July 26, 2007
Debunking Ayn Rand's Objectivism
A few weeks ago, The Chronicle published a package of articles on Ayn Rand's academic legacy. The articles set Steve Gimbel, an associate professor of philosophy at Gettysburg College, thinking.
"You see, when you get on an airplane for a cross-country flight as a philosopher, you would much rather be seated next to the person who suffers from intense airsickness the entire way than the white guy who turns and says, 'Oh, I'm kind of a philosopher, too. I LOVE Ayn Rand.'"
As you can tell, Gimbel is not a fan of Rand's philosophy of free-market economics and egoistic ethics. "If you take the writings of Nietzsche and remove everything insightful, interesting, and funny," Gimbel writes, "what's left are the writings of Ayn Rand."
And Gimbel is just getting started. He goes on to explain -- in great detail -- why Rand's work acts a "narcotic to the upper-middle-class white male of above-average means and intelligence."
Evan Goldstein | Posted on Thursday July 26, 2007 | PermalinkComments
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A comment I left for Steve Gimbel:
I’m “kind of a philosopher” myself (Ph.D. 2007 from a major program), and I happen to like Ayn Rand very much. I don’t think it’s because it rationalizes my place in society. As an adjunct professor who makes less than $20,000 a year, there’s not much of a position to rationalize.
One of the things I learned in my education as a “kind of philosopher” is that I shouldn’t make serious comments about philosophers I haven’t read. I especially shouldn’t speculate about the psychology of people who like to read those philosophers. Yet your post provides no evidence of ever having read (much) Ayn Rand, save perhaps for secondary commentary. If you had, you’d realize that she does not object to caring for others.
What she does object to is people who regard sacrifice to others as a kind of moral virtue. And she thinks that nobody should ever sacrifice, whether they are specimens of human excellence or not. Even the meekest adjunct professor has a right to pursue his happiness, and shouldn’t sacrifice it, even to those above him with tenure. Mutatis mutandis for the meekest plumbers, whom Ayn Rand thought were usually of greater productive virtue than most tenured professors. See the character of Eddie Willers in Atlas Shrugged (which I’m positive you haven’t read).
— Noumenalself Jul 26, 04:53 PM #
Ayn Rand saw herself mainly as a novelist. She is most famous for her novels. Her philosophy comes across pretty clearly, but they are still novels, and open to misinterpretation. People miss the abstractions, because they’re looking at the concretes. This might be the reason fellow travellers have their own versions of what she meant.
Philosophers should probably start with her non-fiction work: “Introduction to Objectivist Epistemology” and then go on to the non-fiction book titled “Objectivism: The Philosophy of Ayn Rand” by Dr. L. Peikoff.
— Tim Armstrong Jul 26, 08:46 PM #
dr gimbel’s work is impressive in apparent scope but his comments on rand are unfortunate.
on countless fundamental issues, rand differs strikingly from the nietzsche of every period, from the young comet of “the birth of targedy” to his final mad days of 1889. rand and nietzsche are almost antipodes on every fundamental issue, particularly when nietzsche is seen as he was and not as a comic-book machiavellian (which, too, is a silly caricature).
whether one likes rand’s work or not is beside the point – rand’s free-market and ethical-egoist positions are both consequent to prior positions in epistemology and metaethics, as is quite clear from a precis of her works.
if one wants to see her as a derivative thinker, it’d be much more apt to call her, after due rhetorical subtraction of brilliance etc. as “aristotle meets victor hugo, with music by max stirner.”
“upper-middle-class white male of above-average means and intelligence”? the great appeal of rand – again, for ill or good – is to the idealistic young, particularly those who feel constrained by an anti-individual home life or culture. note that very few highly-wealthy people have any interest in or support for rand.
— michael r. brown Jul 26, 11:20 PM #
Steve Gimbel is a philosopher at Gettysburg College who says that he is “just a bleeding heart, mediocre philosopher who will never achieve greatness”. And I am willing to take his word for it. Not content with just being a “mediocre philosopher,” Gimbel decides to write up a post that not only attempts to justify his mediocrity but also launch an attack on human excellence itself—in his post titled “Is Human Excellence a Mark of Mental Illness.”
Of course, in order to spew his caustic verbiage, he quite appropriately chose as his target the perfect exemplar and champion of human excellence—Ayn Rand.
His caricature of Rand says that her celebration of egoism is most attractive to “upper-middle class white male[s] of above average means and intelligence,” because it allows them to stroke their own ego and provide a rationalization for not being an empathetic individual. I’ll let this uneducated absurdity pass without comment since it does not apply to an Indian like myself.
His attack on Ayn Rand’s conception of the ethic of rational egoism boils down to this inanity attributed to Objectivists:
Accoring to Gimbel, an Objectivist believes that “caring about others is actually going to harm others. If only I think about nothing but myself, I’m doing the best for everyone else because the rest will become better. My selfishness is the tide that raises all boats, so it would be immoral of me to be moral. Hence, I can relax and be a jerk who never helps anyone because only jerks never help anyone truly help anyone.” [bold mine]
First, an Objectivist is not “selfish” because he believes it is the best way of “doing the best [for] everyone else because the rest will become better.”
