In Ayn Rand's The Fountainhead, Roark, an architect, is meeting with prospective clients who are telling him what they want, or, more accurately, what they think they want due to cultural and societal influences. Roark, is quite outside the mainstream so he's been offending the sensibilities of the community. Well, as he is listening he draws the conclusions "There is no such person as 'X'", (meaning they are just an empty container filled with all the opinions of their friends and society.)
That's a pretty sobering thought. What IS filling your container? WHO is filling it? YOU or someone else? Do YOU exist?
You used to be an empty vessel. So did I.
You, and I, have been filled to overflowing with many, many messages about what it takes to make it in the world. What we need, what we should want, what is appropriate, or not for our behavior, for our goals, for our needs, for our desires. It's VERY hard to clean that stuff out. I don't know how possible it is to clean it ALL out. Some of us have a hard enough time keeping the tops of our desk clean!
So, if my friend was right, and I tend, at this point, to think she was--if life is empty and meaningless--it is up to you to create something with the portion you have given.
Make sure that you exist.
It matters.
Article comments
— go to most recent comments1 - Jack
Dear Laura,
I hope that you do something with your life now that you see that it is up to you to decide. I would suggest that you read more of Ayn Rand, though. She's great.
Best Wishes,
Jack
2 - Laura Young
Well, Jack, actually I am doing MUCH with my life. It's quite a delicious journey actually.
Thanks for your well wished. I'll get back 'round to Ayn...currently checking out existentialists via my guilty pleasure, teachco.com.
Best,
L
3 - Bob A. Booey
If you regard Ayn Rand as good reading, your life truly must be empty and meaningless, not to mention ignorant.
That is all.
4 - Laura Young
Bob, are you trying to insult Jack or me or both? Whatever your opinion of her, Ayn has certainly had literary staying power so it seemed to me that she was worth some investigation. (One sure way to combat ignorance is to go right to the source, imho).I wouldn't run back in to save the book if my house was burning, but there are some compelling thoughts contained within it.
Surely, you have met people in your life who didn't exist in the sense that Roark meant it?
5 - Bob A. Booey
Staying power? Rand is neither literature nor philosophy and no serious scholars in either field take her seriously.
If you are an empty vessel filled with poor ideas like Objectivism, I pray for your soul. Objectivism is not revolutionary, nor is it radical or existentialist in any sense -- it's a cultlike, perspective-less celebration of the status quo (capitalism, selfishness, some bizarre interpretation of "reason" and "rationality" that is wholly irrational and unreasonable) posing as ideological difference. It's a cheap, easy shortcut to philosophy, literature and politics for people with no understanding of those things and it fetishizes individualism without any responsibility for the content of that individual life, as existentialism demands. I cannot think of a more inauthentic, sheeplike adherence to inchoate ideology and bad thinking in bad faith than Ayn Rand and her followers.
That is all.
6 - Laura Young
But tell me, Bob, how do you REALLY feel?
7 - McGroarty
It's interesting how many of Ayn Rand's critics attack her by calling those who adopt her philosophy "sheep." The outcome of her philosophy is that you aren't compelled to follow others, and that you haven't a right to force others to follow you. Sheep might have trouble with these ethics.
It should also be noted that Objectivism isn't incompatible with personal values leading you to help friends, a society, or whatever cause you choose. The key is that you haven't any right to force others to sacrifice their values for your own. So when you call Objectivism "selfish" as though that were a bad word, are you suggesting that some degree of fascism is good, Bob?
8 - Mark the Sane and Sensible
"I cannot think of a more inauthentic, sheeplike adherence to inchoate ideology and bad thinking in bad faith than Ayn Rand and her followers."
I certainly can! Liberalism/socialism/COLLECTIVISM
You can't be weak and embrace Objectivism.
You can't be weak and live for your own sake.
You can't be weak and reject the will of the mob.
You can't be weak and reject tastes of those who first consider the opinion of that mob in determining what is correct.
