Libertarians Have to Stop Ruining Libertarianism (with Ayn Rand)

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

Libertarians Have to Stop Ruining Libertarianism (with Ayn Rand)

The headline above, up to the parentheses, is an exact quote from Bill Maher.

Let's have some fun with Bill,

He just came out with a rant against Ayn Rand, who he believes is the crack in the libertarian armor.

Actually, I sense fear underneath the rant, but maybe I'm a person who is just "kind of smart, but not really" and a "selfish prick," to use his exact terms.

You have to go to the following link to see the video as it does not embed, but it's a really good thing to see Ayn Rand receiving this kind of blast so many decades after her death. The headline quote is right at the beginning of it.

Bill Maher Trashes Libertarians: Movement Went ‘Nuts,’ ‘Intellectually Stuck In Their Teen Years’

by Josh Feldman

April 5th, 2013

Mediaite

I think Rand is scaring the holy bejeezus out of the left. They know that Obama's fundamentally transformed America is built on a foundation of sand that the Randian waters, much more than the Christian tide, could wash away before too long.

So they are going back to Saul Alinsky's playbook--ridiculing the top dog to weaken said dog's influence. And when a junkyard dog with the reach of Maher goes on the attack, you know the top dog is biting, not just barking.

I do hope you go to the link and watch the video. It's a hoot to see Bill Maher looking down his nose and mispronouncing Ayn as Ann, not just once, but several times. He wasn't trying to be funny, either. He honestly doesn't know the difference. (And that makes me wonder just how familiar he is with her works.)

Maher most likely won't read this, but I have a message for him.

Hey, Bill.

If you want to bash a lady on national TV from an intellectually superior snooty pose, shouldn't you at least know how to pronounce her name? After all, her name has only been in the mainstream since the 1940's...

Tsk, tsk, tsk...

Michael

[Kyle Jacob Biodrowski]

What's with the use of ad hominems against Rand? Can they not manage a single, honest, informed critique? Or is it they think ad hominem is the best tactic to dismiss Rand? Or is it both?

Good publicity, anyway.

[Dglgmut]

Fear is one of the top two motivations for actions... the question is, how do you deal with it in another person? Do you mock their fear? It's hard to change people's minds if your goal is not first and foremost to help them; but that means making a conscious effort to understand them.

People mock Ayn Rand and her supporters all the time; people say she's not a philosopher at all. This is the laziest attempt to "help" others realize that Rand was wrong--but if someone was going to make an honest effort, they would have to discover the truth behind her philosophy and why it appeals to people.

If the employment of these lazy tactics doesn't work on you, then perhaps there's a better way to go about in your own efforts to find agreement.

Michael, you might like this video:

I didn't mean this as a criticism; just a thought about the popularity of Bill Maher's method of argumentation.

[dennislmay]

Fear is one of the top two motivations for actions... the question is, how do you deal with it in another person? Do you mock their fear? It's hard to change people's minds if your goal is not first and foremost to help them; but that means making a conscious effort to understand them.

People mock Ayn Rand and her supporters all the time; people say she's not a philosopher at all. This is the laziest attempt to "help" others realize that Rand was wrong--but if someone was going to make an honest effort, they would have to discover the truth behind her philosophy and why it appeals to people.

If the employment of these lazy tactics doesn't work on you, then perhaps there's a better way to go about in your own efforts to find agreement.

Michael, you might like this video:

I didn't mean this as a criticism; just a thought about the popularity of Bill Maher's method of argumentation.

I did not hear much in the presentation about how few people have a logical integrated world-view, many don't have the analytical minds and/or education to understand logical arguments, and many people with logical skills and education have compartmentalized views on some subjects that are not subject to logical discussion [religion-economics-politics]. The last point seems his main contention that the compartments [modules] are not in fact closed. The degree of closure seems to vary widely but in my experience is very real - if integrated thinking is not achieved in youth it is unlikely it ever will be.

Dennis

[Dglgmut]

I think of it as a person in a car, and argument is an attempt to get them into another car. They're not going to get up, and walk into another car, they're comfortable sitting right where they are. But that doesn't mean that they aren't willing to change the headlights, or the bumper, or the muffler... and once they've changed enough small things, it makes more and more sense to change more important or bigger parts of the car, until eventually it is a whole new car.

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

Calvin,

I tried to watch the video, but only got halfway through it (about 8 minutes or so).

