Ayn Rand's philosophy of objectivism. How Ayn Rand's political philosophy took over the world
Ayn Rand is best known as a writer who embodied the ideas of freedom and individualism in remarkable works of fiction. Much less is known about her as a philosopher, and if they do know, they either do not take her seriously or pay attention to those things that are of little interest to her.
I think this view is unfair. Miss Rand, of course, was not a “school” philosopher - it is impossible to imagine her writing a “correct” scientific work, designed according to all academic standards. She was a philosopher like Socrates or Lao Tzu or Nietzsche, expressing her ideas through aphorisms communicated to her students. But this does not mean that she was a bad philosopher. Rather, on the contrary - this is a truly true type of philosophizing, when a philosopher is not a scientist, but simply a very wise and deep person.
Rand called her philosophical system "Objectivism." From her own point of view, it was not a good name. She would have preferred the name "existentialism", but it was already occupied by another philosophical school, the positions of which were extremely far from rational. Objectivism is an integral (at least pretending to be integral) philosophical system that embraces and links together ontology, epistemology, ethics, aesthetics and politics. As far as I know, it is the only philosophical system with such ambitions created in the 20th century - a century when philosophers were greatly reduced. On the other hand, it should be noted that if we take each significant element of Objectivism separately, then it is almost always far from original. Miss Rand's merit was simply that she collected all these ideas and showed the deep relationship between them, which was often not obvious.
Below I will highlight those things in Objectivism that seem to me the most significant and most useful, even for that person who does not share this philosophy as a whole. The list, of course, only reflects my Subjective opinion, no more.
1. Unity of the world and language. This premise, which was once common, is so alien to the post-Kantian consciousness that I am not at all sure whether I can explain this idea well and what its significance is. The fact is that modern man thinks in terms of two (or even more - see Popper) worlds: the world of matter and the world of ideas, the world of things and the world of language, the world of noumena and the world of phenomena. From point of view modern man there is a fundamental difference and a fundamental discrepancy between the world “as it is” and the world as we see and describe it.
This look comes in a huge number of variations. Different philosophical schools build connections between these two worlds in different ways, and some even deny the existence of one of them. But the basic premise is the same everywhere: the world that exists “in reality” and its reflection constructed in the mind are two different things.
Objectivism rejects this premise - and this is perhaps the most important thing in this philosophy. From an objectivist point of view, the world one- and here Rand returns to the Aristotelian philosophy that dominated the Renaissance. When we talk about “true reality” and the “model of reality” existing in our heads, we are talking about the same thing, we just look from different sides. Likewise, when we talk about assets and liabilities on a balance sheet, we are actually talking about the same thing.
It is very important not to confuse the objectivist position with radical materialism and radical idealism, which also talk about the “unity” of the world. But the fact is that these teachings simply throw out either the ideal or the material aspect from their picture of nature. Radical idealism teaches that only abstract concepts exist, and that matter is an “illusion,” an “appearance,” a “reflection,” a “shadow.” Radical materialism teaches that consciousness is “a form of existence of matter.” Objectivism teaches that the material and the ideal are the same thing, just described differently.
To understand this position - extremely alien to modern consciousness - the key may be the idea that the very concept of being is exclusively ideal concept. In addition, this concept is meaningful: when we say about a thing that it exists, we (regardless of our view of existence) must somehow link it to other elements of our picture of the world. This means that we cannot talk about some kind of “true reality”, Kantian noumena that exist outside of our perception, because they are still somehow attached to our consciousness and our perception through the idea of their own existence. If we say that “true” reality exists beyond our perception and understanding, then in what sense does it exist?
2. The central role of reason in human personality. Intellectuals of the 20th century (as well as some intellectuals of earlier eras) made great efforts to blur the line between man and animal. For this purpose, they systematically exaggerated the importance of the irrational in human behavior and downplayed the importance of the rational. Reason has been reduced to a minor element of the human personality, at best to a faithful servant of emotions and instincts, and at worst to an inept servant. The mind began to be perceived not as the engine of the human personality, but as only one of its wheels.
Ayn Rand didn't just reject this premise; she and her followers refuted it as deeply and systematically as no one before them had succeeded. Again and again, in the most different situations they show that man has no instincts, that the subconscious is in fact simply automated rational procedures, that emotions are determined by rationally chosen values, that the mind is the center and the very essence of the human personality and that all its other elements are derived from it. Rand showed how a variety of human processes (including those traditionally considered “irrational,” such as emotional experiences or the perception of art) are ultimately tied to cognitive processes and intellectual activity. Through a person’s ability to understand the world around him, Rand even proves free will (interestingly, Kant has a similar argument in favor of free will). Human cognitive ability in Rand's philosophy turned out to be the central ability of man, his basic property, which is the source of all other properties that separate man from the beast. In this sense, Rand's philosophy is a brilliant return to Greek philosophy, to the Greek view of man.
3. Favor of the Universe. This point is perhaps the least original of all the others. The idea of a benevolent Universe was and is held by many intellectuals. However, before Ayn Rand, no one focused on this issue and no one so carefully showed its significance and connection with other elements of the worldview.
The Benevolent and Hostile Universes are two fundamental worldview paradigms that have been fighting each other since the beginning of time. They determine a person's relationship to the world at the deepest, most fundamental level. Either a person believes that the world around him contributes to his life and helps him achieve happiness, or, on the contrary, he believes that the world is a terrible place, an abode of suffering and hardship.
These two views predetermine a person’s entire philosophy, his attitude to life and activity, his value system. The prerequisite for a supportive universe corresponds to an active worldview, an active life position, the desire to find happiness in life and change the world for oneself. A person who believes that the universe is favorable sees a promise in it - a promise of success that will certainly come to those who take care to achieve it.
On the contrary, the premise of a hostile universe corresponds to a passive life strategy. A person who considers the universe hostile is convinced that he cannot gain anything from it and the most he can achieve is to lose as little as possible. Accordingly, he plays “defensively”, directing his efforts not to achieve happiness, but to avoid pain, not to change the world, but to adapt to it, not to acquire, but to maintain, etc. For him, the universe is not a promise, but a threat.
Survival in a hostile universe with the help of “natural” means that are given to man by nature is, by definition, impossible, since these means, being part of a hostile universe, will necessarily fail him (this observation allows us to psychologically explain the Kantian paranoia regarding the senses, which must certainly deceive us , although it is impossible to justify this logically). For this reason, people who believe in a hostile universe tend to resort to magic. IN modern era the source of magic was the state, to which one turns for a solution to any problem, but one must understand that the socialism that emerged as a result of this is only a concrete historical manifestation of a more fundamental phenomenon.
4. Unity of what is and what should be. With certain reservations (related to the fact that in Lately The “naturalistic” approach to ethics has again gained some popularity, as, indeed, Aristotle and all his ideas in general), we can say that the modern philosophical mainstream is characterized by Hume’s idea that there is an insurmountable gap between what should and what is and that one cannot be deduced from another. This view is based on certain ideas about the nature of the ought - namely, that it is a certain sphere of thought and action that exists in itself and for itself and has no external cause - and therefore cannot have any explanation that goes beyond its framework. Ayn Rand rejected this idea. She raised the question about the cause and origin of the sphere of the proper, about why a person needs it, what makes it necessarily arise. Thus, she managed to link the category of value with the category of life, showing that only life makes the category of value possible and necessary, and only rational life makes choice regarding values possible. That is, she demonstrated how the sphere of what should be can be reduced to the sphere of what is, which is a significant breakthrough in philosophy.
5. Solving the problem of universals. The problem of universals is a problem of the nature of abstract knowledge. To fully understand it, one should again make an excursion into the history of philosophy.
As soon as Ancient Greece philosophy was born, philosophers immediately faced a fundamental problem. It was completely unclear how to reconcile two indisputable empirical facts. On the one hand, it has been observed that people can have a certain objective knowledge about the world; on the other hand, it has been observed that the world is constantly changing. Hence the question: how can you know anything about something that is changeable?
The pre-Socratics struggled with this problem without success. Two extreme degenerate solutions were created - Parmenides and Heraclitus. Parmenides' solution boiled down to the fact that he denied the fact of the existence of changes, arguing that being is motionless; Heraclitus's solution boiled down to the fact that he denied the existence of knowledge, arguing that existence is pure chaos. Both decisions clearly did not correspond to reality, and therefore did not find serious support.
The conflict was resolved by Plato. He argued that there are, in fact, two realities, not one: the world of ideas and the world of things. Our knowledge belongs to the world of ideas, and change belongs to the world of things. Thus, no contradiction actually exists.
In the Middle Ages, two views regarding this problem were formed: nominalism and realism. Nominalists denied the objectivity of the world of ideas, which inevitably led to the conclusion about the powerlessness of reason, the impossibility of knowledge and total skepticism. Realists denied the deducibility of ideas from observable reality, which ultimately led to the proclamation of faith as a source of knowledge. Not all of these philosophers went to the end in their reasoning; some of them sincerely considered themselves defenders of reason. But ultimately, none of these schools were suitable for justifying rationality. Within the framework of realism, the meaning of the concept is an ideal object located outside of our world. Within the framework of nominalism, the meaning of a concept is, as a rule, its definition, which is completely arbitrary. Within the framework of these two approaches, it is not possible to arrive at the truth by manipulating concepts, that is, using logic. From the point of view of realism, the conclusions of logic generally belong to another world; from the point of view of nominalism, they are true only within the framework of an arbitrarily chosen system of basic concepts.
