Ayn Rand Nonfiction

[Michelle]

I've read precious little of her non-fiction. The only things I've gotten are her books which relate to writing and aesthetics: The Romantic Manifesto (which, to be fair, I've not read fully), The Art of Fiction, and The Art of Nonfiction.

So, which of her nonfiction books should I read first?

[Selene]

Capitalism: The Unknown Ideal and The Virtue of Selfishness

[kiaer.ts]

Capitalism: The Unknown Ideal and The Virtue of Selfishness

I agree with Adam. Selfishness was the first book of hers I read and I was won over within a week. But eventually Introduction to Objectivist Epistemology will be her most rewarding work for you.

[galtgulch]

Michelle R,

I agree but want to encourage you to read The Objectivist Newsletter as well. Although it contains all the essays you would find bound in The Virtue of Selfishness and Capitalism: The Unknown Ideal there are enough other essays and features such as book reviews and The Intellectual Ammunition Department to make it worthwhile. I remember noticing that the source of the articles in VOS and CUI was TON and wondering whether it made any sense to buy it. It does in fact you might consider buying The Objectivist Newsletter to begin with instead of the other two.

She also wrote an essay entitled For The New Intellectual in which she discusses the history of western civilization from a philosophical perspective and characterizes those she refers to as mystics of faith and mystics of force. I wonder at the reaction of those who actually belong in those categories but doubt such beings ever read it. Ayn Rand was not known for pulling her punches.

The book also includes passages from her novels.

I just found TON on the www.aynrand.org site's bookstore. I didn't find it for sale at www.atlassociety.com although both sites are worth exploring. The latter has Nathaniel Branden's books on psychology.

www.campaignforliberty.com 4 Jun 5AM 156,124, 6PM 156,231 and 189 cosponsors for HR1207 Federal Reserve Transparency Act of 2009

gulch

Edited June 4, 2009 by galtgulch

[Chris Grieb]

I think Virtue and Capitalism should be your first books in the non-fiction of Rand's.

On buying the Objectivist Newsletter I think you will find cheaper editions on Amazon. The rights to the newsletter belong to ARI.

[kiaer.ts]

Everything that is essential for a new Objectivist to read that is in the Objectivist Newsletter (vol 1-4)/ the Objectivist (vol 5-10) is already published in book form in Selfishness, Capitalism, Manifesto, etc. But if you are voracious, or want to see the history of the movement ion the context of the Sixties, the Newsletter/Objectivist is nice to have. Buy them cheapest used at abebooks.com.

[Backlighting]

half.com, which is owned by ebay, is a good place to get books at reduced prices.

[Michelle]

OK, folks, thanks. I'll start with The Virtue of Selfishness!

[emb021]

The main non-fiction works of Rand I would recommend people go for are:

"Virtue of Selfishness"

"Capitalism: The Unknown Ideal"

"The New Left" (current edition is known as "Return of the Primitive")

I found "Intro to Objectivist Epistemology" very hard to get into. I never finished it.

Later collections like "Philosophy: Who Needs it" and "The Voice of Reason" I also had problems with, due to her bitterness.

As noted, the original of her non-fiction where the articles in "The Objectivist Newsletter", "The Objectivist" and "The Ayn Rand Letter". You can get hardcopy reprints of these 3, but unless you get lucky (as I was) they are a bit pricy. So unless you get lucky, go for the above books.

[thomtg]

The main non-fiction works of Rand I would recommend people go for are:

"Virtue of Selfishness"

"Capitalism: The Unknown Ideal"

"The New Left" (current edition is known as "Return of the Primitive")

I found "Intro to Objectivist Epistemology" very hard to get into. I never finished it.

Later collections like "Philosophy: Who Needs it" and "The Voice of Reason" I also had problems with, due to her bitterness.

As noted, the original of her non-fiction where the articles in "The Objectivist Newsletter", "The Objectivist" and "The Ayn Rand Letter". You can get hardcopy reprints of these 3, but unless you get lucky (as I was) they are a bit pricy. So unless you get lucky, go for the above books.

I would begin at the beginning: For the New Intellectual. I think this is the book that Ayn Rand introduces herself to the general public not as a novelist but as a philosopher. Her editorial choices of what to publish chronologically thereafter builds on this foundation.

