The final issue of the Journal of Libertarian Studies is online, the last issue under the editorship of Prof. Roderick Long. It has some remarkable material in it. I was particularly impressed by Barbara Branden’s reflection on how the negative reception of Atlas Shrugged affected Rand’s outlook on herself and the world.
The JLS has of course be superseded by Stephan Kinsella’s Libertarian Papers. A final final issue of JLS, including all accepted but unpublished papers, will appear in print and online before year’s end, and then the journal comes to a close as we enter a new form of journal publishing the digital age with Libertarian Papers.
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{ 47 comments }
Branden’s reflection on Rand is very sad. Rand wasn’t aware of the trap of wisdom:
“Because in much wisdom there is much grief, and increasing knowledge results in increasing pain.†Ecclesiastes 1:18.
It’s easy to think that great wisdom has great rewards in this life because the wise person expects that her wisdom will be recognized as wisdom by others and will change the world for the better. What she discovers is that very few people can recognize true wisdom, and as Rand wrote, knaves twist it into a trap for fools. Rand might have suffered the pain of great wisdom better had she read Nock’s essay on prophets.
Could you direct me to that essay by Nock?
Mr. Tucker, I assume ‘Mises and Rothbard Letters to Ayn Rand’ is the Rothbard review you mentioned in your introduction to ‘Mozart was a Red’.
Thank you very much for getting this up, I really enjoyed it.
It is indeed that review.
Ben, It’s called Isaiah’s Job and it’s available at http://mises.org/daily/2892
branden’s review paints a rand whose crankiness and intolerance (however adverse the circumstances may) is in stark contrast to the sufferance shown by rothbard and mises. bitterness doesn’t seem to have been their hallmark, notwithstanding rejection and relative obscurity.
the more i read of rand, the less i like.
newson,
” bitterness doesn’t seem to have been their hallmark, notwithstanding rejection and relative obscurity. ”
That’s why it is so difficult to hate them while it is easy for people to hate Rand. At the same time, I think it is important to distinguish the idea from the personality, something I see a lot of people failing to do.
Newson, Her lack of tolerance wasn’t some minor, harmless personality trait. If you really want to get repulsed (just as approximately 100% of the audience was) check this out:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2uHSv1asFvU
We’re talking about the same Ludwig von Mises right? The one who cut contact with Machlup over a professional disagreement. Right?
to bala:
yes, i agree. but my comment is specifically directed at rand, the person, not rand’s works. the branden piece is really a personality portrait, not an analysis of her work.
to lagrange:
i thought you’d actually quote the mont pelerin meeting, when mises stormed out, accusing the present of being socialists!
now i think i’d call mises intransigent in his principles, but i don’t think there’s a lot of bitterness. seems to me that he took a particular interest in promoting his ideas over the heads of the elites and towards the general public rather than fretting over their rejection. ditto for rothbard.
sort of like: don’t get mad, get even. that shows a wisdom that seems to have escaped rand. bitterness is a useless, barren emotion.
to molzkill:
at least she spoke her mind, and didn’t pull her punches. that’s the only gracious thing i can say about her.
newson,
Mises was at one point a very influential adviser to the government of Austria on economic matters. After he came to America, he had trouble getting any sort of teaching position at all, much less one where The Powers That Be would listen to him. That had to be quite a come-down. I would say that Mises was more than a little bitter.
Rothbard’s attacks on other people in the libertarian or conservative movements betray some bitterness, also, I think. Read his attacks on Frank Meyer, Ayn Rand, Milton Friedman, William F. Buckley, Jr.
Granted, Rand took it to new levels. But I think that bitterness is something that anyone with a philosophy that says that right and wrong can be objectively arrived at will tend towards. They will naturally think that people who disagree with them are either stupid, evil, or both. And believing that you’re stuck in a world with evil idiots will cause bitterness.
newson,
” yes, i agree. but my comment is specifically directed at rand, the person, not rand’s works. ”
I realised you were directing it at Rand the person. My comment was therefore not directed at you but at the many other people who seem have formed all their conclusions based on their impressions of the person.