This is why the weak like bob a. booey can't embrace Objectivism, because he very needy and dependent on the mob to give him strength and purpose. His purpose cannot derive solely out of his own mind and will. He cannot live independently of others and for his own sake. He cannot offer no help and ask for none in return. He just wants to destroy individualism and egoists, because the mob cannot control them.
That is all.
9 - Mark the Sane and Sensible
Laura Young:
You are the most brilliant blogger on this whole website. Keep up the good work.
10 - Bob A. Booey
See, McGroarty, this is why you're hopeless and yes, sheeplike.
Do you really oppose selfishness with fascism? If one is not selfish that automatically implies "some degree of fascism"? That's cultspeak.
And if you are such a fan of Rand's, are you not aware that her entire school of thought came up through a still extant Objectivist School complete with official texts (mostly Rand's), official spokesmen (Peikoff and Branden, until the inevitable falling outs with lover/mother Rand), official meetings and conferences, and even an official lexicon defining everything and anything of interest through the lens of Objectivism and Rand's writings? You can still buy all of these things today from the Objectivist Institute, which by the way also offers mugs, T-shirts and free books to any educational institution that would be so lax about their curriculum as to teach them. That's kind of the same game plan the Hare Krishnas take these days too. Objectivism as a school of thought is cultlike and there's a few books and even films about how bizarrely the whole pseudo-philosophical cult played out in real social terms.
Look at the odd, stilted language you use too. You use the oddly formal "you haven't a right" multiple times to describe what you call a "philosophy of freedom." Fascism doesn't seem far off from a philosophy valorizing the status quo of capitalism and individual atomism at the expense of any other forms of human happiness. There's surely more to life than that and I think Rand's warmed-over, illiterate, bastardized misreading of Nietzsche has lots of problems for her followers, who find life unfulfilling.
What's the great transgression? What's the great liberation? In Nietzsche, it makes sense -- art gives expression to spirit and breaks through the nihilism of the age. Rand borrows Nietzsche's rejection of herd morality, but replaces it with nothing but a fetishistic, defeated embrace of nihilism itself, the death of art, sociality, and cultural meaning in the "architecture" of rational capitalism and selfishness. It's not a meaningful sort of selfishness that defines one by their values, art, and beliefs, but beliefs in individualism as a dead end of the soul. It's literally a world stripped of meaning, connection, or spirit altogether, something which goes far beyond atheism to a lack of belief in anything. It's literally nihilist in its ideology -- the individual is valorized for no other reason than the circular logic that the individual, alone with no responsibilities outside herself, is the primary and sole unit of the universe and the mind. Individualism becomes an end that's all too predictable and meaningless -- what does it mean to be an individual? We have only cryptic, proto-fascist science fiction books to tell us. What is the ethical and social content of an individual life? Who cares? Capitalism and selfishness are good, altruism and collectivism are grave evils. Why are they evils? Because they crush the individual, whoever that is and whatever that means.
It's infantilism masquerading as philosophy and thought.
John Galt is the Last Man.
That is all.
11 - Bob A. Booey
Mark,
Does that description you just listed really sound more like me or like you with your piss-poor knee-jerk right wing ideology?
The problem with objectivism is that it's not a true escape from the will of the mob. Capitalism is the epitome of organized mob behavior. Capitalism shapes all your tastes and what you think are your ideas but are really your unexamined prejudices.
You're weak and you accept Objectivism, Mark.
And how exactly are you living life for your own sake? By consuming and declaring that you are an individual? I see no evidence of how noble that is and it's hardly a transgressive act, now is it? How courageous of you to say you don't care about other people.
It's not true because you so clearly need other people to validate your poor ideas through a stupid philosophy like Objectivism.
Don't even try to debate philosophy with me, Mark. You're not even a tenth smart enough.
And if you're an example of Objectivism in practice, I don't even need to criticize it on theoretical grounds.