About ITOE, this is my fourth reading of it. I vividly remember my first time reading it. It was during a school break, and I was staying at home. The book was almost, just almost, incomprehensible. I remember telling myself at the time to the effect that "You can do it. She wrote it for regular people. Are you not a regular guy? Read, damn it!" I knew I was barely getting 51 percent of it, just enough to say I understood it. There were sentences that made no sense. I read and re-read over and over without any comprehension. And I noted my incomprehension. It was a very unpleasant feeling not to know something. It was the first and only book ever that I took on on my own initiative that I had doubts about my competency to understand. I don't think the thought of giving up ever surfaced, but it was right beneath consciousness, perhaps waiting for a weak moment. Even if giving up wasn't a conscious choice, the thought of whether to continue the reading was ever on my mind. I had to make it a mental purpose to "get through it." I took every excuse to take a break from reading as a test of willpower, almost as a test of how much more frustration I could endure. It was a near-whole-body rebellion. At one point, I was on my back on the carpeted floor, forcing myself to hold the book tight with two hands, eyes looking up, focused on the pages of the analytic-synthetic dichotomy, while my feet were stomping the floor, thumping the wall, all the while my torso was doing ab crunches with grunted breaths to hold myself still, to prevent my body from this out-of-body urge to squirm away. When I finished the last page, I threw that book across the room so fast that my dog "thought" we were playing Fetch in the house, and my mom had to shoo both of us outside. That was some feeling on finishing the book. I felt unstoppable; it was like, "Bring it on, World!" That feeling persists to this day.

Edited June 5, 2009 by Thom T G

[kiaer.ts]

The main non-fiction works of Rand I would recommend people go for are:

"Virtue of Selfishness"

"Capitalism: The Unknown Ideal"

"The New Left" (current edition is known as "Return of the Primitive")

I found "Intro to Objectivist Epistemology" very hard to get into. I never finished it.

Later collections like "Philosophy: Who Needs it" and "The Voice of Reason" I also had problems with, due to her bitterness.

As noted, the original of her non-fiction where the articles in "The Objectivist Newsletter", "The Objectivist" and "The Ayn Rand Letter". You can get hardcopy reprints of these 3, but unless you get lucky (as I was) they are a bit pricy. So unless you get lucky, go for the above books.

I would begin at the beginning: For the New Intellectual. I think this is the book that Ayn Rand introduces herself to the general public not as a novelist but as a philosopher. Her editorial choices of what to publish chronologically thereafter builds on this foundation.

Oh, hell no.

Rand's worst habit was quoting herself, when she should have been quoting either prior thinkers like Aristotle, Spinoza, or Nietzsche or quoting perhaps no one. For the New Intellectual is simply another restatement of her philosophy in full, another Galt's speech in non-fiction form, but with all the appropriate speeches culled from her fiction works in case you missed them the first time.

It's obvious when she wrote it that she didn't realize she would be writing dozens of non-fiction essays over the next few decades to express her ideas explicitly in depth and in non-fiction form. For the New Intellectual is not an introduction, it's more like the summarization of someone who thinks she might disappear tomorrow, and never get her ideas out. There is plenty of justification to read this cramped monograph for its historical interest. And if you were never going to read another word by Rand, it might be a good selection for something like an undergraduate reader of modern philosophers or libertarians.

But Rand didn't die. She had prductive decades ahead of her. She slowly grew out of the habit of quoting herself. Thank God this is one book you never need to read to understand her at all.

[Michelle]

That was my problem with her books on writing. She constantly uses passages from her novels and essays as examples.

EDIT: I'm aware they were edited together from lecture transcripts, but the objection stands. She oughtn't be using her own writing to make her point.

Edited June 5, 2009 by Michelle R

[thomtg]

[...]

I would begin at the beginning: For the New Intellectual. I think this is the book that Ayn Rand introduces herself to the general public not as a novelist but as a philosopher. Her editorial choices of what to publish chronologically thereafter builds on this foundation.

[...]

Oh, hell no.

Rand's worst habit was quoting herself, when she should have been quoting either prior thinkers like Aristotle, Spinoza, or Nietzsche or quoting perhaps no one. For the New Intellectual is simply another restatement of her philosophy in full, another Galt's speech in non-fiction form, but with all the appropriate speeches culled from her fiction works in case you missed them the first time.

It's obvious when she wrote it that she didn't realize she would be writing dozens of non-fiction essays over the next few decades to express her ideas explicitly in depth and in non-fiction form. For the New Intellectual is not an introduction, it's more like the summarization of someone who thinks she might disappear tomorrow, and never get her ideas out. There is plenty of justification to read this cramped monograph for its historical interest. And if you were never going to read another word by Rand, it might be a good selection for something like an undergraduate reader of modern philosophers or libertarians.

But Rand didn't die. She had prductive decades ahead of her. She slowly grew out of the habit of quoting herself. Thank God this is one book you never need to read to understand her at all.

