the Comet. I’ll get her through, if I go fast enough.”

I’m not giving the chapter justice, and you should check it out for yourself to get everything. Actually, if you want to get everything, you should make sure to read everything in Atlas Shrugged leading up to this point. But I hope you at least can see that there’s a lot more to this chapter than some maniacal scheme by Ayn Rand to kill a bunch of people who just have “bad ideas.” Speaking of which…

But why?

The Comet had many passengers when it passed through the tunnel, most of which had nothing to do with the suicide decision to take a coal-burning engine into the tunnel, and they all died. Glasser said that Ayn Rand took “obvious glee and delight” in killing them, but I think he’s really missing the point. I think he’s also doing a lot of inaccurate, unsubstantiated projection of emotion onto an author whom he knows every little of, but I’m going to put that aside.

I don’t think that Ayn Rand meant that each of those individuals deserved to die just because they shared some bad ideas with those who actually committed them to death. But why then would she imply that they were guilty and responsible?

Well, first I’d should say that I don’t think she meant that they were completely guilty and responsible; as if holding the ideas they had means that they deserve to die. The right to one’s life is not dependent on one’s acceptance of Objectivism, and an Objectivist will be the first person to tell you this. What she more likely meant was that they were, to an extent, responsible for creating the situation where men like Chalmers had power — precisely because they played a part in creating it. For example, look above at the story of Joe Scott, the conductor who obviously should have never been allowed on a train at all, and compare that to the story of one of the victims:

The man in Seat 5, Car No. 7, was a worker who believed that he had “a right” to a job, whether his employer wanted him or not.

Or consider the havoc the government caused by taking over the railroad, and then read the story of another victim:

The man in Roomette 2, Car No. 9, was a professor of economics who advocated the abolition of private property, explaining that intelligence plays no part in industrial production, that man’s mind is conditioned by material tools, that anybody can run a factory or a railroad and it’s only a matter of seizing the machinery.

Or the story of this victim:

The woman in Roomette 9, Car No. 12, was a housewife who believed that she had the right to elect politicians, of whom she knew nothing, to control giant industries, of which she had no knowledge.

Or the story of this victim:

The man in Bedroom F, Car No. 13, was a lawyer who had said, “Me? I’ll find a way to get along under any political system.”

One could look at the Comet wreck and blame the conductor. If he had stopped, there would have been no wreck, right? But why was he there? Who was responsible for that? And who was responsible for that person? If you want to get a full accounting of everything that lead to that wreck, you have to start following the chain. It’s not too hard:

The conductor drove the train. But why?
The railroad company was forced to hire him. But why?
The government passed a law that said they couldn’t. But why?
The government was full of politicians who wanted to take control over business and people’s lives. But why?
That’s what they were elected to do. But why?
That’s what people wanted. But why?

In telling the stories of the passengers, Ayn Rand showed us their part in the mess. She showed how their actionas, as minor as they might seem, ultimately played a part in the wreck. It showed that your ideas, what you promote, how you raise your kids, who you vote for, how you live your life, etc. really do matter. And if you want to make things better you have to do more than just vote for the lesser-of-two-evils every four years.

Final thought

The more I think about this part of Atlas Shrugged, the more I see how a lot of what we’re doing in this country can be compared to this train wreck. Just look at things like Social Security, Medicare, the bailouts, deficit spending, or our coming-soon government health care system. These are all things that everybody knows won’t work and can’t work, but nobody’s willing to be the messenger with the bad news. And this is just one part of the book! It’s scary to see just how so many parallels there are between the things that are happening today and Atlas Shrugged.

