The Split - Fatal for America?

[Selene]

Coates, #17: "If someone were to challenge every one of my fundamental ideas in how to think, how to live, what kind of politics I hold, even the very nature of reality itself, I am likely to instantly dismiss him or her as a complete wacko. A nut job."

Yes, but this is not where Rand stood in relation to the academic mainstream of 50 years ago. She was promoting ontological realism, ethical naturalism, egoism and individualist politics. None of these was new or shocking to a trained philosopher. Naturalism was out of fashion, though it was just beginning to come back, and political individualism was not so much academically out of fashion as out of fashion among academics. Her insistence on the practical importance of philosophy was more bizarre than any particular position of hers, but even this would not have been enough to explain her academic rejection. For this you have to look elsewhere than the content of her ideas, e.g. to the factors I mentioned in #12.

(Nietzsche and the Existentialists were not mainstream, English-speaking twentieth-century academics.)

Reidy:

"Her insistence on the practical importance of philosophy was more bizarre than any particular position of hers, but even this would not have been enough to explain her academic rejection."

Can you develop this point please.

Adam

[Reidy]

Mainstream, English-speaking philosophy has insisted otherwise for nearly a century. Rand's talk of the practical importance of philosophy would have surprised these people more than her specific doctrines. A credentialed academic making this point in an article in Metaphilosophy would have raised a few eyebrows but would have gotten a courteous reception.

Edited August 17, 2009 by Reidy

[Philip Coates]

> She was promoting ontological realism, ethical naturalism, egoism and individualist politics. None of these was new or shocking to a trained philosopher.

Yes, they certainly were! Not only individually, but especially when put together into a "system". Rand's *particular combination or formulation* of those doctrines seemed and still seems ludicrous to professional philosophers:

Just taking one element, egoism. Yes, Nietzsche has gained a foothold and respect. But -rational- egoism is not even close to his irrationalist, openly lust for power-ridden form. And you left out Rand's 'rationalism', her advocacy of reason in a deeper way than the word games of the analysts. On the deepest level of all, the idea that reason is a tool for certainty about reality on every level seems naive, nutty, absurd to every philosopher I've taken a course with, the histories of philosophy I've seen, the journals I've browsed. Whenever you ask a professional philosopher his view of Rand, almost universally you hear something like this: "Rand is an amateur, a novelist purporting to be a philosopher. She's a lunatic or at best naive and out of her depth."

So, yes, their contempt for her whole approach (not least her passionate certainty and "system building" in a doubtful age) is indeed a strong enough cause for them never to have seriously read or assigned or grappled with her. Her being non-insulting wouldn't have gotten her taken seriously twenty, thirty, or fifty years before now. And won't for a long time hence.

If you don't agree on this, consider the whole of intellectual history with regard to the acceptance of radically new or disruptive ideas. Peter and others with an academic bent or profession, do not make the mistake of treating academic philosophers as a group as being enormously more enlightened or objective or intellectually powerful - or welcoming of having their lifelong ideas overturned - than academics in most other areas of the humanities these days. Or human beings in general.

The good minds in every field are an exception.

[Selene]

Phil:

Out of curiosity...

who do you admire that is alive today?

Adam

[Philip Coates]

Adam, that would be a huge list. Why don't you start another thread for that? This one already has too many subtopics.

For me, as long as they don't have to be perfect, they would come form the arts, writing, politics, sports, drama, movie-making.... Not so much from the academic world of the humanities. That is a realm which is deeply flawed, for all the reasons Rand, Peikoff, Kelley, and even non-Oist academics themselves have pointed out.

[Reidy]

Either your luck with academics has been especially bad or mine has been especially good. Some philosophers react to Rand as you describe, though fewer than when I was in school some decades ago. A few take her seriously. Most go about their jobs as best they can without giving her a lot of thought.

I wasn't thinking of Nietzsche so much as of Aristotle or Spinoza. Nobody 50 years ago or today could get a Ph.D. without some acquaintance with their ethical theories.

I wouldn't say that academic philosophers are "enormously more enlightened or objective or intellectually powerful - or welcoming of having their lifelong ideas overturned," but I would say that they know more about philosophy and that they love the give and take of good-mannered argumentation.

[Selene]

Either your luck with academics has been especially bad or mine has been especially good. Some philosophers react to Rand as you describe, though fewer than when I was in school some decades ago. A few take her seriously. Most go about their jobs as best they can without giving her a lot of thought.

I wasn't thinking of Nietzsche so much as of Aristotle or Spinoza. Nobody 50 years ago or today could get a Ph.D. without some acquaintance with their ethical theories.

I wouldn't say that academic philosophers are "enormously more enlightened or objective or intellectually powerful - or welcoming of having their lifelong ideas overturned," but I would say that they know more about philosophy and that they love the give and take of good-mannered argumentation.

