[extropy-chat] Rand

[Technotranscendence]

On Wednesday, November 17, 2004 2:07 AM Al Brooks kerry_prez at yahoo.com
wrote:
> I don't know what it is in the realms outside
> science you wish to discuss yet, for what
> it's worth, don't Rand's admirers have an
> emotional attachment to her works?

No doubt, many of them do.  I do not -- at least not in the sense you
mean.  Instead, I see her as an important thinker with some very useful
and some true ideas.  (This means, for those incapable of reading
between the lines, that she also had some useless and false ideas too.
This is the same for every single thinker I've studied.  No one is
perfect and all require critical scrutiny -- not blind acceptance or
offhand rejection.)

> No doubt during the late 1950s- early '60s
> Rand was an important thinker but for
> otherwise rational readers to cling so
> doggedly to her beliefs up to this day
> strikes me as being somewhat irrational.

Therein lies a problem.  You seem to stating that Rand's ideas were true
or rational circa 1960, but not after.  I think it's bad policy to adopt
that sort of historicist approach to her (or any thinker or any idea).
Does this mean I believe following her beliefs in toto is rational?  No.
Instead, a critical thinker must look at her just as she or he would
look at any other thinker.  Ditto for Objectivism.  Consider it,
critically evaluate, but do not confuse it with some kind of all or
nothing choice.  (Randians follow her to the letter.  Many anti-Randian
follow _against_ her to the letter.  What is the difference between the
two?  Both are followers, the former in their admiration, the latter in
their rejection.)

> Like Nietzsche, Rand is an engrossing
> read however couldn't she be described
> as a romantic technocrat rather than as a
> rationalist?

Well, it depends on what you mean by the terms.  Rationalism means many
things inside philosophy, one of them being a sort of Cartesian
Rationalism (somewhat anachronistically: a priori reasoning), which Rand
railed was against.  If you just mean she used reason -- i.e., was
rational in common parlance -- then, if you understand her views on the
subject, there needn't be an antagonism between reason and Romanticism
or reason and passion.  In fact, others have argued that she was a
dialectical thinker -- as opposed to the dualism or monism we usually
see on this topic.  (See http://www.nyu.edu/projects/sciabarra/ for more
on the dialectical aspects in her thought.)

She did claim to be a Romanticist, though not of the sort that most
Romanticist might have agreed with.  Whether you agree with depends on
your agreeing with her view of Romanticism as essentially center on
moral ideals in art and human volition.  If that's a legit definition,
then it could be argued the she was a Romantic.  (In fact, she called
herself a Romantic-Realist -- meaning she believed moral ideals and
volition could be portrayed in a realistic setting -- as opposed to a
fantastic one.)  I think there's problems with her view of Romanticism
and I've voiced my opinion on this years ago.  See "Romanticism -- 
Beyond Rand" at:

http://www.freeradical.co.nz/content/34/34ust.php

and "Response to David C. Adams on Rand's View of Romanticism" at:

http://uweb.superlink.net/neptune/Adams.html

Of course, my views have changed somewhat since then, but I don't have
as much enthusiasm for the subject to take up the chore of writing and
publishing them.:)

"Technocrat" usually means an advocate of technocracy -- rule by
technical experts.  Rand doesn't argue for that anywhere in her
writings -- at least the ones I've read.  In fact, she's basically a
libertarian -- despite her not liking the term or other libertarian
thinkers -- minarchist when it comes to politics -- at least, she
advocated that kind of government -- one limited to protecting
individual rights and nothing else.  (However, some claim, including
yours truly, that anarchism is more consistent with her core beliefs.)

> Isn't this romanticism the attraction of
> Rand's thought? Her romanticization of
> industry and progress?

I think the first question can be answered in the affirmative for many
people, especially those who come to her fiction first.  (I was exposed
to her nonfiction first.  Reading a thousand page novel when I was 15
would've been a chore.:)  I believe it's a lot of the motifs in her
fiction, such as the lone hero against the world and her plotting that
draws a lot of people in.  Surely, some are drawn in by the situations,
which they find to resonate with theirs.  (This is a guess on my part.
If you already feel kind of like an outcast and an anti-traditionalist,
I believe she might appeal to you, especially since she presents you
with a whole thought system to shore up your feelings and beliefs.)

> Rand appears to me as being a more
> philosophical version of Newt Gingrich,
> only more oriented to the '50s Organization
> Men than to the 21st century's individualism.

I disagree.  I think there are many lessons to be drawn from her
philosophy and it shouldn't be dismissed lightly.  Well, that's my
opinion anyway, and I'm sticking to it.:)  I do think, however, that
[too] many of her admirers are merely followers and they kind of fit
into that mold of 1950s conformists.  Sadly, too, she reinforced them in
their intellectual dependency during her lifetime and some of her
acolytes and their acolytes continue down the same road.  But a
renaissance in Objectivist and Rand scholarship is already well
underway.  If you're interested, you should check out, e.g., _The
Journal of Ayn Rand Studies_ at:

http://www.aynrandstudies.com/jars/index.asp

Shameless plug:  You can also check out my site and the links therein:

http://uweb.superlink.net/neptune/

Cheers!

Dan
http://uweb.superlink.net/neptune/MyWorksBySubject.html