The thread for flames about Ayn Rand

The BBQ Pit
1

Well, Chronos closed Muad’dib’s thread about Rand over in GQ, saying to keep flamefests out of that forum. I thought that was unnecessary, since there were a number of informative answers being posted. You don’t have to close down a legitimate thread just because its attracting flamers, do you?

Anyway, we can flame all we want over here, I assume.

Muad’dib was asking, reasonably enough, why Rand hated libertarianism, given that most libertarians love her books. A number of reasonable hypotheses were propounded. Sam Stone said it was a result of Rand’s “poisonous personality” rather than any actual philosophical difference. I said it was because Rand thought libertarians didn’t arrive at non-coercive principles through reason and logic. Maeglin said that Rand disapproved of libertarians’ basically tolerant attitude. I think each of these statements contains a component of the truth.

What I refrained from saying over in GQ, but may as well state here, is that it is unbelievably stupid (and illogical) for Randians to declare their disdain for libertarians, because whether they choose to admit it or not, Randians are a subset of libertarians. Libertarianism, by definition, consists of only one principle: an ethical rejection of the initiation of force or fraud.* And rejecting the initiation of force or fraud is one of the core tenets of Randian ethics. Anyone who has embraced the tenets of Randian “objectivism” has embraced the sole necessary and sufficient condition for being a libertarian. It’s simple set theory, folks; one would have thought philosophers who so prided themselves on their unswerving devotion to logic would have grasped it.

The Randians may perhaps have good reason for considering their philosophy superior to Hayek’s, or Rothbard’s, or other libertarians’. But that has nothing whatsoever to do with the question of whether the Randians themselves are libertarians.

*Yes, I know “force,” “fraud,” and “initiation” are slippery, abstract words, and it’s damn near impossible to get people to agree on how to apply them in practice. Libertarians are always excommunicating each other because one accepts a practice the other regards as an initiation of force or fraud. Big deal; the libertarians agree on the principle, even if they never agree on how to apply it.

2

Not a rant, sorry.

One thing I’ve noticed among a lot of political organizations is that groups that are “like us, but not quite” get treated with far more vitriol than groups that are diametrically opposed. Kind of like the Judean People’s Front vs. the Popular Front of Judea.

Anecdotal evidence: There was a far-right student organization at Harvard back in the early 90’s (no idea if they still exist) called AALARM (Association Against Learning in the Absence of Religion and Morality) which was closely associated with a magazine called The Peninsula. They would run their standard articles against liberals, homosexuals, atheists, etc., but their truly vicious, personal attacks were saved up for a small group that had splinted off from the Republican Student Association.

–sublight.

3

Here’s a rant: Ayn Rand is an incredibly boring writer. I want my 4 hours back for “We The Living.” Blah blah blah getting run over by tram-cakes / being oppressed by communists-cakes. feh.

4

Ayn Rand’s a bitch
She’s a big fat bitch
She’s the biggest fattest bitch in the whole wide world
She’s a stupid bitch if there ever was a bitch
She’s a bitch to all the boys and girls
On Monday she’s a bitch
On Tuesday she’s a bitch
On Wednesday through Saturday she’s a bitch
Then on Sunday, just to be different, she’s a
king kamayamayama beeeeotch

Everybody, now…

5

I hope I can find it before the end of the day, but just in case, my friend and I used to write for an online humor magazine and we wrote a feature called: Ayn Rants and it was basically new titles for varous Ayn Rand books. Our favorite was:

Atlas Shrugged, And Then Fell Asleep From Boredom

6

(All together, now)

SPLITTERS!!!

7

There’s a pretty decent book out called “The Ayn Rand Cult” by Jeff Walker. Although he’s clearly biased (and it shows in his writing), he does make some good points, and the research was well-done.
Oh, yeah, I hate the bitch too.

8

**

Well let’s start from the beginning. Objectivism is a philosophy while libertarianism is not. Also Objectivism was around years before the Libertarian Party was founded in 1971.

**

You need to make up your mind here. If by adopting Objectivism one automatically becomes a Libertarian then it is in fact Libertarians that are a subset of Objectivism. Believe it or not one can adopt the no initiation of force or fraud without becoming an Objectivist. The core tenants of Objectivism are metaphysics; objective reality, epistemology; reason, ethics; self interest, politics; capitalism. The fraud/force thing is not one of the foundations of Objectivism but as you pointed out it is the entire foundation for the Libertarian party.

In short Libertarians pull the force thing out of their asses while Objectivism base it on things like reason, self interest, and reality. Oh, and Libertarianism is not a philosophy.

Marc

9

Correct.

Correct again, but not relevant. The Libertarian Party is an organization of libertarians, but libertarians were around long before the LP. A lot of libertarians think the LP is a waste of time or even that the very concept of political parties is repugnant to libertarianism.

At any rate, the question is not which of the two is older, but whether Randians are libertarians.

Check your premises, bro. :wink: You got that exactly backwards. If all Randians are libertarians, but not all libertarians are Randians, then the Randians are a subset of libertarians. If set A contains all the elements of set B, but set B does not contain all the members of set A, then set B is a subset of set A.

You are, of course, correct that you can adopt the non-initiation tenet without becoming an Objectivist. That exactly is what proves my point. There are libertarians who are not Objectivists (i.e. many libertarians don’t accept Objectivist epistemology, metaphysics, smoking, etc.), but no Objectivists who are not libertarians (i.e. there are no Objectivists who reject the non-initiation principle).

Some libertarians may indeed “pull the force thing out of their asses”; others base the non-initiation principle on reason and logic also, but disagree with some other elements of Objectivism. Libertarianism describes anyoone with a non-initiation principle, regardless of whether they have a reason or not, and regardless of whether any reason they may have is sound or not.