Reidy:

The academic walls I referred to were from 1966-1971 when I was teaching. The Department I was in had just brought in what I would refer to today as a cross over or hybrid - an Aristotelian philosophy expert with a behavioral/Skinnerian spin.

As I mentioned to him over breakfast one morning, I think Aristotle called it knowing the "common sense" and you want to call it audience analysis Larry, I don't think it is that big a deal. He laughed and agreed. Audience analysis and content analysis was super big then. It has its uses.

Adam

[Philip Coates]

> Either your luck with academics has been especially bad or mine has been especially good.

It's possible that things have changed somewhat. But on the other hand:

1. Some of the more virulent academic reactions are still as recent as this month, the Times article on BB&T [and,yes that is the Times, but one still sees / runs across / can google this sort of thing very frequently]:

(") “To describe her as a minor figure in the history of philosophical thinking about knowledge and reality would be a wild overstatement,” says Brian Leiter, director of the Center for Law, Philosophy and Human Values at the University of Chicago. “She’s irrelevant.” Professor Leiter conducted an informal poll in March on his philosophy blog, asking, “Which person do you most wish the media would stop referring to as a ‘philosopher’?” The choices were Jacques Derrida, Ms. Rand and Leo Strauss. Ms. Rand won by a landslide, with 75 percent of the roughly 1,500 votes cast. Professor Leiter says Ms. Rand’s views on moral philosophy and objective reality are “simple-minded in the extreme.” “She doesn’t understand the historical positions of thinkers on these issues, such as Hume and Kant,” he says. “Even the minority of philosophers with some sympathy for her celebration of the virtues of selfishness usually find her general philosophical system embarrassing.” (")

2. The Commanding Heights: The openness to Rand seems to be on the lower levels of academe, less prestigious schools, people who are not famed or listened to in their field. The law of averages is such that *someone* somewhere has got to take Rand seriously in some context. But, unless I missed hearing about it, it's not at Harvard or Yale or Stanford. Or, as we see above, at Chicago. You are not seeing Rand getting in the major encyclopedias, or not being clearly understood there.

Gotthelf and Lennox are apparently respected and maybe even influential. But it's for their work on Aristotle.

Getting a book about Rand published by Cambridge is a very big deal and very new...or the Wadsworth thing. But the reason we were so excited is that any slightest crack in the "commanding heights" intellectually is only just that, a slight sliver of daylight amid a ten thousand strong professoriat of darkness spread across the English-speaking world.

Notice also that Tara Smith is basically unique in being tenured, a full professor who is an Objectivist at a major school. Well, Texas is still not HYP or S or C again, but is important in philosophy. The others are like visiting profs. Or adjuncts. And BB&T has to pay the schools to give them temporary, very temporary slots.

I'm waiting to hear that Smith's books are being -widely- discussed by major academics at major schools. Not just like one review from someone at a Catholic college (Notre Dame).

[RightJungle]

To Barbara and all of the contributers to this forum topic,

I didn't know about TOC's approaching ARI. I'm glad you told me about that. Craig Biddle is on my favorite people list because of his announcement that TOC is going to enter the current events fray with a vengeance. We are going to need every able minded person available for that. I tend to wander a lot through stacks of books and on the internet, but I don't think that I would have recognized Tara Smith without having read her article on Pragmatism in TOC. I've gotten "Moral Rights and Political Freedom" under my belt. It took awhile - not a hard read, but slow because of the need to stop and really think about the last three sentences you've read. When you have to do that several times on each page, the going gets mighty slooooow. Don't you just love the concept of eudaimonia?

What made the journey worth it is that about 50 pages into the book I began to suspect that this book contains the solution to our politial and economic crisis. Do you remember how Ayn Rand described the hierarchical nature of learning? Branden's lectures and Rands books already covered the subject that Tara addresses in this book, but that knowledge building process and Tara's treatment of the subject had to happen before I got it.

But I digress. Back to saving the country. Do true blue Objectivists write letters to their congressmen? I do. Imagine being Senator Grassley and getting a letter that begins with, "The reason Americans hold their individual rights so dear is because those rights protect our freedom, and it is the obligation of every citizen in this country to respect the rights of every other citizen." If you ask me, that says it all. I add more to the letters of course, explaining how the bill to which I'm currently objecting violates those rights and threatens that freedom. I don't confuse the issue by pointing out that the principles in that sentence apply to every human being on the planet. The ideas surrounding globalization don't need to be stirred up by bringing that into the discussion. The beauty of grasping the principle of the thing is that your letters can be very short. I hope someone will comment on this because to tell you the truth, I don't know if my words are falling on deaf ears or not.

So I trust that you will understand why I think Tara's book is so important.