As you would have noticed, mpolzkill has already responded with precisely what I expected – more on the person
Russ,
” Read his attacks on Frank Meyer, Ayn Rand, Milton Friedman, William F. Buckley, Jr. ”
William F. Buckley??? The guy who called Objectivism still-born? So Rand and Rothbard seem to have hated a lot of the same people, have they? Interesting.
” But I think that bitterness is something that anyone with a philosophy that says that right and wrong can be objectively arrived at will tend towards. ”
I don’t think I would agree. If we accept the following
1. There exists an objective reality independent of our perception
2. That we form our perceptions of this objective reality based on our cognitive faculty – that includes our sensory organs and our rational mind
it is possible for perfectly rational people to come to radically different conclusions.
The tendency towards bitterness would exist if one tends to forget the implications of point 2 above and assumes that everyone else ought to share one’s own perception of reality. That is tantamount to an assumption of the infallibility of one’s own cognitive apparatus, especially the sensory part. That would be a grave mistake and is what, IMO, was responsible for Rand’s bitterness in the later part of her life.
If one combines Rand’s ideas with the reality of the fallibility of our senses and our rational mind, there is ample scope to be free of bitterness while still working on the premise that Right and Wrong can be objectively arrived at.
to russ:
i grant that rothbard and mises had bitter opponents, and gave as good as they got (though i recall mises’ tactic was deliberately to play the ball, not the man). but i don’t think they come across as embittered. now maybe branden is wrong in her depiction, but embittered is how her rand seems.
I guess I take a slightly different approach to Rand because all of my human heroes have had major flaws. I was taught at an early age to expect that and to take what’s good from each and forgive the bad. The degree of Rand’s bitterness probably has a lot to do with unreasonable expectations. Mises didn’t seem to suffer from that. I can forgive a lot of Rand’s mistakes because she was my intro to libertarian thinking and her literature is so good. I still have a large soft spot for her and her bitterness merely makes me sad.
Newson,
Yeah, that’s right, like Charles Manson.
Russ,
Just for an instance: I think that people who support stupid and/or evil things (like Israel) are stupid and/or evil (like Rand). Evil is a nebulous concept, but Israel has always been an objectively stupid proposition.
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fundamentalist,
I’m guessing it’s very easy for you to forgive her her mistake on “Israelite” and Philistine ubermenschen and untermenchen.
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P.S. I don’t like Ayn Rand. Manson’s race-baiting, for instance, was far less effective. Why do you (hypothetical dear reader) think most Randians had no problem with DC expanding their adventures in Iraq in 2003?
Yes, attacking the person. The person who mainly read detective novels (never reading anything else in any depth), yet had the supreme (and laughable) arrogance to believe that her “philosophy” superceded all others. The person who constantly looked to support her arbitrary prejudices, preferences and whims through the use of her half-assed system of thought (used it to claim that all who disagreed with her were guilty of what she in fact was). This is what the video shows: the results of shallow, literally blinkered thinking, and this is how she came to call Arabs lesser people. Garbage in, garbage out. The fact that the video shows her to be physically repugnant (and this may have contributed to the audience’s horror: actually seeing before their eyes, as if from a Wagner opera, a malignant dwarf call an entire race of people savages); this was not my main point.
Yes, attacking the person. The person who mainly read detective novels (never reading anything else in any depth), yet had the supreme (and laughable) arrogance to…
…believe that her “philosophy” superceded all others. The person who constantly looked to support her arbitrary prejudices, preferences and whims through the use of her half-assed system of thought (used it to claim that all who disagreed with her were guilty of what she in fact was). This is what the video shows: the results of shallow, literally blinkered thinking, and this is how she came to call Arabs lesser people. Garbage in, garbage out. The fact that the video shows her to be physically repugnant (and this may have contributed to the audience’s horror: actually seeing before their eyes, as if from a Wagner opera, a malignant dwarf call an entire race of people savages); this was not my main point.
mpolzkill,
I was trying hard to ignore you, but then every once in a while, you tempt me.
