Review of Burn’s "Goddess of the Market"

Jennifer Burns' book focuses on Rand’s development as a thinker and philosopher and connects this development with the broader conservative and libertarian movements. Using her unprecedented access to Rand’s private papers and the unedited versions of Rand’s journal, Burns uncovers a wealth of fascinating evidence on the influences that shaped Rand’s Objectivist philosophy. Goddess of the Market is now the most impressive work of scholarship on Rand to date, besting even Sciabarra’s Ayn Rand: The Russian Radical.

This book is notable (among other things) for the impartiality of its author. As far as I can tell, Burns is the first non-Objectivist scholar to have been granted full access to Rand’s papers. Since she harbors no perceivable agenda beyond relating the important facts about Rand’s life and thought, Goddess of the Market becomes the most “objective” (in the non-Randian sense of the word) account of Rand. Unlike works on Rand published through ARI or by the Brandens, the conclusions of Goddess cannot be questioned on the grounds of bias. “I am less concerned with judgment than with analysis,” Burns writes in her introduction, “a choice Rand would certainly condemn,” she adds with muted irony. I would describe her book as even-handed: wherever Rand conflicted with friends and associates, Burns goes out of her way to give both sides, basing her analysis on the relevant documentary evidence (rather than just on mere speculation or bias). The intellectual conflict Rand had with Rose Wilder Lane, for instance, is fleshed out not merely with reference to letters between the two right-wing individualists, but even with a letter that Lane wrote to a third person describing her final showdown with Rand.


The most interesting revelation in Goddess may very well be the extent to which Isabel Paterson influenced Rand’s philosophy. Rand was still working her way through her Nietzsche phase when she met Paterson in 1941. Paterson reinforced Rand’s growing commitment to “reason” and Aristotle. It is likely that Paterson introduced Rand to the banal phrase “A is A,” which later became such an important mantra within the Objectivist philosophy. Paterson also appears to be the original source of Rand’s detestation of Kant (which would later be reinforced by what she learned from Leonard Peikoff). Paterson may even have been the chief inspiration for Rand’s later fierce moral condemnation of using emotions as a tool of cognition. Paterson, famous for being “difficult” (W. F. Buckley would later describe her as “obstinately vindictive”), once, in Rand’s presence, screamed over the phone at Rose Wilder Lane, because Lane had confessed being led by her feelings, rather than by “reason.” Rand found Paterson’s arguments to Lane “marvelous and unanswerable," and her anger understandable, even honorable. Paterson was providing Rand with a model the younger woman would later imitate, to horrendous effect.

Rand emerges from Burns' book as a talented, energetic, sometimes even brilliant woman torn by paradoxical traits in her character. Rand was a “rationalist philosopher who wrote romantic fiction. For all her fealty to reason, Rand was a woman subject to powerful, even overwhelming emotion…. Her dual career as a novelist and a philosopher let Rand express both her deep-seated need for control and her genuine belief in individualism and independence.” Rand’s life, driven by a “clash between [the] romantic and rational sides” of her character, makes the story of her life “not a tale of triumph, but a tragedy of sorts.”

This book will not please the orthodox champions of Rand who have turned Objectivism into a personality cult. It confirms most of the controversial claims made by Barbara Branden in The Passion of Ayn Rand, including Frank O'Conner's alcoholism, Rand's increasing mental rigidity during her Objectivist period, her difficulties with intellectual interchange, the contempt which Rand periodically felt for her fans, and the catastrophic consequences of her split with the Brandens for the Objectivist movement as a whole. It provides even more light on the possible role which Rand's habitual use of Benzedrine may have had on Rand. Paterson had warned Rand to "Stop taking that Benzedrine, you idiot," but Rand, stubborn and self-willed as usual, refused to listen. It was not unusual for Rand to work on Atlas during the day and then stay up all night talking philosophy with the "Collective" [i.e., the inner circle around Rand, let by the Brandens]. As Burns relates:

The Collective marveled at how the opportunity to talk philosophy rejuvenated [Rand] even after a long day of writing. The obvious was also the unthinkable. To keep up with her younger followers, Rand fed herself a steady stream of amphetamines. [148]

This opens up the possibility that what some of us find objectionable in Atlas Shrugged—namely, the work's blistering disdain towards anyone who might be so horrid as to disagree with its author, coupled with the book's piercing tendentiousness—may have been influenced by her repeated exposure to these drugs, which can lead to aggression, over-confidence, feelings of superiority, and even paranoia. Following the publication of The Fountainhead, Rand's personal life slowly dissolved into personal tragedy, as she became increasingly difficult and insular. That a woman who would devise an entire philosophy around the notion that human beings are self-creators via "reason" should have relied so heavily on amphetamines is in itself a kind of refutation of her view of human nature.

Objectivism & Politics, Part 30

Politics of Human Nature 14: Egalitarian Envy. In an earlier “Objectivism and Politics” post, we found Rand using the phrase “ hatred of the good for being the good” to describe nihilism. But she had also used to the phrase to describe “envy.” And in her essay “Age of Envy,” she illustrated her notions in relation to egalitarianism.

Egalitarianism means the belief in the equality of all men. “Equality,” in a human context, is a political term: it means equality before the law… But this is not the meaning that the altruists ascribe to the word “equality.” They turn the word into an anti-concept: they use it to mean, not political, but metaphysical equality—the equality of personal attributes and virtues, regardless of natural endowment or individual choice, performance and character. It is not man-made institutions, but nature, i.e., reality, that they propose to fight—by means of man-made institutions.

Since nature does not endow all men with equal beauty or equal intelligence, and the faculty of volition leads men to make different choices, the egalitarians propose to abolish the “unfairness” of nature and of volition, and to establish universal equality in fact—in defiance of facts. Since the Law of Identity is impervious to human manipulation, it is the Law of Causality that they struggle to abrogate. Since personal attributes or virtues cannot be “redistributed,” they seek to deprive men of their consequences—of the rewards, the benefits, the achievements created by personal attributes and virtues. It is not equality before the law that they seek, but inequality: the establishment of an inverted social pyramid, with a new aristocracy on top—the aristocracy of non-value.

While many of us could do without the over-charged rhetoric, what Rand is saying in so many words is that “altruists” (i.e., socialists, humanitarians, leftists, etc.) seek real, as opposed to merely political equality, and that such equality is impossible. Fair enough. Where Rand gets into trouble is when she tries to analyze where this egalitarian “hatred of the good for being good” comes from. She ventures upon a psychological explanation:

The hater’s mental functioning remains on the level of childhood. Nothing is fully real to him except the concrete, the perceptually given, i.e., the immediate moment without past or future. He has learned to speak, but has never grasped the process of conceptualization…. [How does she know this? Where is her evidence?]

How does a human being descend to such a state? There are different psychological reasons, but—in pattern—the process of self-stultification is initiated by the child who lies too often and gets away with it. In his early, formative years, when he needs to learn the mental processes required to grasp the great unknown surrounding him, reality, he learns the opposite. He learns, in effect, that he can get whatever he wants not by observing facts, but by inventing them and by cheating, begging, threatening (throwing tantrums), i.e., by manipulating the adults…. Reality does not obey him, it frustrates his wishes, it is impervious to his feelings, it does not respond to him as the adults do; but, he feels ... he has the power to defeat [reality] by means of nothing but his own imagination, which commands the mysterious omnipotent adults who can do what he is unable to do…

Gradually, these subconscious conclusions are automatized in his mind, in the form of a habitual, ambivalent feeling: a sneaky sense of triumph—and a sense of inferiority, since he is helpless when he is left on his own. He counteracts it by telling himself that he is superior, since he can deceive anyone; and, seeking reassurance, he multiplies the practice deception. Wordlessly, as an implicit premise, he acquires the belief that his means of survival is his ability to manipulate others. At a certain stage of his development, he acquires the only authentic and permanent emotion he will ever be able to experience: fear.

Again, one wonders: how on earth does she know all this? It seems all very speculative, and some of it isn’t even plausible. Perhaps there might be something in Rand’s assertion that children who lie and get away with it can easily become manipulators who, as adults, will attempt to live off others, as parasites. But it is also possible that the principle danger of the child who gets away with lying (as well as other things) is that he becomes a spoiled child who ends up, as the conservative philosopher Richard Weaver once put it, failing “to see the relationship between effort and reward,” which causes him in turn to regard “payment as an imposition or as an expression of malice by those who withhold [him from] it.” In other words, Rand’s best speculations about egalitarian envy, while plausible, are not necessarily true. And her worst speculations seem merely expressions of a moralistic spleen trying to vent itself against an imaginary target. She claims, for instance, that the only “authentic” emotion the envious hater is capable of is “fear.” If an individual is so good at manipulating others that this can be a means of survival, why should he be afraid? If he has found a method of survival that works, why should he worry any more than the rest of us? Is it because of his dependence on others? Many people who don’t live by manipulating others nonetheless are dependent, in many important respects, on others. Why should dependence, in and of itself, be a cause of fear? Are human beings, by and large, really that undependable? And where does Rand get the odd notion that “haters” are incapable of “conceptualization”? Since anyone who uses language must understand the conceptualizations behind language, this view appears contrary to obvious facts.