An Objectivist does not justify the ethic of self-interest on the grounds that it is good for everyone else. That is altruism worded differently!
An Objectivist identifies self-interest as the only moral and ethical code proper to free men, i.e., men free from obligations to another that is not accepted voluntarily. An Objectivist holds that human beings are not sacrificial animals, that no one must be forced or obligated to sacrifice their own values and happiness for another, that each man has the right to be free, pursue values and happiness, and determine his own goals and the means to achieving them. This involves trade to mutual benefit but never the sacrifice of one for the benefit of another.
Second, note how the mediocre philosopher commits a fallacy that Rand termed as the “fallacy of the frozen abstraction.” The fallacy is in substituting a particular concrete or concept in the place of a wider class to which it belongs.
Gimbel says that an Objectivist who embraces rational self-interest does so as a justification for “not being an empathetic individual.” Further, Gimbel asserts that an Objectivist believes that it would be “immoral” of him to help anyone and therefore decides to be “a jerk who never helps anyone.”
The frozen abstractions here is the concept of altruism; the only kind of act that Gimbel considers “moral” is the altruistic type of action. In other words, altruism is substituted for morality when in fact altruism is only one type of moral code just as egoism is a type of moral code.
In Gimbel’s view, to “help anyone” must necessarily be moral and therefore an Objectivist—by apparently choosing not to help anyone—is necessarily being immoral. Since an Objectivist rejects altruistic actions, he must therefore be “a jerk.” Thus, according to Gimbel, to be “empathetic” is to be altruistic and anti-self-interest, to “help anyone” is to be moral, to be an Objectivist is to be “a jerk.”
The only kind of action offered as moral, i.e., empathy and helping behavior, is regarded as being exclusively under the domain of altruism. In other words, in Gimbel’s mediocre mind, the notion of a rational egoist being empathetic and helping someone whom he values is an impossibility, a contradiction of ethical codes.
After his wildly off-target attack on rational egoism, Gimbel turns his attention to attacking human excellence in general, partly in an attempt to justify his own mediocrity and partly because Objectivism—as Rand described it—is a philosophy dedicated to the glory and celebration of man.
Gimbel questions “whether it actually is true that excellent people are, in fact, better people.” Then, he answers himself by stating “that those who achieve excellence are the last ones we would want to serve as models of lives well-lived.” He justification for this view is to point out the many examples of famous athletes, scholars, businessmen, and political leaders who are pathetic spouses, parents, or teachers.
He argues that excellence requires a focused dedication on some one aspect of life at a very costly expense of other areas of one’s life; that is, to be a great athlete is to be a negligent parent, to be a superbly successful entrepreneur/businessman is to be derelict in your other roles as a human being, etc.
Therefore, he says, “Excellence in one area seems to have deleterious effects in others, meaning that this naive picture of human excellence that the Randians hold is worrisome.”
This is his defense for (his own) mediocrity—that he’d rather be a jack of all trades and the master of none. However, in the same breath, he also says that he is glad that there are people who pursue great levels of excellence: He is glad that there are “doctors who work all night and day to develop life-saving measures, civil rights activists who gave their bodies and lives in leading the charge for equality, artists who suffered to create great beauty.” But, he is also glad that he is not one of them.
In Randian terms, Gimbel is glad that there are Prime Movers, Atlases, the men of superior ability and excellence who drive the world; but, he contends that their drive is “pathological,” “irrational,” and a “mental illness.” Despite that, the pathology of these great Atlases does not deter Gimbel from coming along for the ride; he is very content at resting on Atlas’ shoulders and hoping they don’t shrug.
The false dichotomy that Gimbel serves up is this: either one achieves excellence in one area and is pathetic in practically every other area of life, or he is simply mildly competent at everything, and therefore, more rational.
First, it should be obvious that these two alternatives are not exhaustive in any sense. Excellence is one area of life does not automatically translate into a failure in every other; excellence is no area of life does not automatically translate into mild competence in every field.
Second, the Randian notion of excellence and perfection is primarily not material, physical, or existential, but primarily moral—excellence in moral virtue. Rand did not regard superior athletes, uber-rich businessmen, great geniuses of science as de facto exemplars of her notion of heroism and excellence by virtue of their physical and material accomplishments.
As an example, in Atlas Shrugged, Robert Stadler is presented as a man of great scientific genius and superior intelligence; yet, he is a vilified character who represents the worst kind of immorality (as a betrayer of values—anti-life) and is despised by the novel’s heroes.
Noumenal Self gives another example of what the Objectivist notion of moral excellence implies. In his comment to Gimbel’s post, Noumenal Self states:
“Even the meekest adjunct professor has a right to pursue his happiness, and shouldn’t sacrifice it, even to those above him with tenure. Mutatis mutandis for the meekest plumbers, whom Ayn Rand thought were usually of greater productive virtue than most tenured professors. See the character of Eddie Willers in Atlas Shrugged.”