Part 1: Objecting to Objectivism – The King’s Rational Self-Interest?
Part 2: Objecting to Objectivism – Cooperation
Part 3: Objecting to Objectivism – Objective Reality
Part 4: Objecting to Objectivism – The Train Scene
Part 5: Objecting to Objectivism – Teaching, Altruism, and the Profit Motive
Part 6: Objecting to Objectivism – Did Ayn Rand Read Kant?
Part 7: Objecting to Objectivism: Matt Doesn’t Like the Book He Didn’t Read

Like my last two posts, this post will be another response to an issue that came up in Russell Glasser and Matt Dillahunty’s “Objecting to Objectivism” episode. This time the issue is objective reality. If you want more of a background into the show or why I’ve written these, you can read my last post on cooperation here or the previous post on “rational self-interest” here.

What they said

Starting around minute 40 (click here to get the video), Glasser moved to the issue of Objectivism’s stance on objectivity. The quote Glasser used is from Chapter 4 of Leonard Peikoff’s book, “Objectivism, the Philosophy of Ayn Rand.” He started the conversation with (transcript and emphasis by me):

Glasser: Leonard Peikoff, who is kinda of a disciple of Ayn Rand, and is responsible for a whole lot of material that has been published about Objectivism, mentions what is meant by objective reality. He says,

Peikoff: People often speak of “objective reality.” In this usage, which is harmless, “objective” means “independent of consciousness.” The actual purpose of the concept, however, is to be found not in metaphysics, but in epistemology. Strictly speaking, existents are not objective; they simply are. It is minds, and specifically conceptual processes, that are objective—or nonobjective.

Glasser: That seems ass-backwards to me. What he’s saying is [...] that the external world isn’t necessarily objective, but minds are. And that makes no sense.

Dillahunty: Well, I think he’s using language. I agree that it doesn’t make any sense, the second part.

Glasser: Yeah.

Dillahunty: But when he says, strictly speaking, existents are not objective, I think he’s saying — and not we’re getting back to word usage — I think he’s saying that they’re not objective in the sense that they’re talking about. When he says they simply are then, that goes back to the A is A thing.

Glasser: Yeah, right.

Dillahunty: Which we would agree with. A is definitely A.

Glasser: A is certainly A. I have no complaint about that.

Dillahunty: A is not A-ok. It’s just A.

Like their other objections to Objectivism, they’re not presenting any real idea or position that Ayn Rand or Leonard Peikoff made. And on top of that, they’re not even having a real discussion of the ideas. What doesn’t make sense about his quote? What is their position on objective reality, or even their opinion on how the phrase should be used? Does that phrase give a proper definition of Objectivism’s stance on objectivity? Who knows. They just lifted one out-of-context quote by Leonard Peikoff, called it “ass-backward” and said it made no sense, made a joke about “A is A,” and then moved on.

What Leonard Peikoff wrote

I think this is another case where adding just a little bit more of what Ayn Rand or Leonard Peikoff wrote could have steered the conversation in a completely (and more relevent) path and gave a more accurate presentation of Objectivism to their viewers and listeners. And like their other points, they wouldn’t have had to look very far. I’ll offer the same quote Glasser presented, but add the paragraph before it (emphasis mine):

Thus we reach Ayn Rand’s view of objectivity, which is a derivative of her theory of concepts. Here, in my own words, is her definition. To be “objective” in one’s conceptual activities is volitionally to adhere to reality by following certain rules of method, a method based on facts and appropriate to man’s form of cognition.

People often speak of “objective reality.” In this usage, which is harmless, “objective” means “independent of consciousness.” The actual purpose of the concept, however, is to be found not in metaphysics, but in epistemology. Strictly speaking, existents are not objective; they simply are. It is minds, and specifically conceptual processes, that are objective—or nonobjective.

If Glasser wanted to offer an explanation of what Objectivists mean by “objective reality,” wouldn’t Ayn Rand’s definition of what she means by “objective” help? Don’t these two paragraphs really belong together? You’ll have to ask Glasser why he excluded this, because I don’t understand.

And just to offer a little more context, here is the next paragraph Peikoff wrote (emphasis mine):

The concept of “objectivity” is essential to a rational epistemology; it is a requirement of the proper development of human consciousness and, ultimately, of human survival. (The elements of objectivity in Aristotle’s philosophy, even though incomplete and inconsistently formulated, enabled the West to achieve science and an industrial civilization.) A conceptual consciousness must focus on reality by a deliberate resolve, and it must discover and then choose to practice the method required to implement this resolve.

