Raimondo - Ayn Despite the Randians

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

Ayn Despite the Randians

by Justin Raimondo

Taki's Magazine

October 18, 2007

I just came across this article using a new search tool called Worio. I didn't know of it until now. It surprised me.

There is a great deal of outright hostility beside a great deal of information given in this long article. If you can stomach certain statements like following:

None of this “democracy” business for her! The Randian version of the Politboro would lay down the Correct Line – a pattern that was resurrected in the cult-like movement she would spawn years later, whose top leadership was dubbed “the Collective” – an in-joke that eventually took on a sinister meaning. But that was years in the future: Rand the artist was yet to morph into Rand the ranting ideologue.

... and you can reconcile them with others like the following:

Rand, to me, is an inspiration: she imparted to me a certain toughness without which I couldn’t have survived as a writer, or, indeed, as much of anything, and she continues to influence me in my work and my life.

... seeing that Raimondo met Rand after she became to him "the ranting ideologue," (he gives the story in his article, although Rand doesn't come off as anything like a "ranting ideologue" when he is before her), I think this essay will be of some value to you.

There is a lot of solid information that is given if you are interested in opening avenues of research. I really, really, really don't like Raimondo's nastiness and find many of his conclusions outright weird (like his equating Neocons with Toohey instead of what seems more logical for someone with his views—like the the more thuggish politician villains in Rand's literature), but he does source his material and he actually reads stuff before critiquing it. Thus there is a wealth of "outside the box" overviews of O-Land (a lot being nastiness qua nastiness, but not all of it hostile) and important links to read along with the article.

This essay (including all the links) is a great way to fast-track your knowledge of why there is hostility between Objectivist world and the Lew Rockwell camp. I doubt Raimondo will influence anyone who has no bone to pick with Rand or is not part of the Rockwell group, but this article will cause people interested in Rand to think.

That's always good.

Michael

[Neil Parille]

In spite of this turn to didacticism, she never bothered to write her long-promised nonfiction exposition of “Objectivism”: only some short pieces, and a slim monograph on “Objectivist epistemology.” And that’s it. All in all, a very thin reed on which to base a philosophical system, the construction of which was her life’s ambition.

I think this is a little unfair. If you take all of Rand's philosophical writings you might get only one large book of material, but it's enough that her followers could refine it and advance it.

-Neil Parille

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

Neil,

There's also the issue of veiled antisemitism I perceived. Brook goes too far one way and Raimondo goes too far the other. I decided not to mention it in the first post to keep it focused on Rand.

As to the antisemitism, I know I am going to tick a lot of people off by the following remark, but I grew up in the South and I see what I see. If you eliminate the Christianity and the anti-black prejudice of the KKK, I see a lot of the same issues they promoted permeating many of the authors in the Lew Rockwell orbit (antisemiticism, hatred of Lincoln, secession, etc.).

Michael

[Chris Grieb]

Michael; Anti-Semitism. Thanks for naming an issue that I to have observed among the Rockwell camp. I also think they really think slavery wasn't a bad idea. Let's not forget the revelations about some of sainted Ron Paul's nasty comments in his newsletter.

[kiaer.ts]

Neil,

There's also the issue of veiled antisemitism I perceived. Brook goes too far one way and Raimondo goes too far the other. I decided not to mention it in the first post to keep it focused on Rand.

As to the antisemitism, I know I am going to tick a lot of people off by the following remark, but I grew up in the South and I see what I see. If you eliminate the Christianity and the anti-black prejudice of the KKK, I see a lot of the same issues they promoted permeating many of the authors in the Lew Rockwell orbit (antisemiticism, hatred of Lincoln, secession, etc.).

Michael

Michael, could you expand on the secession reference?

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

Ted,

I receive email notifications from LewRockwell.com. It is usually formatted as a bunch of article titles and links. Often the word "secession" is in the titles.

Once in a while I read some of the articles, but I rarely have time. I read a couple on secession, but that was a long time ago and they were not that good, so I don't remember them well. I do remember the right to secede being supported.

As to the KKK, I was never involved directly, but I did grow up around people who said things like, "The South shall rise again!" Often they were joking, but sometimes I got the impression they were dead serious.

Strangely enough, the state where the KKK penetrated the most into government was not a Southern state. It was Indiana and the governor was a member of the KKK (in the 1920's or 1930's—I need to look it up to be precise).

