Paul Ryan: I reject Ayn Rand’s philosophy
“I, like millions of young people in America, read Rand’s novels when I was young. I enjoyed them,” Ryan says. “They spurred an interest in economics, in the Chicago School and Milton Friedman,” a subject he eventually studied as an undergraduate at Miami University in Ohio. “But it’s a big stretch to suggest that a person is therefore an Objectivist.”
“I reject her philosophy,” Ryan says firmly. “It’s an atheist philosophy. It reduces human interactions down to mere contracts and it is antithetical to my worldview. If somebody is going to try to paste a person’s view on epistemology to me, then give me Thomas Aquinas,” who believed that man needs divine help in the pursuit of knowledge. “Don’t give me Ayn Rand,” he says.
Ryan enjoys bantering about dusty novels, but it’s not really his bailiwick. Philosophy, he tells me, is critical, but politics is about more than armchair musing. “This gets to the Jack Kemp in me, for the lack of a better phrase,” he says — crafting public policy from broad ideas. “How do you produce prosperity and upward mobility?” he asks.
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Juries hear evidence from dead person’s depositions read out to them sometimes.
aengus on April 26, 2012 at 5:28 PM
These weren’t depositions.
They were stories written down decades after the fact.
Good Lt on April 26, 2012 at 5:47 PM
Ayn Rand’s position papers are — and bear in mind I do not use this term lightly — pure genious.
I keep hearing people who have read Ayn Rand’s “novels” reference amazing excerpts, and they’re terrific biting satire of what’s still going on in Washington today. I WISH I could wade through that morass to dig those gems out, but it’s like banging my head against a wall.
logis on April 26, 2012 at 5:48 PM
That’s funny right there, I don’t care who you are. Rand can’t carry Aristotle’s jock strap in terms of being a well-rounded, systematic thinker.
No, objectivism is entirely contrived, and developed only to the extent that developed means “she was verbose.” She assimilated a few half-digested ideas from other thinkers into her idiosyncratic worldview. It helped, of course, that she was contending with another simplistic egomaniac in the form of Marx. She has no thoughts whatsoever applicable to, say, family life or other mediating non-governmental institutions. That in and of itself makes the argument that she “properly applied Aristotle’s thought” to, at a minimum, ethics and politics, laugh out loud risible.
There’s another reason objectivism gets no traction: her admirers are prone to writing checks her intellectual legacy (such as it is) can’t cash.
She was a moderately talented pulp writer in desperate need of an editor, one whose works speak to the dangers of collectivism. Trying to turn her into the Corrector of Aristotle is just embarrassing. Frankly, objectivism is the political equivalent of Scientology, with the same uncritical reverence for its wholly idiosyncratic founder.
DRPrice on April 26, 2012 at 5:52 PM
You must be religious or a leftist. You can’t refute ideas with arguments. You can only deride.
rickv404 on April 26, 2012 at 5:59 PM
Wow, rickv404, that’s quite a refutation right there.
Let’s see: both were moderately talented (if woefully unedited) writers. Each wrote what was arguably science fiction, or at least future-oriented fiction, and each enjoyed considerable success in the 50s. Both developed grandiose notions about their competence outside of the field of fiction writing, and each developed what they regarded as systematic wholistic philosophies for living and interacting with fellow humans. Both still have significant, if decidedly minority, followings today, and have followers who make unsupportable claims about their intellectual legacies and the applicability of their legacies to the problems of today.
What, too close to the mark?
The fact you resort immediately to ad hominem–you must be a godbotherer or a commie–doesn’t say much for the rationality of your philosophy.
DRPrice on April 26, 2012 at 6:18 PM
Boy, did you get that backward.
rickv404 on April 26, 2012 at 6:19 PM
rickv404 on April 26, 2012 at 6:28 PM
The thing that put me off Rand was that, after enduring hundreds upon hundreds of unnecessary pages of Atlas Shrugged, she had the three “activists” turn out to be the “heroes” while Taggart and Rearden come to realize what chumps they were all along. When Dagny (i.e. Rand’s avatar of herself in the book) dumps Rearden and jumps in bed with John Galt (spoiler!) it’s about as realistic as Sarah Palin leaving Todd for Ron Paul. NOT realistic.
joe_doufu on April 26, 2012 at 6:31 PM
It’s been done, and they passed with flying colors:
http://law2.umkc.edu/faculty/projects/ftrials/jesus/greenleaf.html
Matthew, Mark, and John were eyewitnesses to the life of Jesus. Luke was an educated Greek who researched the events carefully, and who interviewed eyewitnesses apparently including Mary herself.
joe_doufu on April 26, 2012 at 6:37 PM
I’m not familiar with Scientology, but as I understand it, that’s based on some pretty crazy stuff.
Objectivism is exactly the opposite. Basically, it’s just another word for “common sense.” Only in an insane and idiotic world could anyone believe that cause needs a champion — but, hey, welcome to planet earth!
The problem is, to any rational person, the concept that there exists an objective reality is so trite as to be unworthy of specific mention, let alone pontification. Whereas, any adults who fail to intuitively see this have their heads so far up their own butts that they are inherently incapable of understanding literally anything outside of their own emotions. Ergo, explanations are are completely wasted on both groups of people.
Rand should have taken the exact opposite approach. Instead of worshipping Objectivism, it is infinitely more productive to study Subjectivism (i.e., liberalism) as a pathological aberration from rational thought. But Rand almost never did that directly. (Athough, in her defense, she may have held back because she knew full well that was precisely what lead to Aristotle’s very richly-deserved death.)
On those rare occasions when Ayn Rand limited herself to lampooning the evil idiocy that is collectivism, she does a magnificent job. Unfortunately, she spent the vast majority of her time trying to laboriously “explain” that which is patently obvious. And there is no way to do that without boring fully cogent people half to death, while at the same time sucking the weak-minded into believing she is revealing the Holy Secrets Of The Universe.
logis on April 26, 2012 at 6:37 PM
The evidence for the truth of Vishnu’s will is self-evident. All the other holy books are false. They were put there to test humanity.
He also planted fossils and starlight to trick humans as well.
Pablo Honey on April 26, 2012 at 6:42 PM
No, he got it right.
Dante on April 26, 2012 at 6:49 PM
Your mistake is in assuming that a cult needs to have a religious basis. It clearly does not. Communism demonstrates that quite nicely.
More to the point, like Hubbard, there is a profound cult of personality surrounding Rand, one she deliberately fostered during her lifetime.
Tweaking the terminology, the embarrassingly gushy comment you posted at 4:46 would not be out of place in a Red Guard praise session for Mao.
DRPrice on April 27, 2012 at 11:13 AM
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