Only infants and the fearful and insecure think everyone is trying to destroy them. Without knowing it, Mark, I think you've unwittingly hit upon the very core of Objectivism as a philosophy and as a psychology (which it is far closer to than philosophy). You FEAR other people and FEAR the realization that you depend on them because you're overgrown infants who need people but are afraid of them. Objectivism is a philosophy of incompleteness, a wish fantasy that people can live alone while participating in the most herdlike of mob consumerist behavior. Who's trying to destroy you? You don't even know who YOU are and that's why you cling to pseudo-ideologies like Objectivism as a defense against having to find a real philosophy or a real view of human social affairs, politics and psychology.
That is all.
12 - Bob A. Booey
If you truly believe that responsibility is the equivalent of self-destruction, then it's very clear that you are incapable of functioning in the world as an adult human being.
You also use the revealing phrase "egotist," which despite your psychological illiteracy is quite apropos. Objectivism is the rallying cry of the underdeveloped, borderline ego, fearful and incapable of negotiating the world but insistent upon recognition within it. Objectivism is a philosophy of failure, nihilism, and defeat. It's for people who want to close their minds by adopting a philosophy that offers no real insight and says nothing of how you are to live your life or what living for your own sake even means. It's a philosophy that excuses your weaknesses and traumas and thus isn't a philosophy at all, but a self-help movement for those who are for whatever reason dead to the world but unwilling to accept the consequences through any sort of genuine responsibility for an individual life. It's existentialism without any courage or forced choice -- you can still be a herd consumer and define yourself by whatever immature thing you desire. Forget being authentic, it's about being selfish.
And that's why you have people like Mark and Al Barger, prime, STRONG examples of the life examined and the actualized life for one's own sake, bucking the herd so courageously.
That is all.
13 - Mark the Sane and Sensible
"And how exactly are you living life for your own sake?"
By not living for the sake of others.
"I see no evidence of how noble that is and it's hardly a transgressive act"
AAAAAAGGGGHHHH! Why am I picturing right now some graying pony tailed pedant, reeking of body odor from not wearing deoderant, slouching in front of a class of bored students and droning on about one of the most sleep inducing subjects ever devised by mankind? Really, you have to be a real masochist to appreciate or study philosophy, don't you think?
"piss-poor knee-jerk right wing ideology?"
Hmmm, and it's always the "progressives" who claim to be so tolerant of the opinions and views of diverse people and groups, isn't it? And like many progressives, you must turn everything into a metaphysical examination to the nth degree, right?
"It's not true because you so clearly need other people to validate your poor ideas"
Please provide evidence where I have "clearly need(ed) other people to validate (my) poor ideas"?
"Capitalism is the epitome of organized mob behavior."
Spoken like a true Marxist.
"Only infants and the fearful and insecure think everyone is trying to destroy them.
Rand is a perfect example of a radical thinker who challenged traditional 20th philosophical thinking. There are published accounts of vicious rebukes by the old boys club of 1950s intellectualism.
Really, what can be more liberating that hearing someone say that "charity is slavery," or "the world is choking on a glut of altruism"?
"Don't even try to debate philosophy with me, Mark. You're not even a tenth smart enough."
If I have to be like you where college philosophy classes represent the summit of my understanding of life, then I'll pass, thank you. I was never one to believe that any method of thinking had to first pass muster from a collection of tweedy academic types with "PhD" following their name.
I guess you were more impressed by all that nonsense than I was. I'd sooner trust the wisdom of a wage earning day laborer than any academic.
"most herdlike of mob consumerist behavior. Who's trying to destroy you?"
Spoken like a true Marxist.
14 - Mark the Sane and Sensible
"You also use the revealing phrase "egotist,"
Hmm, you claim to possess a far superior intellect yet you fail to quote me correctly. I used the familiar Randian term of "egoist" in my post, not, EGOTIST.
15 - McGroarty
"Do you really oppose selfishness with fascism? If one is not selfish that automatically implies "some degree of fascism"? That's cultspeak."
You're the one who equated self direction and a private selection of values with selfishness. What's the opposite then, if it's not controlling/being controlled and imposed values?
"official meetings and conferences, and even an official lexicon defining everything and anything of interest through the lens of Objectivism and Rand's writings"
That terminology has been formalized and that people get together to share ideas makes them sheep? Can you name any still-living philosophy that doesn't share these traits? Does this mean that anyone looking for a philosophic structure to build on is a sheep?