But Rand is not done with her psychological speculations. She proceeds by suggesting that there are two possible “roads” open to the envious haters: to either “seek safety in stagnation” or become an intellectual “who believes that ideas are tools of deception.” Her comments on the intellectual “hater” are worth reproducing, if only for purposes of comic relief:



Psychologists have observed a phenomenon called “the idiot-savant,” a man who has the mentality of a moron, but, for some as yet undiscovered reason, is able to perform a prodigy’s feats of arithmetical calculation. The hater of the good becomes a similar phenomenon: “the idiot philosopher,” a man who is unable to grasp the relation of ideas to reality, but devotes his life to the manufacture, propagation and manipulation of ideas…

And who are these “idiot philosophers” Rand is speaking of? Is there anyone she might wish to name? Thankfully, she grants at least one name: “On the basis of his works, I offer Immanuel Kant in evidence, as the archetype of this species.” [The New Left, 164-181]

The notion of Kant as an “idiot philosopher” “unable to grasp the relation of ideas to reality” is absurd, and easily refutable. Much of Kant’s philosophy may be overly pedantic and speculative, but this does not mean his mind was detached from reality, as Rand suggests. On the contrary, Kant, in his scientific speculations, was actually quite shrewd. He not only figured out, long before anyone else did, that the frictional resistance against tidal currents on the earth's surface must cause a diminution of the earth's rotational speed, he also helped popularize the Nebular hypothesis, in which he deduced that the Solar System was originally formed from a large cloud of gas. Kant also correctly speculated that the Milky Way was a large disk of stars, formed from a (much larger) spinning cloud of gas. As Wikipedia puts it: “These postulations opened new horizons for astronomy: for the first time extending astronomy beyond the solar system to galactic and extragalactic realms.”

Rand, as is often the case, relies too much on speculation unguided by empirical evidence; indeed, if her speculations are guided by anything, it is merely her own personal prejudices, particularly her prejudice against any innate influence or tendency in human behavior. There are probably many causes of egalitarian envy, some which may have a partial origin in innate proclivities prominent in certain strains of human nature. Egalitarian envy may, for instance, arise from concerns over status. As I will explain in more detail in a later post, many human beings desire status and respect, and feel envious of those who, they imagine, have attained a higher position in the socio-political pecking order. Nor is it necessarily true that these envious persons are always incompetent or lazy or mere manipulators of others. In all human societies, there exist status-rivalries, which easily can be the source of an envious hatred, particularly when one rival triumphs over another. The defeated rival may be an individual of estimable talent characterized by a strong work ethic. But if he happens to be a sore loser into the bargain, one can easily see this individual being attracted to egalitarianism. It is not necessarily the envy of the third-, fourth-, and fifth-rate that is the most malicious and dangerous. Why should it be? Incompetent individuals are likely to be incompetent even in their envious revenge. But the envy of the second-rate individual—of the man who is a notch or two below greatness and who boils with frustration at being so close to the top without reaching it—the envy of such an individual can lead to great mischief. The Nazis were not a party of incompetent, fifth-rate men, incapable of conceptualization. They were second-rate men who wished to be seen as first-rate men, and this gave rise, in at least some of them, to sentiments of envy, which focused much of its resentment and rage on Jews, partly because in Germany, the Jews, as a social group, were rising in society. It is difficult enough for the status-obsessed second-rate individual to tolerate being bested by people in his own ethnicity or race; but to bested by individuals in another ethnicity and race, particularly one that has for centuries been despised, that was more than Hitler and his genocidal fraternity could bear.

Rand’s tendency to equate “evil” with incompetence, impotence, and idiocy leads her speculations concerning envy astray. She seems to be trying to evade two important facts: (1) that not all envious people are incompetent idiots, but some are dangerous individuals with real capabilities; and (2) that the envy that provides emotional sustenance to egalitarianism is not the product of a mere premise which can be combatted with “reason” and moral condemnation. On the contrary, the envious, like the poor, will always be with us: the battle against envy is never-ending. It is part of the battle for civilization, which is also of the never-ending variety.

How Ayn Rand Made Her World

From the previews of the forthcoming bio by Anne Heller, "Ayn Rand And The World She Made" the basic thesis seems to be that Rand gradually invented her own reality; that she came to live in a kind of solipsistic world of her own.

If this is the case, I would agree. This solipsism is a natural consequence of her theories combining egoism and introspection, despite the lipservice Objectivism pays to attending to reality. What's interesting is tracking down some of the mechanisms by which she gradually erodes the real world and replaces it with one of her own making, as this replacement of reality with a novelised fantasy as a superior reality is one of what I've dubbed the "cultic incitements" in her work.

Here's one very subtle, but very telling example, from her second interview with Phil Donahue. At about 1:58 in the clip above he quizzes her about what she means by a "sacrifice" and here's what she says:

Rand: What I mean by "sacrifice"... and what is generally meant (DB emphasis)...is to give up some value that is important to you for something else that is a lesser value...or a non-value...

Now, ARCHNblog readers may be familiar with our Understanding Objectivist Jargon series, where we explain the odd and often highly twisted meanings that Rand attached to many common terms. In fact, Rand's version of "sacrifice" is the exact opposite of the general meaning of "sacrifice", which is giving up some lesser value for a greater value.

Yet in the version of reality Rand lived in her own, invented meaning was the one that was "generally meant".

Like her crucial falsification of the dictionary definition of "selfishness" in her introduction to "The Virtue of Selfishness", Rand seems to be not so much dishonest as semi-delusional. Like a kind of postmodernist, the words make up her world.

Objectivism & Politics, Part 29

Politics of Human Nature 13: Canaille. John Adams, in a letter to Thomas Jefferson, wrote that "there is a natural Aristocracy among men; the grounds of which are Virtue and Talents." There exists also a kind of natural Chandela or rabble, the grounds of which are vice and incompetence. Of course, in a society besotted with egalitarian sentiments , no one wants to admit such a thing. But it is true nonetheless. There exists a type of person who seems congenitally dysfunctional and incapable of living even a life of genteel and honorable poverty. One may pity such people as much as one wishes—for they really are pitiful—but one should not sentimentalize them. They may be unfortunate, unlucky, entirely blameless for what they have become. Their dysfunction may be cause by mental illness or some other congenital or acquired defect, such as injury to the fore brain or an innate chemical imbalance. Or it may be that these individuals (or at least some of them) are entirely or largely to blame for their sorry plight. Their dysfunction may be an expression of a narcissistic craving to avoid work, or an irresponsible preference for wiling away one’s time in a drunken stupor. Whatever the cause, the fact is that there will always exist some individuals who either can’t or won’t take care of themselves and who therefore cause problems for the rest of us. What is to be done about such people?

We know what Rand opposed in terms of “solutions” to this problem. She opposed any public financed welfare state or “safety net” that might take care of these people and get them off the streets. From Rand’s perspective, it is immoral to take money from the productive and give it to the unproductive. Very well. Then what is to be done? It simply will not do to say: “Leave them alone: let ‘reality’ or ‘nature’ take care of them.” Reality and nature won’t take care of them without first causing great inconvenience for the rest of us. I live in an area which attracts vagrants like a corpse attracts flies. These vagrants cause all kinds of problems for local businesses, from driving away customers through aggressive panhandling to defecating on the sidewalks and on the street.

An Objectivist might (and probably would) argue that these activities are (or ought to be) crimes and that the offenders should be arrested, convicted and punished. Yet, given the costs of convicting and then incarcerating vagrants, we would still find ourselves taking money from the productive to support the unproductive. Indeed, it would probably be cheaper to set up tents and a soup kitchen a few miles outside of town and try to draw the homeless hither. But how many Objectivists could bring themselves to accept such a solution, given their horror of anything that smacks of “welfare” or state assistance? In other words, they are not serious about the problem: they merely wish to repeat their various laissez-faire mantras and slogans. They do not wish to be bothered with the practical challenges that vagrancy poses to society. Instead, they bury these details under the vagueness and obscurity of their abstract doctrines.

Why should the idea of public assistance be so very dreadful to a reasonable person? Even from the point of view of the most callous self-interest, it is better to get the homeless off the street and into shelters, if only to keep them from spreading disease and being a nuisance to the rest of us. There is, after all, no cheaper solution to the problem, short of declaring open season on the poor wretches and exterminating them. Rand claims that the moral is the practical; but in this case, Objectivists have taken their moral principles to impractical conclusions.