I interpret Ayn Rand's culling of the excerpts from her novels as an effort to be more serious about philosophy. She definitely knew she was going to write more, but she first wanted to separate out from her extant writings what were about reality and what were about re-creation of reality. Any journalist, engineer, politician, or academic henceforth could quote her ideas from FTNI instead of from some "mere" novel. So FTNI is like a nonfictional packaging wrapper, wrapping the best of the best of the state of philosophy at the time. And the title essay "FTNI" does a great job wrapping up the whole history of Western Civilization.

[kiaer.ts]

[...]

I would begin at the beginning: For the New Intellectual. I think this is the book that Ayn Rand introduces herself to the general public not as a novelist but as a philosopher. Her editorial choices of what to publish chronologically thereafter builds on this foundation.

[...]

Oh, hell no.

Rand's worst habit was quoting herself, when she should have been quoting either prior thinkers like Aristotle, Spinoza, or Nietzsche or quoting perhaps no one. For the New Intellectual is simply another restatement of her philosophy in full, another Galt's speech in non-fiction form, but with all the appropriate speeches culled from her fiction works in case you missed them the first time.

It's obvious when she wrote it that she didn't realize she would be writing dozens of non-fiction essays over the next few decades to express her ideas explicitly in depth and in non-fiction form. For the New Intellectual is not an introduction, it's more like the summarization of someone who thinks she might disappear tomorrow, and never get her ideas out. There is plenty of justification to read this cramped monograph for its historical interest. And if you were never going to read another word by Rand, it might be a good selection for something like an undergraduate reader of modern philosophers or libertarians.

But Rand didn't die. She had prductive decades ahead of her. She slowly grew out of the habit of quoting herself. Thank God this is one book you never need to read to understand her at all.

I interpret Ayn Rand's culling of the excerpts from her novels as an effort to be more serious about philosophy. She definitely knew she was going to write more, but she first wanted to separate out from her extant writings what were about reality and what were about re-creation of reality. Any journalist, engineer, politician, or academic henceforth could quote her ideas from FTNI instead of from some "mere" novel. So FTNI is like a nonfictional packaging wrapper, wrapping the best of the best of the state of philosophy at the time. And the title essay "FTNI" does a great job wrapping up the whole history of Western Civilization.

As for the history of Western Civ, I'd strongly, most strongly, suggest Isabel Paterson's god of the machine.

[Selene]

http://www.cato.org/special/threewomen/god-machine.html

Now there is a power hitting lineup. Leading off Rose Wilder Lane, batting second Isabel Patterson (she can hit to right) and the hall of famer Ayn Rand who leads the league in hitting, RBI's and HR's. Who should be in the cleanup spot?

The God of the Machine

"The hand-mill," wrote Karl Marx, summarizing his theory of historical materialism, "gives you society with the feudal lord; the steam-mill, society with the industrial capitalist." On his view, the cultural and political forms that appeared in any given society were mere "superstructure," determined by the society's material and technological "base."

The God of the Machine. This highly reductionist view of history has been enormously influential, but in her classic The God of the Machine, Isabel Paterson asks a devastating question: what gives you the steam-mill? Why have some societies had enormous scientific and material development while others stagnated? Or, as education scholar Andrew Coulson has wryly put it, why did Athens give us philosophy, mathematics, literature, and the natural sciences, while neighboring Sparta gave us little more than the names of a few high school football teams?

Paterson's search for an answer, articulated via a sustained metaphor of the "engineering principles" of political economy needed to sustain the "flows" of productive human energy, takes her from ancient Greece and Rome to Medieval Europe to the American Founding.

Paterson begins in the ancient world, considering popular explanations for the ascendance of Rome and, in particular, their victory over Carthage in the Punic Wars. Military discipline? Carthage's was more rigorous and severe. Strategic aptitude? But the strategically brilliant Napoleon routed by one loss, while Rome lost many major battles on the road to victory, and the Carthaginian general Hannibal was widely regarded as a military genius. Sea power? But Carthage had a huge naval advantage early on, with Rome catching up only long after the beginning of the conflict.

Rome's advantage, Paterson suggests, lay far from the battlefield, in its superior political structure. Carthage had expected the tributary peoples on Rome's boundaries to join the Carthaginian armies and rise against their masters; they did not. As Paterson observes, the Roman Empire was not really a military empire, in that its control over the periphery was not maintained by force of arms alone: "conquered" people found that Roman citizenship came with benefits. The secret to both Rome's expansion and its ability to harness the productive ability of its people, argues Paterson, was Roman law. Whereas all peoples have followed rules, Paterson sees in Rome the origin of law in its modern sense: an abstract set of principles, with their own internal logic, independent of the will of any particular ruler. She notes that despite strong local pressure to imprison or execute the apostle Paul, the Roman authorities were unable to do anything in the absence of a specific charge once he invoked his rights as a citizen. Rome also found a way to channel public "inertia" through the veto power of the Tribunes, which provided a feedback loop that prevented the imposition of laws intolerable to the plebes without giving them any affirmative power to create new law.

