Ayn Rand Inspired By Serial Killer
Here, via Leiter.
The thing is, this is no mere coincidence, no throw-away ad hominem. From the perspective of the randroids, there are no grounds for criticism of Hickman. In fact, his actions are praiseworthy. He doesn't let the interests of others interfere with his own goals, nor the pursuit of his own happiness. It is, in a way, gruesomely satisfying that Rand came right out and admitted admiration for this psychopath; it provides us with the penultimate line in the reductio. But, in a sense, we already knew that there was, as we might say, a theoretical Hickman that Rand was committed to admiring. (Though I suppose that I'd have predicted that she'd have flinched rather than openly embracing the pure, unadulterated instantiation of her ideas. I didn't realize how comfortable she was with her own insanity.) At any rate, an admiration for psychopaths is an obvious entailment of Rand's dumb-ass, sophomoric ravings. Hickman was already in there--so obviously so that it'd be odd to even say he was latent in the view. The theoretical Hickman, at least, was right there on the surface.
I guess that this won't do anything to dampen the enthusiasm of the Ayn Rand cult...but sometimes people surprise you...
Here, via Leiter.
The thing is, this is no mere coincidence, no throw-away ad hominem. From the perspective of the randroids, there are no grounds for criticism of Hickman. In fact, his actions are praiseworthy. He doesn't let the interests of others interfere with his own goals, nor the pursuit of his own happiness. It is, in a way, gruesomely satisfying that Rand came right out and admitted admiration for this psychopath; it provides us with the penultimate line in the reductio. But, in a sense, we already knew that there was, as we might say, a theoretical Hickman that Rand was committed to admiring. (Though I suppose that I'd have predicted that she'd have flinched rather than openly embracing the pure, unadulterated instantiation of her ideas. I didn't realize how comfortable she was with her own insanity.) At any rate, an admiration for psychopaths is an obvious entailment of Rand's dumb-ass, sophomoric ravings. Hickman was already in there--so obviously so that it'd be odd to even say he was latent in the view. The theoretical Hickman, at least, was right there on the surface.
I guess that this won't do anything to dampen the enthusiasm of the Ayn Rand cult...but sometimes people surprise you...
posted by Winston Smith at
8:40 AM
9 Comments:
Dude, it is so awesomely serendipitous that you posted this link and summary. I was JUST engaged in a Facebook thread with some friends regarding rand. My friend posted the following quote:
"There are two novels that can change a bookish fourteen-year old's life: The Lord of the Rings and Atlas Shrugged. One is a childish fantasy that often engenders a lifelong obsession with its unbelievable heroes, leading to an emotionally stunted, socially crippled adulthood, unable to deal with the real world. The other, of course, involves orcs." - John Rogers
And one of her friends chimed in saying that rand's book "Atlas Shrugged" was fantastic, so I wrote:
"She and her followers are amongst the most stubbornly foolish people in philosophy. There are critical flaws in her theory (and I mean critical - like her theory seems to indicate that people should do bad things if they can get away with them) have been VERY clearly pointed out, but they just continue on like there's no problem.."
And then here you come with an excellently timed article!
Do you have a cape with a big "P" on it?
Winston,
Rand wasn't just a sociopath, but also a hypocrite:
http://firedoglake.com/2011/01/27/tea-party-patron-saint-ayn-rand-applied-for-social-security-medicare-benefits/
So was this before she invented her ad hoc category of actions against man qua man which she wanted to call immoral but couldn't justify through narrow minded selfishness, or did she just honestly disapprove of car racing more than dismembering children? It does seem that her heirachy of rights is IP rights > concrete property rights > life and freedom of movement.
Oh, and on social security, Rand declared that someone who paid taxes and recieved benefits in good faith ie seeing it as part of a "social contract" wherein taxes are payment for government services is in the wrong whereas if you think tax is theft then you are morally permitted to get as much cash as you can from the government because you're just taking back what's yours. Presumably nobody asked if you have to work out what you've paid in tax and refuse to accept government money past that point since it then just becomes living off the proceeds of crime because they didn't want to risk their leader's disapproval
Yeah, LC, I've gotta agree with Thrawn on this one--kinda seems that AR would think one should take everything one can get from the gubmint...