Ayn Rand offered an ingenious solution to the problem of universals, which made it possible to anchor ideas in reality without separating them into some completely separate reality. The key to its solution is to define the ability to abstract as the ability of the mind to separate the qualities present in nature from the quantities in which they are presented. She called this process “measurement omission.” This ability allows one to isolate objects of the same quality (but in different quantities), and then combine them into groups, which, when designated by a word (this is absolutely necessary, because the mind can only work directly with specific objects), form a concept. The difference from realism lies, as already indicated above, in the fact that ideas do not form a reality separate from the material world. The main difference from nominalism in this view is the involuntary nature of the composition of these groups, its dependence on reality. Within the framework of Objectivism, therefore, one can talk about “false” and “true” concepts, which is completely unthinkable within the framework of nominalism.
From the point of view of Objectivism, the meaning of a concept is the entire group of objects to which it refers. Logical inferences, accordingly, are accurate descriptions of reality. In this sense, it is very important to understand the significance of Ayn Rand's revolutionary definition of logic - “the art of consistent identification.” That is, logic, from its point of view, is not the science of exact conclusions from arbitrary premises, but the art of giving things their true (in the sense of corresponding to their nature) names.
To complete the picture, here are two more or less sensible materials from the informative intellectual portal Terra America, edited by famous philosopher Boris Vadimovich Mezhuev, the son of my longtime acquaintance from the time of the Young Marxist University (1962-1965), a leading specialist in the philosophy of culture, Vadim Mikhailovich Mezhuev. The first material is a conversation between Boris Mezhuev and Alexander Etkind, the main popularizer of Ayn Rand’s work in Russia: “Her capitalists were not rentiers, but inventors!” Are the ideas of capitalist utilitarianism outdated? (May 10, 2012):
From the editor. The Terra America portal published Whittaker Chambers’ famous review “Big Sister Never Sleeps” on Ayn Rand’s novel “Atlas Shrugged.” In this text, the famous communist renegade condemned the American writer for preaching soulless materialism under the guise of objectivism. The review was specially commissioned from Chambers by National Review editor William Buckley. The conservative movement, led by Buckley, did not accept Rand as one of its ideologues.
We wanted to talk about how fair the critical assessments of Rand’s ideas were from both left and right circles in America, we wanted to talk with the man who, in fact, made the name Rand famous in Russia, the author of a number of scientific bestsellers, a cultural historian and sociologist Alexander Etkind. Alexander Etkind published in 2003 a volume of political journalism by Ayn Rand entitled “Apology for Capitalism”, and earlier in a book dedicated to Russian-American cultural contacts - “Interpretation of Travel. Russia and America in travelogues and intertexts" (M, NLO, 2001), he devoted an entire chapter to comparing the political views and political experiences of two famous emigrants - Ayn Rand and Hannah Arendt. In 2011, a new book by Alexander Etkind, “Internal Colonization. Imperial experience of Russia" (Internal Colonization. Russia’s Imperial Experience). To the ideas expressed in this new job, our portal promises to return in subsequent publications.
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– Dear Alexander Markovich, who is Ayn Rand for you first of all – a politician, an economic thinker, a philosopher or a writer? Do you think her talent as a writer outweighs her value as a thinker?
– For me, Ayn Rand is a philosopher and publicist who expressed her thoughts in fiction. Her novels should be read as extended illustrations, or perhaps parables, of her philosophical and economic ideas. As I already had the opportunity to show more than ten years ago (in my book “Interpretation of Travel. Russia and America in Travelogues and Intertexts”), the source of Rand’s ideas was not so much her American experience as the Soviet one, from which she managed to escape to the United States. Her dystopian novels warned the American public that following the New Deal's pro-Soviet prescriptions too literally would lead to dictatorship and impoverishment, as happened in the USSR.
– Was it a mistake that the leader of the US conservative movement, William Buckley Jr., tried to distance himself from Rand with her atheism and materialism? Who do you think ultimately prevailed in the debate between Buckley and Rand, religious conservatism and objectivism?
“I don’t care about Buckley right now, but reading Chambers’ review, it’s worth understanding who we’re dealing with.” Chambers was a Soviet spy and later became a defector who bought his life by betraying a couple of dozen Soviet agents to the American authorities. His more principled colleagues ended up in the electric chair or fled to the USSR and ended up in the Gulag and perished, or were simply killed by Soviet agents somewhere in Europe.
The mid-20th century was a time of extremes, and compared to what the agents of Beria and Eitingon did, Rand's elevated tone is excusable. She was harsh, but did not kill anyone, did not slander anyone, did not betray anyone.
– How attractive do you think the apology for capitalism presented by Rand in her novels looks, devoid of religious or socialist reservations and clarifications? What, in your opinion, is the most valuable part of Ayn Rand's legacy? What in her views will survive our time and may be in demand in the future?
– You are right, Rand blessed capitalism as she knew it, in contrast to Soviet socialism. It was an earthly and utilitarian position, rooted in her personal experience and in the historical moment. So she, as our compatriot with you, should be read; her American readers miss the Soviet half of her experience, although the situation is changing in the most recent literature on Rand.
Now on the topic of “The Rand and the 21st Century.”
Her understanding of capitalism, true to the days of the Ford factories and the skyscrapers around the Brooklyn Bridge, is now outdated and of little use. Rand wrote about the heroes of the Second Industrial Revolution who invented new technologies, styles and fashions. They were hampered by conservative idiots who hung unnecessary columns on skyscrapers or imposed unaffordable taxes on profits. It was knowledge-based capitalism that truly changed the world and made it a better place; I believe this with Rand. Its capitalists are not rentiers, but inventors; they should become masters, Rand argued.
The only justification for inequality between people is that, thanks to this inequality, even the poorest live better. Rand argued approximately this, and American liberals, for example John Rolls, agreed with her in practice (but not in words).
/MY COMMENT: Not Rolls, but Rawls (or Rawls), the author of the treatise I reviewed, John Rawls. A Theory of Justice, 1971/
Since then, a lot has leaked and capitalism has changed.
Most of it was intercepted by speculators who do nothing except financial transactions, behind which there is speculation in natural resources, oil and other things. They do not invent iPads and do not improve the world, but only pollute it, environmentally and morally. At the same time, we must also recognize that even in this predatory, unproductive environment, human creativity survives better than in any of the historically known incarnations of socialism.
It is from the point of view of capitalist utilitarianism according to Rand that the task now is to create new mechanisms of government regulation that would separate the wolves from the sheep, that is, would make resource speculation unprofitable and creativity profitable. This, it seems to me, is the main lesson from reading Rand today."
Another famous Russian philosopher Vasily Venchugov believes in yesterday’s material “Atlas can relax: Cinema has exposed all the weaknesses of the philosophy of the American writer” (March 12, 2013):
"From the editor. The Terra America portal has already addressed the discussion of the literary and philosophical heritage of the American writer Ayn Rand. We published a well-known review of her novels by the conservative publicist Whittaker Chambers, which was extremely critical of Rand’s views and talents, as well as an interview with the first publisher of Rand’s journalism in Russia, Alexander Etkind. Member of our team of authors, professor of the Faculty of Philosophy of Moscow State University named after M.V. Lomonosov Vasily Vanchugov tries to evaluate the “objectivism” of Ayn Rand by analyzing the embodiment of her ideas in cinema. From Vanchugov’s point of view, the failure of the television series based on Rand’s novel “Atlas Shrugged” is evidence of the bankruptcy of the concept of “objectivism” that underlies this work. I think that it is too early to draw an end to the discussion about Rand’s worldview, and we will return to the discussion of her ideas later.
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Ayn Rand's books caught my eye back in 1998. Around the same time, I learned that she was one of the audience at Lossky’s lectures (Chris Matthew Sciabarra. Ayn Rand: Her Life and Thought. Poughkeepsie, New York: The Atlas Society. 1996). Subsequent acquaintance with her work did not particularly inspire me, however, I watched her as an example from life, as an author of philosophical novels that describe the future and compare different types of society.
It was also interesting for me to observe how Ayn Rand’s literary products gradually penetrate into our lives, how the reading public reacts to the new name, how the “objectivism movement” created by her takes root in Russia, its agents build a nest here to lay an egg of the wisdom of the overseas Minerva.
And now, in addition to everything, a film has also appeared based on her novel, in the annotations to which foreign publications write: a unique philosophy, dramatized through an intellectual mystery that connects ethics, metaphysics, epistemology, politics, economics and sex. In general, I wanted to look at the film as a visualization of the product of her creativity, a product that is promoted under the brand “objectivism” by a specific “Atlanta community.”
One of Ayn Rand's novels, the fourth and last (1957), and also the most voluminous, Atlas Shrugged, has finally been filmed. In cinemas one could watch on the screen the plastic embodiment of the first part of the novel (for which the title was taken from formal logic, “Consistency”), and soon the second (embodying another law, excluding the third, “Either-or”...
Hello, so to speak, to Nikolai Onufrievich Losky, who taught propaedeutic courses in philosophy, including logic, to Russian girls, thanks to which Alice, the future Ayn Rand, began to trace her philosophical ancestry back to Aristotle).
The first series (2011) cost the creators 10 million dollars, the second - 20 (2012). The first one turned out to be more interesting, but only compared to the second one, which is completely primitive.