Objectivism holds that reason is man’s basic means of survival. No matter how different each of us may be, we still have to use reason to direct our actions in such a way that we can live. Objectivity is essential to that.

My Take

Ok, so I can’t help myself. I’m a “white board” kind of guy, and I’ve used drawings in previous blog posts to try to offer a simpler way to present an idea. And I don’t know about you, but I have trouble keeping my eyes focused when I read blog posts as big as this one. When I heard Glasser’s “that the external world isn’t necessarily objective, but minds are. And that makes no sense.” response to Leonard Peikoff’s quote, an example popped in my head.

Let’s say that two guys come across a rock while walking. And they have different reactions:

Leonard Peikoff wrote “Strictly speaking, existents are not objective; they simply are. It is minds, and specifically conceptual processes, that are objective—or nonobjective.” I think this is an example of that. One of the guys looks at the situation objectively. He gathers data from his senses and comes to the correct conclusion. He says, “That’s a rock,” and nothing else. But the other takes a different approach. Instead of using the data he got from his senses, he added his own made-up belief and made a statement that has no relation to reality at all. He is not being objective.

But note: Nothing the two said about the rock changed its nature. The rock just is. So, Guy A is objective. Guy B is not objective. But the rock just *is.*

Now let’s pretend that there’s a big accident.

Judging by the X’s over their eyes, I think the accident killed both of them. Now that they’re gone, can you say the rock objective? Is the rock not objective? Neither. The concept “objective” is applicable only to each of the guy’s focus on reality, which neither are capable of doing any longer.

Subjective values

Glasser finished his “discussion” on Objectivist objectivity with the following:

Glasser: One of my central objections to Objectivism is the treatment of, is the sort of declaration that everything should be objective. That not only is the physical world objective, but there are values which everybody must have, and there are no real subjective values. If there are, it’s basically the result of bad thinking that’s not in line with Objectivism.

I don’t understand what he means by “values which everybody must have,” and it would have been nice if he had listed one. If he had, though, I think he would have started down a path that he ignored earlier in the show (check out the first post I wrote on self-interest). And if he wanted to discuss those things, he wouldn’t have left out so many relevant parts of Ayn Rand’s writing. I won’t go into this all right now, but I’ll just throw this out: If you choose to live as a human, there are certain values that you must have — and act upon them. For example, if you want to eat, you’ll need to value productivity — and be productive at least to the point that you can sustain yourself. Those rules are set by reality, not Ayn Rand. Objectivists are for living (well), and that’s the context in which they say people must value something.

I don’t understand what he means by “subjective values.”

Up next

Now that I think about it, my drawings above (and how I illustrated the death of two innocent individuals) is a good lead-in to the next issue from the show I will address: The train wreck in Atlas Shrugged. If you haven’t read the book, you might want to skip it.

Part 1: Objecting to Objectivism – The King’s Rational Self-Interest?
Part 2: Objecting to Objectivism – Cooperation
Part 3: Objecting to Objectivism – Objective Reality
Part 4: Objecting to Objectivism – The Train Scene
Part 5: Objecting to Objectivism – Teaching, Altruism, and the Profit Motive
Part 6: Objecting to Objectivism – Did Ayn Rand Read Kant?
Part 7: Objecting to Objectivism: Matt Doesn’t Like the Book He Didn’t Read

Yesterday in my post titled “Objecting to Objectivism – The King’s Rational Self-Interest?” I addressed how the Matt Dillahunty and Russel Glasser from “The Atheist Experience” got Ayn Rand’s position on “rational self-interest” all wrong in their “Objecting to Objectivism” episode. The problems go further than that, though, so as promised here’s another point brought up: Cooperation.