Objectivism & Politics, Part 28

Politics of Human Nature 12: Humanitarianism and nihilism. Humanitarianism, when it becomes extreme, desperate, belligerently utopian, and revolutionary, begins to merge into nihilism. A clear example of this is the revolutionary version of Marxism. As the economist Frank Knight wrote:

The [Marxian] doctrine itself—that all that need be done in order to awake the next morning in, or on the way toward, an idealistic Utopia is to destroy the admittedly crude and imperfect civilization which the race has developed through history thus far, by destroying its institutions and power relations and turning over all power to the promoters of the destruction for the purposes of reconstruction—has an evident if mysterious appeal to elemental human nature. How such propaganda and the romantic appeal of destruction in general, is to be effectively combated, is perhaps the most serious of practical social problems. And the most serious as well as the most puzzling phase of this situation is that in their manners and conscious intentions the promoters are for the most part “nice people,” and “honorable men,” and will readily, and often artistically, “with reasons answer you.” Not only that; they are morally earnest, even to a fault—in fact, to a degree which makes it a serious ethical problem whether moral earnestness can be assumed a virtue at all [a statement that can be applied to Objectivism as well]. For in plain factual appraisal, what they are doing is more catastrophically evil than treason, or poisoning wells, or other acts commonly placed at the head of the list of crimes. The moralisation of destruction, and of combat with a view to destruction, goes with the kind of hero-worship that merges into devil-worship. [Freedom and Reform, 118-119]

Knight’s phrase “moralisation of destruction” goes to the very heart of the nihilistic pathology. On a superficial level, Rand’s view is not necessarily all that different. Nihilism, for Rand, is “hatred of the good for being good.” Okay, someone who hates the good for being good will probably be attracted to destruction, so Rand's speculation here at least has plausibility on its side, if not truth. Where Rand goes seriously off the reservation is when she speculates about the source of this hatred. Consider Rand’s analysis of the infamous streaker at the academy awards as related by Peikoff:

Having grasped the streaker’s nihilism … [Rand] was eager to point out some different examples of the same attitude. [Peikoff goes on to relate how Rand observes the presence of nihilism in modern literature, progressive education, and “avant-garde physics.”] That streaker, in short, was the very opposite of an isolated phenomenon. He was a microcosm of the principle ruling modern culture, a fleeting representative of that corrupt motivation which Ayn Rand has described so eloquently as “hatred of the good for being the good.” And what accounts for such widespread hatred? she asked at the end. Her answer brings us back to the philosophy [Rand opposed], the one that attacks reason and reality wholesale and thus makes all values impossible: the philosophy of Immanuel Kant. [Voice of Reason, 344]

Here is a good example of Rand’s typical mode of proceeding on such questions. She starts out promising enough by identifying the streaker with nihilism. That’s a bit over the top, but interesting nonetheless. She goes on to relate the streaker’s attitude to modern literature, progressive education, and “avant-garde physics” (what on earth could that be?). Again, it’s over the top; and Rand also leaves herself open to accusations of painting with too broad a brush. Still, with a bit of overly generous interpretation, we might be able to extract something resembling plausibility out of it. The very worst aspects of modern literature and progressive education do have a strong nihilistic stench to them. And Rand’s phrase “hatred of the good for being good” also shows promise as a fascinating conjecture. Of course, it may also be possible that nihilists simply have a different idea of the good; still, it’s an eloquent phrase and Rand may really be on to something. But having gotten this far without making any serious blunders, she could not, alas, leave well enough alone, but has to reduce her entire analysis to raving absurdity by bringing up her long-established bête noire, the old wizened pedant of Königsberg, Herr Kant. It appears that Kant’s philosophy is the source and cause of nihilism! If only Kant had been smothered in his cradle, we would have been spared the combined horrors of James Joyce’s Ulysses and the Look-Say method of pedagogy!

Rand’s philosophy of history (like her view of human nature upon which it is based) is a millstone around the neck of her social and political views. It drains her social analysis of whatever aura of plausibility her skill as a propagandist can attach to it, and renders her political objectives unreal and impractical.

Hoisted From Comments: A Reminiscence of the NBI

In comments, tenaj gives us this intriguing personal snapshot of the Nathaniel Branden Institute, and an alternative view to the one currently propogated by the Ayn Rand Institute regarding Branden's influence on Rand.

I'll skip when I first came across Rand and save it for later maybe. In August of 1960 I was reading Atlas Shrugged and going through a behavioral quit smoking program. One of the instructions was not smoking one hour before going to bed (to sleep I presume)and so I would have my last cigarette and read some more of Atlas. Then I would be in a place where I didn't want to stop, so I would light up another cigarette. And so on. I loved the book, had recently gotten a divorce, was teaching first grade and now considering it as a real career instead of something to do until I had children. So as I was finishing with Atlas and with cigarettes my mother saw an ad in the Sunday Inquirer that Objectivist Lectures-NBI- on Rand were coming to Philadelphia. And I immediately decided to go. BB [Barbara Branden] gave the lectures and the rest was history for me, as I took it very seriously.

I had decided to quit smoking because I could feel what it was doing to me. I felt that I could not change things in my life until I quit. How's that for Neuro Linguistic Programming. So I entered a world where all the players smoked, ritualistically with holders no less. And I was not tempted because I was happy I no longer wanted to smoke. So it created a boundary for me in my identification with BB. She was quite lovely and I thought at the time, very intelligent. So it was possible to be a woman and be both was the message I got. NB, AR, AG and LP [Nathaniel Branden, Ayn Rand, Alan Greenspan, Leonard Peikoff] gave guest lectures over the two years I went. I attended LP's philosophical lectures on the history of philosophy in New York the summer of 62 and Mary Ann Sures on art in the summer of 61. I never asked a question because I had read Atlas carefully and felt I knew the answer as soon as anyone asked a Q. Then I would compare what I thought to the answer from on high. I loved it when Rand was impatient with a Q. You see now I know the difference between the content of a question and the intent. Rand could pick up on the intent and often responded to it. BB and NB always responded to the content as I remember. An important distinction for anyone to know who goes before groups for Q & A.

But all the while unbeknown to me I was observing all sorts of things and storing them in my data base unfiled. So yes I have lots of visual memories of all of it. I can tell you how BB wore her hair, what clothes she wore, her verbal mannerisms, NB's gestures and many things about LP and Rand as they lectured and presented. But my dots were not connected until many years later.

The most important thing was that I found my own mind that I had lost in school. And I began a journey.

I will say that had NBI not existed, I would have been under the spell of Atlas for awhile but would never -and I mean never- have explored her philosophy, become an Objectivist and been able to begin to apply it to my life. Without NBI Rand's ideas would have entered the ether. This is Nathaniel Branden's great contribution. I c an personally attest it is true. He gave her so much that she could never have achieved on her own, with or without LP or any of the rest of them. I never knew him in those days, so the hateful things I have read don't mean anything real to me. I do know that he was generous to a fault. He gave her so much and she threw it away because of her desire to possess another human being. Everything that Objectivism is today comes from the root of NBI. No one would consider her in the field of philosophy (and maybe no one should)if not for NB. I have not considered here the fact that NB gave her his youth, his mind, his sex, his labor and all the while he was her muse. He brought her all his relatives and friends from Canada and without all that he laid at her feet she would never have finished Atlas and/or it would not have been the book it is. (Please don't think I still love it, but I do not deny its impact on our culture.)

And no one ever even comes close to mentioning the elephant in the room which I hope to go into somewhere. When I do they will truly want to kill me.

Objectivism & Politics, Part 27

Politics of Human Nature 11: Humanitarianism and tribalism. In an earlier post, I quoted Rand characterizing “ the morality of altruism” as ”a tribal phenomenon.” Here we find an example of Rand being right for the wrong reasons. Yes, it is likely that the altruist-humanitarian syndrome has its roots in our tribal process; but it is not, as Rand suggests, a “psycho-epistemological” issue deriving from “self-arrested, perceptual mentality.” On the contrary, it is probably an evolutionary phenomenon. Those beliefs that Rand associates with “altruism” (e.g., socialism, collectivism, tribalism, coercive humanitarianism) were nurtured in the crucible of evolution, in that long period when human beings foraged and hunted for food in small bands of warring tribes. As Hayek, in The Fatal Conceit puts it:

… man’s instincts … were not made for the kind of surroundings, and for the numbers, in which he now lives. They were adapted to life in the small roving bands or troops in which the human race and its immediate ancestors evolved during the few million years while the biological constitution of homo sapiens was formed. These genetically inherited instincts served to to steer the cooperation of the members of the troop, a cooperation that was, necessarily, a narrowly circumscribed interaction of fellows known to and trusted by one another…

Although longer experience may have lent some older members of these bands some authority, it was mainly shared aims and perceptions that coordinated the activities of their members. These modes of coordination depended decisively on instincts of solidarity and altruism… The members of these small groups could thus exist only as such: an isolated man would soon have been a dead man. [11-12]

Now if, as nearly all of science concedes, human beings are largely (if not entirely) the product of evolution, Hayek’s view would seem to be, at the very least, highly probable. In any case, it explains a great deal of what we find in the altruist-humanitarian complex of motivations that animating much of the non-revolutionary left. Combine Hayek’s insight with those of Pareto and Sowell, and we can begin to form a psychopathology of left-wing humanitarianism. This psychopathology provides a far more convincing explanation of the “democratic” forms of socialism, collectivism, and leftist “progressivism” than Rand provides us, with her emphasis on philosophical premises and other will-of-the-wisp abstractions that are too topical to mean anything definite.

Rand seems to have sensed the danger that an evolutionary explanation of social attitudes posed to her philosophy, for she created several rather inept strategies to combat it. Her favorite was her rather absurd definition of “instinct.” Rand held that instincts are an unerring and automatic form of knowledge. This is obviously a definition Rand invented for the purposes of debate. No natural scientist has ever defined instinct in that way. Instincts can refer to any unlearned behavior or emotional propensity, whether in animals or human beings. The assumption that human beings don’t have any such instincts, that their minds are “blank slates” at birth, is not supported by science. Nor does the evidence support Rand’s notion that emotions are the product of ideas. Ideas may influence emotions, but they don’t produce them, as anyone familiar with the most basis psychological evidence regarding infants knows. Human beings do in fact have innate tendencies. The strength and intensity of these tendencies may differ between individuals. But the fact of these tendencies soon becomes obvious to anyone who observes human behavior.