The triumph of Soviet style is striking, as if the film’s consultants were emigrants from the USSR. The film turned out to be from the category of “production films”. In this case, it seems to have been filmed at the request of Russian Railways (rails and sleepers occupy a third of the screen time) to show the heroic everyday life of workers in the transport system and heavy industry. Only if in the era of the USSR such films showed the advantages of a socialist economy, with its planned economy and conscious workers, here, on the contrary, in the center of love and care is capitalism, which was under threat of destruction after the penetration of socialist ideas into America.
These are like the dreams of Vera Pavlovna from the novel “What is to be done?” Chernyshevsky, only nightmarish ones. Waking up, she took up her pen, and after many evenings, the novel “Atlas Shrugged” came out. Yes, I’m not afraid to liken Alisa Zinovievna Rosenbaum, aka Ayn Rand, to “Chernyshevsky in a skirt.” There is also a lot of pathos and satisfactory, and mostly even just mediocre performance, and in her apology for capitalism she is tireless, like our Nikolai Gavrilovich in Peter and Paul Fortress, taking not so much in quality as in quantity, chanting the best structure of society.
Ayn Rand, when she left Russia in 1925, brought with her fears of a socialist reconstruction of society. And the “ghost of communism” long excited the imagination of a former Russian woman, then a US citizen, who decided that the fate of capitalism was in her hands. The novel was initially received coolly there, or rather, went virtually unnoticed. It began to be perceived as something worthy of attention only decades later, against the backdrop of economic decline. In times of crisis, books “describing the crisis” generally sell well (for example, when several years were marked by heat, films about global warming and subsequent disasters did well at the box office).
Then the events of 2008 again fueled interest in the novel, and adherents of “objectivism” were tempted to film the work in order to crawl into the souls and hearts of potential followers through film.
By the way, they had been planning to film Atlas for a long time, and the first plan dates back to 1972. Only then did they want to somehow shine on the screen, to focus on the love story. A series of mini-films (eight hours long) was planned for NBC, but then plans changed and the project was cancelled.
Ayn Rand, who once worked as a screenwriter in Hollywood, took it upon herself to write the plot for the film adaptation, but by the time of her death (1982), she had only managed to complete a third of what she had planned. By 1999, there was a new plan for four-hour mini-series (for Turner Network Television), but this plan was not destined to come true - there were long disputes with the rights, transfer (resale) from one hand to another, and rewrites of the script. In general, fate kept “Atlanta” away from the movie camera for a long time...
However, by 2010, a new script appeared and filming began.
Atlas Shrugged, Part I was received negatively by critics. On the specialized site Rotten Tomatoes, it immediately fell into the “red zone”, receiving only 11% in the rating. In general, the filmmakers were bombarded with tomatoes. With an investment of 10 million, they barely returned 5 million to the cash register. The authors of the film blamed everything on the critics, saying that they formed a negative opinion among the public about the film masterpiece. However, the film itself should be blamed as extremely mediocre.
The second series (“Atlas Shrugged, Part II”) was even more wretched at great expense. This time, the filmmakers were bombarded, figuratively speaking, not with tomatoes, but with rotten eggs.
And this despite some tricks... Before a wide release, they usually organize a narrow screening for critics, but they decided not to do this, as if they sensed failure. It seemed that the shows were organized only for The Heritage Foundation and the Cato Institute. Well, then, when the film was released in a thousand cinemas at once, the deafening failure became obvious to everyone. According to the specialized website Box Office Mojo, it was the worst film, or rather, the film with the worst box office.
This time the creators barely collected a little over 3 million. Well, on Rotten Tomatoes it received only 5% rating, so the faces of the directors and producers again turned burgundy from reading the reviews: “Poorly written script, poorly shot and poorly edited, with amateur actors.” The result was logical: they were nominated for the Golden Raspberry Awards, in the categories “worst director” and “worst script”.
However, nominations could be made in all categories, without exception. The actress playing the heroine, from the first to the last episode, looks like a lady in a state of toxicosis recalled from maternity leave, all her partners are like poor relatives who agreed to play for half the price; the action is filled with production meetings and facial expressions that make you want to look away; dialogues on a political topic in the context of eternity; good and bad characters are so indistinguishable from each other that it would be better if they were dressed in representative outfits (for example, good ones are blue, bad ones are red robes); the special effects are so primitive that only children whose favorite game after returning home from kindergarten still Angry Birds, Farmerama and the like.
“Objectivism” as a movement is just a business project, the sale of Ayn Rand’s ideas embodied in books. Now a couple more films have been added to this assortment. However, the money spent will not be returned, but the problem is not even that, but that the film causes disgust for everything that is promoted there.
And in general, the film especially acutely indicates that the founder of “objectivism” is more inclined to propaganda than to creativity. As a result, the three parts of her “Atlanta” are more reminiscent of Brezhnev’s trilogy (“Malaya Zemlya”, “Renaissance” and “Virgin Land”), where a lot of the right things are said, but you don’t want to listen to them, because for the most part they are banal.
Having dropped out of philosophy, Ayn Rand never reached the world of art. And if she could somehow get into literature, being assertive, then cinema rejected her. Her novel might be a read for teenagers, but they'll prefer Harry Potter. This is the story. Not sad at all, but simply instructive. The “Objectivism” movement is like a multinational fast food company offering humanitarian fast food to those outside academic philosophy, but who wants to be involved in art, having neither taste nor worldview.
Through the film, the “Objectivists” added a new element to their diet – popcorn. However, the packages remained full. But the most important thing is that it turned out that books printed in Russia sell poorly, and rarely does anyone finish reading them. As always, specialists have to do everything to the end: read someone’s unsuccessful book in full, and watch a movie until the closing credits to help everyone learn a lesson.
Having done all this, I can say to my compatriots: Ayn Rand's Atlas can relax. The vault of heaven is held, and indeed held for it, by completely different heroes."
However, Objectivism has significant influence among libertarians and American conservatives. The Objectivist movement founded by Rand attempts to spread its ideas to the public and academic circles.
Philosophical content
The basis of objectivism is fundamental monism, the unity of the world and language, being and thinking. There is only one objective reality, and not two separate ones: reality itself and its description.
Objectivism assumes that there is only one objective reality, and that the human mind is the means of perceiving it, and reasonable moral principles are important for humans. Individual people are in contact with this reality through sensory perception, that people gain objective knowledge through the perception of measurement and form valid concepts of measurement error, and that the proper moral purpose of life is the pursuit of one's own happiness or "rational selfishness", which is the only social system in which consistent with this morality is the full respect for individual human rights embodied in Laissez-faire capitalism, and that the role of art in human life is the transformation of abstract knowledge through the selective reproduction of reality into a physical form - a work of art - and that this can be comprehended and respond to all this only through self-awareness.
The name "objectivism" comes from the assumption that human knowledge and values are objective: they are not created by someone's thoughts, but are determined by the nature of things to be discovered by human consciousness.
Main points
- Existence exists
- Consciousness is conscious
- Being is identity (A is A)
The main axiom of objectivism is that objective reality exists independently of the person who perceives it. According to objectivism, reason is the only given to a person a means of comprehending reality and the only guide to action.
History of development
Ayn Rand first expressed the ideas of objectivism in the novels "" and "Atlas Shrugged". She subsequently developed them in her journals The Objectivist's Pamphlet, The Objectivist, The Message of Ayn Rand, and in popular science books such as An Introduction to the Epistemology of Objectivism. A detailed presentation of Rand's views is also contained in her later works: “The Virtue of Selfishness” (1964) and “Capitalism: The Unknown Ideal” (1966).
Political influence
A. Rand's ideas had a significant influence on political life in the USA and other countries. The writer’s creative heritage is being studied, in particular: in Irvine (California) and the Atlanta Society.
According to the British weekly The Economist, the greatest interest in Rand's ideas outside the United States is shown by residents of Sweden, Canada and India. The publication also notes that the sales volume of A. Rand's books in India exceeds the same figure for K. Marx's books by 16 times.
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Links
- Rand, Ayn. Introducing Objectivism, in Peikoff, Leonard, ed. The Voice of Reason: Essays in Objectivist Thought. Meridian, New York 1990 (1962)
- - a portal dedicated to the ideas of objectivism
- Shlapentoh V. (link unavailable since 06/14/2016 (1290 days)) in the Encyclopedia of Sociology
Notes
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Excerpt characterizing Objectivism (Ayn Rand)
The criminals were placed in a certain order, which was on the list (Pierre was sixth), and were led to a post. Several drums suddenly struck from both sides, and Pierre felt that with this sound it was as if part of his soul had been torn away. He lost the ability to think and think. He could only see and hear. And he had only one desire - the desire for something terrible to happen that had to be done as quickly as possible. Pierre looked back at his comrades and examined them.The two men on the edge were shaven and guarded. One is tall and thin; the other is black, shaggy, muscular, with a flat nose. The third was a street servant, about forty-five years old, with graying hair and a plump, well-fed body. The fourth was a very handsome man, with a thick brown beard and black eyes. The fifth was a factory worker, yellow, thin, about eighteen, in a dressing gown.
Pierre heard that the French were discussing how to shoot - one at a time or two at a time? “Two at a time,” the senior officer answered coldly and calmly. There was movement in the ranks of the soldiers, and it was noticeable that everyone was in a hurry - and they were in a hurry not as they are in a hurry to do something understandable to everyone, but as they are in a hurry to finish a necessary, but unpleasant and incomprehensible task.