You said
” Why do you (hypothetical dear reader) think most Randians had no problem with DC expanding their adventures in Iraq in 2003? ”
Which Randians are you talking of? How did you come to the conclusion “most Randians”? Do you, by any chance, have data on the number of Randians in the world or are you just forming your conclusions based on the Randians you have met and/or heard? Looks like you are plotting a rectangular hyperbola based on a 1-point sample. This statement definitely places you at the top of the totem pole of smear artists.
Fine, fine, I mis-spoke, I should have said, “I suspect…”. It won’t take you 35 posts to get me to make a retraction, unlike how long it took me to get you to stop calling Israelis and Arabs living in Palestine “the white and the black”.
Retraction: *Many* Randians supported American adventurism in Iraq in 2003, much as their cult leader stupidly supported Israel.
(Thank you for observing that it is only every once in awhile I make a factual error, haha.)
As a “Randian” as you like to call it, I no not support the invasion of Iraq, although I was not an objectivist then. It was not a legimate government, correct. But there is a time and a place, and blowing it up the rebuilding it is not a very good use of resources, especially with such idiotic economic policies and statism at home. If we had to essentially blow up a foreign country? Maybe North Korea or Iran. Much crazier people then Iraq, although Saddam’s genocide was indeed unforgivable.
I would suggest China, but I’m not sure if we would win. And even if we did, the cost would be far too dire.
Quite possibly, simply not recognizing those illegitimate countries may be the best option.
And please, just call us Objectivists. Yes, I am aware that some people who ascribe to objectivism are practically cultists. That it not true of all of Objectivists. I don’t call chritstians jesus-freaks because some people are fanactical about him, so feel free to extend the same courtesy.
Rand was a brilliant woman, but not without her errors and flaws unfortunately.
mpolzkill,
” Retraction: *Many* Randians supported American adventurism in Iraq in 2003, much as their cult leader stupidly supported Israel. ”
This is a retraction???? You still need to justify “many”. I wonder how many is many!!! I guess as long as it serves the purpose of slinging mud, it’s fine by you.
mpolzkill, I think you’re about to hurt yourself.
Bala, are you serious? It’s very well-known that the Objectivist movement is dominated by arch-Zionists who cheer-lead any and all US adventures in the Middle East (as long as such adventures are deemed to be in Israel’s interests).
Alex,
You and Rand don’t get to appropriate the word “objective”.
Alex:
Christ + ians, Christians
Rand + ians, Randians
Exact same courtesy, Alex. I realize it’s embarrassing for you since Christ was a philosopher and Rand was just a very poor novelist. Rand was a brilliant self-promoter, little else. I’m working on a short discourse on just how ordinary she was, please stay tuned.
Your theorizing on who is crazier than who and who or what “we” should destroy makes my point nicely, thank you.
“simply not recognizing those illegitimate countries may be the best option”
Not recognizing illegitimate regimes! Yes, start with the one in DC! Come on, American Randians!
Go to the Last Ditch website:
http://www.thornwalker.com/ditch/
Do a site search on “Objectivism,” and you will find much documentation of the affinity Objectivists have for Israel.
Thank you LB/BotPL, you saved me the trouble of going and finding the many articles I saw in 2002 and ’03 written by Randians supporting the invasion. It is equally bizarre coming from Bala who, until I recently educated him about non-Israeli takes on the recent history of Palestine, was himself taken to ignorantly spouting Zionist propaganda like his cult leader.
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fundamentalist,
Is that a joke or a threat? Are you going to sic some Israelites on me? That doesn’t scare me too much. Zionists? OK, I’m scared.
The fact that a self-described “individualist” and “anti-collectivist” gave such a damn that her “peers” didn’t drop to their knees in slavering worship upon the publication of her supposed masterpiece should be taken as revealing of who she really was.