Like many historical theorists, Paterson identified a series of stages through which societies move. Her innovation was to see the structural features that characterized each stage as a mechanism for channeling the corresponding stage of technological development. Custom and taboo could provide the basic stability needed for early development, but were ill suited to contexts marked by high levels of innovation. The counsel of respected members of the community could provide greater flexibility, but only for relatively small social groupings. To deal with what F. A. Hayek called "an extended order," and Paterson described as a "long circuit of energy," formal hierarchy and, at still higher levels, abstract and neutral law were needed.

Turning Marx on his head, Paterson saw political ideology as the "base" and the technological level as "superstructure." Totalitarian regimes could achieve advanced technology only by parasitism on previous innovation, or free societies elsewhere. "Production methods," she wrote:

will catch up with advanced political ideas; whereas if an advanced physical economy develops within a political framework that cannot accommodate it, production must either be choked down again or it will destroy the political entity, being subverted to the wrong ends.

The Phoenician civilization, for example, disintegrated because in attempting to stifle trade as productive technology advanced, they "effected a hook-up of an energy circuit which their political mechanism could not accommodate."

It was, writes Paterson, the merger of the Roman concept of law with the Christian focus on the freedom and salvation of the individual soul and the Greek ideal of truth pursued through reason that allowed a mercantile "society of contract," with the United States as its prime example, to emerge in the West from a feudal "society of status." The negative force of contract law—negative because given content only by the voluntary agreements of persons, and invoked only when one of the parties is dissatisfied—ensures the stability of the "circuit" through which productive energy flows. That "negative" character means that the stabilizing power of contract does not impede productive flexibility. The indispensable corollary of contract, she later explains, is privately held property, which eliminates the braking effect of centralized authority on innovation. Paterson contrasts feudal "status" societies. Like later planned economies, these locked workers in to particular roles, preventing adjustment to changing circumstances or in accordance with new ideas.

With that distinction in mind, Paterson considers antitrust law, and concludes that, far from preserving the competition associated with contract society, it tends to resurrect the society of status. In his 1970 book Power and Market, the libertarian economist Murray Rothbard called her treatment here "[o]ne of the few cogent discussions of the antitrust principle in recent years." After exposing several infamous "monopolies" as either chimerical or the product of government privilege, Paterson turns her attention to the putative remedy for monopoly. Laws banning practices "in restraint of trade," she argues, are meaningless: nobody can know in advance precisely what they forbid. Producers who charge more than their competitors, Paterson observes, can be accused of price gouging. Those who charge less are guilty of predatory pricing and unfair competition. Those who charge precisely the same must surely be engaged in price fixing. Any of these accusations might therefore be leveled against a firm by a competitor, making "status," or political power, crucially important to commerce. According to Paterson, the malleability of the notion of "anticompetitive" practices means that in effect, firms will seek prior approval before innovating, merging, or splitting and selling off subsidiaries. The effect, ironically, is to inhibit competition.

Readers with an interest in monetary policy, or public education, or wartime economics will find separate chapters, brimming with insight, on each area. But it is Paterson's broader ideas that made The God of the Machine a classic, and among the most enduring of these has been her image of "the humanitarian with the guillotine." The opening paragraph of the chapter by that name begs to be quoted:

Most of the harm in the world is done by good people, and not by accident, lapse, or omission. It is the result of their deliberate actions, long persevered in, which they hold to be motivated by high ideals toward virtuous ends… n periods when millions are slaughtered, when torture is practiced, starvation enforced, oppression made a policy, as at present over a large part of the world, and as it has often been in the past, it must be at the behest of very many good people, and even by their direct action, for what they consider a worthy object.

In a few pages, Paterson makes a powerful case against the tendency, still all too common, to judge policies by their intentions rather than their effects. She points out that because capitalism channels selfish motives to the public benefit, the most widely beneficial actions will often appear morally ugly, because motivated by greed. The philanthropic impulse itself, she warns, can become a far more pernicious form of greed—desire for the satisfaction of acting as savior to the helpless masses. From the French Reign of Terror to the communist Gulag, Paterson observes that there are few atrocities that don't begin with a noble motive.