A French official in a scarf approached the right side of the line of criminals and read the verdict in Russian and French.
Then two pairs of Frenchmen approached the criminals and, at the officer’s direction, took two guards who were standing on the edge. The guards, approaching the post, stopped and, while the bags were brought, silently looked around them, as a wounded animal looks at a suitable hunter. One kept crossing himself, the other scratched his back and made a movement with his lips like a smile. The soldiers, hurrying with their hands, began to blindfold them, put on bags and tie them to a post.
Twelve riflemen with rifles stepped out from behind the ranks with measured, firm steps and stopped eight steps from the post. Pierre turned away so as not to see what would happen. Suddenly a crash and roar was heard, which seemed to Pierre louder than the most terrible thunderclaps, and he looked around. There was smoke, and the French with pale faces and trembling hands were doing something near the pit. They brought the other two. In the same way, with the same eyes, these two looked at everyone, in vain, with only their eyes, silently, asking for protection and, apparently, not understanding or believing what would happen. They could not believe, because they alone knew what their life was for them, and therefore they did not understand and did not believe that it could be taken away.
Pierre wanted not to look and turned away again; but again, as if a terrible explosion struck his ears, and along with these sounds he saw smoke, someone’s blood and the pale, frightened faces of the French, who were again doing something at the post, pushing each other with trembling hands. Pierre, breathing heavily, looked around him, as if asking: what is this? The same question was in all the glances that met Pierre’s gaze.
On all the faces of the Russians, on the faces of the French soldiers, officers, everyone without exception, he read the same fear, horror and struggle that were in his heart. “Who does this anyway? They all suffer just like me. Who? Who?” – it flashed in Pierre’s soul for a second.
– Tirailleurs du 86 me, en avant! [Shooters of the 86th, forward!] - someone shouted. They brought in the fifth one, standing next to Pierre - alone. Pierre did not understand that he was saved, that he and everyone else were brought here only to be present at the execution. With ever-increasing horror, feeling neither joy nor peace, he looked at what was happening. The fifth was a factory worker in a dressing gown. They had just touched him when he jumped back in horror and grabbed Pierre (Pierre shuddered and broke away from him). The factory worker could not go. They dragged him under his arms, and he shouted something. When they brought him to the pillar, he suddenly fell silent. It was as if he suddenly understood something. Either he realized that it was in vain to shout, or that it was impossible for people to kill him, but he stood at the post, waiting for the bandage along with the others and, like a shot animal, looking around him with shining eyes.
Pierre could no longer take it upon himself to turn away and close his eyes. The curiosity and excitement of him and the entire crowd at this fifth murder reached the highest degree. Just like the others, this fifth one seemed calm: he pulled his robe around him and scratched one bare foot against the other.
When they began to blindfold him, he straightened the very knot on the back of his head that was cutting him; then, when they leaned him against the bloody post, he fell back, and since he felt awkward in this position, he straightened himself out and, placing his legs evenly, leaned calmly. Pierre did not take his eyes off him, not missing the slightest movement.
A command must have been heard, and after the command the shots of eight guns must have been heard. But Pierre, no matter how much he tried to remember later, did not hear the slightest sound from the shots. He only saw how, for some reason, the factory worker suddenly sank down on the ropes, how blood appeared in two places, and how the ropes themselves, from the weight of the hanging body, unraveled and the factory worker, unnaturally lowering his head and twisting his leg, sat down. Pierre ran up to the post. No one was holding him back. Frightened, pale people were doing something around the factory floor. One old, mustachioed Frenchman's lower jaw was shaking as he untied the ropes. The body came down. The soldiers awkwardly and hastily dragged him behind the post and began to push him into the pit.
Everyone, obviously, undoubtedly knew that they were criminals who needed to quickly hide the traces of their crime.
My long-suffering article about Ayn Rand was published in the latest issue of the Total Mobilization newspaper. Unfortunately, due to the paper format, it was, as I thought, cut down by at least a third. That's why I'm posting the full version.
Ain = Alice. The philosophy of objectivism as a special case of a subjective view of the world.
There are a small number of books in this world that everyone truly needs to read. The selection criterion is very simple: if a large number of people consider a certain book to be the basis of their worldview, then it is worth reading just to know what to expect from fans. Therefore, even the most strict atheistic views should not be an obstacle to a careful reading of the Bible and the Koran, and even more so, even complete rejection of Nazism or socialism should not interfere with the study of “My Struggle” or “Capital”. No matter how much this irritates the fighters against thought crimes who compile lists of banned books. In my opinion, if reading Mein Kampf, a generally stupid and unconvincing book, suddenly radically changes your worldview, then this is what you have been looking for all your life and you cannot be forcibly deprived of this revelation.
The first book in which the above-described principle cracked for me was Ayn Rand’s three-volume Atlas Shrugged. This book is certainly one of the key ideological works, while its significance is more noticeable in the United States, where literally millions believe in its main provisions, but its ardent fans are already appearing in the Russian cultural and political space, from the economist Illarionov to Maxim Kats. It was necessary to read it. But it was almost impossible to read it. I had difficulty making my way through the first two volumes, since all the philosophical monologues of the heroes were drowned in an endless graphomaniac stream of romantic platitudes. From a philosopher, under normal circumstances, one should not expect literary talent, but it is a completely different matter when a philosopher disguises his work as social fiction, with heroes and villains. Rand is absolutely helpless as a writer. Moreover, this helplessness, as it turned out later, completely follows from philosophical premises.
My interest awoke in the third volume. From the “speech of John Galt” it would be quite possible to make a relatively small and quite interesting philosophical work of about two hundred pages. However, its very embeddedness in the fabric of a literary work involuntarily exposes the weakness of the structure as a whole. As soon as the pathetic confidence of the hero began to hypnotize me, I remembered that A = A. That the words: " We are the cause of all the values that you desire, we are the ones who think, and therefore establish identity and comprehend causal relationships. We taught you to know, to speak, to produce, to desire, to love. You who deny reason - if it were not for us who preserve it, you could not only fulfill, but also have desires." is pronounced not by the character, but by the author. That is, not a brilliant inventor with the body of Apollo, but the Hollywood screenwriter Alice Rosenbaum, who in her life had no connection with industry and did not manage any enterprise. What is invented to convince the reader of the truth that the world is objective a non-sci-fi epic with cardboard characters more suitable for a Buck Rogers movie.
This is a very important clarification. The key point of this book and the entire philosophy of Objectivism in general has nothing to do with either politics or economics. The cornerstone on which Rand's entire picture of the world is built lies in the depths of the human psyche. This is a question of rational and irrational.
Rand denies the irrational. It does not ignore, as often happens, but completely and unconditionally denies the very right of the irrational to exist. She goes so far as to assert that the child is essentially rational and that irrational behavior and thinking are only the result of socialization in a perverted world. " You still know the feeling - not as clear as a memory, but blurred, like the pain of a hopeless desire - that once, in the first years of childhood, your life was bright, cloudless. This state preceded how you learned to obey, became imbued with the horror of unreason, and doubted the value of your mind. Then you had a clear, independent, rational consciousness, open to the universe. This is the paradise that you have lost and which you are striving to regain."Such a reckless manipulation of facts is vital for the stability of the structure as a whole, because, otherwise, the idea of original sin, hated by Rand, appears in it. For her, irrationality is precisely a conscious sin, a sign of weakness, cowardice and betrayal objective world for the sake of the opinions of others. Objective reality, naturally, completely coincides with the subjective picture of the world of the author himself. For Rand, the very idea of the coexistence of different perceptions of the world is unacceptable; truths are divided into true and incorrect. At the climax of the novel, the disgusting villains, before starting to torture the flawless hero, try to convince him that the world is diverse and that they, too, have their own truth. John Galt proudly ignores this heresy.
From the denial of human psychology naturally follows the denial of almost all philosophy, with the exception of strict rationalism, and history, with the exception of an extremely romanticized description of the industrial revolution.
In terms of philosophy, Rand had to try, she tried to ridicule the whole range of ideas that criticize the dogma of reason and rationality. From mystical and religious concepts to modern philosophy, critically rethinking everything " sacred cows"of previous eras. On the one hand, this is logical; for the modernist Rand, who considers himself a “rationalist,” the entire range of ideas that later took shape in the phenomenon of “postmodernism” is by definition alien. On the other hand, she ridicules any attempt at analysis and criticism on the merits of there is no novel in question, opponents, for their part, only inarticulately mumble ridiculous slogans easily refuted by impeccable heroes. Rand never once dared to present the ideas that she denies, instead of them she puts up straw men and valiantly defeats them. What is really interesting is the method of these heroic victories Rand uses alien elements as weapons philosophical systems. Namely, Nietzsche's argument as a critic of morality and Aristotle's arguments in his dispute with Geosides and Plato. The humor of the situation is that these two systems are absolutely incompatible. Nietzsche never hid his sympathy for Geosides; moreover, among the notes that later comprised the work “The Will to Power” there is a short but severe criticism of Aristotle with his “three laws of formal logic”, on which the entire symbolism of Rand’s three-volume work is built: “ We cannot both affirm and deny the same thing: this is a subjective, experimental fact, it does not express “necessity”, but only our inability (...) A crude sensationalistic prejudice dominates here, that sensations give us the truth about things, that I cannot say at the same time about the same thing that it is hard and that it is soft. (The instinctive argument that “I cannot have two opposite sensations at once” is completely crude and false).(...) The law of eliminating contradictions in concepts follows from the belief that we can create concepts, that a concept not only denotes an essence things, but also grasps them... In fact, logic has meaning (like geometry and arithmetic) only in relation to the fictional entities that we have created. Logic is an attempt to understand the real world according to the known scheme of existence that we have created, or more correctly speaking: to make it more accessible to us for formulation and calculation..."Rand, naturally, does not respond in any way to this monstrous heresy from the point of view of her philosophy, although she should have known it. However, with Nietzsche she literally performs philosophical acrobatics. She takes his arguments against morality, almost verbatim, and then builds her own his own morality, on the basis of which he criticizes him for the immorality of his views.