I disagree with the guy's premise, not because he is not in the ball-park, but because he leaves out so much.

And he drones on, in between bouts of a robotic TTS voice reading his book out loud.

And then he tries to sell his stance as controversial.

And he drones on...

It's like me saying, "I know this will offend a lot of you chocolate ice-cream lovers, but only vanilla ice-cream exists." And then I go on treating vanilla and chocolate as if they were the only flavors of ice-cream that are, were and ever will be. Then I start showing you a drip-drip-drip technique where vanilla totally morphs a chocolate scoop into vanilla as I keep droning on about how controversial I am to chocolate ice-cream lovers.

I had to stop.

I don't know of anyone who considers close-mindedness as the be-all end-all of culture like he claims they do, to the extent he feels he has to debunk the very existence of it.

And rationality is only one element among several in persuasion. It may be the only valid element in logic, but it is only one element when dealing with how to make all those little human suckers out there keep in line.

Michael

[Dglgmut]

I did say you "might" like it, or find it interesting.

I still have to learn more about this Justificationism vs Critical-Rationalism thing... I think effectively communicating is important, but it seems to be about the hardest thing in the world.

Anyway, not to derail your thread...

I agree that most people are fundamentally fearful of Rand's premises, but I doubt they are fearful of her philosophy making any sort of impact--they are prone to treat facts passively unless those facts have some bearing on their temporal experience.

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

Calvin,

I was not able to resonate with your find. No biggie. If you got some value from it, that's fine.

You are correct about something. It's not Rand's name or her philosophy that is the fundamental issue. It's the idea that a small government republic, free markets, and high-end productive achievers do not need technocratic rulers or dictators, and can have a moral defense to boot. And this can be more than theory--it can be proven in practice.

This causes all kinds of havoc with the plans of the bad guys and it ends up trumping their victimization storytelling Trojan Horses for government power in the long run.

So they instinctively go after a person who they can call the source, as if by trying to discredit her, or mocking her philosophy, they will make the toxic ideas to their power schemes go away.

I smell fear when it gets to the level it is now. It's not just Maher. Every week I see at least one major Rand-bash in the mainstream news somewhere.

Michael

[dennislmay]

Calvin,

I was not able to resonate with your find. No biggie. If you got some value from it, that's fine.

You are correct about something. It's not Rand's name or her philosophy that is the fundamental issue. It's the idea that a small government republic, free markets, and high-end productive achievers do not need technocratic rulers or dictators, and can have a moral defense to boot. And this can be more than theory--it can be proven in practice.

This causes all kinds of havoc with the plans of the bad guys and it ends up trumping their victimization storytelling Trojan Horses for government power in the long run.

So they instinctively go after a person who they can call the source, as if by trying to discredit her, or mocking her philosophy, they will make the toxic ideas to their power schemes go away.

I smell fear when it gets to the level it is now. It's not just Maher. Every week I see at least one major Rand-bash in the mainstream news somewhere.

Michael

I would like to see people showing up at public events wearing "Who is John Galt" t-shirts just to rub it in their faces that the Ponzi Schemes are about to collapse - and we know it. I have mine ready for just such an occasion.

Dennis

[Jerry Biggers]

What's with the use of ad hominems against Rand? Can they not manage a single, honest, informed critique? Or is it they think ad hominem is the best tactic to dismiss Rand? Or is it both?

Good publicity, anyway.

This type of attack against Rand in the media has been going on since 1957. An interesting exercise is comparing the early (1957 to 1968, for example), attacks with he ones since her name and works were brought to the forefront after Obama's first election and the rise of the Tea Party. Apparently, many of the Left's reviewers didn't go any further than looking up the early castigations, and copying those arguments. Why bother reading what Rand really said and trying to refute that, when using ad hominems and other misrepresentations, is so much easier?

The trouble with that line of attack is that it presupposes that all of their readers are idiots and believe everything that they are told, rather than examining Rand's writings for themselves. The vast increase in sales of her books in the last four years is evidence that people are not as gullible as the Mainstream Press wishes to believe. In fact, the increase in the strident virulence of these attacks (approaching the level of hysterical - in both senses of that word!), has most likely been one of the chief motivators in the public interest in Rand's works. Is she really that bad? Is her philosophy that evil? Are her novels "unreadable" (but then why are so many people reading them? When the curious do examine Atlas Shrugged - and find it is not at all what they have been told....

