Reflections on “Growing Out” of Objectivism
Objectivist Former Objectivist Jay Allen has written an interesting post cataloging some of the ways in which Ayn Rand had a permanent influence on him.
I found some of Jay’s descriptions a bit rough (his humor ranges from side-splitting to simply bawdy, IMO), but there were some gems on the list.
In general, I am always interested to observe what people keep, and what they discard, when they “move on” from Objectivism.
Usually, I’m surprised by how much they keep — and yet how much, at the same time, they come to dislike being thought of as “an Objectivist.”
This makes me think that at least part of what they’re shedding is not philosophy, but rather the somewhat stifling culture of Objectivism — the ways of talking, relating to other people, and viewing oneself that are very common in Objectivist discussion forums and conferences, but may not be fundamental to the philosophy at all.
Jay, for example, says he kept what he learned from “auntie Ayn Rand” in the areas of (1) maintaining a deep respect for reality, (2) being much more willing to tolerate other people’s disapproval, (3) appreciating the value of money and material success, and (4) disliking socialism and government planning.
That’s not a bad list. It probably doesn’t make him an Objectivist (I’d have to see his list of what he disagrees with to know that), but it certainly sounds to me like someone who has kept a lot of the key ideas.
Is Objectivism such a bad place to be, that even people who agree with (major) key ideas in Objectivism want no part of being called an “Objectivist”?
All this reminds me of something I heard occasionally when I was first reading Ayn Rand’s novels and getting into her philosophy: “Yeah, I went through an Ayn Rand phase when I was younger, but I grew out of it.”
And the amazing thing to me, more than a decade later, is how many people never “grow out of” some of the most fundamental principles of Objectivism: respecting reality, rejecting self-sacrifice, and remaining committed to political freedom.
It’s as though these are ideas that we often grow into, but seldom “grow” out of.
Of course, there are no doubt many people who are exceptions to this rule. But the amazing thing to me is how many people fit the pattern: they learn about these things, and the basic ideas become a permanent part of how they understand reality.
They use it as a framework, a base upon which they build their evolving understanding of life, and the basic framework doesn’t actually change that much — even after undergoing rather significant periods of spiritual and personal growth, as was the case with Jay.
This has certainly been my experience: Even after many powerful experiences with psychotherapy, meditation, and spiritual growth, my basic philosophical framework remains intact, more or less as it was when I was twenty. Though definitely more refined and nuanced, the same basic principles are there.
I wonder to what extent this has been true, or not, for other people who were deeply influenced by Objectivism, and have since experienced significant personal transformations of one kind or another.
Hey Josh,
Nice post. I haven’t read Jay’s post, but I agree with what you say.
I often take for granted how much Objectivism has influenced how–even to this day–I fundamentally view the world. Makes me think of Spiral Dynamics: it is not that I–and many like me–have simply moved on from Objectivism. It is that I have (or, at least, have begun to) transcended and subsumed it into my worldview.
Of course, there is a significant amount of Objectivism that I reject. The culture, certainly, but I don’t think the culture is as separable from the ideas as some people would like to think. Rand’s views on free will, for example, I think are connected to her moral judgmentalism (in cases like this one, I suspect that her psychology influenced the philosophy more than the reverse). And now that I see how arrogantly confident and one-sided Objectivists can be, I am no longer so convinced that environmentalism is as misguided as Rand seemed to think.
That said, prior to my exposure to Objectivism, I was a staunch nihilist. Though most of my memories of my Objectivist days are not particularly positive, Rand’s philosophy certainly was an important stepping stone for me towards the trailhead to the spiritual/depth psychology path, which I might not have otherwise discovered, and for which I am grateful. And, importantly, some core Objectivist principles keep my feet on the ground and my head out of the clouds as I tread this path.
Anyway, thanks for sharing.
Best,
Damian
Damian,
Thank you for taking a few minutes to post your comments. I appreciate being able to include your perspective in the discussion.