In some people, these tendencies cause them to wish to see their altruistic instincts writ on society at large. Recall what the good people over altruists.org wrote: “We believe that [altruistic modes of behavior] can represent a more stable, sustainable solution than the money-focused, model of competitive capitalism.” Why do altruists, humanitarians, and other so-called do-gooders believe in such a thing? It is neither a rational nor an evidence-based conviction. All logic and fact point to the inescapable conclusion, as Hayek puts it, that to follow the altruist-socialist path “would destroy much of present humankind and impoverish much of the rest.” So it should be obvious that these altruists, these humanitarians, these socialists (call them what you will: the name’s not important, only the thing in reality that the name represents) are animated by a non-rational source—that is, by (again to quote Hayek) “an atavistic longing after the life of the noble savage”—a life which is, after all, more more gratifying to innate human instincts and tendencies. These instincts and tendencies are not implanted in the minds of men by intellectuals following the pedant of Königsberg. Thousands of years of evolution put them there. Bad arguments against Kant in the manner of Rand will do little to mitigate their pernicious influence.

Objectivism & Politics, Part 26

Politics of Human Nature 10: Humanitarianism and cowardice. For Rand and her followers, it is quite obvious why altruism is counter-productive and harmful:

Observe what this beneficiary-criterion of [the altruist] morality does to a man’s life. The first thing he learns is that morality is his enemy: he has nothing to gain from it, he can only lose; self-inflicted loss, self-inflicted pain and the gray, debilitating pall of an incomprehensible duty is all that he can expect. He may hope that others might occasionally sacrifice themselves for his benefit, as he grudgingly sacrifices himself for theirs, but he knows that the relationship will bring mutual resentment, not pleasure-and that, morally, their pursuit of values will be like an exchange of unwanted, unchosen Christmas presents, which neither is morally permitted to buy for himself. Apart from such times as he manages to perform some act of self-sacrifice, he possesses no moral significance: morality takes no cognizance of him and has nothing to say to him for guidance in the crucial issues of his life; it is only his own personal, private, “selfish” life and, as such, it is regarded either as evil or, at best, amoral.

In Rand’s analysis, the practical effects of altruism are logically derived from her rather extreme definition of the term (i.e., that altruism means “ man has no right to exist for his own sake”). Since (as I noted in the previous post) few if any humanitarian/altruists would accept Rand’s definition, her analysis is of little value. It tries to determine matters of fact almost exclusively on the basis of logical deductions from principles hardly anyone holds, and which very few ever follow in practice. A more detailed examination of the actual facts will show that the practical effects of altruistic and other so-called “humanitarian” doctrines tend to run along somewhat different lines. If we examine what happens in the real world of fact when humanitarians dominate the ruling class of a society, we discover that the principle danger of humanitarianism arises, not necessarily from the “self-sacrificial” rationalizations expressed in extreme forms of the doctrine, but often from the cowardice of the typical humanitarian. For it would appear that humanitarianism holds a particular appeal to the pusillanimous type of individual. Humanitarian doctrines serve as a kind of cover or fig leaf for cowardice, as if the humanitarian is trying to convince himself and others that he appeases violent criminals and his nation’s most dangerous enemies not out of cowardice, but out of love and pity for mankind.

Pareto explains how these humanitarian sentiments can lead to violent overthrow of a ruling class:

Let us imagine a country where the governing class, A, is inclining more and more in the direction of humanitarianism…. Such a country is on its way to utter ruin. But lo, the subject class, B, revolts against the class A. In fighting A it uses the humanitarian derivations so dear to the A’s, but underlying them are quite different sentiments, and they soon find expression in deeds. The B’s apply force on a far-reaching scale, and not only overthrow the A’s but kill large numbers of them—and, in so doing, to tell the truth, they are performing a useful public service, something like ridding the country of a baneful animal pest…. The country is saved from ruin and is reborn to a new life….

If the class governing in France [under Louis XVI] had had the faith that counsels use of force and the will to use force, it would never have been overthrown [in the French Revolution]…. Had Louis XVI not been a man of little sense and less courage, letting himself be floored without fighting, and preferring to lose his head on the guillotine to dying weapon in hand like a man of sinew, he might have been the one to do the destroying. If the victims of the September massacres, their kinsman and their friends, had not for the most part been spineless humanitarians without a particle of courage or energy, they would have annihilated their enemies instead of waiting to be annihilated themselves. [§2191]

While Pareto might be criticized for seeming a bit too eager to see humanitarians exterminated, this does little to effect his main point. Nor should we let Pareto’s focus on revolutions cause us to think that the cowardice of humanitarians does not pose a threat to the West. In America there is little chance of a violent revolution. But this does not mean that the dominance of humanitarians in America’s ruling elite does not pose a threat to the social order. For external threats still exist and must be faced resolutely. And humanitarianism, even when it doesn’t completely oppose defending the country against its enemies, nevertheless cannot help undermining and demoralizing the will to fight.

In her political writings, Rand tended to focus almost exclusively on the “social legislation” effects of the humanitarian/altruist sensibility. While there exists an obvious and significant nuisance value to much of the laws and social programs favored by our dear humanitarians, the more serious threat stems from the squeamishness many of these humanitarians experience when it comes to using force to defend the social order from enemies both foreign and domestic. As James Burnham put it:

Most liberals [i.e., humanitarians] … are foxes rather than lions. They belong to the types, professions and classes who seek their ends by shrewdness, manipulations and verbal skills. What tends to happen, therefore, when liberals become influential or dominant in the conduct of a nation’s affairs, is that the government tries to handle the difficulties, dangers, issues and threats it faces by those same methods … and to shy away as much as possible and as long as possible from the use of force. In fact, liberals tend to employ the social agencies of force—police and army—as above all instruments of bluff. Their actual use of force, which will always be necessary no matter what the theory, becomes erratic and unpredictable, the result not of a prudent estimate of the objective situation but of their own impatience, panic or despair. [Suicide of the West, 293]

Now while Objectivists such as Peikoff seem to share Burnham’s disdain of the liberal humanitarian’s squeamishness about using force, Rand’s conviction that all social pathologies stem from abstract “premises” once again darkens rather than enlightening the understanding. Believing that liberal humanitarianism is caused by the acceptance of the premise of altruism (as defined by Rand), Objectivists think they can combat its pernicious effects by demonstrating the absurd and immoral consequences of the premise of extreme self-sacrifice. Unfortunately, humanitarian cowardice is not caused by the premise of self-sacrifice. On the contrary, cowardice, to the extent that it is not innate, is primarily caused by soft living. Cowardice can only be cured, if it can be cured at all, by strenuous discipline and experience in battle. Trying to change it by arguing against it’s so-called premises is silly and a waste of time.

It's Still Real To James Valliant, Dammit!

"[I]f Ms. Heller's private comments -- and asking me to read the galleys of her new biography -- are any measure -- PARC has forever changed the field of Rand biography.”
- The Passion of Ayn Rand's Critics author James Valliant

Unlike James Valliant, we here at ARCHNblog have not seen the galleys of the new biography of Ayn Rand by Anne Heller (Ayn Rand and the World She Made), but from the early reviews it doesn’t appear that it is going to take the Valliant/Peikoff line that Rand’s one character flaw was her occasional anger. In fact, it seems that Ms. Heller’s portrayal of Rand will confirm the accounts of Nathaniel and Barbara Branden. Mr. Valliant’s opus has now joined the ranks of the Hitler Diaries, I Rigoberta Menchu and the Sokal Hoax in the annals of journalistic and literary embarrassments. This, combined with the growing scandal of the tampering at the Ayn Rand Archives, which another recent Rand biographer Jennifer Burns has revealed (here, and here for the story so far), and Valliant's own dubious adventures in tampering with the Wikipedia, his Peikoff-endorsed tome is looking like the crank apparatchik fantasia that we always said it was.

Here's a sample from a couple of recent reviews for a flavour:

Heller shows how frequently Rand lied, explicitly and implicitly, directly and indirectly, to others and to herself. Do we all lie? Sure. But your lie about the artistic ability of your friend’s 6-year-old is nothing like the lies that Rand communicated and believed. She made a profession out of lying to herself about the artistic and intellectual incapacity of 99% of the literary world, so she could feel at home in her own, increasingly isolated domain. And, as Heller’s work shows, there were many worse lies, and worse failures, than literary ones. Rand’s injustice and ingratitude, her intransigent emotional demands, her gross one-sidedness on countless emotional and intellectual occasions, appear in larger dimensions than ever before. All of it testifies to her desire to create the world she wanted to have, even when the evidence was all against her, even when she had to lie to herself and everyone else in order to do so. -Stephen Cox, Liberty Magazine, October 2009.

Valliant tried to present the Brandens as vicious attackers of Rand, seeking to distort facts in order to ruin her reputation. But, Heller’s biography, which I have read, doesn’t contradict the Brandens on any major statement of fact.
What struck me about Heller’s biography, is that while it reveals new details, and more information, there simply was nothing there that indicated the Brandens had been deceptive. -Classically Liberal

- Neil Parille

Objectivism & Politics, Part 25

Politics of Human Nature 9: Psychological source of humanitarianism’s failures. Over at YahooAnswers.com, someone calling himself “Mr. Blueberry” wants to know why Rand doesn’t tackle “true” altruism:

I just finished reading Atlas Shrugged and I couldn't help but notice something. Rand speaks out against altruism and uses various people in the book to represent them. The thing is, through Galt's speech and various revelations in the story, it seems as if these people never even legitimately cared for anyone else…. The characters in her story ... just seem like a bunch of vindictive parasites rather than the common definition of an altruist…. Granted, people like this do exist in the world, but they aren't really altruists.