The issue of cooperation was brought up only briefly, but I think it’s worth mentioning for a couple reasons. First, what was said ran so contrary against what Ayn Rand had said about cooperation, it deserves a response just to get the facts straight. And when I say this I’m not just talking about statements from Ayn Rand that one would have to dig deep into her books to find, but from the very statement that Dillahunty and Glasser had just been discussing. And second, it’s an excuse to talk about an Objectivist idea that I otherwise probably wouldn’t write about.

What they said

Matt Dillahunty, somewhere around the 25-minute-or-so mark made the following statement (transcript and emphasis mine):

The thing that I have a problem with, in regards to number four, is the ideas, while they’re not particularly backed up initially, also seem kinda of sophomoric and short-sighted in the sense that there seems to be this big assumption that “I’ve thought about this, and I’ve concluded that this is the best way for everybody to live.” And it ignores, in my opinion, both the necessity of a cooperative society, the necessity of structure within that cooperative society, and the benefits that come from that. And how those benefits can benefit the individual as well as the group.

He didn’t define what he meant by “cooperative society,” but I think it’s fair to probably assume he means a society in which people work together for some common goal. I’m not sure what else it could mean. Now take that idea and compare it to what Ayn Rand said in “number 4″ he had just mentioned, which was a point in Ayn Rand’s essay “Introducing Objectivism” in which she said:

It is a system where men deal with one another, not as victims and executioners, nor as masters and slaves, but as traders, by free, voluntary exchange to mutual benefit.

So, everybody deals with one another as traders, free to work together for mutual benefit… how can that be anything but cooperative? If two people want to cooperate with one another to do something, they can. If they don’t want to, they don’t. Even if one disagrees with that type of free society, that one sentence of Ayn Rand’s is enough to throw away the idea that she “ignores the necessity of a cooperative society.”

Dillahunty also said that Objectivism ignores the necessity of structure within a cooperative society. Compare that to the next two sentences in the “number 4″ he just mentioned:

It is a system where no man may obtain any values from others by resorting to physical force, and no man may initiate the use of physical force against others. The government acts only as a policeman that protects man’s rights; it uses physical force only in retaliation and only against those who initiate its use, such as criminals or foreign invaders.

How are laws that bar the use of physical force between individuals not considered as “structure?” Again, regardless of whether one agrees with Ayn Rand’s position, Dillahunty’s statements about Objectivism are not true. Objectivists are not anarchists. Objectivists hold that a government is necessary specifically for the purpose of protecting individual rights.

What Ayn Rand said about “Cooperation”

Ayn Rand wrote specifically about cooperation a number of times. Thanks to the Objectivist Research CD, I was able to quickly find a couple choice quotes and let Ayn Rand speak for herself.

From “Letters of Ayn Rand,” chapter 6:

Only free, independent men can cooperate and feel benevolence toward one another. But they can do it only because (and only so long as) they know that cooperation will involve no pain or injury to them—that is, no demand for self-sacrifice.

But cooperation cannot be placed first, in the sense of saying that we must cooperate with others—if by cooperation you mean acting in a common enterprise. There are instances when we wish to act together with others—and instances when we prefer to act alone. Here again, how would you apply it concretely, if you preached cooperation as a general rule of conduct, as a conscious policy to be adopted by every man? If the community in which I live needs me and wants me to be a night watchman for them, and I want to be a writer—do I have to cooperate?

Cooperation is not and cannot be a conscious, deliberate consideration, or a rule of conduct, or a set policy. It’s a consequence—call it a natural result, if you wish—of voluntary association among men, each acting in his own interest. The overall result of each pursuing his own interest will be a society of peaceful, harmonious cooperation—such as a capitalist society. But it’s not done through any “will to cooperate”—only through pursuing one’s own interests, while respecting the same right in those with whom we deal.

And from “The Journals of Ayn Rand,” Chapter 9:

Collectivism is compulsion. Compulsion and cooperation are not synonyms. They are opposites. Collectivism is group action by decree—and in matters where no group action is possible. Cooperation is a highly complex division of individual labor. Collectivism is not division, but herd action, in theory—and a gun stuck in your back in practice. You don’t cooperate at the point of a gun. Only free men can cooperate.