Actually Winston, I disagree. Her enunciated principles were as follows:
"Since there is no such thing as the right of some men to vote away the rights of others, and no such thing as the right of the government to seize the property of some men for the unearned benefit of others—the advocates and supporters of the welfare state are morally guilty of robbing their opponents, and the fact that the robbery is legalized makes it morally worse, not better. The victims do not have to add self-inflicted martyrdom to the injury done to them by others; they do not have to let the looters profit doubly, by letting them distribute the money exclusively to the parasites who clamored for it. Whenever the welfare-state laws offer them some small restitution, the victims should take it…
The same moral principles and considerations apply to the issue of accepting social security, unemployment insurance or other payments of that kind. It is obvious, in such cases, that a man receives his own money which was taken from him by force, directly and specifically, without his consent, against his own choice. Those who advocated such laws are morally guilty, since they assumed the “right” to force employers and unwilling co-workers. But the victims, who opposed such laws, have a clear right to any refund of their own money—and they would not advance the cause of freedom if they left their money, unclaimed, for the benefit of the welfare-state administration."
-- From THE FOUNTAINHEAD
In Rand's case, we can't really be sure that she was only getting back her own funds that were *wrongfully seized* from her in the first place, since she was a chain smoker, and claimed from Medicare for medical treatment. So unless she stopped receiving benefits when she had recovered the government's ill-gotten gains, she's, as they say in French, full of shit.
My previous point was alluded to by this commenter at DeLong's:
"There is an additional moral conflict for Rand than just the claim of hypocrisy leveled at her for having taken governmental benefits. Unless she was keeping track of the funds of which she felt she had been unfairly deprived, it's hypocritical for her to claim she was just taking her stolen funds back. If she had no idea when the zero balance point might be reached in her attempts to reimburse herself of what she believed was owed to her by the government, then she was being intellectually lazy and possibly even one of the "second-handers" she so detested. Did she take out more than she put in? Let's see a ledger.
Arguments whether she did or didn't take enough from the government to reach a zero balance point are irrelevant. If she wasn't keeping track, she's guilty of intellectual laziness in following her own stringent standards. If one argues that she was simply taking what she could from an entity that doesn't deserve to have it in the first place, that's the kind of situational ethics that indicate that the morality of Objectivism is intended to be binding only when it benefits those who agree with her. If some one stole money from the ARI because they believed it was a morally corrupt organization, you can bet that collective of individuals wouldn't excuse it on those grounds.
In trying to rationalize her actions as stealing back from a system she hated, Rand was being illogical as well. The only people such sophistry could have succeeded in stealing from was her own legion of admirers who clearly made no gift of that money to the system from which she took it. You can't consider it stealing from anyone else when the rest of the money comes from those who give it freely.
This is reflected in Jeffery Dutky's post, which reminds us that many who contributed to the system that provided the funds for Rand's healthcare and retirement benefits did so "out of kindness for their fellow people and out of enlightened self-interest." He's correct - I'm one of them and it's good to know that intelligent people are aware that we exist. Ironically, Rand is not able to steal from people like me. Money given in the spirit Dutky mentions is an investment in a better world. It's a gift.
You're welcome, Ayn. Now where's that ledger?"
Thread is here:
http://delong.typepad.com/sdj/2011/01/libertarians-of-weak-principles.html
LC,
That's all extremely interesting, actually. But if we don't know whether she kept track (well...I'm sure she didn't...), aren't we just speculating about her moral guilt?
Winston,
I suppose you're right about our degree of certainty.
But, considering multiple pulmonary surgeries due to lung cancer, what's your best guess about whether her Medicare benefits exceeded her contributions?
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