By portraying altruists as “vindictive” parasites, Rand winds up caricaturing the altruistic or humanitarian type. While these individuals may have a vindictive, worm-eaten side to their characters, it would be unfair to paint them all black. Consider how altruism is defined over at altruism.org:

Altruism is a system in which everyone tries to think of others and care for them just as they care for themselves. It has been used since time immemorial within families, close friends and religious communities etc. but has rarely been conceived as applicable on a larger scale. We believe however, that it can represent a more stable, sustainable solution than the money-focused, model of competitive capitalism.

Now there is no reason not to believe that at least some altruists (in the sense of the word provided by altruists.org) are more sincere than not. At least some of these people genuinely wish to do good to others. As Pareto noted, “The intent of sincere humanitarians is to do good to society, just as the intent of the child who kills a bird by too much fondling is to do good to the bird.” Yet despite the best intentions in the world, the altruist, the humanitarian often does more harm than good. How are we to explain this?

We know how Rand explains this. She merely defines altruism in the most extreme way (i.e., “ man has no right to exist for his own sake”), and then attempts to draw the necessary conclusions from her definition. But since few, if any, altruists would actually accept Rand’s definition, her explanation of why altruism/humanitarism often harms the very people it sets out to help seems implausible. Altruists say they wish to help people. Why isn’t it possible for them to succeed in this aim? After all, one can certainly imagine an individual who, in his desire to help others, applies intelligence and the lessons of experience to the task and manages to attain his end. Yet so often we find the altruist, the humanitarian failing miserably to achieve his stated goal.

Those of a more cynical cast of mind explain this odd phenomenon by questioning whether there is such a thing as altruism:

Actually altruism simply does not exist on earth, at least in our present glorious age [wrote H. L. Mencken]. Even the most devoted nun, laboring all her life in the hospitals, is sustained by the promise of a stupendous reward—in brief, billions of centuries of undescribable bliss for a few years of unpleasant but certainly not unendurable drudgery and privation. What passes for altruism among lesser practitioners is even less praiseworthy; in most cases, indeed, it is too obviously selfish and even hoggish. In the case of the American reformer, in his average incarnation, the motive seldom gets beyond a yearning for power, the desire to boss things, the itch to annoy his neighbors. [Minority Report, 114]

Given the refusal by many of our altruistic humanitarians to own up to their failures, there is something to be said for Mencken’s analysis. There is often a self-indulgent, even a narcissistic quality to the altruists’ passion to do good to others. We see this clearly in the refusal of many humanitarians to accept criticism or acknowledge failure. Indeed, many of these people exhibit a kind of priggish self-righteousness that is as distasteful as it is counter-productive. The altruist’s emotional pathologies prevent him from pursuing his objective to help others in a rational way. This being the case, it would seem as if it were these pathologies that are the prime source of the harm caused by humanitarianism, not any abstract theory of altruism, as Rand proposes. Far too many self-professed altruists care more about preserving their inflated view of themselves than they do about the people they imagine they are helping. It is the narcissism, the self-indulgence, the vanity of the humanitarian that leads him astray; not any doctrine of the moral necessity of “self-sacrifice.”

The Objectivist Party vs "Toxic Randroid Cultists"

"Unfortunately, your movement has spawned Toxic Randroid Cultists who reject reason in the application of your philosophy and who treat your every word on every topic as if it were biblical truth" - Dr Tom Stevens, founder of and Presidential candidate for the Objectivist Party in a speech at Ayn Rand's grave in April 2009

The Objectivist Party is an interesting recent development (official website here). Founded in 2008 on February 2 (Ayn Rand's birthday) by lawyer Dr Tom Stevens (who sounds like an interesting fellow) The Objectivist Party is a would-be political force not only unaffiliated with the main players in Objectivism such as the Ayn Rand Institute or their arch enemies The Atlas Society, but, judging by the quote above, apparently openly rejecting them (Stevens' quote above is surely aimed at the ARI at least).

Typically, the party seems heavy on principle but light on policy. And how The Objectivist Party's interpretation of Randian doctrine actually differs from the "Toxic Randroid Cultists" version is not immediately clear - in fact, it is hard to see how anyone can avoid the deep-rooted cultic incitements built into Objectivism by its founder without ending up avoiding Objectivism itself. But perhaps The Objectivist Party's USP will emerge over time. You can follow Dr Tom Stevens' blog here.

Objectivism & Politics, Part 24

Politics of Human Nature 8: Asceticism. At one point in his Mind and Society, Pareto notes that the “principles from which the humanitarian doctrine is logically derived … express in objective form a subjective sentiment of asceticism.” And indeed, for Pareto, asceticism constitutes another important aspect in the humanitarian sickness which afflicts many individuals in modern society. But what, precisely, is this asceticism? Is it a theory or premises, as it is according to Objectivism, that has been absorbed into an individual’s subconscious, where it wreaks havoc on the individual’s "psycho-epistemology"? No, it’s nothing of the sort. Pareto describes asceticism as “sentiments that prompt the human being to seek sufferings or abstain from pleasures without design of personal advantage, to go counter to the instinct that impels living creatures to seek pleasurable things and avoid painful things.” Does this asceticism arise, as implied in Objectivism, from accepting the premise of altruism and self-sacrifice? Again no. Pareto regards asceticism as an offshoot of the residues of sociality.

Acts of asceticism are quite largely acts originating in residues related to living in society that continue functioning when they have ceased to have any utility and acquire an intensity which carries them beyond the point where they might be useful. The residue of asceticism must, in other words, be classified with residues of sociality, and frequently represents a hypertrophy of sentiments of sociality….

All [the] varieties of asceticism, when exacerbated by their [derivations], and when efforts are made to enforce them upon others, are the source of huge amounts of suffering that have afflicted, and continue to afflict, the human race. The fact that people tolerate such suffering, and sometimes even accept them voluntarily instead of rejecting them and stamping on those who promote them as on poisonous snakes, shows conclusively how powerful the sentiments corresponding to them are. Really they are perversions of the instinct of sociality, and without that instinct human society could not exist.

Now while an Objectivist can at least agree with Pareto’s negative assessment of these sentiments of asceticism, Pareto’s attitude toward their existence is very different from that of Rand and the partisans of her philosophy. Pareto sees these sentiments as part of a certain type of human nature. Most people have sentiments of sociality. Such sentiments are necessary to the social order. But unfortunately, in some people, these sentiments are perverted. Even worse, in many other individuals, there exists a kind of sympathy for such sentiments, so that instead of rigorously opposing the baneful practices that arise as a consequence of this asceticism, people tolerate them, sometimes even praise them. Since all of this is rooted in sentiment, rather than in theory, it cannot be eradicated by arguing with it. Indeed, like stupidity and mendacity, asceticism, along with sympathy for ascetic practices, has existed throughout human history and probably will always exist. It’s simply part of the human condition; and while sensible people will fight it the best they can, it would be foolish to believe that much progress can ever be made against this congenital disease of human psycho-pathology.

Now there may be some congenital optimists out there who are under the illusion that, because the ascetic practices of the pre-modern times have long ago disappeared in the West, that there actually has been progress against this sentiment. This is, however, a very superficial way of regarding the issue. The old practices of asceticism, it is true, have, thankfully, disappeared. But they have given way to new practices which, although not nearly as intense, are in some respects worse. The Christian ascetics were primarily inner-directed. They voluntarily chose to whip themselves or reside for years on the summits of pillars or engage in other equally senseless practices. Modern ascetics tend to be far more outer-directed. They wish to inflict their urge for self-sacrifice on others. This we see quite clearly, for example, in the countless follies of radical environmentalism, particularly in relation to the global warming hysteria, which is being used by our modern ascetics as a pretext for forcing pointless sacrifices on the leading nations of the West. One can hardly imagine a more silly, stupid, and senseless piece of legislation than Obama’s cap and trade plan. It would be much better for society if, instead of trying to pass such legislation, our modern ascetics, like the ascetics of old, preferred self-flagellation and years on top of columns.

Rand would have us believe that she provided the solution to this problem of asceticism and “self-sacrifice” in her arguments for egoism and against altruism. Unfortunately, this is not the case. Although Rand’s strictures against altruism, when they include the baneful types of asceticism and humanitarianism noted by Pareto, are largely justified, Rand is not content with confining her denunciations solely to the most palpable abuses. By polarizing the entire issue as a conflict between egoism on the one side and the most extreme and horrid form of altruism on the other, she denies (at least by implication) the more reasonable positions that flourish between these two extremes. Since most human beings are not capable of the sort of “rational” or “enlightened” selfishness advocated by Rand, the advocacy of egoism, to the extent that it has any influence at all, will likely cause more harm than good. A society that was either destitute or weak in such sentiments of sociality as charity and concern for the feelings of others would not be a pleasant place in which to live. Concern for others, desire for the approbation of others, admiration for charitable acts all serve as useful counterweights to the more selfish passions of mankind. Belittling or making light of these sentiments of sociality hardly helps advance the cause against the abuses of asceticism and “self-sacrifice.”