Any artist–or any kind of inventor or creator–needs to be fully prepared for criticism and rejection of her creation. The rejection could be indicative of the deficiencies of the intended audience *or* the artist, or both. But retreating in bitterness in response to the rejection, rather than trying to really learn something from it, is pretty childish and immature, IMHO.
Alex,
You sound like mainstream talk radio neoconservatism. And just as LCD. Your attitude, especially when shared by so many Americans, is by far more dangerous than
“Iran”.
Bob, that is spot on. You reminded me of this actual artist, Claudio Arrau:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YOu33Qg17VY
(I couldn’t find his comments isolated so please watch from 1:05 to 1:40, and then you might stay for some actual art if you have the time)
mpolzkill: “Is that a joke or a threat?”
I’m just worried about your physical safety and sanity. People who get worked up to the point of incoherence, as you appear to be in your posts above, usually hurt themselves physically in some way.
Michael Miller has an interesting article at acton.org, “After the Berlin Wall–The Enduring Power of Socialism.” Here are some excerpts:
“Yes, socialist economic ideas went out of fashion, but socialism has always been more than just economics. We tend to equate socialism with communism, Marxist revolutionaries, and state ownership of industry. But socialism is a much broader vision of the person, society, equality, and what it means to be free.
“Karl Marx’s collaborator, Friedrich Engels, saw three major obstacles to the socialist vision: private property, religion, and “this present form of marriage.†Also central to socialist thought is a secular and materialist vision of the world that espouses relativism, sees everything politically, and locates genuine community in the state and not in families, churches or voluntary organizations.
“The fall of communism and two decades of globalization did not extinguish socialist hopes. The tactics changed, but the goals remained. Proponents of socialism traded in revolution for the gradualism of the Fabian socialists who encouraged use of democratic institutions to achieve socialist goals. They replaced political radicals like Lenin and Castro with the cultural Marxism of Theodor Adorno or Antonio Gramsci, who called for a “long march through the institutions†of Western culture.â€
http://blog.acton.org/archives/12841-acton-commentary-after-the-berlin-wall-the-enduring-power-of-socialism.html
Cute, “fundamentalist”. It was clear the problem I was having posting my jokes. Of course the bugs are frustrating and the coherence of my schtick was compromised when I had to rewrite and resequence it all. Bala and the Bringer of the Purple Light got the gist just fine at any rate, as I’m sure you did. Keep slinging the bull.
Lord Buzungulus,
” Bala, are you serious? ”
Actually, I was just asking mpolzkill to corroborate his statement “most Randians” with some data. The reason is that I consider myself an Objectivist but never saw sense in the war being waged in Iraq. I was therefore wondering how he managed to draw a logical connection between the two – being an Objectivist and supporting the war in Iraq. As usual, he does not explain his statements.
What the Bringer of the Purple Light may not understand, Bala, is that most things that are well known to those around here are completely beyond your grasp (many times even after you’ve been hit over the head with it post after post). Follow his link, Bala. I was going to go find the proof of what I know (that many Randians supported the invasion), and what naturally follows from your cult leader’s shocking and particularly ugly collectivism as shown in the video, so as to continue your free public education, but the Lord did it for me. Go ahead and ignore all that.
Lord Buzungulus,
Nice link. In fact, I could see it mirrors a lot of my thinking. It’s my point too that what a lot of people who claim to be “Objectivists” say is not consistent with what a rational person would say starting from the basic premises of Objectivism. I am also, however, saying that judging “Objectivism” by these yardsticks would be your mistake. You are mistaking an evaluation of a driver for an evaluation of the vehicle itself. A bad driver who makes poor choices can drive the best of vehicles into a tree.
All the same, I think it is indeed worthwhile to get away from the repetitive glorification or vilification a specific person for specific statements of hers and instead focus on some of the truly (I think they are) good ideas that she has brought out.