Here is a quote from Nathaniel Branden's essay in Who is Ayn Rand? (1962) on the Left's attacks on Rand after the publication of Atlas Shrugged in 1957.

"It is hard to say which is the more eloquent proof of its signal relevance to the crucial issues of our age: the widespread admiration and enthusiasm it has inspired – or the hysteria of the attacks unleashed against it. The nature of those attacks is an instructive index of the current intellectual condition of our culture.

Rand’s antagonists have unfailingly elected to pay her what is, perhaps, the greatest tribute one can offer to a thinker whom one opposes: they have all felt obliged to misrepresent her ideas in order to attack them.

No one has dared publicly to name the essential ideas of Atlas Shrugged and to attempt to refute them. No one has been willing to declare: “Ayn Rand holds that man must choose his own values and actions exclusively by reason, that man has the right to exist for his own sake, that no one has the right to seek values from others by physical force – and I consider such ideas wrong, evil, and socially dangerous.”

Rand’s opponents have found it preferable to debate with strawmen, to equate her philosophy with that of Spencer or Nietzsche or Spinoza or Hobbes and thus expose themselves to the charge of philosophic illiteracy – rather than identify and publicly argue against that for which Rand actually stands.

Were they discussing the ideas of an author whose work was not known to the general public, their motive would appear obvious. But it is a rather grotesque spectacle to witness men seemingly going through the motions of concealing from the public the ideas of an author whose readers number in the millions.

When one considers the careful precision with which Rand defines her terms and presents her ideas, and the painstaking manner in which each concept is concretized and illustrated – one will search in vain for a non-psychiatric explanation of the way in which her philosophy has been reported by antagonists. Allegedly describing her concept of rational self-interest, they report that Ayn Rand extols disregard for the rights of others, brutality, rapacity, doing whatever one feels like doing and general animal self-indulgence. This, evidently, is the only meaning they are able to give to the concept of self-interest. One can only conclude that this is how they conceive their own self-interest, which they altruistically and self-sacrificially renounce. Such a viewpoint tells one a great deal about the man who holds it – but nothing about the philosophy of Rand."

[studiodekadent]

What's with the use of ad hominems against Rand? Can they not manage a single, honest, informed critique? Or is it they think ad hominem is the best tactic to dismiss Rand? Or is it both?

Good publicity, anyway.

First, many of Rand's haters haven't read her. They go on out-of-context exerpts and regurgitated stereotypes (or, unfortunately, on negative experiences with Orthodox Randians). It is disturbingly rare to find a Rand critic that has really read her and practiced proper interpretive charity. And typically, those that DO will not be anywhere NEAR as vitriolic or vicious as those that haven't.

Second, Rand makes many points that, when calmly explained, even a lot of leftists agree with, especially counterculture leftists. Representing her honestly thus weakens the conviction of many leftists, so the left's intellectual leaders often have an incentive to avoid honest representation.

So the intellectual dishonesty is utterly rife. It is driven by a desire to "contain" the "poison" - the goal is to obfuscate what Objectivism argues.

Look at how often discussions of Objectivism are derailed into discussions of Ayn Rand's personality. Because if you talk about Rand's personality you can avoid confronting her ideas. Allegations of alleged hypocrisy (like "she paid taxes!" or "she took social security!") allow people to avoid confronting her ideas. Discussing nasty behavior of online Randroids allows people to dodge the bullet and not talk about what Rand argued.

The less that people actually discuss Objectivism, the better for Objectivism's enemies. They deliberately cultivate ignorance and stereotypes to avoid having to substantively deal with Objectivism's arguments.

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

Here is an oddity.

The Maher video was posted on TheBlaze: BILL MAHER BASHES RAND PAUL & PAUL RYAN FOR ‘RUINING LIBERTARIANISM’

With 4 pages of comments so far, I am the only one who mentioned Ayn Rand.

Given how much Maher talked about her in the video, this avoidance speaks volumes. That is, if the commenters are more than sock-puppets for different groups with agendas (which I believe most are).

Michael

[Jonathan]

Mayer seems to believe that libertarianism used to be a form of socialism, and he liked it back then, but then the Rands, Ryans and Pauls went and changed it. He seems to be just now discovering what libertarianism actually is, and is too stupid to realize that he didn't know what it was when he thought that he liked it.