It also turned out quite interesting with Aristotle. It is clear that she found solid ground in his rational constructions, since his criticism ancient philosophers can be easily transferred to the entire modern philosophy, both modernist and postmodernist. The problem is different, Aristotle did not just assert objective reality, he described it in detail. In order to accept Aristotle’s terminology as a basis, one must also accept his cosmology, not to mention his social views on his contemporary society. But Rand, naturally, brushes aside his praise for slavery, and replaces completely religious metaphysical views with his own creed. In her logic, the “Prime Mover” is not a metaphysical deity, but a progressive capitalist class that moves society. Even Marx, with his reworking of Hegel's idealistic ideas, did not go that far.
This is where her amazing approach to history comes from. As I mentioned, Rand was more of a modernist-denying modernist. There is no contradiction in this; almost all philosophical, political and mystical movements generated by the modern era were distinguished by their criticism of the contemporary state of affairs and the search for utopia. Usually in the future, but sometimes in the past. For example, in the theories of Rene Guenon and his students, much becomes clear if we recognize that it was precisely a modernist mystical movement, quite akin to the theosophy that he hated. Simply distinguished by the much higher intelligence of its creator, and also by a specific form of utopia, in the form of an idealized caste society. Rand's view of history is very close to this example, with one important exception. Her idealized time is the industrial revolution, the era of aesthetic romanticism, philosophical rationalism, ethical individualism and unfettered capitalism. A beautiful era, the collapse of which in the bloody chaos of the First World War gave birth to modernity, which was so hated for its irrationality. The result was a rather beautiful scheme in which wise and fearless businessmen almost built an earthly paradise, but due to the betrayal of philosophers who replaced true rationalistic philosophy with something incomprehensible to the author, and the mistakes of romantic artists who did not realize the heroism of the above-mentioned businessmen, the utopia failed and began the hell of modern Rand society. Of course, I am simplifying her scheme a little, but very little, at least read her article “What is Romanticism?” Naturally, with this approach, the analysis of a phenomenon is replaced by its glorification. When a person writes about a certain era with a subconscious desire to justify and explain the greatness of any, even the most controversial side of this era, then the result is pure propaganda. Ignoring all the truly dark sides. There are a lot of examples, from Evola’s enchanting articles glorifying any reactionary policy, including serfdom, to modern pop-Stalinism. Rand fits this line perfectly. She does not even try to find an excuse for all those numerous and truly terrible facts of exploitation, for example, of the children of workers, on whom the critical part of Marx’s “Capital” was based. She simply ignores it all. Has the right to. However, there is a small note. On October 20, 1947, Ayn Rand testified before the House Un-American Activities Committee. I will return to this wonderful event later, but now I’ll note that there, in the meantime, she formulated an entire program of aesthetic censorship, close to modern Hollywood political correctness. " If you're in doubt, I'll just ask you one question. Imagine what is happening in Nazi Germany. Someone wrote the script for a sweet romantic story with happy people set to the music of Wagner. What do you say then, is this propaganda or not, if you know what life was like in Germany and what kind of concentration camps existed there? You would never dare to put such a happy love story in Germany, and for the same reasons, you should not put it in Russia.“As we see, objectivism is not at all synonymous with objectivity. It’s either black or white.
Even more interesting aesthetic concept objectivism. It is clear that with such concepts about psychology it is difficult to create believable characters, but this does not at all explain the enchanting mediocrity of the novel as a whole. There is literally not a single living and free line. The fact is that Rand is extremely consistent in denying the irrational; she does not find a place for it even in the creative process. This unexpected concept in the novel is uttered by composer Richard Haley, a natural genius. We don't hear his music, but we read the text: " I am not attracted to admiration that is groundless, emotional, intuitive, instinctive - simply blind. I don't like blindness of any kind because I have something to show, and the same with deafness - I have something to say. I don't want to be admired with my heart - only with my mind. And when I meet a listener who has this priceless gift, a mutually beneficial exchange takes place between him and me. The artist is also a merchant, Miss Taggart, the most demanding and unyielding."
I absolutely cannot imagine music written according to this principle. But I read a novel written that way. And there is no music in it.
In fact, the case of Ayn Rand is very revealing. Her problem, which has become the problem of most of her followers, is elementary self-deception. It is human nature to deceive ourselves. And we will always be a battlefield between two differently directed vectors, our natural irrationality and a conscious desire for rationalism. If you believe the cultural theory about the “Apollonian and Dionysian/Chthonic” parts of culture, our entire civilization was formed precisely as a rebellion against our own nature. But Rand is not rebelling against nature, she is denying nature. She so does not doubt the complete objectivity of her own view of the world, and so denies the very possibility of critical introspection, that she turns out to be completely defenseless against her own irrationality. The only moments when her word begins to burn with fire, the monologues of the characters, hook the reader precisely due to their ardent, blind confidence. But if you get rid of this obsession and calmly analyze the picture of the world that she preaches as an objective truth, then it turns out that it is built from books the author has read and even films she has watched.
Suffice it to recall one curious incident. As I mentioned, in 1947, Ayn Rand testified before the House Un-American Activities Committee. I will leave out the question of how a fanatical fighter against state interference in individual rights was able to convince himself that he was not participating in the political persecution of undesirables. The humor is different. She claims that the film "Song of Russia" is propaganda because there are restaurants and balls in the Soviet Union where people dance. In her reality, this could not happen because it could never happen. And the reality that she described was surprisingly reminiscent of an extremely dark version of the Soviet episodes from the feature film “Ninochka.”
I have nothing to add to this.
P.S.
Despite my critical attitude towards Rand’s ideas and herself, I am not at all advocating not reading her books. On the contrary, my opinion about it is still purely subjective and based only on personal rejection of hypocrisy, even in such a rare form, when hypocrisy turns out to be sincere and a person deceives himself first of all. If you have free time and don't have an aversion to prose that is literally a mixture of a socialist realist industrial novel with a women's romance novel written from the point of view of a sociopath, then you should read all three volumes. If not, then at least John Galt's speech itself. Just to form your own opinion.
Vladimir Shlapentokh
DECONSTRUCTION OF Ayn RAND'S PHILOSOPHY: ITS MARXIST AND BOLSHEVIK ROOTS (IN CONNECTION WITH THE PUBLICATION OF HER NOVELS IN RUSSIA)
Ayn Rand Selfishness concept. - St. Petersburg: Association of Businessmen of St. Petersburg, 1995.
Ain rand We are alive. St. Petersburg: Nevskaya Perspective, 2006.
Ayn Rand Atlas Shrugged: In 3 volumes. M.: Alpina Publishers, 2010.
Ayn Rand Source: In 2 volumes. M.: Alpina Business Books, 2009.
Ayn Rand Hymn. M.: Alpina Publishers, 2009.
Rand A. Apology of capitalism. M.: New Literary Review, 2003.
Rand A. Big business is a persecuted minority of American society // Emergency Reserve. 2001. No. 1(15).
The reason for writing this text was the publication of Ayn Rand’s works in the last ten years in Russia, where she was previously almost unknown. There have not been many immigrant women in US history who have had such a stunning intellectual career as Ayn Rand (née Alice Rosenbaum). Without a Western education (like another emigrant who became widely known in America, Hannah Arendt) and connections, by the early 1960s she turned out to be the author of books with millions of copies, the creator of a philosophical movement and institute, an intellectual with whom the most famous journalists in the country were eager to talk. Of course, Rand's ardent admirers greatly exaggerate her popularity, but it is quite plausible that 8% of American adults have read something of Rand's work.
Rand became known as the most ardent supporter of capitalism and non-interference of the state in the life of society, and, of course, as an ardent apologist for individualism and an enemy of collectivism.
I will try to prove that the prevailing view that Rand was an ardent supporter of liberal capitalism is false. In fact, she fought on two fronts - against collectivism and against democratic society. In essence, she was an apologist for aristocratic (oligarchic or feudal) capitalism, in which talented and noble magnates command society.
I will also try to show that the originality of Ayn Rand's worldview is exaggerated, and that she owes many of her ideas to Marx, as well as to the practice and ideology of the Russian Bolsheviks. In relation to Rand, it is very appropriate to apply the famous phrase of the German historian Leopold Ranke, who, assessing the work of his colleague, noted that “what is new is wrong, what is right is not new.”
The obscurity of Ayn Rand in the USSR is itself interesting fact. It's unlikely that it's just a matter of censorship. The novel “1984” penetrated into the USSR back in the late 1950s. (I read the English text of this book in the Novosibirsk Academy Town in 1963), although Orwell clearly surpasses Rand in terms of the level of anti-Sovietism. "Atlanta..." doesn't even mention communism or socialism, let alone Stalin or terror. Samizdat distributed any book published in the West - from Lady Chatterley's Lover to For Whom the Bell Tolls. If censorship is not to blame in this case, perhaps it is due to other reasons. Those Western intellectuals, enemies of the Soviet system, who supplied us with books were hardly fans of Rand. As it now became clear to me, even those who read her in their youth did not believe that Rand’s books would help fight a totalitarian regime.