Reject it if you like, but that does not mean I think you would make sense to do so.
For instance, I think Rand’s philosophy of Rational Selfishness and her Objectivist Epistemology together give a much more solid foundation for Libertarianism than the arbitrary (and what I consider fairly ridiculous) choices of Liberty and “Self-Ownership” that Libertarians seem to have taken as their axioms. IMHO, neither of these is axiomatic by nature and choosing them as axioms is inappropriate for the defence of Liberty itself.
As I understand it, the reason Rand did not want to be associated with or called a “Libertarian” is this axiomatic acceptance of Liberty which she saw as “mysticism” and hence dangerous. I share the reservation.
mpolzkill,
To me, the a few good tests of the nature of a population are
1. What is the status of women in that society?
2. How free are people to hold and express opinions? (This includes freedom to practise any religion)
3. What is the legal system and how is crime punished?
I wonder by what yardstick you justify
1. Forcing women to wear a specific garb (and subjecting them to public violence if they refuse to obey)
2. Cutting off the hands of a thief
3. Issuing death threats someone who dared to draw a cartoon depicting their “prophet”, not because of a particularly offensive depiction but because he dared to depict him at all
4. Jiziya (However it is spelt – the tax that non-Muslims ought to pay Muslims)
There are many more I could come up with, but I guess that would be too much for you in one shot.
This is no justification of Israel or American policy towards the Arab world. Nor does it say how I judge an individual of Arab origin. It probably only says why I would hesitate to relocate to that part of the world.
Incidentally, since you do not think that the Arabs are savages, how prepared are you to relocate to an Arab country? I think that would be a good test to identify your true position.
Bala,
I wasn’t really commenting on Objectivism as such, since there’s plainly a lot there that any libertarian could agree with. Foreign policy is an obvious exception, however, and I was objecting to your implicit objection that it was unwarranted to associate Objectivism with, say, support for the Iraq war. Go to the Ayn Rand Institute web page; I have to think Leonard Peikoff is pretty representative of Objectivist thought, and it’s pretty clear that his thinking (and that of Yaron Brook) on foreign policy is right in line with neoconservatism.
Yep, Ms.”Solid Anti-Collectivist Philosophical Foundations.” That’s probably why she exhorted the few nut-bags still following her in ’72 to vote for major socialist/war criminal Nixon.
Way too much time spent on this fourth-rate novelist and her childish, overly simplistic, eternally repugnant ideas about selfishness. One last post about her for libertarians:
People, really, you should give this silly, confused and ultimately sad woman the heave-ho. She is a major embarrassment (and it is very pleasing to see the Mises Institute hitting her so hard). Just think about this: she is no big deal. A twelve-year-old in the Russia of October, 1917; how remarkable is it for her to come to think she is anti-collectivist? The world is filled with mediocrities from the Eastern bloc who think they hate collectivism (and this too ties in with the Rand video I linked: Israel is filled with people who hate Nazis for what they did in Warsaw among other things, yet make no apparent mental connection to the Gaza Strip). All she did was add that common and natural hatred to some juvenile pulp and an extra-massive helping of unwaranted self-confidence. It’s fine if she introduced many teenagers to the concept of individualism. If you don’t leave her and her detective novels behind pretty quickly thereafter though, I’m sorry, you’ve got some serious problems. (And I understand literary tastes, like musical tastes are wildly divergent. Some people are thrilled by Lawrence Welk, some by Foghat; some people are enraptured reading Nancy Drew, Danielle Steele or Ayn Rand novels. I don’t understand, but that’s fine; the point is she is not any kind of serious thinker *or* artist. She was practically illiterate! She refused to read great writers! And her “novels” make Stephen King sound like Joseph Conrad! [Note to Alex, put down the Rand, pick up the Conrad]
BTW, has anyone here seen the film “A Face in the Crowd”? It’s from the fifties and Andy Griffith plays a sort of combination Elvis Presley/Oprah Winfrey (or Arthur Godfrey if anyone here remembers him. The “Dusty Rhodes” character was as powerful as Winfrey though, so I think the film was more prophetic). Anyway, I bring it up to recommend it to anyone who wants an insight into how charisma is the springboard for these cults like the Randians. The force of personality and the weakness of undeveloped, ignorant minds which made the Beatles iconic. This is the stuff of which Rands are made of.