Paterson's one-time protegé Ayn Rand said of The God of the Machine:

It is a sparkling book, with little gems of polemical fire scattered through almost every page, ranging from bright wit to the hard glitter of logic to the quiet radiance of a profound understanding.

Paterson's wit, logic, and understanding still cast light today, and The God of the Machine remains a source of illumination for modern readers seeking a better understanding of the preconditions for development and freedom.

[kiaer.ts]

http://www.cato.org/special/threewomen/god-machine.html

Now there is a power hitting lineup. Leading off Rose Wilder Lane, batting second Isabel Patterson (she can hit to right) and the hall of famer Ayn Rand who leads the league in hitting, RBI's and HR's. Who should be in the cleanup spot?

The God of the Machine

"The hand-mill," wrote Karl Marx, summarizing his theory of historical materialism, "gives you society with the feudal lord; the steam-mill, society with the industrial capitalist." On his view, the cultural and political forms that appeared in any given society were mere "superstructure," determined by the society's material and technological "base."

The God of the Machine. This highly reductionist view of history has been enormously influential, but in her classic The God of the Machine, Isabel Paterson asks a devastating question: what gives you the steam-mill? Why have some societies had enormous scientific and material development while others stagnated? Or, as education scholar Andrew Coulson has wryly put it, why did Athens give us philosophy, mathematics, literature, and the natural sciences, while neighboring Sparta gave us little more than the names of a few high school football teams?

Paterson's search for an answer, articulated via a sustained metaphor of the "engineering principles" of political economy needed to sustain the "flows" of productive human energy, takes her from ancient Greece and Rome to Medieval Europe to the American Founding.

Paterson begins in the ancient world, considering popular explanations for the ascendance of Rome and, in particular, their victory over Carthage in the Punic Wars. Military discipline? Carthage's was more rigorous and severe. Strategic aptitude? But the strategically brilliant Napoleon routed by one loss, while Rome lost many major battles on the road to victory, and the Carthaginian general Hannibal was widely regarded as a military genius. Sea power? But Carthage had a huge naval advantage early on, with Rome catching up only long after the beginning of the conflict.

Rome's advantage, Paterson suggests, lay far from the battlefield, in its superior political structure. Carthage had expected the tributary peoples on Rome's boundaries to join the Carthaginian armies and rise against their masters; they did not. As Paterson observes, the Roman Empire was not really a military empire, in that its control over the periphery was not maintained by force of arms alone: "conquered" people found that Roman citizenship came with benefits. The secret to both Rome's expansion and its ability to harness the productive ability of its people, argues Paterson, was Roman law. Whereas all peoples have followed rules, Paterson sees in Rome the origin of law in its modern sense: an abstract set of principles, with their own internal logic, independent of the will of any particular ruler. She notes that despite strong local pressure to imprison or execute the apostle Paul, the Roman authorities were unable to do anything in the absence of a specific charge once he invoked his rights as a citizen. Rome also found a way to channel public "inertia" through the veto power of the Tribunes, which provided a feedback loop that prevented the imposition of laws intolerable to the plebes without giving them any affirmative power to create new law.

Like many historical theorists, Paterson identified a series of stages through which societies move. Her innovation was to see the structural features that characterized each stage as a mechanism for channeling the corresponding stage of technological development. Custom and taboo could provide the basic stability needed for early development, but were ill suited to contexts marked by high levels of innovation. The counsel of respected members of the community could provide greater flexibility, but only for relatively small social groupings. To deal with what F. A. Hayek called "an extended order," and Paterson described as a "long circuit of energy," formal hierarchy and, at still higher levels, abstract and neutral law were needed.

Turning Marx on his head, Paterson saw political ideology as the "base" and the technological level as "superstructure." Totalitarian regimes could achieve advanced technology only by parasitism on previous innovation, or free societies elsewhere. "Production methods," she wrote:

will catch up with advanced political ideas; whereas if an advanced physical economy develops within a political framework that cannot accommodate it, production must either be choked down again or it will destroy the political entity, being subverted to the wrong ends.

The Phoenician civilization, for example, disintegrated because in attempting to stifle trade as productive technology advanced, they "effected a hook-up of an energy circuit which their political mechanism could not accommodate."

It was, writes Paterson, the merger of the Roman concept of law with the Christian focus on the freedom and salvation of the individual soul and the Greek ideal of truth pursued through reason that allowed a mercantile "society of contract," with the United States as its prime example, to emerge in the West from a feudal "society of status." The negative force of contract law—negative because given content only by the voluntary agreements of persons, and invoked only when one of the parties is dissatisfied—ensures the stability of the "circuit" through which productive energy flows. That "negative" character means that the stabilizing power of contract does not impede productive flexibility. The indispensable corollary of contract, she later explains, is privately held property, which eliminates the braking effect of centralized authority on innovation. Paterson contrasts feudal "status" societies. Like later planned economies, these locked workers in to particular roles, preventing adjustment to changing circumstances or in accordance with new ideas.