If until recently the Russian reader did not count Rand among even minimally popular foreign authors, then Rand formally ignored her homeland. She saw the Russian Revolution and left Russia in 1926 at the age of 21. In the 1990s. those who began to translate and publish Rand in Russia apparently decided that the time had come for this. D. Kostygin, a translator and publisher of her books in Russia, believes that Rand will be useful to Russian readers because she will help them get out of the Kremlin’s tutelage and “finally recognize themselves as adults and independent, take responsibility for the most important decisions.” A. Etkind sees the usefulness of Rand’s books for Russia in that they will strengthen the prestige of liberalism in Russia and will be able to convince Russians of the correctness of “the moral value of political economy, which is built on the freedom of mutual choice of seller and buyer, and only on it.”
In thinking about Rand's encounter with her homeland many years after her death, it would be worthwhile to trace how her homeland experience influenced her work, something that almost no one did. It is absurd to believe that nine years of life after the revolution in Russia were not enough for Alice Rosenbaum to gain impressions for the rest of her life. In fact, the formation of her worldview took place in Soviet Russia, where she graduated from Petrograd University with a degree in social pedagogy, combining history, philosophy and law. Almost all humanities subjects were taught at the university in the spirit of Bolshevik ideology. Rand did not graduate from any educational institutions in America. One does not need to appeal to Freudian views about the decisive role of the early years in human life to refute the desire to downplay the significance of the Soviet years for Rand.
It is commonly thought that this experience amounted to Rand's permanent hatred of collectivism and the totalitarian state. This is a gross oversimplification. In fact, the ideology of the revolution, Bolshevik ideology and practice and, of course, Marxism (it is unlikely that in America she could avoid direct contact with Marxist radicals) were deeply embedded in the fabric of Rand’s work. (Something similar happened with many emigrants of all three waves from Russia: having arrived in the West with hatred of totalitarianism, they retained a lifelong commitment to a number of dogmas of the ideology that they despised. A number of sociological surveys of both refugees of the 1950s and emigrants of the 1970s show this convincingly.) In fact, Marxism and Bolshevism became the starting point for many of her philosophical and social views. Only Nietzsche (along with the social Darwinist Spencer) could rival the influence of Marx and the Russian Revolution on Rand's views.
In the endless monologues of Rand’s heroes on the most abstract topics, almost no thinker is quoted (except for Descartes’ aphorism “I think, therefore I am” and quotes from Aristotle on essence). In her essay on capitalism, Rand did not find it possible to quote a single author whose views were close to her. The tendency to exaggerate her originality and ignore those from whom she borrowed certain points is typical of Rand.
Rand and Marx
Now let's begin the process of deconstructing Rand's views. The role of materialism in the philosophy of Marx and Rand provides a good starting point for this.
Rand appears in her works as a materialist, in no way inferior to Marx in this regard. The latter seems, however, to be several orders of magnitude more sophisticated philosopher, since he thoroughly knew German philosophy, with her deep interest in the complexities of the cognitive process. The main principle of Rand's philosophy of "objectivism" is formulated as follows: "Facts are facts and are independent of human feelings, desires, hopes or fears." Adjacent to it is another postulate - the principle of “identity” - “A is A”, meaning that “a fact is a fact” (the third part of “Atlas” has the subtitle “A is A”) strikes with primitivism, as well as its criticism of Kant. Only Lenin, in his book “Materialism and Empirio-Criticism,” expressed in 1908 literally what Rand formulated half a century later: “Consciousness is mirror reflection reality." Rand did not go further than the amateur Lenin, although educated for those times.
The complex mechanism of forming ideas about the world is deeply alien to Rand, the creator of the philosophy of objectivism, as well as to many orthodox Marxists. Rand might, given her pretensions to the title of philosopher, learn something about phenomenology, Husserl or Schutze, his student, who published his books in America during Rand's time. And what are Galt’s long arguments in Atlas’s main speech about human nature worth? Here are just some excerpts: “...the mind of a person is the main weapon of his survival” or “everything that is good for the life of a reasonable person is good” or that the troubles of American citizens are “the result of your attempts not to notice that A is A”, “violence and mind are incompatible” and “spirit and matter are one.”
Rand's economic views are equally naive. Consider her description of competition while refusing to consider the problem of monopoly in a market system or her glorification of the role of money in society - “money is the means of your survival”, “he who loves money is ready to work for it” or “money is a barometer of the state of society” (see “Atlas”, part two). In describing the economic system (in novels and theoretical essays), she practically ignores the basic economic institutions such as finance and banks, stock exchanges and insurance companies.
Many admirers of Rand emphasize the fact that she acted as an admirer of reason in her novels and other publications. Indeed, enthusiastic words about reason and its decisive importance in the life of society are found everywhere in her works. But both Marx and Soviet ideology did exactly the same thing. Rand's philosophy is similar to Marx and Soviet ideology in its militant atheism and contempt for all forms of mysticism. Rand passionately attacks the basic dogmas of Christianity and Judaism.
As is known, Marx entered the history of ordinary consciousness as a thinker who insisted that in his contemporary capitalist society, the thirst for profit is the main stimulus for people’s activities in all spheres of life, including relations between men and women. The most striking lines in the Communist Manifesto belong to human greed. In describing the relationship between Hank and his wife, Rand is close to the pathos of the Manifesto. She puts into the mouth of her beloved hero accusations against his wife that she is guided only by gross self-interest. Rand sees the same self-interest in the behavior of most people in the novels. She, with almost Marxian flamboyant sarcasm, referring to her philosophy of “objectivism,” exposes the attempts of citizens to disguise material motives conversations about the welfare of the people, about compassion for others, or about God.
However, unlike Marx, who dreamed of a society with other, more noble motives, Rand is confident that self-interest was, is and will be the main incentive for people of all types, not only the industrial magnates she adored, but also creative people. The dollar, to which the last phrase “Atlanta” is dedicated, is for Rand a symbol of the meaning of life. She only wants the money to be earned honestly. Through the mouth of her character Galt, she takes up arms against deception as the most important element of American society, which provides income to those who do not deserve it. Rand surpassed even the most left-wing radicals in her criticism of contemporary American society, who never stooped to interpreting social problems at such a primitive psychological level.
However, ordinary psychologism in general is almost the main tool of Rand’s analysis. Galt's final speech is filled with maxims such as " sole purpose a person’s own happiness,” “pleasure and pain, joy and suffering are opposed to each other.” (By the way, in his discussions of happiness, Rand liberally uses the arguments of Plato and Aristotle on this topic and, of course, without references.)
As Sartre noted in an article on anti-Semitism, many Jews (he called them inauthentic) tried in their public behavior to act exactly the opposite of the anti-Semitic stereotype, for example, throwing themselves into fights for no reason. However, his typology of Jews did not include those who would strive to behave or raise their children in such a way that their behavior confirmed the anti-Semitic stereotype. One of Rand’s tasks, apparently, was precisely to confirm that the vulgar Marxist image of the capitalist, as described, for example, by Gorky in “The Country of the Yellow Devil” or Marshak in “Mr. Twister”), was indeed fair. Rand's heroes glorify what Marxists blamed on capitalists - selfishness, lack of interest in the public good, indifference to the suffering of others. According to Rand, other behavior undermines the stimulation of human activity, which should not spend emotions on anything other than increasing the number of dollars - a clear criterion for the success of human activity.
Probably, our Western friends of the Cold War period, who without exception read Tolstoy and Dostoevsky with admiration and watched Chekhov’s plays in the theater, could not even imagine that Russian readers would be able to perceive without shudder the lines ridiculing sacrifice and sympathy for the “fallen and beggars."
However, not only Russian classical literature treated Akaki Akakievich or Sonechka Marmeladova with deep sympathy. Almost all the outstanding Western writers with whom Russian readers were well acquainted did not glorify the power of money and contempt for the weak and humiliated. Neither Balzac's Rastignac nor Dreiser's Cowperwood is an object of admiration, and Dickens went down in history as a great defender of the poor and an enemy of workhouses, the existence of which fits well with the ethics of Ayn Rand.
Rand considers labor, production and creativity to be the foundations of social life. This most important postulate of hers is also deeply Marxist in essence. Marx wrote many lines extolling the spirit of capitalism and entrepreneurship. Soviet works of the 20-30s, such as Ilyin’s “Conveyor” or Ehrenburg’s “The Second Day,” which poeticize creative work, are direct analogues of the glorification of creativity in “The Source” and “Atlanta.” Innovators in science, industry and agriculture, brave directors of Soviet enterprises who are not afraid of risk - main topic Soviet industrial novels, such as “Far from Moscow” by Azhaev or “Kruzhilika” by Panova. It is necessary to mention the books of Schumpeter, who, not without the influence of Marx, sang paeans to the capitalist entrepreneur - a pioneer in the development of new technology (for example, Capitalism, Socialism and Democracy (1942)) and were very popular during Rand's time. However, in Rand we will not find a single reference to this main singer of entrepreneurship in her contemporary literature, although many authors point to the direct proximity of Atlas and the works of Schumpeter.