Ha, back to that again! You wish to establish that they *are* “savages” with your crude propaganda. But not so as to kill them and disenfranchise them through the righteous arm of DC, like your cult leader; for some other idiotic reason. I’ve already been through all that with you, Mr. Big “O”, not doing it again.
Nice use of the “no true Scotsman fallacy” against the Bringer of Purple Light, btw.
I think I’ve now had all the fun there’s to be had here. Goodbye.
Lord Buzungulus,
” Foreign policy is an obvious exception, ”
Spot on (as usual). I agree completely. In fact, as I understand it, there should be almost little difference of opinion between Objectivist foreign policy and Libertarian foreign policy. My assessment is that a couple of erroneous assumptions on what government ought to do has introduced a strong mercantilist element into Ayn Rand’s ideas on foreign policy, which is being taken forward by people who have decided that what Rand said (and only that) is Objectivism.
If, for example, one were to take Rand’s definition on Government as holding a monopoly over the retaliatory use of force in a geographical area, there is absolutely no justification for the use of force, especially when it is not retaliatory (as is the case in Iraq or even Iran, potentially). The definition also automatically (IMO) implies a foreign policy that is almost no policy at all – one of neutrality. The only aim of an Objectivist foreign policy ought to be defence of the rights of the people living in its territory from external aggression.
Frankly, it was a fair bit of discomfort over this point that has resulted in my visiting the ARI website almost never these days as against every day 3-4 years ago.
” I have to think Leonard Peikoff is pretty representative of Objectivist thought ”
Once again, you are referring to a person who claims he represents Objectivism. You are confusing the statements of a self-proclaimed Objectivist for what Objectivism really is, though I guess you could throw the same back at me.
mpolzkill,
” You wish to establish that they *are* “savages” with your crude propaganda. ”
Not exactly. I am just challenging your position (that’s what you seem to imply) that they do not live the way savages do. How about addressing my specific queries. Would you say that people who
1. force women to wear a specific dress that they prescribe failing which the women may be flogged by them in public (apart from a million other indignities being heaped on women for a million other reasons)
2. cut off the hands of petty thieves
3. issue death threats to people who have the temerity to represent their prophet in a cartoon and offer cash rewards to those who bring the offenders’ heads
4. justify jiziya
are not savages? I know you have announced that you are ducking the question. Just thought I’ll make 1 more attempt.
You seem to be well brainwashed by all the campaigns extolling the virtues of multiculturalism. Public education got to you, huh?
p.s. Your mistake, as I see it, is to claim that Rand was wrong to call them “savages”. IMO, Rand’s real mistake in that video was to say that their being savages while Israel is an technologically advanced, scientific society that is the reason to support Israel. 2 mistakes as I see it – supporting Israel (non-neutral foreign policy) and the reason for doing so.
Bala is right; Muslim societies are, for the most part, backward, violent, and corrupt. He’s also right that this doesn’t justify US/Israeli actions against the Muslim world. So the real question, then, is: why emphasize the repellent features of Muslim societies? If the West’s cause in the Middle East is just (ie, defensive and so legitimate from a libertarian standpoint), then it doesn’t matter if the Muslims are brutes or highly cultured. It seems, frankly, that too many Objectivists bring up the negatives of Islams to bolster a weak case for an interventionist foreign policy. This is unfortunate, as Objectivists do have something to offer in the libertarian debate (see the commentary on the horrors of Obamacare at ARI).
Does anyone here condone the foreign military policy of Israel or the USA?
Please answer that without pointing your finger to arab states.
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