With that distinction in mind, Paterson considers antitrust law, and concludes that, far from preserving the competition associated with contract society, it tends to resurrect the society of status. In his 1970 book Power and Market, the libertarian economist Murray Rothbard called her treatment here "[o]ne of the few cogent discussions of the antitrust principle in recent years." After exposing several infamous "monopolies" as either chimerical or the product of government privilege, Paterson turns her attention to the putative remedy for monopoly. Laws banning practices "in restraint of trade," she argues, are meaningless: nobody can know in advance precisely what they forbid. Producers who charge more than their competitors, Paterson observes, can be accused of price gouging. Those who charge less are guilty of predatory pricing and unfair competition. Those who charge precisely the same must surely be engaged in price fixing. Any of these accusations might therefore be leveled against a firm by a competitor, making "status," or political power, crucially important to commerce. According to Paterson, the malleability of the notion of "anticompetitive" practices means that in effect, firms will seek prior approval before innovating, merging, or splitting and selling off subsidiaries. The effect, ironically, is to inhibit competition.

Readers with an interest in monetary policy, or public education, or wartime economics will find separate chapters, brimming with insight, on each area. But it is Paterson's broader ideas that made The God of the Machine a classic, and among the most enduring of these has been her image of "the humanitarian with the guillotine." The opening paragraph of the chapter by that name begs to be quoted:

Most of the harm in the world is done by good people, and not by accident, lapse, or omission. It is the result of their deliberate actions, long persevered in, which they hold to be motivated by high ideals toward virtuous ends… n periods when millions are slaughtered, when torture is practiced, starvation enforced, oppression made a policy, as at present over a large part of the world, and as it has often been in the past, it must be at the behest of very many good people, and even by their direct action, for what they consider a worthy object.

In a few pages, Paterson makes a powerful case against the tendency, still all too common, to judge policies by their intentions rather than their effects. She points out that because capitalism channels selfish motives to the public benefit, the most widely beneficial actions will often appear morally ugly, because motivated by greed. The philanthropic impulse itself, she warns, can become a far more pernicious form of greed—desire for the satisfaction of acting as savior to the helpless masses. From the French Reign of Terror to the communist Gulag, Paterson observes that there are few atrocities that don't begin with a noble motive.

Paterson's one-time protegé Ayn Rand said of The God of the Machine:

It is a sparkling book, with little gems of polemical fire scattered through almost every page, ranging from bright wit to the hard glitter of logic to the quiet radiance of a profound understanding.

Paterson's wit, logic, and understanding still cast light today, and The God of the Machine remains a source of illumination for modern readers seeking a better understanding of the preconditions for development and freedom.

Not to mention that her prose outshines Cicero and is more lucid than Orwell's. She can be read enjoyable merely as literature, let alone as our best speculative political theorist of the last century.

[BaalChatzaf]

http://www.cato.org/special/threewomen/god-machine.html

Now there is a power hitting lineup. Leading off Rose Wilder Lane, batting second Isabel Patterson (she can hit to right) and the hall of famer Ayn Rand who leads the league in hitting, RBI's and HR's. Who should be in the cleanup spot?

The God of the Machine

"The hand-mill," wrote Karl Marx, summarizing his theory of historical materialism, "gives you society with the feudal lord; the steam-mill, society with the industrial capitalist." On his view, the cultural and political forms that appeared in any given society were mere "superstructure," determined by the society's material and technological "base."

The God of the Machine. This highly reductionist view of history has been enormously influential, but in her classic The God of the Machine, Isabel Paterson asks a devastating question: what gives you the steam-mill? Why have some societies had enormous scientific and material development while others stagnated? Or, as education scholar Andrew Coulson has wryly put it, why did Athens give us philosophy, mathematics, literature, and the natural sciences, while neighboring Sparta gave us little more than the names of a few high school football teams?

Argggghhh! Mathematics as we know it did NOT originate in Athens. It started with Thales and Pythagoras both Ionians from Samos and several hundred years before Plato and Aristotle founded their schools. The greatest mathematician of Greece prior to Archimedes (of Syracus) was Eudoxas of Cnidus a city in Crete. Very little good math originated in Athens. The greatest Hellenic math came out of Alexandria.

