Sunday, June 17, 2007

Orthodox Objectivist Questions Randian Theory of History

Since I regularly attack orthodox Objectivists for failing to demonstrate any intellectual curiosity or rigor, it's only fair to point an example of at least one (now former) orthodox Objectivist who has shown at least some capacity to think outside the Randian box. Robert Tracinski, editor of the Intellectual Activist apparently has created a bit of stir amoing the ARI faithful because of his criticism and partial rejection of Rand's theory of history. "I do not mean to deny the crucial importance of fundamental philosophical ideas," Tracinski writes, "but to suggest that the relationship between philosophical ideas and all other ideas, and the means by which ideas are propagated in a culture, is more complex than Objectivists have recognized." Most interesting is Tracinski's explanation of why he's moving away from the Randian theory. He found that when trying to do journalistic work on a daily basis, he kept running across utterly novel experiences that could not always be easily integrated with his pre-existing knowledge. In other words, experience was teaching him that not everything in the world could be explained either by Rand's philosophy or by philosophy in general, leading him to conclude that "Any valid new observation or theory in a specialized field is based on an immersion in facts and observations, and on a whole range of lesser integrations and preliminary conclusions derived from those observations," a conclusion that veers toward my own position.

The question is: now that Tracinski has taken this one step away from orthodox Objectivism, will he be inexorably led, by the logic of that one step, away from Objectivism? Some orthodox Objectivists have accused Tracinski of moving away from Objectivism in order to become a conservative. I don't see that yet. He still seems pretty orthodox on most other points of Objectivism. However, once an individual makes that first step away from strict doctrine, the first thing that happens is that other orthodox Objectivists turn on him and essentially drive him out of the fold. Now Tracinski may be able to find refuge with the TOC crowd, where he's sure to be welcomed. But rejecting Rand's theory of history is a pretty big deal. It's much more important to Objectivism than most of Rand's admirers and critics realize, because it gives the philosophy an almost quasi-religious eschatological force. It provides Rand's disciples with a secular form of salvation which promises the (nearly) inevitable triumph of Objectivist values (see Rand's Playboy interview for more info). Once you reject this theory, it's just a short step to asking what else might be wrong with Objectivism. After all, Rand's main focus in epistemology (i.e., theory of concepts, problem of universals) is clearly motivated by her theory of history; the one follows the other like the cart follows the horse. So to doubt the one is to (at least potentially) experience doubts about the other. Once, however, you begin doubting Rand's epistemology (and there's a lot of evidence compiled by cognitive scientists that give compelling reasons for such doubts), it's just a short step to doubting many other doctrines in Objectivism, particularly the Aristolean methodology embraced by Rand and her rather naive politics.

8 comments:

  1. While I agree that it is a big deal to see Tracinski move away from Rand’s theory of history, I would really be shocked to see him continue to move away from Objectivism. I applaud him for being honest, but why concede to empirical evidence in respect to Journalism, and deny it in respect to everything else.

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  2. He's been purged. At the bottom of his articles on the holocaust memorial day it states he's no longer connected with the ARI.
    Welcome to the human race mate.

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  3. Anonymous: "He's been purged."

    Obviously. He had to be. But likely there had been growing tensions before Tracinski expressed his heresy about the Objectivist theory of history. These things usually don't happen for purely intellectual reasons. There may have been other things about ARI that Tracinski didn't like. Or he may have felt that his association with ARI was limiting in journalistic work, preventing him from, say, appealing to non-ARIians.

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  4. It was this purge that convinced me the objectivist movement is broken somehow. He was the first semi-prominent objectivist to say something positive about the trends in the culture and then he gets purged. This is when I dumped objectivism completely from my life.

    Thank god I didn't ruin my life by becoing a philosophy professor like the many peikoff drones seem to have done.

    Ken Stauffer

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  6. Hi Ken,

    Interesting comment. While we don't agree with Rand, we can certainly see the appeal of her philosophy, and powerful attraction it exerts. We also think that she was right about many things, but usually for the wrong reasons. As Greg notes, Objectivism is a kind of "compendium of half-truths." In the end, like so much Western thought, as its problems become evident, the issue becomes one of commitment, rather than truth. It's what philosopher WW Bartley called "the retreat to commitment." This, combined with Rand's totalism (i.e. if you reject any part of Objectivism, you reject the whole) means a kind of crisis point is reached when they find Rand is in error on some important point; they either silence their disquiet, and gee themselves up with her comforting rhetoric; or they tell the truth as they see it. If this is an ARI person, this leads to their explusion from the ranks of the "truly committed." There are, as we have said on this site before, some definite nett positives to Rand as an inspirational, imaginative writer. Where it goes wrong is when you actually try to follow her philosophy in anything more than this vague way.

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  7. The quote displayed on this blog, "... I can't believe how profound I once thought objectivism was ..." expresses my view perfectly. I am no longer on a mission to save the world. My new mission is to save objectivists from their self imposed cult (hee hee hee) . I'm glad this blog and other like it are starting to appear. Ayn Rand had some great observations and its those ideas that ought to be remembered and encouraged. Given the current state of the world I am very optimistic about the future. All the bad trends that made me first attracted to objectivism have gone away. Those mainly were: Communism, Post Modernism and Political Correctness. These trends are gone and I see reason flowering all around me (due in large part to the Internet and men like Richard Dawkins and Daniel Dennett). The objectivist leaders are boring and feeble by comparison. And constantly bitching about how doomed we are.

    Ken Stauffer

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  8. Ken:
    >I'm glad this blog and other like it are starting to appear.

    Glad you're finding the ARCHNblog interesting, Ken. BTW, are there any other blogs you'd recommend along these lines?

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