Hayyah

Hello, First off, I want to let you know (since there have been many threads posted here about Islam) that I am a devout Muslim who believes that the end result of reason is faith. As such, I'm not too fond of Objectivism, but I also don't discount all of its tenets, since ironically, some of them correspond with my religious beliefs and personal philosophy. Anyway, the greatest reason for my distrust of Ayn Rand's teachings comes from some of her statements about the Arab diaspora. She stated, "The Arabs are one of the least developed cultures. They are typically nomads. Their culture is primitive, and they resent Israel because it's the sole beachhead of modern science and civilization on their continent. When you have civilized men fighting savages, you support the civilized men, no matter who they are... [Arabs are] savages who don't want to use their minds..." Before comparing this is other tenets endorsed by the Ayn Rand Institute, I'd like to point out that it's inherently illogical since Palestinians (a proud group of people to which I belong) were mainly farmers, not nomads, and they did not resent Israel for having modern science (this is a ridiculous assertion), but rather for pushing them off their land. It's really this simple. Trying to bend the reasoning any other way is an exercise in obfuscation. As an Objectivist, I would imagine Miss Rand would believe it is praiseworthy to wish to keep one's own property...? However, politics aside, the greatest confusion I have about the above quote is its inconsistency with Objectivism. It certainly seems that when Miss Rand was approached with a topic that affected her emotions, the objectivity flew out the window. The ARI posted an Op-Ed piece by Debi Ghate which quotes Ayn Rand as saying, "[Racism is] the notion that a man's intellectual and characterological traits are produced by his internal body chemistry, which means, in practice, that a man is to be judged, not by his own character and actions but by the characters and actions of a collective of ancestors." Ghate continues, "It means placing the group's standing above the individual's, valuing the arbitrary (a man’s ancestry) over the essential (his own character or ability.) Judging individuals by their race is evil no matter what incarnation it takes... How do we actually correct the injustice of segregation? ...By decisively rejecting the claim that members of a racial group (who have nothing in common but a physiological attribute) are interchangeable. And by denouncing "diversity" as an anti-value--and as the new racism." In case the inconsistency isn't already obvious, let me expand. In the first quote, Miss Rand refers to millions of people who descend from some of the oldest civilizations on earth as "primitive savages." Where's the possibility of individuality here? It has been extinguished. Once this style of language is used, millions of diverse people are no longer individuals. Israelis become the individuals, and those around them are identified as a homogeneous collective -- an idea as illogical and untrue as its antithesis, that all Jews are the same. Furthermore, by saying the Arabs surrounding Israel are 'savages who don't want to use their minds,' aren't Miss Rand and ARI at odds, since the former is judging men's intellectual traits by their body chemistry, by their collection of ancestors? Finally, to claim that Israel has a right to exist whereas Palestine doesn't since Israel has a more diverse society (a very arguable point) and more technology, is to go against ARI's post which rightfully claims that diversity is often a new form of racism. This isn't the only inconsistency I have seen while learning about Objectivism, but I find it the most troubling, since it results in a numbness to human life, and the extinguishing of individuals who have been errantly identified as a collective. I'd like to ask you: Am I a savage who doesn't want to use my mind? Does anyone truly have the right to make this claim for millions of individuals, especially when discussing life or death? --Jannah