 There are three things that scare me enough to make me flee as far away as I can get. Bad 80s music, someone trying to give me a bad haircut, and Ein Rand. Ein Rand. So far away. Last weekend, I ran into a subscriber for the first time. He's a philosophy and logic major studying at Stony Brook University, and he's currently struggling through a few works by Nietzsche, who he feels comes off very angry in his writing. This episode is for you, dude. I hope that it helps knowing that it could be a lot worse. If you've never heard of Ein Rand before, she was a celebrity and author who flourished in the 50s and 60s shortly after the rise of Soviet Russia. She was a highly controversial and opinionated individual who won a significant following among American conservatives and libertarians, so much so that her books are still required reading in many public schools. Her blockbuster novel, Atlas Shrugged, and its predecessor, The Fountainhead, have both surged in popularity in the last decade or so, and with them, Rand's ideology, which spans a whole slew of subjects, from philosophy to economics to art, which she called objectivism. However, despite the fervency of many of her followers, the majority view of her work is somewhat dimmer. Rand and her ideas have become a sort of running joke, especially in academic circles, trotted out as an example of a view that's wrong in a way which invites ridicule. But, I mean, other people have been wrong before, especially about philosophy, right? We don't usually rip into Aristotle for thinking that some people deserve to be slaves, or into Descartes for thinking that the pineal gland was where the soul interacted with the body. Why is there so much hate for Rand? Well, I'm going to describe the general thrust of objectivism, and then give some possible explanations as to why it's gotten such a bad rap. The central principle by which Rand develops her entire ideology is one of rational self-interest, which is elevated above all else by the protagonist of her two novels. Through those protagonists, often in extended monologues, she claims that the greatest good, contrary to an evil cultural emphasis on altruism, is for individuals to pursue their own selfish interests above all else. She also asserts that this doctrine is the only one compatible with rational thought and scientific fact, and that laissez-faire capitalism is the only morally permissible economic system allowed under it. On its surface, taken as a general opinion of how to lead a good life, this sounds at least feasible. I mean, rational thought and self-interest are important, and capitalism can do some cool stuff. But Rand's implementation of her ideas is fraught with significant problems, both in implementation and in communication. Before we get into the details, it's worth noting that Rand was an outspoken and opinionated woman in the 50s and 60s. It's almost certain that some of the ire reserved for her work is due to her gender, but the criticism of her ideology does run deeper than that. First, by almost any account, Rand developed her entire system of thought retroactively to justify the ideals represented in her fiction, but she still asserts that they're the only reasonable set of beliefs to hold. People often decide on a belief first and then look for justification afterward. It's just a thing that human brains do. But if you go so far as to assert that something is the only rational choice, you should probably make an effort to support that prejudice with facts, and Rand unapologetically doesn't. Her works contain many sweeping statements which sometimes conflict with intuition or scientific evidence or even herself, for which she offers little or no support, relying instead on the goodwill of her audience to smooth over the cracks. That's not unheard of, even among philosophers, but some of these claims are so grandiose that only a diehard fan would give them a pass. If you understand the dominant philosophy of a society, you can predict its course. I can think of few historians who would agree with that sentiment. There's certainly a large amount of debate over the course of our society. If anyone can pick a rational flaw in my philosophy, I will be happy to acknowledge him and I will learn something from him. Until then, I am the most creative person alive. I mean, in a period dominated by people like Salvador Dali, Picasso, Satra, Tolkien, and Carnap, maybe a citation needed tag is apt here? She frequently uses words like rational, logical, and scientific, but her writing is more sentimentalist than it is any of those things. If you value rationality, you're encouraged to accept her conclusions as being derived rationally. But for those who aren't apt to trust her in the first place, that approach is apt to cause some friction. Second, Rand is quick to dismiss other philosophers, despite the fact that many of her objections are based on misrepresentation. I did an episode a while back on the logical positivism movement, a philosophical revolution of rigorous thought that