Michael

[kiaer.ts]

Ted,

I receive email notifications from LewRockwell.com. It is usually formatted as a bunch of article titles and links. Often the word "secession" is in the titles.

Once in a while I read some of the articles, but I rarely have time. I read a couple on secession, but that was a long time ago and they were not that good, so I don't remember them well. I do remember the right to secede being supported.

As to the KKK, I was never involved directly, but I did grow up around people who said things like, "The South shall rise again!" Often they were joking, but sometimes I got the impression they were dead serious.

Strangely enough, the state where the KKK penetrated the most into government was not a Southern state. It was Indiana and the governor was a member of the KKK (in the 1920's or 1930's—I need to look it up to be precise).

Michael

Thanks, M.

I was interested mainly due to my surprise that there are so many quasi-Objectivist supporters of unilateral Southern Secession - in that they support it as at least formally valid. The argument is usually something along the line that big government is evil, federal government is bigger than state government, therefore one should always support the state above the federal government. Of course, this sort of argument is puerile, and it is never stated this way. Usually we just here of the "right" of a smaller jurisdiction to secede from a larger one.

But there is no such thing as a "right" to secede.

People have rights, jurisdictions do not.

Formally, an absolute right to secede (unilaterally) means the right of every state to secede from every Union or Confederacy, the right for every county or parish to seceded from a state, the right of every municipality to secede from its county, and of every district and ward and block and homestead to secede in turn from its superordinate. This is, of course, absurd, and pleases only the anarchist, who is no Objectivist or classical liberal anyway.

And just why are these jurisdictions seceding? The South was adamant in defending its "rights" - its right to enslave and violate human rights.

The only legitimate secession is from illegitimate jurisdiction. A subordinate government can secede from a superordinate government only when the superordinate government both formally (by preventing redress through undemocratic means) and substantially violating the rights of actual individuals, and then only in order to properly defend those rights which were being violated. There is no Objectivist argument for (unilateral) secession from a legitimate jurisdiction.

What would be the result of secession today? I imagine any "Blue" States would secede in order to form little People's States. Perhaps Texas might have a legitimate case for negotiated secession based upon its admission to the union - but would it secede in order to repeal the income tax, adopt the gold standard, and adhere strictly to the Bill of Rights? Or in order to pay lip service to that while closing its borders and instituting school prayer? I haven't been to Texas (or south of the Manson-Nixon line) since I was 4 years old, so I can't claim to have a read on the reasons why Texans might support secession. But if Ron Paul is their best spokesman, I would remain dubious.

[Ross Barlow]

Michael, thanks for linking to this article of Justin Raimondo’s. I agree with you that, even if we find many things to disagree with in it, it causes one to think and that this is good. I highly recommend reading this article all the way through. Here are some of my random thoughts on it.

First, let me say that I think that Raimondo gives a really great personal tribute to Ayn Rand here, despite his criticisms. The Objectivist “movement” deserves both. As to any ultimate evaluation on Raimondo’s intellectual stance, integrity and history, I submit here to Barbara Branden’s advice because she was intimately involved in Objectivism’s formative history and also probably knows something of Raimondo because his name has come up repeatedly in my own spotty “post-Split” Objectivist information sources for the last 40 years. I have only read a limited amount of Raimondo’s writings, but he does come off to me as quite an independent and individualistic thinker. “Nasty,” yes, many times. (I wonder if he is into street-fighting as recreational activity?)

(I must say this right off: Raimondo’s signature photo with the cigarette hanging out of the corner of his mouth in a cocky adolescent pose does remind me of my own confrontational youth, and it makes me smile. There is an old photo of me, cigarette hanging in the same way out of the corner of my mouth, as I was holding a weapon on top of a bunker on Hill 55 in Quang Nam Province of the RVN in 1969 while F-4 Phantom jets were blasting the living hell out of communist NVA right below and behind me. It was a pose, a “hero” pose, a rebellious pose. Maybe I had been reading too much Mickey Spillane in those days. But youthful bravado and cockiness – while pure adolescent -- do sometimes show a spark of life and of honest rebellion in them, and for that I half-laugh at and half-applaud Raimondo’s persona as exhibited in that photo.)