Sparta contributed the military tropes used by every major nation both ancient a modern. The Romans expanded on Hoplite tactics first perfected in Sparta and later improved by Alexander the Great of Makedon. Alexander's phalanx was the lineal descendant of the Spartan phalanx. And if it weren't for the Fighting Spartans (not a football team) we would be speaking Persian if we existed at all. Leonidas bought time for Themistocles to line up against the Persian Fleet and wreck them at Salamis.

Whatever else Isabel Patterson was, she was NOT a historian.

Ba'al Chatzaf

[Selene]

Ba'al:

In honor of Ms. Sotomayor, don't you want to give some "props" on algebra and math to the Mayans also?

Adam

[kiaer.ts]

Or, as education scholar Andrew Coulson has wryly put it, why did Athens give us philosophy, mathematics, literature, and the natural sciences, while neighboring Sparta gave us little more than the names of a few high school football teams?

Argggghhh! Mathematics as we know it did NOT originate in Athens. It started with Thales and Pythagoras both Ionians from Samos and several hundred years before Plato and Aristotle founded their schools. The greatest mathematician of Greece prior to Archimedes (of Syracus) was Eudoxas of Cnidus a city in Crete. Very little good math originated in Athens. The greatest Hellenic math came out of Alexandria.

Sparta contributed the military tropes used by every major nation both ancient a modern. The Romans expanded on Hoplite tactics first perfected in Sparta and later improved by Alexander the Great of Makedon. Alexander's phalanx was the lineal descendant of the Spartan phalanx. And if it weren't for the Fighting Spartans (not a football team) we would be speaking Persian if we existed at all. Leonidas bought time for Themistocles to line up against the Persian Fleet and wreck them at Salamis.

Whatever else Isabel Patterson was, she was NOT a historian.

Nor, apparently, are you a close reader. Time for your Valium, Bob.

[BaalChatzaf]

Or, as education scholar Andrew Coulson has wryly put it, why did Athens give us philosophy, mathematics, literature, and the natural sciences, while neighboring Sparta gave us little more than the names of a few high school football teams?

Argggghhh! Mathematics as we know it did NOT originate in Athens. It started with Thales and Pythagoras both Ionians from Samos and several hundred years before Plato and Aristotle founded their schools. The greatest mathematician of Greece prior to Archimedes (of Syracus) was Eudoxas of Cnidus a city in Crete. Very little good math originated in Athens. The greatest Hellenic math came out of Alexandria.

Sparta contributed the military tropes used by every major nation both ancient a modern. The Romans expanded on Hoplite tactics first perfected in Sparta and later improved by Alexander the Great of Makedon. Alexander's phalanx was the lineal descendant of the Spartan phalanx. And if it weren't for the Fighting Spartans (not a football team) we would be speaking Persian if we existed at all. Leonidas bought time for Themistocles to line up against the Persian Fleet and wreck them at Salamis.

Whatever else Isabel Patterson was, she was NOT a historian.

Nor, apparently, are you a close reader. Time for your Valium, Bob.

c /Isabel Patterson/Andrew Coulson/ What I said still stands. Athens is NOT where the math came from. It never was. It is where the ethics and the metaphysics came from. Athens produced hot air. Ionia (Samos) and Alexandria produced science.

Ba'al Chatzaf

[kiaer.ts]

Or, as education scholar Andrew Coulson has wryly put it, why did Athens give us philosophy, mathematics, literature, and the natural sciences, while neighboring Sparta gave us little more than the names of a few high school football teams?

Argggghhh! Mathematics as we know it did NOT originate in Athens. It started with Thales and Pythagoras both Ionians from Samos and several hundred years before Plato and Aristotle founded their schools. The greatest mathematician of Greece prior to Archimedes (of Syracus) was Eudoxas of Cnidus a city in Crete. Very little good math originated in Athens. The greatest Hellenic math came out of Alexandria.

Sparta contributed the military tropes used by every major nation both ancient a modern. The Romans expanded on Hoplite tactics first perfected in Sparta and later improved by Alexander the Great of Makedon. Alexander's phalanx was the lineal descendant of the Spartan phalanx. And if it weren't for the Fighting Spartans (not a football team) we would be speaking Persian if we existed at all. Leonidas bought time for Themistocles to line up against the Persian Fleet and wreck them at Salamis.

Whatever else Isabel Patterson was, she was NOT a historian.

Nor, apparently, are you a close reader. Time for your Valium, Bob.

c /Isabel Patterson/Andrew Coulson/ What I said still stands. Athens is NOT where the math came from. It never was. It is where the ethics and the metaphysics came from. Athens produced hot air. Ionia (Samos) and Alexandria produced science.

Ba'al Chatzaf

Is admitting a mistake too much for you?

