Reflections on the current state of Objectivism
I wrote the following in response to a friends-only post on LiveJournal, in which a Rand-admiring friend in academia claims Ayn Rand’s philosophy of Objectivism offers no worldly advantage. For example, if you look at leaders in various fields of human endeavor, Objectivism is no more represented among those people than in the general population.
A few thoughts I’ve not yet had a chance to integrate fully:
- I agree with something Nathaniel Branden said once, that knowing someone calls him- or herself “an Objectivist” tells you almost nothing about that person — except perhaps whether they are likely to go to church on Sunday. It doesn’t tell you how honest they are, how rational they are, how hard-working they are, how respectful they are, how successful they are, how happy they are, etc.
- Personally, the biggest advantage I got from Objectivism was having a coherent framework for my ideas. That certainly seems valuable, but it’s hard for me to measure its value in an empirically demonstrable way, i.e., in terms of a “worldly advantage.”
- Overall, whatever advantages there are to some of Rand’s more profound ideas (e.g., your life is an end in itself, you should follow reason, you should be productive), some of the benefits they confer in the real world may well be offset, statistically, by some of her more self-defeating ideas (e.g., encouraging inappropriate moralizing, promoting crude understandings of psychology, discounting the role and importance of emotions).
- When I look at the things that have helped my success and happiness the most, they’ve come more from my exploration of Eastern ideas rather than Objectivism. Objectivism gave me the theory, but the orientals gave me the practices (meditation, Buddhism, radical acceptance, qigong etc.).
From what I have seen, many of the ways that people get ahead in this world are social, emotional, and biological. Objectivism has precious little to say about any of these.
Overall, if you want to define Objectivism as the optimal philosophy for living life on earth, I think we’re looking at something that’s still very crude and preliminary. It’s not even out of beta yet. You might say we’re the beta testers.
My question is, who’s working on the next release? This one’s a bit stale, if you ask me.
Well stated, Joshua. I am not a follower of Rand per se, but of “the other egoist philosopher” Max Stirner, who is perhaps a bit closer to Eastern ideas.
But though I agree with your assessment of the state of Objectivism, and also notice that the valuable ideas for actual life often have come from the East, this “East” is not an East-in-itself, but rather an “East” that you have managed to navigate without falling into the worst pitfalls precisely because of your Objectivist grounding.
If “East” had been your primary motivation, it would have been all too easy to pick up not just the positive psychology from Buddhism, Taoism and the like, but also the superstitions – both the factual superstitions and the normative (moral) superstitions.
As for the next release … there won’t be any. After the forest fire, new saplings grow, and Mudita is indeed one of the healthiest. Consider writing a book about this integrated life philosophy, Joshua.
Well said. And Svein’s comment is also well said – I was also going to say that for me at least, it’s not “Eastern” in itself but rather “Eastern” in a sense of “not Western, i.e., not rigid or formulaic.” Western ideas have won out in just about all areas of endeavor because they are based in reason. But everyone has a blind spot, and if you don’t occasionally turn around to see what’s behind you, you might get run over by a Mack truck. There’s a fine line between philosophy and dogma, and this is true for all sets of ideas, whether it’s Western or Eastern, no matter the discipline.
For example, I run into this on a daily basis in law, since precedential cases are, practically speaking, dogma. But there is great value in precedent because this means the people of any given jurisdiction know (or at least have an opportunity to know) what the law is. Due process requires this protection; otherwise, any judge could say “I don’t like that rule so I’m going to do what I want instead.” I gladly choose the system we have. But I also think a little bit more more judicial activism and a little less blind adherence to dogma is healthy.