Re: Raimondo’s note about Rand vs. democracy. There are good precedents: US Constitution (secret convention, state government ratifying conventions that only very indirectly represented the people, Madison’s warning of a “tyranny of the majority” in the Federalist Papers). Also, Herbert Spencer: “The Right to Ignore the State” where he uses fine logic and gives solid theoretical examples of a democratic majority completely trampling the rights of individuals or minorities (and notice in the final section of his essay that Spencer is against “anarchism” as he defines it, and he is rather for law, “the law of equal freedom”).

Raimondo makes one remark that is grossly unfair to the Brandens. He suggests that they saw Rand as a “meal ticket.” This is an egregious remark. I think this is totally unwarranted, because my own reading of this history of the Objectivist 1950s and 1960s is that Nathaniel and Barbara were mostly motivated by ideological goals. They were intelligent and capable people who could have made a satisfying living in any area of endeavor, not cheap opportunists as suggested here in this quip by Raimondo. They were dedicated intellectuals who wanted to fight for their ideals and to change the world and who saw Rand’s visions to be personally inspirational. If we focused our light upon Raimondo and his own associations with conservatives like some of those in the Lew Rockwell orbit, might we not insinuate that *he* is seeking a “meal ticket”?

On a better note, Raimondo’s remark about how after the excommunications Leonard Peikoff “wound up with everything by managing to be the most servile of her courtiers” is a gem. Most of the other statements about the ARI are a bit lost on me, because I have studiously ignored their inanities from their very start because they appear as an embarrassing cult instead of free-thinkers.

Raimondo says that there are few Objectivist criticisms of Judaism – albeit there is fundamental criticism of religion in general. I actually am a tremendous admirer of Jewish culture and history for the most part. Growing up in a Christian family, I always loved the Old Testament but despised the New.

But please read or re-read certain passages from the Old Testament books such as Joshua to get a taste of classic and influential historical atrocity, as well as passages like 1st Samuel 15:3: “…’kill both man and woman, infant and suckling, ox and sheep, camel and ass.'" (This was the commandment of the Lord God to the Israelites, and he was considered in those days to be quite an authority on morals. This is a divinely ordered genocide of an entire people because of sins of their ancestors.)

I think that many of the historical atrocities later committed by Christians and Muslims where in part encouraged by these and similar examples of the Old Testament, and that this OT tradition made it “okay” for these two religions that later claimed profound influence from Judaism to “justify” their widespread historical depredations. To be fair, Judaism and Jewish culture has developed extreme liberality since these earliest of days, and the Jewish traditions of scholarship, civilization, humanism and rationality have been almost unequaled in history. Ayn Rand was from this cultural tradition. Also, as I used to teach my US History students, regarding historical influences on the USA, the ancient Law of Moses held even a society’s rulers to be bound by the Rule of Equality Before the Law, and that in itself was a revolutionary idea. Without the contributions of Jewish culture, the West would be poorer indeed.

ARI’s Brook is quoted as saying: “We view what happens in Israel as an indicator of what will happen in the rest of the world. To the extent America abandons Israel, it abandons itself. Israel is a beacon of civilization in a barbaric, backward area. Israel represents, despite its flaws, the values of the West: individual rights, free speech, freedom of the press, equality before the law and the rule of law.” And I see a lot of reasonableness in this statement and cannot argue much with it. But I do not give the Israel state a blank check to do whatever it wants, especially with strong religious conservative zealots in the background wanting to gain control and dictate policy. I do have some confidence that the rational elements in Israel will ultimately prevail. Let us hope so.

All in all, this was a thought-provoking article. While I do not agree with all of it, it is a mind-stretcher, and that is good. Raimondo – however we may ultimately judge him – is an intellectual whose powerful thinking may be attributable to being a “son” of Rand. A renegade son, perhaps, but definitely given that radical spark by her thinking and her writings.

-Ross Barlow.

[Chris Grieb]

Michael; The Klan running Indiana was in the 20ths. There power was broken when the Klan head D B Stephenson was found guilty of sexual assault. I have gotten the impression that by the 30th being a member of the Klan was not a good idea for a budding politician. Robert Byrd of West Virginia seems the exception.

On the succession question Sandifeur gave a very good at TAS's Summer Seminar which he discussed again in his blog recently.

Michael; Has Lew Rockwell ever said anything about the Holocaust.

[kiaer.ts]

On the succession question Sandifeur gave a very good at TAS's Summer Seminar which he discussed again in his blog recently.

Can you provide a link?