And, BTW, have you read Paterson? She is smarter than you are, and while exceedingly stubborn, and sometimes foolish, you are not stupid.

[BaalChatzaf]

Is admitting a mistake too much for you?

And, BTW, have you read Paterson? She is smarter than you are, and while exceedingly stubborn, and sometimes foolish, you are not stupid.

On matters of math history I don't make mistakes. The math did not come from Athens (either the Academy or the Lyceum). Science originated with the Ionians especially from Samos. The greatest math from the Greek civilization came during the Hellenic Period (post Alexander the Great) when Greek civilization was on the downhill course. By that time Athens, as a bright intellectual center was well in decline. The greatest mathematician contemporary with Aristotle was Eudoxus and he came from Cnidus, not Athens. Euclid was was the best known mathmatician of classical times other than Archimedes and he flourished around 300 b.c.e. after the death of Aristotle.

And I doubt whether Queen Isabel knows a fraction of the mathematics that I do. There is Math and Physics (on the one hand, and the related hard sciences) and then there is everything else, which is basically tiddly-winks especially metaphysics, ethics, aesthetics and politics each of which are non-sciences.

Ba'al Chatzaf

[James Heaps-Nelson]

Is admitting a mistake too much for you?

And, BTW, have you read Paterson? She is smarter than you are, and while exceedingly stubborn, and sometimes foolish, you are not stupid.

On matters of math history I don't make mistakes. The math did not come from Athens (either the Academy or the Lyceum). Science originated with the Ionians especially from Samos. The greatest math from the Greek civilization came during the Hellenic Period (post Alexander the Great) when Greek civilization was on the downhill course. By that time Athens, as a bright intellectual center was well in decline. The greatest mathematician contemporary with Aristotle was Eudoxus and he came from Cnidus, not Athens. Euclid was was the best known mathmatician of classical times other than Archimedes and he flourished around 300 b.c.e. after the death of Aristotle.

And I doubt whether Queen Isabel knows a fraction of the mathematics that I do. There is Math and Physics (on the one hand, and the related hard sciences) and then there is everything else, which is basically tiddly-winks especially metaphysics, ethics, aesthetics and politics each of which are non-sciences.

Ba'al Chatzaf

Here is one thread that I find strong sympathy with Bob. Despite my disagreements with him about Rand's ethics and other topics, the rampant ignorance of most Objectivists about important topics in math and science is likely to render both sides of the Objectivist movement almost irrelevant.

How many Objectivists know anything substantial about advanced mathematics, physics, chemistry, molecular biology, neuroscience, system dynamics or complexity theory? It is an absolutely tiny fraction on both sides of the movement.

The result of this is likely two things:

1. Objectivists will not contribute substantially to the growth of their own system.

2. Objectivists who are so inclined are likely to spend most of their time and talent elsewhere

Where to find people who really want to be on the bleeding edge intellectually? You will find some of them at Objectivist conferences, but mostly you will find them in places like MIT, the Sante Fe Institute and neuroscience graduate schools.

Jim

[kiaer.ts]

Bob, you seem to be hard of hearing.

Have you yourself read Paterson?

And yes, you made a mistake, and are still making it. You are criticizing Paterson on her grasp of the facts because you take exception with a quip written by Andrew Coulson quoted by Paterson's reviewer. Andrew Coulson was born after Isabel Paterson died, and Coulson wasn't quoting Paterson. Surely you can see that criticizing Isabel Paterson's for Andrew Coulson's loose speach is simply a little historically inaccurate. Please reread Adam's post, and then I am sure you will be happy to admit your mistake in reading comprehension.

[thomtg]

[...]

I interpret Ayn Rand's culling of the excerpts from her novels as an effort to be more serious about philosophy. She definitely knew she was going to write more, but she first wanted to separate out from her extant writings what were about reality and what were about re-creation of reality. Any journalist, engineer, politician, or academic henceforth could quote her ideas from FTNI instead of from some "mere" novel. So FTNI is like a nonfictional packaging wrapper, wrapping the best of the best of the state of philosophy at the time. And the title essay "FTNI" does a great job wrapping up the whole history of Western Civilization.

As for the history of Western Civ, I'd strongly, most strongly, suggest Isabel Paterson's god of the machine.

As a matter of fact, I have read Isabel Paterson's book, and I agree with Ayn Rand's review of it: If you take out all the gratuitous references to God and the Christian religion, the book is a gem. It gives the reader a framework for understanding that the entity "State" has causal identity--like a machine--and not something amorphous. I can clearly remember her assessment that the Constitution Amendment 17 is a machine breaker.