Objectivism & Politics, Part 23

Politics of Human Nature 7: Psychology of humanitarianism. In Philosophy: Who Needs It, Rand makes the following assertion:

It is obvious why the morality of altruism is a tribal phenomenon. Prehistorical men were physically unable to survive without clinging to a tribe for leadership and protection against other tribes. The cause of altruism’s perpetuation into civilized eras is not physical, but psycho-epistemological: the men of self-arrested, perceptual mentality are unable to survive without tribal leadership and “protection” against reality. The doctrine of self-sacrifice does not offend them: they have no sense of self or of personal value-they do not know what it is that they are asked to sacrifice—they have no firsthand inkling of such things as intellectual integrity, love of truth, personally chosen values, or a passionate dedication to an idea. When they hear injunctions against “selfishness,” they believe that what they must renounce is the brute, mindless whim-worship of a tribal lone wolf.

While there is an element of truth in this analysis, it over-simplifies to the point of distortion. In the first place, Rand’s notion of “altruism” is itself problematic. Rand defines altruism as the view that “man has no right to exist for his own sake.” Yet we would be hard pressed to find many defenders of altruism willing to accept such a view without serious reservations. This means that Rand undercuts her case right from the start. Philosophers and ethicists define altruism in many ways, but few would go so far as to claim that human beings have no right to ever exist for their own sake. As the Oxford Companion to Philosophy puts it: “Nor … does the the possibility of altruism mean that it is a constant moral necessity: an altruist can allow that in most circumstances I can act far more effectively on my own behalf than can any other person.”

Rand’s main error here is to assume that altruism is a theory that can be logically applied. But this is not the case at all. Individuals whose desire to help the “poor and downtrodden” causes them to support harmful social policies are not motivated by some distinct ethical theory which they logically apply to social conditions. Their support for harmful social legislation is driven almost entirely by emotions, many of a strongly narcissistic cast. Nor are these emotions themselves a product of prior ideas or “premises,” as Rand would have us believe.

Rand comes much closer to the truth when she links altruism with tribalism. Altruistic sentiments probably have their origin in man’s tribal past (for the obvious evolutionary reasons). But Rand’s disgust with tribalism causes her to caricature it to the point of serious distortion. Contrary to what Rand claims, men of pre-historic times were not the mindless, fearful, self-sacrificing altruists she portrays them as being.

A more plausible theory of the psychology of humanitarianism was provided by Pareto in his Mind and Society. Pareto regards humanitarianism as a product of multiple sentiments. “In individuals sentiments are always more or less complex, sometimes very much so,” he warns. Humanitarianism may derive from several residues acting in concert. One such residue is that of “self-pity extended to others.” Pareto’s analysis goes as follows:


If people are unhappy and are inclined to lay the blame for their woes on the environment in which they live, on “society,” they are apt to view all who suffer with a benevolent eye. That is not logical reasoning; it is a sequence of sensations. If we try to state them in rational form we deprive them of the very thing that gave them force and efficacy—their indefiniteness. Bearing that in mind, one may, roughly, state the reasoning corresponding to such sensations as follows: “I am unhappy, and ‘society’ is to blame. So-and-so is unhappy, and so ‘society’ must also be to blame. We are comrades in misfortune, and for my comrade I have the indulgence that I should have for myself: he has my pity.”


Something more or less of the kind figures in the humanitarianism of our time. People in poor economic circumstances are convinced that “society” is to blame. By analogy, the crimes of thieves and murderers are also felt chargeable to “society.” So thieves and murderers come to look like comrades in misfortune worthy of benevolence and pity. “Intellectuals” are convinced that they are not playing a sufficiently important role in the social hierarchy; they envy people of wealth, army officers, prelates, in short all others of higher social rankings. They imagine that criminals and the poor are also victims of the same classes. They feel that in respect they are like them, and therefore feel benevolence and pity for them. [§1138-1139]

There are, to be sure, other residues, other sentiments, other psychological complexes that can lead to humanitarianism. Not only that, different motives may operate in different people. What is crucial to understand is that humanitarianism (or Rand’s “altruism”) is not the product of a reasoned-out theory. Refuting the theory of “altruism” (or the “theory” of humanitarianism) will have little, if any effect, on those who subscribe to these doctrines, for the simple reason, that strong emotions, many of them containing an innate component, are the primary causes of these pernicious psychological complexes.

Humanitarianism is worthless from the logico-experimental point of view [wrote Pareto], whether because it has no slightest intrinsic soundness of a scientific character, whether especially because even if, on an assumption devoid of any probability, it had some points of soundness, that fact would not help as regards spurring human beings to the requisite activities.... A similar judgment may be passed upon the work of our “intellectuals” as leading to few results that are beneficial and to many that are very bad; because, from the standpoint of sentiments, [intellectuals] shut their eyes to realities as the latter stand reflected in many sentiments that they condemn from failure to grasp their role in society; and because, from the standpoint of logico-experimental science, they reason not on facts but on derivations, and from the latter draw, by a logic inopportunely thorough-going, inferences altogether at war with facts.

This is precisely what Rand and her disciples are guilty of: they reason, not on facts, but on derivations (and distorted derivations, at that). The consequences is that, while there may be a grain of truth in Rand’s melodramatic denunciations of “altruism,” it is so vitiated with distortion and error that her analysis is much less valuable than otherwise would be the case. As Pareto concludes:

Some people now vainly imagine … that they can effectively check the progress of [the non-scientific, non-rational doctrine] they are fighting by refuting its derivations. Others find those theories so absurd that they disdain giving a thought to them…. But usually [these critics] are to be found adopting other derivations that are in no way better than the ones they reject [as Rand and her disciples do, in adopting the derivations of Objectivism]. It occurs to few, one might say none, to ignore derivations altogether and apply themselves exclusively to facts and the relations that obtain between them. [§1859]

Objectivism & Politics, Part 22

Politics of Human Nature 7: Psychology and social type of the businessman. Ayn Rand imagines a polity where entrepreneurs and capitalists are free to do as they like. But where is this freedom supposed to come from? Who is going to defend it? Can merchants and industrialists, capitalists and entrepreneurs be counted on to defend their freedom from threats, both foreign and domestic?

Not according to Joseph Schumpeter. In order to defend freedom, one must be able to lead men in battle. But this is precisely where the typical entrepreneur-businessman, dominated, as he is, by Pareto’s combination instinct, tends to fall short.

There is surely no trace of any mystic glamour about [the industrialist and the merchant] which is what counts in ruling men, [wrote Schumpeter in Capitalism, Socialism, and Democracy.] The stock exchange is a poor substitute for the Holy Grail. We have seen that the industrialist and merchant, as far as they are entrepreneurs, also fill a function of leadership. But economic leadership of this type does not readily expand, like the medieval lord’s military leadership, into the leadership of nations. On the contrary, the ledger and the cost calculation absorb and confine.

I have called the bourgeois [i.e, the businessman] rationalist and unheroic. He can only use rationalist and unheroic means to defend his position or to bend a nation to his will. [In other words, the businessman is not good at using or applying force, so he must use his wits, just as Pareto warned.] He can impress by what people may expect from his economic performance, he can argue his case, he can promise to pay out money or threaten to withhold it, he can hire the treacherous services of a condottiere or politician or journalist. But that is all and all of it is greatly overrated as to its political value. Nor are his experiences and habits of life of the kind that develop personal fascination. A genius in the business office may be, and often is, utterly unable outside of it to say boo to a goose—both in the drawing room and on the platform. Knowing this he wants to be left alone and leave politics alone.

Again exceptions will occur to the reader. But again they do not amount to much…. The inference is obvious: ...the bourgeois class is ill equipped to face the problems, both domestic and international, that have normally to be faced by a country of any importance…. [W]ithout protection by some non-bourgeois group, the bourgeoisie is politically helpless and unable not only to lead its nation but even to take care of its particular class interest. Which amounts to saying that it needs a master. [137-138]

Now Schumpeter wrote these words in the late thirties, when capitalism was clearly on the defensive. Many defenders of capitalism were frustrated with the inability (or unwillingness) of businessmen to defend capitalism against attacks from both the fascist right and the socialist/communist left. Rand herself seems to have at least had an inkling of some of the issues raised by Schumpeter; for we find her, in Atlas Shrugged, going out of her way to cast the businessmen in the role of a quasi-Nietzschean superhero, with the dollar sign replacing the Holy Grail; and we also find her formulating a theory to explain why businessmen failed to adequately defend themselves: the “sanction of the victim,” wherein the victim (i.e., the businessman) accepts the morality of his enemies (i.e., altruism) and hence deprives himself of the moral high ground.

Is Rand’s explanation plausible? Not really. There are, it should be clear, far more plausible explanations for why businessmen fail to defend themselves. In the first place, where individuals have some choice in their vocation, this very choice serves as a selective or screening process, since individuals tend to choose vocations that best fit their innate talents. So those who combine intelligence with the ability to delay gratification and the willingness to put in long hours of work will not only feel themselves drawn to a career business, but, even more importantly, such individuals will be more likely to succeed in such an endeavor. And given the extensive division of labor in an advanced industrial society, the tendency is toward specialization in the development of one’s abilities and talents, so that individuals who devote most of their time to business activity (as they often must to succeed), end up developing only those skills useful in business at the expense of skills that might be useful in other endeavors, such as skills of political or military leadership. Hence the processes of societal selection under capitalism produce a class that is not particularly adept at defending its own interests.