Sometime back, Nathaniel Branden put out a query to his newsletter list asking what we would like him to discuss next. I told him that my current number one issue is our nation's crisis. The next thing you know, he sends out the announcement that his "Basic Principles of Objectivism" lectures are being published. I thought, "Well, that's a perfect answer." I'm ready to make good use of it.

Paying attention to Rand's (and Rudyard Kipling's) admonitions about not letting thought be your aim, I am proposing these action items to save the nation:

1) Straight from the final pages of Atlas Shrugged comes an amendment to our constitution that reads, "The congress shall make no law abridging the freedom of production and trade.." The Execute branch will issue no presidential directives that abridge the freedom of production and trade. I added that last part just to cover the loop holes. Then, we will use the method for amending the constitution that has never been used before, that is the states can get the job done without Congress having to approve it. The states are starting to take a stand against the outrageous behavior of the federal government.

2) Now that Congress has no power over the economy, the lobbyists will all vacate Washington D.C. and it is time to start rolling back all of the laws that now prove to be unconstitutional, starting with the Sherman Anti-Trust Act.

3) Abolish the IRS.

4) Get someone who knows more about economics than I do (George Reisman?) to figure out how to close down the Federal Reserve and get our money and banking system back to a moral basis.

5) Invite ideas from some of the charities out there to come up with a good idea and a timeline for moving people off of welfare and into charity organizations that our citizens who are no longer paying ransom to the government will be absolutely delighted to help support.

6) Take a look at our immigration laws and make sure that the only people who are invited to become citizens understand our government and are willing to learn the fundamental principles that make freedom possible.

7) Stand back and thumb our noses at the critics of Objectivism who still just don't get it.

8) Guess number 7 means pivatizing education so we can get rid of the ex-terrorists who have become college professors. But now I'm getting personal.

Not an exhaustive list of actions led by a little thought, but a start don't you think? Couple ideas like this with all of the education on how to be free and eudaimoniac individuals in all of the publications available, and I think we have a good chance of getting the job done. Of course, if any one has any ideas about how to actually execute these action items, I am all ears. If you have a better more complete list let me know that, too.

My next personal project is going to be to take what I've learned from all mentioned here and others who have published books and articles and lay out a serious justifiable to do list for myself that will map out how to get from this place to the free country in which I want to reside (without violating anyone's rights). Sounds like a piece of that cake that you can't have and eat it, too.

One last issue before I head in to "knit up the ravelled sleeve of care". Leadership. I read somewhere, maybe on this forum that Objectivists don't need leaders because they think for themselves and trust no one's judgement but their own. I spent years managing IT projects and I was working with some of the brightest, most ethical people you can imagine, but every project needed a leader. Can you tell me what is wrong with my thinking that leadership is needed to accomplish goals even with the most consistent Objectivists? Feel free to get tough here, because this looks like a pretty important issue.

Thank you all for the information and clarifications that you have provided on this forum topic. Barbara, if you are sitting there seriously considering sending me a complmentary copy of "Efficient Thinking", I promise, I'm going to be o.k. Next time around I will try to match your focus on the subject at hand a little better.

Mary Lee

Edited August 29, 2009 by Mary Lee Harsha

[Selene]

Mary Lee:

Apropos post.

First, a real hard copy letter is a serious event in a legislator's office. So you are right as to that as a stratagem. However, it is expandable. If you hand wrote 535 terse letter that are simple and on point it would have a huge effect.

If you wish to add that you have several friends, relatives and business associates in their Congressional District and they are networking with you to oppose x y or z.

Furthermore, you should remind them that contributions can be made to his or her opponent whether you live in their district or not.

Hard copy shakes up legislators. I have been on the outside running the mailing campaign and on the inside deciding how to respond.

Your KISS principle is correct - keep it simple stupid - remember you are probably communicating with one of the stupidest person you have dealt with in any professional capacity in the last decade.

Just for accuracy, I believe that the direct election of the Senate and the Income tax amendment were by State Ratification.

I have a proposed piece of federal legislation named the Community Budgeting Act - it is a stealth bill because it sounds so "touchy feely" and it has an a b and c in it so it must be good.

Finally, I completely agree with you as to leadership. I listened to a Steve Forbes appearance for 15 minutes yesterday about a new book he has:

Business Visionaries

Summary: 'Power, Ambition, Glory'

06.16.09, 06:00 PM EDT <h2 class="storyDek">Steve Forbes and John Prevas' new book, ''Power, Ambition, Glory,'' blends historical figures and their modern parallels. </h2>

"The economic crisis underscores the importance of strong and effective leadership. That’s what makes

Power, Ambition, Glory

so relevant and informative. The book gives us insightful, inspiring and cautionary lessons of leadership through the extraordinary stories of six ancient leaders and a number of real-life, modern corporate CEOs. Readers will see a startling parallel between

Alfred Sloan

, the man who created the once-mighty

General Motors

, and Augustus Caesar; both saved and expanded empires that were subsequently destroyed by incompetent successors.