The ideological closeness of Rand and Marx becomes striking when it comes to the division of production into material and immaterial - one of the weakest postulates of Marxist political economy, accepted by Soviet economic doctrine and rejected after the collapse of the USSR. Western economics, it should be noted, has never recognized this division.
In essence, Rand shares Marx's idea that “new value,” real goods, are created only in material production. All of Rand's heroes represent only material production in the Marxist sense - metal (Rearden), coal (Denegger), oil (Wyeth), cars (Hammond), construction (Roark) and railroads (Dagney). None of Rand's main goodies is a banker (like Cowperwood in Dreiser's The Financier) or even the owner of trading enterprises. The owner of the real estate and media company Wynand in The Source is an outright scoundrel.
Marxists and Rand's heroes firmly believe that a capitalist society should not and cannot be concerned with national objectives, social goods and collective values. They are sure that those figures who talk about this are pure demagogues, because only individual interest reigns everywhere. In Rand's novels we find only ridicule of national projects, such as low-cost housing in The Fountainhead or military installation K in Atlanta. “Men with ideals” in bourgeois society, such as Holcomb or Toohey in The Fountainhead, are for Rand, as for Marxists (unless these people are socialists), pure frauds. Rand has no positive heroes with national ideals. The term “socially responsible business” is an oxymoron for Rand.
Marxists and Rand are very close in their criticism of modern capitalism (true capitalism, as Rand argued, has not yet been built). They consider the main vice of this society to be opposition to technological progress and the development of science. However, modern capitalist society is a better environment for technological progress than any other social order. In his long speech, the hero of "Atlas" Galt (and later the "traitor to the mind" great philosopher and physicist Robert Stadler) insists that modern American society is in the hands of believers, mystics, and government officials who are constantly fighting against reason and science. Marxists blame this not on mystics, but on “capitalist relations of production,” which looks somewhat more serious, although just as far-fetched.
Rand and her admirers seriously claim that she was the first to find a moral justification for capitalism, which until then had only been subject to continuous criticism. For those who are at least familiar with Protestant ethics, this sounds crazy.
In his description of the American state, Rand almost repeats the Marxist interpretation of the state. This is not a body representing the interests of the majority, which elects state leaders and the legislative branch, but an instrument in the hands of certain forces. For orthodox Marxists, these are capitalists; for Rand, these are all kinds of demagogues and “robbers.” Discussions about “bandits,” as she calls the state apparatus, even in the “normal period” (before the formation utopian society in the valley) overwhelm both novels, especially Atlas. Rand's main accusations against the state, like those of the Marxists, are pure fiction, since she completely ignores the many vital functions of the Western state for society. While Rand acknowledges that domestic and foreign security must be addressed, he ignores many other functions, from traffic control and drug control to the Federal Reserve and the Aviation Safety Agency. She is infinitely far from understanding the importance of finding an effective relationship between the market and the state in society.
Rand also criticizes the state for its interest in science. It is this that has turned science, in the words of Stadler’s Atlas character, into “a complete fraud.” But fundamental sciences cannot develop only under market control, nor can projects of national importance. Amazingly, the Manhattan Project, created by the American government to obtain nuclear weapons needed to save Western civilization, of which Rand was a contemporary, did not stop her accusations of government-funded science. Moreover, she made fun of the state defense project called “K” to her heart’s content in the novel “The Source.”
The Russian publishers apparently believed that now that communism was in the past, readers would be able to appreciate Rand's endless hatred of the state. This hatred echoes the calls of such staunch Russian liberals of the late 80s and early 90s, such as Larisa Piyasheva, who proposed expelling the state not only from the economy, but also from science, education and law enforcement. Like Piyasheva and many American liberals, Rand identified any state with totalitarianism and did not make any distinction between the activities of the state in America and the Soviet state.
Rand and Bolshevism
Rand's views were formed under the influence of Bolshevism, its ideology and practice.
Many of Rand's admirers are delighted by how she consistently opposes sympathy and helping people who do not contribute to "industrial production." Rand could have learned the denial of compassion as the main enemy of progress not so much from Nietzsche as from the Bolsheviks, who taught it to the residents of Petrograd in the early 1920s. There are many lessons of ruthlessness towards people. Bolshevik texts - from Lenin's speeches to the publications of propagandists of the 20s and 30s. — filled with hatred of internal and external enemies, parasites who shirk “socially useful work.” In the pioneer oath, which I solemnly swore at the pioneer meeting on November 5, 1936, the central place was occupied by the promise to be “merciless” towards the enemies of the revolution.
The same hatred of the weak permeates Rand's novels. To a certain extent, she goes further in this hatred than the Bolsheviks. After all, they contrasted class hatred with the solidarity of the working people. Rand does not write a word about the benefits of solidarity and collectivism. It is her worst enemies, although in the finale of "Atlanta" we still see some elements of solidarity between its heroes, of which they are, however, ashamed.
In essence, Rand's call to abandon the feeling of compassion and help is a rejection of the civilizational norms that humanity has developed with great difficulty. In the 1960s Chingiz Aitmatov’s play “Climbing Mount Fuji” was staged at the Moscow Sovremennik Theater. It told how in Japan, according to custom, old people, after they had ceased to “produce” (to use Rand’s favorite verb), were taken to a mountain and left to die. In the play, the son, despite his father’s pleas to observe the custom, refuses to do so and returns home from the mountain with his father. Norbert Elias's famous book "The Civilization Process" (1939) is precisely dedicated to this slow movement of man from barbarism and cruelty to "civilized behavior", which does not fit into the treatment of the hero of "Atlas" by Rearden with his mother, no matter how terrible she was. .
The willingness to destroy also brings the Bolsheviks and Rand's heroes closer together.
Rand's characters deliberately had a hand in creating complete destruction in the utopian part of the novel. Suffice it to recall the hero of Atlas, dear to Rand’s heart, Ragnar Danneshield, who regularly blew up the ships of “robbers” (entrepreneurs obedient to the authorities). No less energetic in destructive activity was Francisco D'Anconia, who, with the explicit approval of his friends and the author himself, blew up the copper mines of the world. The owners of many businesses destroyed them before fleeing, in spite of the authorities and the population of the country. In the second part of Atlanta, fires and explosions can be found on almost every page, so that the state of Russia during the civil war, which Alice Rosenbaum observed and then used in her novel, looks almost tolerable. Petrograd, when the heroine of the novel “We Are the Living” lived there, looks much better than New York with the lights gone out, which in the finale of “Atlanta” is in “convulsions.” Roark in The Fountainhead, with the full approval of his lover and Rand herself, did not hesitate to destroy the building, during the construction of which his architectural plans were violated. In the same novel, the man who shot the unworthy demagogue, a certain Mallory, evoked the warmest feelings in Roark. In much the same way, the Bolsheviks positively assessed the Narodnaya Volya heroes who shot at the tsars, even if they did not consider these actions to be the best.
It is extremely noteworthy that Rand’s heroes - Roark, Galt, D’Anconia and Rearden - are as impeccable knights in defending their ideals as revolutionaries like Gorky’s Vlasov, Fadeev’s Levinson and Ostrovsky’s Korchagin. In both Rand and Soviet authors, they are opposed by absolute scoundrels, such as the traitor industrialist Haggart and the evil servant of the state Ferris and Mouch.
It is not surprising that the idea of death is an important part of the consciousness of the Bolsheviks and Rand's heroes. Roark, Dagny, Galt, Rearden and others repeatedly express their readiness, like true revolutionaries, to die for the cause at any moment, some in the fight against the world and domestic bourgeoisie, others against the government and mediocrities.
The revolutionary pathos of Soviet origins extended to Rand's love relationships. And here she follows the Bolshevik understanding of love and ideology. As one of its main reasoners, Francisco D'Anconia, argues: “Only owning a heroine gives a feeling of satisfaction.” The heroine of "The Source" Dominique Francon can only love a hero like Roarke, rejecting the scoundrel Skitting. Moreover, love, inspired by the high ideals of creativity, pushes the heroine to literally pathological actions - in order to strengthen the spirit of her lover, she refuses to meet with him and even marries his enemy.
The beautiful Dagny in the novel “Atlas” bestows love on three highly ideological men with whom she has a deep ideological affinity. The author emphasizes every time that without ideological kinship, a partner could hardly count on sexual success. The ideological motives of the heroes of the novel "Atlas" make it impossible for jealousy to arise - a bourgeois feeling that was severely condemned by the Bolsheviks in the 20s. Dagny had an enthusiastic love with all three main characters of Atlas, which did not prevent them from maintaining good relations. Soviet writers of the 20s. vividly described the role of ideology in love relationships between a man and a woman. Let us recall, for example, Boris Lavrenev’s story “The Forty-First,” in which a Red Army girl kills the white officer she loves. Lyubov Yarovaya in the play of the same name by Konstantin Trenev without hesitation subordinates love to business and betrays her husband. Subsequently, love between people devoted to the Soviet regime became the central theme (let us recall Ivan Pyryev’s film “The Pig Farmer and the Shepherd”).