Nor is it merely the man of force and violence, the marauder and plunderer, that poses a threat to the productive classes. There is another type of individual who arises in advanced civilizations who also can cause serious problems to a free, market-orientated social order. This individual goes by a number of names: socialist, humanitarian, progressive, idealist, social democrat, altruist. Rand was particularly concerned with defending the businessmen from this specific social type. In the next series of posts, I will examine the extent Rand’s analysis of the humanitarian syndrome accords with the facts.

Retouching Rand

Objectiblog's Neil Parille looks at the ongoing campaign to invent the Perfect Rand.

"A half-truth, in many issues, is more misleading than an outright lie; it is more of a distortion. Therefore if a reporter cannot reveal the whole truth in a given issue, he should not touch that issue at all." -- Ayn Rand, Objectively Speaking, p. 68.

One of the most genuinely weird features of Objectivism is the compulsion amongst orthodox Objectivists to mythologize Ayn Rand. This compulsion extends to even the most trivial aspects of her personality or life story, which, in classic cult of personality style, are the subject of deliberate and extensive rewriting, airbrushing, and half-truths until they are in accord with Objectivism's internal mythology.

The apogee of this compulsion to falsify in the service of the Great Randian Myth is probably James Valliant's bizarre The Passion of Ayn Rand's Critics (“PARC”), a must-read for anyone who wants a glimpse inside Objectivism's cultic side. I've documented its many apple-polishing distortions and - often hilarious - outright fakery in considerable detail here.

Orthodox Objectivists, led by the Ayn Rand Institute, claim that Rand has been maliciously portrayed in the past by evildoers, and that they are trying to restore the true picture of Rand as humanity's foremost moral and intellectual exemplar. However, given that it's been recently confirmed that the ARI have surreptitiously and comprehensively rewritten Rand's own work to be more consistent with the myth, it is unlikely they'll be any less dishonest in the presentation of Rand's life.

Contrary to what orthodox Objectivists contend, Rand’s “bad side” is amply and credibly documented. In 1986 Barbara Branden published her biography of Rand entitled The Passion of Ayn Rand. Although Branden’s description of Rand was in many ways positive, it contained much that was critical. Rand held eccentric beliefs (such as cancer was caused by “bad premises”), was prone to moralizing over aesthetic matters, possessed a volcanic temper, was controlling, demanded strict loyalty, and held exaggerated views about herself, her husband and even Nathaniel and Barbara Branden (prior to their 1968 split). Barbara Branden’s portrayal of Rand was based on 18 years of close personal association and over 200 interviews. Robert Hessen, a professionally trained historian and biographer who knew Rand well from the 1950s until shortly before her death, opined that the biography was mostly accurate and if anything was too easy on Rand’s “inexcusable anger, rudeness and cruelty.”

The response from the ARI has been a strenuous counter campaign both denigrating the Brandens and trying to replace this warts-and-all-portrait of Rand with one ever more airbrushed into mythological consistency.

In 2005, ARI supporter James Valliant published PARC. This book -- which is endorsed by Leonard Peikoff and is sold by the ARI’s book store – was in effect a proxy for Peikoff’s belated in-depth response to Barbara Branden’s biography (and Nathaniel Branden’s memoirs). Following what appears to have become something of a party line, Valliant (following Peikoff*) explicitly identifies an occasional anger as her only character flaw, and that even that was well justified; and perhaps in the bigger scheme of the fight for Objectivism against the forces of evil, not even a character flaw at all.

In order to airbrush the inconvenient facts of Rand's personal life and behaviour away, Valliant engages in blatant misinterpretations of the Brandens’ books and other publicly available information. Indeed, just how much Kool Aid Valliant is drinking becomes evident when he blatantly distorts not just the testimony of others, but the testimony of Rand herself that he has reprinted in his own book. For example, in order to promote the myth that Rand was immune from envy (an emotion that contradicts Objectivist doctrine) Valliant tries to pretend Rand wasn't jealous of her lover Nathaniel Branden’s gorgeous new girlfriend Patrecia Scott - a claim flatly contradicted by the quotes from Rand's diaries reprinted in Valliant's book. As summarized by Daniel Barnes here at the ARCHNblog:

Only those inhaling the rarified air of Objectivist psycho-epistemology would not find the following statements rather conclusive evidence of Rand’s jealousy:

Rand: "...he [Branden] kept insisting that he sees some wonderful qualities in her, which he could not define and which were not seen, nor even sensed, by anyone else (most emphatically not by me)..."

Rand: "And what did he get in exchange for his mind and soul? Nothing. That is the grotesque emptiness of evil. Nothing but the empty chatter with [Patrecia] at their lunches...listening to the theatrical prattling of a girl who bores much lesser minds within half an hour...what else was there to do with a girl of that kind?...If one looks at the above in realistic, existential terms, it becomes pure insanity: why would would a man want to give up all the values representing his mind and his career...in exchange for this sort of silly, trashy, vulgar, juvenile nonsense?"

Rand: "[Patrecia] was disgustingly phony, and I felt strained..."

Rand: "Symbolically, this was a battle between my universe and [Patrecia's]. Existentially and objectively, the choice to keep [Patrecia's] and to reject [mine] speaks for itself..."

Rand: "Existentially, he must not have any romantic or even friendship relationship with [Patrecia]..."

Rand: I feel the strongest contempt I have ever felt - and I regard [Branden], for his relationship with [Patrecia] as the worst traitor and the most immoral person I have ever met..."

Like the old Chico Marx line says, who are you going to believe - Valliant or your own lying eyes?

Similar mental gymnastics have been performed by ARI scholars such as Robert Mayhew as they try to rationalize Rand’s claim that her later revisions to her early novel We the Living were only “editorial line changes” when in fact they were substantial. Most would see the first edition of We the Living as representative of a Nietzscheian phase in Rand’s early life, a phase she hadn’t completely left as late as the publication of Atlas Shrugged.

Likewise, even though Rand praised Nathaniel Branden’s works (and declined to delete them from reprints of her anthologies), ARI scholars such as Mayhew and Tara Smith studiously avoid any mention of him. In fact, Mayhew even attributes an essay by Branden to Rand in the index of his Ayn Rand Answers: The Best of Her Q&A.

A particularly blatant example of rewriting Rand’s life was done by Leonard Peikoff in his 2006 account of Ayn Rand’s decision to stop smoking.

Barbara Branden relates in Passion that Rand, a lifelong smoker, refused to stop smoking claiming that there was insufficient evidence that smoking caused cancer. Branden states, however, that Rand immediately stopped smoking in 1975 when her doctor showed her an x-ray indicating that there was a “malignancy” in her left lung. (The malignancy turned out to be cancer.) Rand put out her cigarette in the doctor’s office and never smoked again.

Branden’s version of events was confirmed in 2000 by ARI writer Andrew Lewis.

Miss Rand smoked for many years, until her doctor told her to quit. She put the cigarette out in his office and never smoked again.

In contrast, Leonard Peikoff, in 2006, gave a mythologised version of events:

Q: If Ayn Rand were still alive, would she smoke?

A: No. As a matter of fact, she stopped smoking in 1975. When the Surgeon General in the 50s claimed that smoking was dangerous, he offered nothing to defend this view but statistical correlations. Ayn Rand, of course, dismissed any alleged “science” hawked by Floyd Ferris, nor did she accept statistics as a means of establishing cause and effect. Statistics, she held, may offer a lead to further inquiry but, by themselves, they are an expression of ignorance, not a form of knowledge. For a long period of time, as an example, there was a high statistical correlation between the number of semicolons on the front page of The New York Times and the number of deaths among widows in a certain part of India.

In due course, when scientists had studied the question, she and all of us came to grasp the mechanism by which smoking produces its effects—and we stopped. Doesn't this prove, you might ask, that she was wrong to mistrust the government? My answer: even pathological liars sometimes tell the truth. Should you therefore heed their advice?

Peikoff’s version of events is a half-truth and thus, according to Rand, perhaps worse than a lie. Non-Objectivists would probably be content to say that it was so misleading as to constitute a lie.
But to ask more important questions: Why does Leonard Peikoff consider it necessary to lie about Rand, in particular when the account that Barbara Branden relates about Rand’s decision to stop smoking is, in its own way, inspirational? Why do ARI scholars consider it necessary to ignore the influence of thinkers such as Nietzsche on her work or the contributions of Nathaniel Branden to the Objectivist movement? Here are a few suggestions:

1. Rand had an inflated ego and a self-estimation that bordered on the delusional. Not only do ARI supporters have to justify this, but during Rand’s life the sycophancy of the orthodox Objectivism’s current leadership no doubt fed Rand’s borderline megalomania. For example, Allan Gotthelf relates that Rand once said that “I’ve done for consciousness what Aristotle did for metaphysics.” Gotthelf responded, “yes, that’s true.” In particular Leonard Peikoff has paid a high personal price to become Rand’s legal and alleged “intellectual” heir. He was even exiled by Rand to Denver for a time for failing to insufficiently advance Objectivism.

2. Rand also set in motion the claim that her philosophy did not undergo any changes, even telling an interviewer later in her life that she had held the same philosophy since her first memory at age 2 and a half. That Rand went through a Nietzschean phase would suggest that she was not a consistent Objectivist and that her own life’s story was false.