The parallels between ancient and modern leaders are fascinating, but their relevance is what brought

Steve Forbes

, chairman, CEO and editor-in-chief of Forbes Media, and adventure-seeking classics professor John Prevas together. Their extraordinary collaboration,

Power, Ambition, Glory: The Stunning Parallels between Great Leaders of The Ancient World and Today…And The Lessons You Can Learn

reveals that core elements of what it takes to be a successful leader have not changed since ancient times. In fact, similarities between those who directed the empires of the ancient world and many of today's corporate and political leadership are remarkable and informative. According to Forbes and Prevas, studying these ancient leaders will give us real-life lessons and examples that can make anyone in any type of leadership capacity more effective in guiding organizations and meeting personal responsibilities.

In

Power, Ambition, Glory

, Forbes and Prevas compare six great leaders of the ancient world with contemporary business leaders. What we find isn't a point-by-point set of rules that will guarantee success, but a little better perspective on where we are going today, how we will get there and what shape we will be in when we arrive. The lives of Cyrus, Xenophon, Alexander, Hannibal, Julius Caesar and Augustus contain some of the best and the worst examples of leadership. And, like many of today's corporations, the empires of Persia, Greece, Carthage, and Rome spanned continents and affected, for better or worse, the lives of millions."

You are definitely on the right track in terms of leadership, count me in. I have used many different management or leadership styles. Sometimes a group or team was in a state of such perfection. no one could even figure out who was leading because it did not matter.

Adam

[RightJungle]

One other thing regarding the hostility of our ivory tower philosophers toward Ayn Rand's hostility toward them. We need to remember her context. She had just left her family and a potential love interest behind in a country being eaten alive by BIG BAD IDEAS. For her, as it is for us today, her life was at stake, and a piece of it was lost in leaving everything behind to come to a new country. Imagine how she would have felt when she got here and found the same rats gnawing at the foundations of the USA that she thought she had escaped. To tell you the truth, I'm a little ticked off myself.

For years I've said that Aristotle said that a man must have lived before he could philosophize, and Ayn Rand said that a man must philosophize in order to live.

When I go to the Springer Philosophical Articles pages and try to find the important ideas there, I have to admit that most of it is gobbelygook to me. I have no idea what can make anything that incomprehensible available to me, the layman in the room. Technology makes science available to me in a graspable form. What do our ivory tower philosphers actually have to offer us if we can't make use of it on some level?

Ayn Rand appeals to the young and the young at heart because she makes big ideas comprehensible. Branden's lectures expanded on that in such a perfectly clear way that only a deliberately obtuse person would declare these people to be irrelevant or naive. Rand was fond of saying that we needn't bother to examine a folly, just ask what it accomplishes. Once you understand the principles of objectivism, you can do that pretty quickly. Of course, to do so you still need to give it a cursory once over - like - read the bill.

We're about to lose our country. If we are going to keep it we had better be able to understand philosphy. I'm counting on philosophers like Tara Smith to help with that.

[SteveWolfer]

I believe Rand's exclusion from Academia is best seen as psychological - even though the underlying cause is philosophical.

Look at the way that she is excluded: the heat, the emotionalism, the personal attacks, the ridicule. You don't have to peer deeply between the lines to read the emotional content. Now, compare that with the disagreements aired between academics... There is no end of bickering, feuding, and squabbling in the academy. But there is a big difference - they don't exclude each other. An unstated foundation of their arguments is that the other has a right to his stupid opinion and to the continuation of his tenure and should be allowed to continue to teach his mistaken theories. Not Rand. With her the strongest and most prevalent component to objections to Objectivism - stated or between the lines - is she does not belong - she can not join us - she must not even be seen as like us.

The philosophical premise in Objectivism that lies under their emotional reaction and its focus on exclusion is the call for moral judgment and certainty. That isn't welcome in our institutions of higher learning if it means professors will be judged on their ideas. Rand's very style - written and spoken - conveyed the message, "I am certain." Relativism (and subjectivism) are seen as part of the campus environment, like the air they breath. And they ask their proponents to speak in softer voices. This soft-spoken relativism and ideological diversity lets them teach what they want and only have to observe the current PC rules and not run afoul of assorted faculty politics. They'll never need to rise to a higher level of personal intellectual responsibility.

Peter mentioned "Her insistence on the practical importance of philosophy..." That is right on target. To be practical is to anchor one's self to reality and not just air floating abstractions that will never run the risk of being proven right or wrong, much less having actual consequences to ones wrongness.

It is just fine that one professor can teach 2 + 2 = 5 and another teach that it equals 6. They can critize each other, denounce each other (up to a point) and measure their lists of published journal articles to see who is bigger. But they don't have to change or acknowledge error - it's all relative. Until someone says this is a practical matter, it is to be applied, the results will show, and judgments will be made.