led to the most widely practiced form of modern philosophy, analytic philosophy. These dudes were all about empirically demonstrable proof, and logic, and science, and clarity, and everything that Rand says that she's a supporter of. What does she have to say about them? They're neomistics who announce happily that you cannot prove that you exist, and they evade the facts of experience and arbitrarily to invent a set of impossible circumstances that contradict these facts. What? This quote is in a piece which also contains an attack on Immanuel Kant, a well-respected and very meticulous philosopher. That's not a bad thing in itself. Many famous philosophers make a habit of bagging on each other, but it's usually clear that they've read whatever it is that they're critiquing in a thoughtful manner before deciding to denounce it. Here's another quote from that essay. What Kant propounded was full, total, abject selflessness. He held that an action is moral only if you perform it out of a sense of duty and derive no benefit from it of any kind, neither material nor spiritual. If you derive any benefit, your action is not moral any longer. Actually, Kant doesn't claim that at all. In the process of building up to the categorical imperative, he does distinguish between doing something because you feel like it and doing something out of his sense of duty, but there's no reason those can't both point at the same thing the way that Rand is ranting against. For example, I enjoy reading and I feel a sense of duty to improve myself, and even if I was getting paid to do it, Kant would say that's all morally a-okay. But Rand represents him as being against anything that makes people happy. She also tries to paint him as an idealist or a subjectivist, neither of which is representative of his ideas at all. And he's not the only one. She routinely constructs strawmen and various philosophers to hurl invective at, despite never really demonstrating anything but a cursory understanding of their work. You can see why, even if the concepts which she advances counter to them are worthwhile, someone with a background in philosophy might find that approach laughable. Third, the objectivist movement has a reputation for vitriol. I've talked before about how human brains are inclined to break us into two teams and have us dig our heels in four or against a certain position. And unfortunately, both objectivists and their critics have taken this adversarial attitude and run with it. The nature of Rand's following has been described by several parties, including Nathaniel Brandon, a psychologist who is one of her primary supporters, as cult-like and repressive of ideas that aren't explicitly hers, sticking to the party line come what may. This isn't altogether unlike Rand, who tended to surround herself with people who agreed with her and ostracize anyone who voiced a contrary opinion. Including Brandon. That's not a good starting point. Add in the fact that her writing is bitterly polemic, that it's hard to get through if you're not a fan, and that she and her supporters frequently assert that hers is the only rational viewpoint and you have a perfect recipe for mutual antagonism. Which leads me to my final point. One of Rand's most hated specters was one of subjectivity, the idea that different people could arrive at different conclusions based on their feelings or character. That was why she named her ideology Objectivism, to contrast it with that sort of thinking. She even went so far as to develop a prescriptive philosophy of aesthetics, a set of rules by which any piece of art could be judged beautiful or ugly regardless of the observer. However, because her style of writing isn't particularly rigorous, and because she never really nails down a perfectly rational basis for her ideology, it only really appeals to people who are of a similar frame of mind in the first place. That is to say, it's true this kind of subjective. You don't find many Objectivists among the poor, or ethnic minorities, or the handicapped. It would seem that only those who find themselves near the top of the social hierarchy in the first place are eager to dispense with the idea of social obligation. And they sometimes reverse that opinion when they find themselves in the need of some help. Even Rand collected Medicare benefits when she was older and her health was failing. Of course, none of these points mean that Rand's ideas are bankrupt of value. Objectivism has so many interesting and different points bouncing around inside of it that there's bound to be something in there for anyone. But considering the baggage that they come with, it's not hard to see why many would prefer to learn about those ideas elsewhere, especially when there are more succinct, accessible, and less angry versions of them. Like Nietzsche. Did you manage to make it through Atlas Shrugged? Please leave a comment below and let me know what you think. Thank you very much for watching. Don't forget to blah, blah, subscribe, blah, share, and don't stop thunking.