10

**

But not all Objectivist are Libertarians. And besides the you already agreed that Libertarianism is not a philosophy. On the other hand, Objectivism, is a philosophical system so how can a philosophy be a subset of something that isn’t a philosophy?

**

You’re treating Libertarianism as a philosophy again when it is not. What you’re saying is that anyone who believes in the non-initiation of force is a Libertarian regardless of any other belief.

So all Catholic Priest are Libertarians? If that belief is all it takes to be a Libertarian then they must be the most popular party in the US.

Marc

11

well, I see this has grown into a serious discussion, but just in case anyone still hates Ayn Rand, you can see the “Ayn Rants” piece at my live journal

jarbaby

12

Back up a second - why isn’t libertarianism a philosophy?

13

Regardless of her philosophy, the bitch couldn’t write. Her charachers were two dimmensional, her plots contrived, and and her style had all the subtlety of a syphlitic hippo. The entire plot of Atlas Shrugged can be summed up in two sentences “If you’re not gonna play nice, I’m gonna to take my toys and go hide in a hole. Then you’ll be sorry!”

I want back those hours I wasted reading that piece of amoebic dysentery.
-Beeblebrox

“That young girl is one of the least benightedly unintelligent organic life forms it has been my profound lack of pleasure not to be able to avoid meeting.”

14

I suppose you knew her personally then huh? I can’t stand Marx, and plenty of other writers that I’ve read in my life, couldn’t stand what they wrote about, how they wrote it. I can’t stand Shakespeare or the Beatles but you don’t see me going around calling them assholes or fuck wads or cock mongrals whenever someone brings up their name now do you? Why the hell do people even bother wasting their time thinking about something they don’t like in the first place?

15

Goddamit - where’s arl?

pan

16

**

On the contrary, all Objectivists are libertarians, at least if they follow Rand’s force-or-fraud dictum. (I suppose it is debatable how many of Rand’s principles you can reject and still be called an “Objectivist”). The set of people who reject initiation of force and fraud includes the set of people who subscribe to Rand’s chief philosophical principles.

The fact that libertarianism is not a philosophy is irrelevant; libertarianism is a belief or tenet that can be included in a philosophy. It is included in Randian philosophy, and in some other philosophies, and is held by some people who have no philosophy at all.

Let me clarify by analogy. Atheism, I hope you will agree, is not a philosophy either; it is not even a belief. It is simply the absence of the belief in a god. Clearly, all Randians (defining Randian as those who adhere to Rand’s chief philosophical conclusions) are atheists. Clearly, not all atheists are Randians; some atheists are Marxist communists, some are followers of Bertrand Russell, some are existentialists and still others have a home-brewed philosophy or no philosophy at all, none of the foregoing being Randians. Thus Randians are a subset of the set of atheists, even though atheism is not a philosophy.

Therefore, it would be silly for Randians to rail against atheists in general, when they themselves are atheists. They may be well justified in criticizing atheists who reject the idea of god for irrational or emotional reasons, but then they would be attacking is the irrationality and emotionalism, not the atheism itself, which they share. By the same token, it is silly for Randians to rail against libertarians in general, when they themselves are libertarians, by the only criterion there is for being a libertarian (rejection of initiating force or fraud).

**

That exactly is what I’m saying (though I’d use the small “l” for libertarian; Libertarian connotes "member of the Libertarian Party, which not all libertarians are).

I’m confused by that statement. Are you saying that Catholic priests universally subscribe to non-initiation of force? I seriously doubt that. Catholic priests are supposed to believe in the Bible, and in the justice of a God who gives orders like, “But of the cities of these people, which the Lord thy God doth give thee for an inheritance, thou shalt save alive nothing that breatheth: But thou shalt utterly destroy them; namely, the Hittites, and the Amorites, the Canaanites, and the Perizzites, the Hivites, and the Jebusites; as the LORD thy God hath commanded thee” (Deut. 20:16-17). In Catholic doctrine (and any other Christian doctrine I know of), if God orders you to initiate force, which He apparently does quite frequently, that’s supposed to be good. Throughout history, Catholic priests have endorsed many kinds of initiation of violence, from witch-burning to the Inquisition to the Crusades, and would not have been the least bit troubled at being reminded that they were initiating violence; their doctrines taught them no scruples against initiating force if the Lord commanded it. And there are still many Catholic priests today who defend the Church’s historical actions. So I see no basis for declaring that all (or even most) Catholic priests are libertarians.

17

I suggest that anyone who wants to flame Ayn Rand read jarbaby’s rants. Some of them are quite amusing. (Although I am quite puzzled by the innuendoes that she was undersexed; my understanding was that she was getting it quite regularly both from Frank O’Connor and Nathaniel Branden). I’m depressed by the lack of imagination of the flamers so far. “Bitch” is the most imaginative thing anyone can come up with?

I’m not going to flame Rand myself, because I do in fact admire her philosophy, and learned much from it. Regrettable that the woman herself was not so admirable.

18

Olentzero, you are as right as can be.

I can’t believe so many people are interested in the bitchy worthless lifestyle presented by this untalented, weepy woman who was walked on all of her life. She’s the worst objectivist that’s ever lived!

I sorta see her point about socialist ideas leading to lack of individuality and a sort of overall grayness, but imagine the opposite! Instead of a society in which everyone thoughtlessly toils for each other and doesn’t acknowledge that there is an “I”, how about her ideas taken all the way. A society in which people do not acknowledge that there is any form of “we”, and live their lives trying to be all powerful and self-centered. How the hell is that any better?

Shit. She just pisses me off.

LC

19

I think the sex rants were a knee jerk ‘old crank’ reaction to crabby women supposedly needing more sex, and of course, I didn’t write all of them…so the bad ones we can credit to someone else. :smiley:

jarbaby

20

Yes. She was my mother.