"Look at the odd, stilted language you use too. You use the oddly formal "you haven't a right" multiple times to describe what you call a "philosophy of freedom." Fascism doesn't seem far off from a philosophy valorizing the status quo of capitalism and individual atomism at the expense of any other forms of human happiness."
Capitalism is nothing more than the belief that a person only makes a trade when it's to his own benefit. Nothing more than that. It's not a replacement for a system of values or anything else you're trying to package with it. You can work toward what you value and only share the proceeds of your work when it contributes to your own happiness without turning into the vague and soulless monster you keep alluding to.
And I repeatedly talk about a right to my freedom specifically because you advocate the alternative position, but seem to go to great lengths to avoid explicitly saying man ought to be controlled.
"What's the great transgression? What's the great liberation? In Nietzsche, it makes sense -- art gives expression to spirit and breaks through the nihilism of the age. Rand borrows Nietzsche's rejection of herd morality, but replaces it with nothing but a fetishistic, defeated embrace of nihilism itself, the death of art"
Miss Rand upheld romantic, representational art. Things showing man as the greatest of beings. She loved art portraying man's unlimited potential and his bravery to pursue it. The only art she rejected, so far as I know, were the products of senseless repetition of "classic styles" from "the masters" and the kind of modern art celebrating the mannequin foot in the toilet bowl which is great merely because "anyone can do it." Modern art and repitition are the antithesis of personal greatness.
16 - gnargtharst
I like Bob Booey's signout, "that is all". It rings like "Amen", or "...for so it is written". Not cultlike at all, that.
I also appreciate the disproportionate amount of time Bob has devoted to convincing us we'll all ignorant. Keep
typin' Bob!
17 - Bob A. Booey
Mark,
You're really funny. You know that? Comical even.
Your anti-intellectualism is funny enough, but your take on her ideas is eccentric and hilarious.
First, I'm way, way younger than you. I'm not some old gray-haired hippie.
Secondly, I'm not a Marxist. Capitalism and the market are inherently social actitivies where you have to engage the herd in mob behavior. That's just a fact.
Third, if you're so bored by philosophy so much and hate it so much, how are you even equipped to point out what Rand was challenging? Why do you even bother reading pseudo-philosophy like Rand? Your misuse of the word "metaphysics" to describe this inane conversation reveals how little you know or care about philosophy.
Fourth, you're about as illiterate in Rand as you are in all other things, because "selfishness" is HER word, not mine. As you may recall, the title of her most popular book is "The Virtue of _____." I'll give you three guesses to fill in the blank, smart guy.
Fifth, Objectivism is a school of philosophy that only exists outside universities and academics, which is why it has developed its cultlike organization of "Officialdom." No other serious philosophical movement is so insular and incestuous because they have peer-reviewed discussion among many competing thinkers. Objectivism and its institutes are financially invested in presenting core texts and official interpretations of Rand. They're salesmen, not scholars. And it's pathetic.
Sixth, your manic desire to oppose selfishness with a "desire to be controlled" is the epitome of the childish, psychologically limited dichotomies Randians want to create. You get upset because I won't explicitly say I want to control people when that's not what I believe. In fact, I criticize Objectivism as a school of thought because it WANTS to control people with official thoughts and official dictionaries. Capitalism control and limits your choices as well -- the market is full of choices with what you can do with your dollar, but the products you consume are cultural products of the herd mentality you criticize. Where's the escape there?
Any economist would also laugh at your inelegant definition of capitalism as well.
"[Capitalism is] not a replacement for a system of values or anything else you're trying to package with it. "
And that's the problem with Rand. There are no values beyond capitalism and some nebulous celebration of the capitalist individual. What exactly do you think she's challenging and what's she replacing it with?
I believe in freedom more than you do, my friend. That much is clear from this discussion and even the language we're using. This, for example, is cultspeak:
"Miss Rand upheld romantic, representational art. [...] Modern art and repitition are the antithesis of personal greatness."