3. A high estimation of Rand the person functions as what sociologists call a “boundary marker.” It identifies those who are “in” and “out.” Those who dissent from a high regard for Rand the person are most likely to question aspects of her philosophy, such as her interpretation of other philosophers and the lack of empirical basis for many of her judgments.

4. Rand saw a particularly close connection between her philosophy and her life. She famously said that her life was postscript to her philosophy: “and I mean it.” To Rand her life was the perfect exemplar of an ideal Objectivist and living proof that the theory/practice and mind/body dichotomy that plagued Western civilization since Plato had been put to rest. If Rand can’t live up to Objectivist standards, then what does that say about Objectivism as a “philosophy for living on earth”?

- Neil Parille

* “My Thirty Years with Ayn Rand,” his 1987 Ford Hall Forum lecture

Rand on Donahue Pt 3&4: Where It Hurts

Continuing on the series of clips (here and here) from Rand on Donahue back in 1979, we come to perhaps the most interesting part of the encounter. Mostly it's been a series of softball questions to which Rand replies with her standard verbalisms, which in turn Donahue doesn't really pursue. Or if he does, it's on the most vague and timewasting questions, such as the issue of, yawn, Original Sin. Whereas practical issues, such as how Rand intends to fund the government in her forthcoming utopia, he allows her to entirely evade. But at around 8:20 in Pt 3, and continuing on into Pt 4, we come to the incident that made this appearance somewhat notorious. A young woman mentions that in high school she was formerly impressed by Rand's philosophy, but was now "better educated". Now, she doesn't realise it, but this is exactly where Rand is most psychologically vulnerable. After the publication of Atlas Shrugged she fell into a deep depression because the book was largely ignored by the intellectual community. She desperately craved the attention and even more the respect of the first-rate minds of her generation - a craving that went unrequited, and still does today. Now, to have someone imply that her philosophy is something that would only impress the young and naiive, and not the greatest intellectual achievement of all time as she and her circle of sycophants insisted, hits her right where it hurts. She refuses to answer the question, and pretends it is an issue of lacking "politeness" -as if her own purple polemical style was that of Miss Manners herself. And she won't let it go, even as Donahue tries to move the discussion on. It's a telling moment.

Objectivism & Politics, Part 21

Politics of Human Nature 6: The Problem of Aggression. I suggested in my previous “Objectivism & Politics” post that Rand had failed to present a solution to the “problem of the man of force,” a problem which can be subsumed under the broader “Problem of Aggression.” How do you deal with individuals who, for one reason or another, seek to use violence to attain wealth and status? “To ask whether or not force ought to be used in society, whether the use of force is or is not beneficial, is to ask a question that has no meaning,” wrote Pareto; “for force is used by those who wish to preserve certain uniformities and by those who wish to overstep them.” §2174

The only way to prevent the initiation of violence is by a countervailing source of violence—preferably, by a constitutional state under the rule of law. But this solution itself is problematic, for reasons that have to do with the tendency of free governments to come under the sway of people who are not good at using force. Consider how Pareto frames the issue:

Suppose a certain country has a governing class, A, that assimilates the best elements, as regards intelligence, in the whole population. In that case the subject class, B, is largely stripped of such elements and can have little or no hope of ever overcoming the class A so long as it is a battle of wits. If intelligence were to be combined with force, the dominion of the A’s would be perpetual… But such a happy combination occurs only for a few individuals. In the majority of cases people who rely on their wits are or become less fitted to use violence, and vice versa. So concentration in class A of the individuals most adept at chicanery leads to a concentration in class B of the individuals most adept at violence; and if that process is long continued, the equilibrium [of society] tends to be come unstable, because the A’s are long in cunning but short in the courage to use force and in the force itself; whereas the B’s have the force and the courage to use it, but are short in the skill required for exploiting those advantages. But if they chance to find leaders who have the skill—and history shows that such leadership is usually supplied by dissatisfied A’s—they have all they need for driving the A’s from power. Of just that development history affords countless examples from remotest times all the way down to the present. [§2190]

Now Pareto wrote that passage nearly a hundred years ago, before the advent of tanks and tear gas and other such devices that make is very much easier to control violent crowds. So one could argue that Pareto’s framing of the issue no longer applies to contemporary domestic politics. But even if it no longer applies domestically, there is still the issue of foreign aggression, which remains as serious as ever:

These considerations must to some extent be applied to international relations. If the combination-instincts are reinforced in a given country beyond a certain limit, as compared with the instincts of group-persistence, that country may be easily vanquished in war by another country in which the change in relative proportions has not occurred…. People who lose the habit of applying force, who acquire the habit of considering policy from a commercial standpoint and of judging it only in terms of profit and loss, can readily be induced to purchase peace; and it may well be that such a transaction taken by itself is a good one, for war might have cost more money than the price of peace. Yet experience shows that in the long run, and taken in connexion with the things that inevitably go with it, such practice leads a country to ruin. [§2179]

In other words, a commercial society, a society dominated by people who live by their wits and have become increasingly habituated by market forces to think almost exclusively in terms of profit and loss, becomes, over time, less fit for using force to defend the country and prevent the “initiation of force” by foreign aggressors.

Consider, in this respect, the threat posed to the United States by Iran. It may be thought Iran, a country governed by zealous yet primitive Islamic clerics, could not possibly pose any serious threat to America. Not necessarily so, however. There are reports of the Iranians attempting to shoot scud missile from ships in the Caspian Sea. Why would they be doing such a thing? The speculation is that they are rehearsing an Electromagnetic Pulse (EMP) attack against the United States. Such an attack would cripple, if not destroy, America’s electronic infrastructure. According to Dr. William Graham, the former White House science adviser under President Ronald Reagan, “70 to 90 percent of the population would not be sustainable after [an EMP] attack.”

Why is it that the United States is so vulnerable? At least part of the reason is that people have acquired “the habit of considering policy from a commercial standpoint and of judging it only in terms of profit and loss.” The U.S. electronic infrastructure could be hardened to withstand EMP attacks; such hardening, however, would cost billions of dollars and require massive government interference, in the form oversight, of the commercial electronic infrastructure. In other words, defending a nation against EMP weapons is not compatible with the small government, laissez-faire, anti-tax ideals embalmed within the Objectivist politics. Nor is it compatible with the ruling elite generated within nations dominated by a market-based economy, where Pareto’s “combination instincts” dominate the ruling elite at the expense of group-persistence sentiments, and men of courage and force are marginalized by lawyers, bureaucrats, capitalists and entrepreneurs.

The Ayn Rand Institute's War Against Reality

The forthcoming Jennifer Burns bio of Rand, "Goddess of the Market" confirms what many have claimed over the years including your ever-skeptical ARCHNblog: that the Ayn Rand Institute has been engaged in a consistent pattern of rewriting history in terms of both Rand's life and even literally her work. This pattern has been obvious for years, with examples ranging from the trivial (Peikoff fibbing about why Rand gave up smoking*) to the bizarre (James Valliant's "The Passion of Ayn Rand's Critics). This is hardly surprising, as the ARI, while ostensibly set up to promote a philosophy, is in practice merely an apparatchik organisation with the purpose of sustaining Rand's mythology.

Here's the recent Laissez-Faire Books review that seems to be the first to confirm this practice of rewriting reality is real, and is significant. Key grafs below the jump:

One other area that I found of significant interest is Burns discussion of the various problems surrounding Rand documents made public by the Ayn Rand Institute, Leonard Piekoff’s organization. There has been a great deal of controversy over indications that ARI doctored documents. Some of this doctoring was admitted by ARI, which asserted that they merely made clarifications consistent with what Rand had intended to say. Burns, who has seen the originals, says this is not the case.

She does say that the letters of Rand, that have been released, “have not been altered; they are merely incomplete.” But the same is not true for other works of Rand, including her Journals. Burns writes, “On nearly every page of the published journals an unacknowledged change has been made from Rand’s original writing. In the book’s foreword the editor, David Harriman, defends his practice of eliminating Rand’s words and inserting his own as necessary for greater clarity. In many case, however, his editing serves to significantly alter Rand’s meaning.” She says that sentences are “rewritten to sound stronger and more definite” and that the editing “obscures important shifts and changes in Rand’s thought.” She finds “more alarming” the case that “sentences and proper names present in Rand’s original …have vanished entirely, without any ellipses or brackets to indicate a change.”

The result of this unacknowledged editing is that “they add up to a different Rand. In her original notebooks she is more tentative, historically bounded, and contradictory. The edited diaries have transformed her private space, the hidden realm in which she did her thinking, reaching, and groping, replacing it with a slick manufactured world in which all of her ideas are definite, well formulated, and clear.” She concludes that Rand’s Journals, as released by ARI, “are thus best understood as an interpretation of Rand rather than her own writing. Scholars must use these materials with extreme caution.”

The bad news is that “similar problems plague Ayn Rand Answers (2005), The Art of Fiction (2000), The Art of Non-Fiction (2001), and Objectively Speaking (2009).” Burns says all these works were “derived from archival material but have been significantly rewritten.” Rand scholars have long suspected such manipulation of documents; Burns confirms it with evidence she herself saw.

* We have a forthcoming article by Neil Parille noting some of the odder fibs the ARI have invented about Rand in order to polish the personality cult; stay tuned.