It strikes me as an important topic, culturally, for those of us who’ve been involved with Objectivism. One hope I have, I guess, is that someone who’s wrestling with some of these topics would be able to find some useful guidance by hearing other mature people talk about how they wrestled with these issues.
Joshua
This is a fascinating discussion.
For me, at a basic level, I’ve kept two things that I came to Rand with already: respect for facts and a commitment to integrity/personal-happiness/life-as-adventure — and one thing she introduced me to: an understanding of and commitment to libertarian capitalism.
Yet there are other areas, philosophically, where I’ve shifted, and I consider these areas important for me at a personal level:
1. Whereas Rand identifies the self with the mind, I’ve come to identify the self with the organism.
In many ways Rand has a very body-mind integrated way of thinking; yet her self-mind-identification, I think, did infect her work. Perhaps most importantly, I think it prevented her from allowing room in her work for all sorts of psychological wisdom that I’ve learned from others — like Wilhelm Reich, Carl Rogers, Moshe Feldenkrais, and others — since my exposure to Rand.
2. Whereas Rand describes free will as the choice to think or not (or to focus or not), I’ve come to see free will as our capacity to experience multiple motivated action potentials, and our ability to enact any of these without any determining cause besides our own free agency.
This may seem like an academic point, but for me it’s very personal and psychologically significant: my current view sustains for me a much more embodied and flowing approach to life than I experienced under the influence of the “to-think-or-not-to-think” notion.
3. Whereas Rand sees existence as somehow independent of consciousness, and consciousness strictly as a property of the organism, I’ve come to see existence and consciousness as co-existing and intimately inter-related, and I’ve come to see consciousness as a facet of the universe rather than as ~merely~ a boundaried property of individual organisms.
I came to this point of view after studying some of the amazing research conducted in the field of parapsychology (particularly, Bem and Honorton’s “Ganzfeld” experiments, and the research described in Dean Radin’s book ~The Conscious Universe~). I see my current point of view as the best way to account for the data — similar to the way the Copernican view of the structure of the physical universe better accounted for astronomical data at the time when ~that~ theory was revolutionary and “weird.”
And, once again, for me the point is not merely academic, but psychologically significant: namely, it caused in my psyche a marked loosening of my feeling of separateness from the universe, and put me much more into a flow in my life.
***
So, these are some of the ~philosophical~ reasons I tend to think that calling myself an “objectivist” just literally isn’t quite accurate.
And, yes, it’s also true that I’ve come to find the culture of objectivism limited for me personally.
And yet, at the same time, I’ve never rejected Rand in any sort of wholesale way, and at a cultural level, I think some of Rand’s insights — particularly about the nature of concepts and objectivity, and about politics — are extremely important.
Though I’ll probably never again in my life associate myself too tightly with any philosophical movement, I do think that the “Integral” philosophy is the best, most integrative philosophy out there, and the most likely to help bring into being a new kind of culture.
I also think that the Integral folks haven’t yet begun to appreciate the importance and power of Rand’s insights into concepts and politics. And more and more I feel like she’s got a very important contribution to make historically, within an integral context, in those areas.
best,
Andrew
I have a love-hate relationship with Objectivism, and the 90% of the hatred comes from the culture of the Randroids. I have never gotten along with the true believers, though through high school up to early college I called myself an “Objectivist” (and to this day, I still sometimes slip and say it). I agree with the vast majority of Objectivist doctrine and remain a very close study of the literature, but what I find most fundamentally separates me from Objectivists is my spirit of intellectually honest, open, and independent inquiry–against which all too many faithful adherents have reacted.
Ayn Rand originally wanted very few people to call themselves “Objectivists”–it was supposed to be, at least in her eyes, an elite pedigree. All those who did not fully accept or understand Objectivism were not Objectivists but, by her suggestion, could be termed “students of Objectivism”. So I now content myself with the superior title of “student”.