Now you have to judge art and culture by the Great Mother's point of view? Rand had no appreciation for art or culture, which is why her "literature" has such akward, poor dialogue. In her disdain for abstraction and intellect (which you apparently share), I think Rand failed to realize how fundamentally irrational her entire appeal to reason was. There's no philosophical foundation for selfishness, capitalism, or the individual in her work, they're just sort of givens that she starts with. And her misuse of Nietzsche doesn't help matters at all -- it makes her work even more profoundly anti-rational.
Tell me why you think Rand was so radical.
Here's the closest I can come to in your rambling comment:
"Really, what can be more liberating that hearing someone say that "charity is slavery," or "the world is choking on a glut of altruism"?"
How exactly is that liberating to you? That's the standard view of a nihilist, self-interested culture already. What or whom are you liberating besides your own fragile, threatened ego structure?
It's well-documented how little and how poorly Rand thought about psychology, but her use of a term like "egoist" is almost unintentionally revealing and funny. Because Objectivism is psychological self-help for frustrated, defeated, socially unsuccessful (and hence financially unsuccessful) loners who need to follow a convenient philosophy of the status quo that challenges nothing and demands nothing like sheep. It's false belief for those without beliefs. It's nihilism.
Answer my question, Mark: How is responsibility equivalent to self-destruction in your view or in Rand's?
There's no logic there.
That is all.
18 - Bob A. Booey
Mark, I suggest you apologize to everyone on this site for being a ridiculous Internet caricature and give up now.
You clearly aren't equipped to argue this stuff, and certainly not with me.
That is all.
19 - Nancy
I would say he's been reading too much Neitzsche, Boo, except I doubt he can spell it, let alone read it.
20 - Bob A. Booey
Nancy, my nutty dearest :)
I don't think he's ever read Nietzsche. He's just getting the warmed-over bastardized version of Nietzsche in Rand, which is equally illiterate.
That is all.
21 - Amy Wenning
Why does Bob go to such lengths to argue without naming concrete examples and comparisons? If he claims he can triumph in a philosophic debate, and if his goal is to change minds instead of merely getting the last word, I hope he will consider proving that out.
Can he show a case where an Objectivist would suffer for his philosophy, and where a person following Bob's choice of philosophy would enjoy better results?
I also have trouble with the premise that Objectivism is a bad philosophy because it's primarily employed by individuals outside of academia. Most bad ideas can only survive in academia, where failure is largely detached from consequence.
22 - Bob A. Booey
Amy Wenning,
Objectivism is NOT a philosophy, so your point is sort of unimportant. It's most certainly not a utilitarian theory (in fact it repudiates such concerns of people's welfare), so your language of "better results" is irrelevant.
How am I going to change people's minds when they adhere to a non-philosophy? They're nihilists. I know perfectly well I'm not going to change their minds because the reason they gravitate toward Objectivism is because they have lazy minds.
Objectivism's rejection by academe isn't the only reason it's worthless -- I just think it's silly and laughable for Objectivists to try to debate in the language of legitimate philosophy and in reference to academic ideas.
Objectivism, and I mean this quite truly and with no inflammatory intent, is hardly more legitimate a worldview than Scientology is. It's probably a less courageous, less ballsy worldview at that.
That is all.
23 - Shark
Laura Young's writing sounds like pop-philosophy baby-talk. She's gotta be the love child of Dr. Phil and Ayn Rand.
And parsing her 'seminar-style' language ["So why do we embrace clutter? (Yes, I said embrace.)"] and her Objectivism for Hormonally Imbalance Housewives is like shootin' fish in a barrel.
(And Booey, I love you. Keep it up; it's admirable -- but futile.)
24 - Mark the Sane and Sensible
(And Booey, I love you. Keep it up; it's admirable -- but futile.)
Keep your heads in the clouds, kiddies, or up your asses, whatever suits you best.
25 - Mark the Sane and Sensible
"I would say he's been reading too much Neitzsche"
I'd rather read the Wall Street Journal or Barron's. I can't expand my stock and commodities portfolio reading dead European philosophers.