In sum, Gimbel tries very hard to justify his own mediocrity by launching an attack at human excellence in general and the excellence exemplified and defined by Ayn Rand. However, in an inescapable irony, his own self-confessed mediocrity and defense of it becomes his argument’s greatest weakness.
— Ergo Jul 27, 03:34 AM #
Gimbel is the epitome of that most destructive concept- that four letter word:
ENVY – the hatred of the good for being the good.The anti-creative, anti- capitalist mentality.
Don
— Don Rowberry Jul 27, 05:35 AM #
Gosh, the Rand-ites do come out of the wood work when anyone critcizes Mother Ayn. I see their strategy of drowning opponents in verbiage still holds — Post 4 holds the record for number of paragraphs I’ve seen in a response to a blog post.
— Bemused Jul 27, 10:14 AM #
Bemused.
So your point is?
— Ragnar Danneskjold Jul 27, 10:48 AM #
Yeah, reminds me of Scientology actually….
— John Jul 27, 10:48 AM #
Replace “upper-middle-class white male” with any other class, race, and gender and his career would be over. I guess class, race, and gender-based critique is ok if the targets are upper-middle-class white males.
— coal_train Jul 27, 12:22 PM #
What assessment and conclusion would a neutral party make after reading this thread.
Assessment #1: Objectivists are intellectually serious and make philosophic arguments in defense of their position.
Assessment #2: Academic philosophers don’t and apparently can’t make philosophic arguments and engage almost entirely in snide, anti-intellectual ad hominem drivel.
Please seat me next to the non-academic Objectivist any day before seating me next to a pale, hand-wringing academic philosopher.
— Allison W. Land Jul 27, 07:10 PM #
Re: Steve Gimbel:
If you take the writings of George W. Bush and remove everything insightful, interesting, and funny, what’s left are the writings of Steve Gimbel.
— Gettsyburg Philosopher Jul 27, 09:50 PM #
ironical that ayn rand has described mentality of such comentators in such detail
— rajendra lakhotia Jul 27, 10:49 PM #
Regarding Bemused’s point:
I wouldn’t say I’m coming out of the woodwork. I set up a search in Google News for “Objectivism” to try and confirm something a Randroid said in an article about Objectivism receiving positive mentions in the news every day. (Closer to every week, if that, would be my impression. I’d tend to chalk that up as a symptom of what’s wrong with the world, but we’re straying from the point.) That’s how I found this article.
A title like “Debunking Ayn Rand’s Objectivism” was bound to pique my curiosity—I’ve picked up some Objectivist memes over the years. I wondered whether someone had found solid reasons to attack Rand’s philosophy, or whether this was a flawed argument I could pick apart for intellectual exercise.
I didn’t bother to read Prof. Gimbel’s blog based on the summary provided here. The only two quotes by him provided were “If you take the writings of Nietzsche and remove everything insightful, interesting, and funny, ... what’s left are the writings of Ayn Rand.” and “narcotic to the upper-middle-class white male of above-average means and intelligence.” I know the former to be untrue from reading Rand; Rand wasn’t funny (she didn’t try to be), but she was VERY interesting and often insightful. The latter seemed mainly designed to equate Rand with religion in the minds of Marxists by echoing the famous “opiate of the people” quote, and strongly implied that the Objectivism was irrational and a system of evasion. (I would think philosophic ideas that appeal to people of “above-average … intelligence” would merit closer scrutiny, not dismissal. Maybe that’s just my bias from being a member of Mensa and it’s sloppy of me to try and argue from authority on that ground.) Neither quote substantially attacked Objectivism; both were more ad hominem attacks—against Rand in the former and the “average objectivist” in the latter. I took Mr. Goldstein’s selection of these quotes to be indicative of Prof. Gimbel’s piece as a whole. The previous comments seemed to bolster this view. It’s possible this article and its comments mischaracterized his views; however, while the cosmos may be infinite, my time is not.
In short, I think I agree with Allison W. Land’s comment.
It’s been fun. I’m moving on to other things.
— John Jul 28, 05:21 AM #
aynn rand was evil and prolly eats babys 2!!!! objectionism is sooo dum!!
— distroy every thing!!!!1!! Jul 30, 12:27 AM #
John: You may find my site useful for your purposes.
Randex
— Mark Jul 30, 01:34 PM #
John: I looked at Randex and i didn’t find it insightful or helpful.
You appear to take ideas seriously and that’s what’s important. The best sources are aynrand.org and LeonardPeikoff.com. I like going to the true source to eveluate something rather than 2nd handers.
One of the big challenges is how our culture has been not trained in first-hand thinking. Therefore many people will be attracted to ideas and use them as just another body of dogma. Instead they should be used as tools for effective thinking and communicating. Unfortunately this is the exception in my experience.
— Jay Conne Aug 4, 02:51 PM #