J

[Selene]

Folks:

This intellectual struggle between the completely ineffective libertarian party, and, the, apparently, ineffective Republican party fascinates me.

There is a disconnect between the effete arrogant folks in the inept libertarian party and the inept folks in the Republican party because neither of them are advancing a persuasive rhetorical argument that has a chance in hell of effecting a positive response from the emerging voting blocs in America.

A...

[dennislmay]

Folks:

This intellectual struggle between the completely ineffective libertarian party, and, the, apparently, ineffective Republican party fascinates me.

There is a disconnect between the effete arrogant folks in the inept libertarian party and the inept folks in the Republican party because neither of them are advancing a persuasive rhetorical argument that has a chance in hell of effecting a positive response from the emerging voting blocs in America.

A...

Both the Libertarian Party and the Republican Party are fully infiltrated - the Libertarian Party with socialists and the Republican Party with Progressives. The libertarians in the Republican Party who are not socialists are in good company with the Tea Party. At some point either the Republican Party has to be taken over by the Tea Party types or it needs to go away and be replaced by the Tea Party. The Libertarian Party is so damaged I don't see it recovering with the same name.

Dennis

[Mike82ARP]

Don’t feel bad, Maher does the same against Christianity. He presents caricatures as reality, then ridicules them all the while his brain dead audience laughs. I’d really like to see him do that with Islam, the religion that wants to wipe out what I will loosely call "his people”.

He's got a face for radio.

Sorry for the ad hominem, but it makes me feel good once in a while.

[Frediano]

Maher is too much the marketeer, and thinks he can have it both ways.

It is not possible to simultaneously be an advocate for free association and forced association at the same time. You are either an advocate of one or the other.

If Bill Maher wants to ridicule advocacy of free association, he can't do so without embracing forced association.

He should educate us all on why we should respect his advocacy of forced association, and eschew free association. Then he should tell us who in hs worldview gets to be the Emperor of Forced Association, and we can try and keep a straight face. He should like that, he is paid to be funny.

We know the difference between rape and an act of love between two people; it is the element of free vs. forced association. The Mahers of the world need to explain why that which makes rape 'rape' should be embraced in our politics-- in our ssystems of dealing with each other as peers living in freedom.

If not, then he should explain his advocacy of a non-peer, elite ruling subjects model of forced association, and why any sane person would ever march behind a fasces that embraces rape as a fundamental part of its ethics.

If he can't do that, the what follows from embracing free association is libertarianism and a model of interaction based on peers living in freedom.

Or, he can snicker at Ayn Rand, and explain why when teenagers grow up they demonstrate that by embracing that which makes rape 'rape' in their politics.

[Kyle Jacob Biodrowski]

Maher is too much the marketeer, and thinks he can have it both ways.

It is not possible to simultaneously be an advocate for free association and forced association at the same time. You are either an advocate of one or the other.

If Bill Maher wants to ridicule advocacy of free association, he can't do so without embracing forced association.

He should educate us all on why we should respect his advocacy of forced association, and eschew free association. Then he should tell us who in hs worldview gets to be the Emperor of Forced Association, and we can try and keep a straight face. He should like that, he is paid to be funny.

We know the difference between rape and an act of love between two people; it is the element of free vs. forced association. The Mahers of the world need to explain why that which makes rape 'rape' should be embraced in our politics-- in our ssystems of dealing with each other as peers living in freedom.

If not, then he should explain his advocacy of a non-peer, elite ruling subjects model of forced association, and why any sane person would ever march behind a fasces that embraces rape as a fundamental part of its ethics.

If he can't do that, the what follows from embracing free association is libertarianism and a model of interaction based on peers living in freedom.

Or, he can snicker at Ayn Rand, and explain why when teenagers grow up they demonstrate that by embracing that which makes rape 'rape' in their politics.

Fred, If I could, I'd "sanction" this post.

Thanks for reiterating the basics. Focusing on the fundamentals makes these issues (and most issues) much clearer.

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

There's actually another fundamental.

Maher paid to play.

He's got a cool million sunk into Obama.

Michael

[Kyle Jacob Biodrowski]

Michael,

Skin in the game, huh?

Well, his costs are sunk. No turning back now; full steam ahead!

Have you ever seen a steam-boat sail off a cliff? I've heard Maher does a good impression.