Dillahunty said that Ayn Rand “ignored” the necessity of cooperation. Given the quotes above, how could his assertion be defended. Agree or disagree with Ayn Rand — “cooperation” was not ignored.

Final Note

Perhaps I am being a little picky with this one statement by Dillahunty, especially given the fact that it might have been made off-the-cuff on a television show. He didn’t have the use of the backspace key that I used repeatedly as I wrote this blog post. Still, he was wrong, and this is another example as to how he and his co-host did not give an accurate presentation of Objectivism. Like I said in yesterday’s post, it’s as if the two are discussing what they *think* Objectivism is instead of what Ayn Rand put into her books.

There’s more, too. I’m in the mood to write this week, so I’ll continue soon. The next post will be either on their criticism of a statement by Leonard Peikoff on objective reality or of Glasser’s position on the meaning of the train wreck in Atlas Shrugged.

Part 1: Objecting to Objectivism – The King’s Rational Self-Interest?
Part 2: Objecting to Objectivism – Cooperation
Part 3: Objecting to Objectivism – Objective Reality
Part 4: Objecting to Objectivism – The Train Scene
Part 5: Objecting to Objectivism – Teaching, Altruism, and the Profit Motive
Part 6: Objecting to Objectivism – Did Ayn Rand Read Kant?
Part 7: Objecting to Objectivism: Matt Doesn’t Like the Book He Didn’t Read

I came across a podcast titled “Objecting to Objectivism” last week. This podcast was an audio cut from an episode of “The Atheist Experience,” a weekly cable-access show in Austin. On this episode hosts Matt Dillahunty and Russel Glasser, as you can guess from the title, discussed their disagreements with Objectivism for almost 90 minutes. It was recorded just three months ago, and the audio and video can be found through the archive section of their website or through Google Video.

I am an Objectivist, so obviously I disagree with the position the two have taken. However, I don’t have a problem with their opinion of Objectivism as much as I have a problem with how they’ve presented Objectivism. I don’t think the two have much knowledge of what Objectivism actually is (Dillahunty even admitted that he hadn’t read Atlas Shrugged), so the show is more about their objections to what they perceive Objectivism to be rather than what it actually is. If they had looked past a basic introduction to the philosophy they would have found that Ayn Rand had addressed their objections or offered further clarification on what she actually meant. Dillahunty and Glasser probably still wouldn’t agree with Ayn Rand, but they’d at least be able to host a real discussion of the merits of Objectivism.

What They Said

The best example of how a deeper look into Ayn Rand’s own writings might have made a better show is how the two discussed Rand’s use of the phrase “rational self-interest.” Glasser read the following point from Ayn Rand’s article titled “Introducing Objectivism” in the Objectivist Newsletter (and in the Voice of Reason):

“3. Man—every man—is an end in himself, not the means to the ends of others. He must exist for his own sake, neither sacrificing himself to others nor sacrificing others to himself. The pursuit of his own rational self-interest and of his own happiness is the highest moral purpose of his life.”

Glasser said that he thought that Ayn Rand was mixing values and the objective reality she mentioned in earlier points, and the conversation let to this (my transcript):

Dillahunty: Rational self-interest is not clearly defined within this context. What you may consider to be in your best self-interest and consider it rational, someone might object to it.

Glasser: Let me throw out an example. What if someone a guy wants to sacrifice himself for somebody else? Who the hell is Ayn Rand to tell him that he can’t do that?

Dillahunty: It would be a free expression of her opinion that he is not acting consistently with her moral values.

Glasser went on to read Ayn Rand’s next point in the article in which Ayn Rand stated that she advocated capitalism. Glausser replied,

Glasser: To take an extreme example, you might say that a monarchy is not an ideal system. But like Mel Brooks said, it’s good to be the king. And if you’re going to say the ideal political-economic system is laissez-faire capitalism and not monarchy, I think the king wouldn’t agree with that. It really depends on whose point of view you’re talking from.