Obviously, Rand's novels deserve the same criticism as most works of social realism, in which heroes, good or bad, embody ideological concepts. They make long ideological speeches, although it is unlikely that anyone will be able to break the record for the length of the final speech of the hero of “Atlas” Galt, which is allocated 82 pages in the Russian edition (it is stated that Galt spoke on the radio for 4 hours). The biggest reasoners in Soviet and any other books pale in comparison to Galt. The behavior of the heroes of the works of socialist realism and Rand is completely devoid of convincing psychological justification. The edification in them does not disappear from a single page. It is possible that those Americans who supplied us with books banned in Russia during the Cold War understood that the literary quality of Rand's novels was very low. A Soviet intellectual who hated socialist realism and propaganda pseudo-literature would simply not be able to read novels overflowing with philosophical and, as a rule, trivial maxims.
The great faith of Marxists and Soviet ideologists in reason, which predetermined a deep contempt for the ordinary person, is bizarrely combined with the cult of individualism in Rand. Both the Bolsheviks and Rand, of course, hid their true attitude towards the masses. The heroine of "Atlanta" Dagny is sad that all her life she "found herself surrounded by stupid gray people." She and other heroes are sure that people act only under the influence of fear. However, their attitude towards democracy betrays them all. Lenin created a special theory about the leading role of the party and proletarian democracy and treated bourgeois democracy with the greatest contempt, describing bourgeois politicians in literally the same satirical tones as Rand. However, Rand is even more outspoken in her disbelief in democracy and public opinion, which cannot be a place where reason reigns. “I don’t care what anyone else thinks,” says Rearden, one of Rand’s favorites (“Atlas,” Part One).
Democracy and elections are almost completely ignored in Rand's novels, and democratic institutions (the legislature and the president) are systematically ridiculed in her novels. The protagonist of Atlas, Galt, in his final speech frankly states that elected politicians cannot be entrusted with solving the problems that face the individual. All politicians, especially those who claim to represent the interests of the people, like Ellsworth Toohey in The Fountainhead, are scammers and demagogues. Public opinion as a democratic institution is only ridiculed in Rand's novels. Rand's heroes completely ignore the opinions of others. Dominic in The Source leaves with contempt a newspaper that hypocritically preaches freedom of speech. Alice Rosenbaum observed the same thing in Petrograd, when the Bolsheviks swore their love for the people while simultaneously closing down newspapers they didn't like and ignoring what the majority thought about their power. Both the Bolsheviks and Rand's heroes are merciless towards the bourgeois court. Roark's trial in February 1931, where he was convicted for his creativity and original construction of the temple, is an example of this.
Rand not only glorifies the destruction of the material basis of a society that she does not like, but also, having just left revolutionary Russia, calls for a revolution in America in order to build her ideal society in it. The heroes of “Atlant” do not use elections to change the social system, but force and strikes. At the end of Atlas, President Thompson is forcibly removed from communication with the people. Seizing illegal control over all the country's radio stations (remember Lenin's famous condition for a successful coup - the seizure of train stations, post offices, telegraphs and telephones), Galt utters literally the same words that are attributed to the sailor Zheleznyak, who expelled the Constituent Assembly in January 1918 - “Mr. Thompson today won't talk to you. His time is up."
It is also surprising that Rand recreates in Atlanta the cult of the leader that she observed in Russia. Her equivalent to Lenin, Galt, even has a large underground life to her credit and has been hiding from the police for 12 long years. His name, like the name of Lenin, became a legend and the hope of the country's creative minority. When the time came, he rightfully showed the country how it should live, what the shortcomings of society were and how they should be corrected. Rand is, as it were, an individualist, but she demands that the people follow the instructions of the leader, threatening an economic catastrophe, again literally repeating the theses of Bolshevik propaganda.
Like the Bolsheviks, for Rand the strike, not elections, is the main weapon in political struggle. It was the strike, together with the destruction of the country, that provided the conditions for the creation of a new American society in “Atlanta.” But, unlike the Bolsheviks, Rand’s strike is not organized by proletarians, but by capitalists together with other creative people - composers and philosophers. Neither during Rand's life nor after her death were there such collective actions of capitalists. If they come into conflict with the government, then everything they do is very individual, such as, for example, withdrawing their capital abroad.
What endeared the Rand to millions of Americans?
As is clear from the above, Rand's economic and political views, borrowed from the Marxists and Bolsheviks, as well as from Nietzsche and Spencer, are very primitive. However, Rand's position on two issues was able to resonate in the minds of many Americans who believe that society, in the person of their bosses and institutions, does not value them as they deserve and that many slackers in society are trying to take advantage of the results of their labors.
No less attractive is Nietzsche’s praise of heroic innovators, the call to follow what Pushkin formulated - “blasphemy and praise were accepted indifferently,” a call for talent to be absorbed in self-expression as highest value for a creative person. Rand's geniuses are nothing new in world literature, and here there is very little originality. She most likely read Goethe's Faust, or perhaps the famous novel about the scientist Arrowsmith by Sinclair Lewis, which was awarded the Pulitzer Prize in 1926.
The conflict between talents and mediocrities, between workaholics and slackers, between people who love their profession and those who hate it (“ the only sin on earth - to do your job poorly,” says Rand’s characters Francisco and Dagny in different chapters of “Atlanta”), is not unique to American society. It is universal in nature and was very important in Soviet society. In the 1960s The Soviet intelligentsia reproached the authorities for encouraging mediocrity. True, it must be admitted that when it came to military production - the main branch of the Soviet economy - the authorities assessed talents and hard work quite well.
The weakness of Rand's analysis of society's attitude to the assessment of talents and geniuses is that it did not understand the complexity of assessing people's activities. In her opinion, it is easy to value in dollars the contribution of an entrepreneur and scientist, writer and doctor, teacher and musician. In fact, public assessment of the activities of people of different professions is a complex and often insoluble task.
Rand also attracted Americans with her attacks on parasites. There is a rational grain in Rand's discussions about the harm of helping others. Indeed, help often corrupts and destroys a person. At the same time, this principle was the moral basis for early capitalism, for those entrepreneurs of the early 19th century who argued that a 12-hour work day for children helped them avoid the temptations of the street. The same principle is used to justify criticism of any social programs, including pensions and health insurance (some libertarians still share this view today). This point of view is quite acceptable to Marxists, who also denounce the “handouts” of the ruling class and demand the return of all surplus product to the working people, who will then not need charity. In his fight against civilization, Rand also attacks love, believing that partners should never give anything “free” to their partner. One of the most remarkable declarations of love was made by the hero of “Atlas” Rearden when he announced to his beloved that he loved her not “for your pleasure, but for his own.”
That Rand might mock altruism is not surprising. Marxists, especially the Bolsheviks, have always mocked this bourgeois invention. Until the 1970s a positive reference to altruism as opposed to the “class approach” was impossible in the USSR. Here is what was said in the Great Soviet Encyclopedia (third edition, 1970) about this concept (in the spirit of the tirades of Rand’s heroes): “ Altruism retained this meaning (“selfless service to each other”) right up to bourgeois society, where it extended to the area of private charity and personal services. On the other hand, any attempt to present a principle Altruism how the path of transforming an antagonistic society on extra-egoistic principles ultimately led to ideological hypocrisy and hid the antagonism of class relations.”
V. Efroimson’s article “The Pedigree of Altruism” in Novy Mir (1971, No. 10), which substantiated the deep social and biological roots of altruism, became almost a political sensation. (I remember with what reverence I met Efroimson at the Lenin Library.) When in the 40s and 50s. Since Rand's admirers accepted her attacks on altruism as a dangerous social phenomenon, this could also be explained by the lack of popular biological and sociological works about the enormous positive role of altruism in the history of mankind and modern society. But now, at the beginning of the 21st century, such an approach can no longer be legitimate from any point of view.
Conclusion
Rand undoubtedly belongs to the most brilliant women of the 20th century. For a young girl who came to a foreign country full of talents, to make it to the top of her intellectual world in a short period of time was a kind of feat. Rand guessed how to attract the interest of millions of Americans. This is the praise of their desire for self-realization, the thirst for a fair assessment of their activities and freedom from the exploitation of labor by idlers. An appeal to human instincts, noble or base, is the technique of all ideologists and politicians. And he always promises success.
However, Rand's philosophical, economic and social constructs were never taken seriously by academic and literary America. Its ideological roots - Nietzsche, Marx, Bolshevism, Spencer - turned out to be insufficient to develop a serious social program. Moreover, these sources made her an enemy of modern American society. Rand despises democracy, public opinion, the media, political parties, courts and, of course, the American state - all institutions of American democratic society without exception. The ideal society she depicts is devoid of any basis. On the one hand, this society is described as an anarchist commune, not regulated by any body. On the other hand, it contains elements of oligarchism (“the aristocracy of money,” as the character Francisco D’Anconia calls it), to which Rand, with her antidemocraticism and belief in an intellectual elite, clearly gravitates. Atlantis is like an anarchist commune, but clearly not viable. It must evolve either into Plato's Republic led by philosophers, at best, or into Jack London's Iron Heel, which is no better than Soviet totalitarianism.
In his typology of political systems, Aristotle distinguishes three, depending on who controls society. If “one” rules, then we are dealing, to use modern terms, with authoritarianism, if “few” then with an aristocratic (or oligarchic, or feudal) regime, if “many” - with democracy. Rand clearly gravitates towards the second regime. That is why she did not have good relations with libertarians, who, as a rule, are devoted to the cause of democracy.
Rand's primitivism is the result of a strikingly one-dimensional view of society, so characteristic of many Marxists. Rand does not understand that society, in order to preserve itself, to avoid civil wars, to ensure solidarity in case of external danger, needs a complex social policy, the creation national projects and in alleviating the plight of the unprivileged sections of society.
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