Now with the wisdom of years,
I try to reason things out.
And the only people I fear
Are those who never have doubts.
--Billy Joel, "Shades of Gray"
I humbly submit that Ayn Rand was just plain wrong on several issues:
ABORTION -- Rand's position (which I take as "an unlimited, unqualified right to abortion on demand at any point during pregnancy, including the very moments just before delivery") was completely indefensible in her own time and has only become more outrageous in the present day.
I certainly do agree that there is a window in the early phase of gestation where the embryo is indeed a "clump of protoplasm" that a woman is morally entitled to destroy for any reason. Blanket bans on all abortions are not consistent with a free society. But to suggest, as Rand did and as Peikoff still does, that a late third trimester fetus is still a mere "blob" is as unscientific and anti-intellectual as creationism.
The secondary Rand-Peikoff argument -- that a viable fetus can have no "rights" because they would constitute a zero-sum game by automatically infringing the rights of the woman (Peikoff's framing: the fetus remains "plugged into" the mother like an "android") is about as un-Objectivist a line of reasoning as I would expect from any of Rand's most vocal opponents.
Yes, a woman should have an unconditional right to control her own body. This means, however, not unlimited abortion on demand, but unlimited access to pre-fertilization contraception (i.e., the unlimited right not to become pregnant in the first place). Any law that restricts access of competent adult women (or men, for that matter) to contraception should be unacceptable to a libertarian.
But once a woman has exercised that control over her body, she must now live with the consequences. Isn't that the crux of the distinction between libertarianism and anarchism -- "freedom with responsibility" versus "freedom and all else be damned"? You have freedom, you have choices, but your choices have consequences that no amount of wishful thinking can blank out. Reality exists, and so does that blob of protoplasm inside you.
Again, coupled with the fact that, at some point, that clump of cells gains consciousness (or viability, if you prefer) and becomes a human being, to simply say "It has umbilical cord, so I can destroy it" is an insolent abnegation of reality, one that violates every rule of metaphysics, epistemology and logic that Rand held so dear in all her other writings. Truly mind-boggling.
POST SCRIPT: I'm totally out of my element here, but I once heard that Rand, who was born Jewish, actually is merely parroting wholesale the orthodox Jewish position when it comes to abortion (i.e., a fetus is not a human life under any circumstances until "first breath"). Go figure. Peikoff, meanwhile, mimics Rand -- even today -- because it is of course in his rational self-interest to do so. How far is he going to get by contradicting anything Rand ever wrote?
HOMOSEXUALITY -- Say what?!? The gay guy is going to rant for paragraph after paragraph on abortion but only toss out a few meager sentences regarding Rand's view on homosexuality? Well, to be honest I'm not adequately prepped on the topic. I've read neither Ayn Rand, Homosexuality, and Human Liberation nor the response to it, The Hijacking of a Philosophy: Homosexuals vs. Ayn Rand's Objectivism, though I certainly look forward to reading both.
In any case, to the best of my recollection, the canon doesn't actually mention much about homosexuality; our knowledge of Rand's thinking seems to derive solely from an off-the-cuff remark during a Q&A and some second-person recollections by members of her inner circle (and, one might argue, from inference regarding her writings on romantic love, which always presented exclusively heterosexual love).
And, of course, this was several decades ago -- who ever talked openly and approvingly of gay love and gay sex back then? On the other hand:
Rand’s views were in line with the views at the time of the general public and the psychiatric community. Of course, we expect better than that from the founder of Objectivism and of course, she never provided the slightest argument for her position, but that’s probably because she regarded the matter as self-evident...
My criticism is admittedly less directed toward Rand herself and more toward her successors who now "own" Objectivism. Apparently Peikoff and his underlings are -- finally -- backing off from the claim that there can be no such thing as a "gay Objectivist" (see also this Trey Givens post). Okay fine, but what about that whole doctrine, common among hard-core Objectivists, that Rand was infallible, Objectivism is "complete" and, most notorious, that no deviation from the canon can ever be tolerated?
To summarize, I think this comment sums up the "gay Objectivist" paradox quite nicely:
It's funny that Leonard Peikoff, the official commander and chief [sic] of Objectivism, can say that objectivism has nothing to say on the subject of homosexuality. How can a philosophy not have anything to say on any subject? It's philosophy. Ayn Rand taught that philosophy was the groundwork on wich [sic] men approach every subject, every subject they may encounter in life.
...Well, excuse me, but a philosophy is meant to cover the entirety of man's existence. It's really not a skyscraper built within a few square blocks of life - leaving all the rest of mankind to itself.Ayn [R]and taught this herself, at least in words, if not always in her actions (like a true objectivist apparently). I mean didn't she say "The task of philosophy is to provide man with a comprehensive view of life."? Well, is that true or not?
Indeed.
GOLD STANDARD -- All the gold ever mined, whether used for bullion, jewelry, spacecraft or tooth fillings, would, if formed into a cube, fit within the dimensions of a baseball diamond. Does anyone honestly believe that the entire global economy and financial system, or even the American economy and financial system, could be anchored to that? And bimetallism ("we use silver for smaller transactions") is impossible in a free economy because of Gresham's Law.
There is nothing wrong with a modern, free economy using a fiat money system so long as the "fiats" are reasonable and obeyed. Specifically, so long as the central bank (e.g., the Federal Reserve) keeps the money supply stable (i.e., slow, steady, publicly-announced increases that match the rate of economic growth), without any attempt to monetize debt, and also allows freely floating exchange rates (e.g., no intervention to "shore up" a weak dollar), then the functions of money (store of wealth, unit of currency, medium of exchange, etc.) are preserved.
Again, one cannot fault Rand for not being an expert on monetary theory, fractional reserve banking, open market operations, international finance, etc. On the other hand, her dogmatic fixation on gold, mainly for symbolic literary purposes, has been and remains counterproductive when trying to sell her otherwise correct economic premises to an informed -- and skeptical --audience.
INSTINCT, HUMAN NATURE & EVOLUTION -- I'm cautious on this one, because I'm certain that Tim, who blogs regularly at Panda's Thumb, likely knows infinitely more about this subject than I do, but a central tenet of Rand's epistemology is that human beings have no "instincts" whatsoever -- that we are purely rational beings, totally distinct from animals in every cognitive way.
Such a view of human cognitive theory, which is to such say a view of human biology, is totally untenable given our understanding of the evolution of the human brain and human psychology generally. A detailed discussion of this topic by Neil Parille can be found at Sense of Life Objectivists.
Hear a baby cry, see a Snickers Bar, go skydiving for the first time. Then try claiming there's no such thing as "human instinct" or "emotion detached from reason."
--
I raise these four topics, and this series of posts generally, not in an attempt to "trash" Objectivism or to diminish Rand's genius or her importance over the past 50 years and in the future. My point is rather to demonstrate that Objectivism is a "hard sell" to the uninitiated (or to those who, like me, seek to grow beyond the canon) because of these untenable positions and the general reluctance for Objectivist "leaders" to renounce them.
As a result, the important messages conveyed by Rand -- individual autonomy, respect for personal liberties, rigid property rights, limited government, austere taxation, a predisposition for capitalism and private markets -- get too easily lost among the nonsense.
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