Dillahunty: Or what the goal is.

Glasser: Right. What the goal is. And the goal is something that ought to be discussed way before we get to the idea of evaluating what is the ideal system.

What Objectivism States

It is true that Ayn Rand’s introduction to her philosophy needed more context, which is probably why Ayn Rand stated that the article was the “briefest” summary of her opinion and was to be taken as a frame of reference for future columns. But still, I think she gave a clue with the following statement (emphasis mine):

If you held these concepts with total consistency, as the base of your convictions, you would have a full philosophical system to guide the course of your life.

The clue there would be “life.” Glasser and Dillahunty both agreed that a goal needs to be discussed, but they didn’t identify the goal Ayn Rand identified repeatedly in her writings: man’s life. As Leonard Peikoff wrote in Objectivism: The Philosophy of Ayn Rand (emphasis mine):

Ayn Rand upholds rational self-interest. This means the ethics of selfishness, with man’s life as the standard of value defining “self-interest,” and rationality as the primary virtue defining the method of achieving it.

And from her essay Man’s Rights:

The Declaration of Independence stated that men “are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights.” Whether one believes that man is the product of a Creator or of nature, the issue of man’s origin does not alter the fact that he is an entity of a specific kind—a rational being—that he cannot function successfully under coercion, and that rights are a necessary condition of his particular mode of survival.

The questions Dillahunty and Glasser were good, but they just didn’t know (or mention) that Ayn Rand had answered them.

Who’s point of view? A human being.
What’s the goal? Living on earth.
How do we go about it? Freedom of each human being to exercise his means of living.
What political-economic system allows for that? One that protects every individual’s ability to live, given the facts above.

Needless to say, kings are people, too. I’m not an expert in history by any means, but I do know that kings and dictators haven’t always lived happy or long lives. Their royalty might give them the ability to steal, hurt, or kill their “subjects,” but that doesn’t change the fact that stealing, thuggery, and murder are not ways to survive. Monarchy, as a political-economic system, removes each individual’s ability (both the king’s and his subjects) to live according to their means of survival: Their reason.

Almost There

If you listen to the portion of the podcast that I mentioned above, you’ll soon afterwards hear Dillahunty mention that Ayn Rand had more essays in which she further explained her position. He also said that he might even agree that if the goal is freedom, individualism, and the encouragement of individual rights is the goal, then laissez-faire capitalism might be best. Those goals might seem closer to Ayn Rand’s position, but it’s still not there. Like capitalism, you still have to determine the goal before knowing that freedom, individualism, and individual rights are good things. And if Dillahunty knew about the positions she had made in other essays, why not bring them into the discussion? Even the few quotes included above would have given a more accurate presentation of Objectivism.

Final Point

Just to reiterate: I’m not trying to argue against what Dillahunty and Glasser stated or arguing for Objectivism by writing this. I just want to point out that the “Objecting to Objectivism” show had a few holes in its presentation of Objectivism. If one wants to discuss the merits of anything they should first identify what that thing is, and Dillahunty and Glasser missed some fundamental points with Objectivism. Don’t get me wrong; I don’t expect them to know everything about Objectivism before talking about it, but I think they should have offered their viewers a better explanation of what Objectivism is before they tried to tear it down.

They covered much more than “rational self-interest” in their show, and I’ll be writing soon on some other arguments they made that I disagree with. Next up: The issue of “cooperation.”

Part 1: Objecting to Objectivism – The King’s Rational Self-Interest?
Part 2: Objecting to Objectivism – Cooperation
Part 3: Objecting to Objectivism – Objective Reality
Part 4: Objecting to Objectivism – The Train Scene
Part 5: Objecting to Objectivism – Teaching, Altruism, and the Profit Motive
Part 6: Objecting to Objectivism – Did Ayn Rand Read Kant?
Part 7: Objecting to Objectivism: Matt Doesn’t Like the Book He Didn’t Read