Here are some examples of what advocates of collaboration with Christian conservatives have been writing in recent weeks:
"In any competition between people with the same basic principles, the more consistent one wins."
"In opposite principles, the more consistent one wins – due to its consistency. Any collaboration serves to undermine the inconsistent collaborator."
"In any cooperation between two parties, the more consistent one wins."
All of which are the precise opposite of what Rand actually wrote: "In any collaboration between two men (or two groups) who hold different basic principles, it is the more evil or irrational one who wins." In context, Ayn Rand wrote:
1. In any conflict between two men (or two groups) who hold the same basic principles, it is the more consistent one who wins.
2. In any collaboration between two men (or two groups) who hold different basic principles, it is the more evil or irrational one who wins.
3. When opposite basic principles are clearly and openly defined, it works to the advantage of the rational side; when they are not clearly defined, but are hidden or evaded, it works to the advantage of the irrational side.
And to put "the more evil or irrational one" into the context of collaboration with Christian Conservatives: all appeals to self-sacrifice in our civilization ultimately derive from the Christian doctrine of "Imitatio Dei," of imitating Jesus' ultimate act of self-sacrifice. Self-sacrifice, not for the sake of the good and the virtuous, but for the unearned salvation of sinners. Ayn Rand's shrugging Atlas is a vision of the exact opposite of Jesus bearing the Cross: it is the vision of the heroic Spirit - the heroic Mind - refusing to bear the burden of sacrifice. "Going Galt" means nothing if it does not mean refusing - totally and absolutely - to "imitate Christ."
So what is one to make of Randians who give favorable references and Web links to Christianists, to the likes of Michelle Malkin - in the context of "going Galt?" Stupidity? Opportunism? A symptom of minds destroyed, even among wannabe-Objectivists, through the pervasive indoctrination of children into Pragmatism by the Comprachicos who run American schools?
If you want to work against the culture of self-sacrifice, and for the Human's individual human right to pursue his own happiness on Earth, then, and especially in contexts where you find yourself on the same side of the barricade with people of mixed premises who on other issues advocate for evil, the advocate of individual rights must make sure that his own basic principles are clearly and openly defined. The alternative, of hiding principles in the name of collaboration, amounts in the long-term to philosophical and practical suicide. And to those who "cited" the exact opposite of what Ayn Rand wrote: if you venture to cite Ayn Rand, at least try first to grasp what she actually said.
Does this mean (thanks, to Al Brown, for asking in Comments) that Objectivists must refrain from any and all collaborations and alliances in our political activism? No, not at all. When a potential collaborator shares our basic basic principles, the most consistent among the allies - the Objectivist - has the most to win. It is only in collaboration with those, whose basic principles are different from ours, that Objectivists lose. In politics, those basic principles are:
1. Individual human rights, the necessary preconditions for being able to live a life appropriate to a human, are facts of reality, objectively knowable from the evidence of the human senses, and neither arbitrary nor supernatural.
2. These pre-conditions include non-interference by others with one's life, liberty, and the pursuit of one's own happiness on Earth.
3. The only proper function of government is to secure these rights - by bringing the legitimate use of force among individuals under the control of objective law.
To collaborate with someone who differs with any of these basic principles is unavoidably counterproductive. For example, consider someone who believes that rights are only granted to men by the deity of a supernatural religion, and are handed down by revelation in his religion's holy scriptures. Unavoidably, this man's support for my right to pursue my own happiness on Earth will end where the prohibitions of his religious scriptures begin. My collaboration will make him stronger, and thus eventually better able to limit and infringe my rights - better able to undermine my ability to live according to my own basic principles, and eventually my ability to live a life appropriate to my Self as a human being - or to live at all. What good would it do me to slow down the growth of taxes this year, if it strengthened, as my current "allies," those who would stop the development of the cloning-based medical technologies on which my life is likely to depend a decade from now?
It is rational for me, in the political context, to collaborate with people who are not Objectivists in other things - but only with those who agree with me on basic principles of politics. Collaboration with Classical Liberals, for example, is often productive: they share our basic principles, but we are more consistent than they are in the application of those principles - and therefore the collaboration is to our advantage. Collaboration with Christianists, on the other hand - with Michelle Malkin and the like - would be a means, not to the advancement of my life and happiness on Earth, but to their destruction.
17 comments:
Welcome back!
Thank you for highlighting "Anatomy of a Compromise." Your focus on it leads me to see it as a candidate for an upcoming study group (Study Groups for Objectivists).
Perhaps I could combine it with "The New Fascism: Rule by Consensus," both found in Capitalism: The Unknown Ideal.
*Nods*
I haven't talked to any diehard Obama supporters post-election, so I am not sure whether they see the similarity. Most of my immediate family/friends are more Green Partyish, so they don't really love corporate welfare. The more radical left sees this as further evidence of the economically generated ruling class. It's only the "centrist" forces that might turn a blind eye -- what purported radicals always scorn as the establishment.
In a hat tip to Rand, I realized how fear has played a role behind endless bailouts. The D.C. gang keeps repeating we're all going to die without more subsidy. I haven't seen one vacant storefront yet...its as if everything were peachy keen -- at least in my part of town.
I don't know about this. It seems as though collaboration is always bad according to these ideas and that doesn't seem quite.
Especially if the most evil always wins, which presumably you'll believe is not you, but the other guy.
Of course, these ideas may be meant just ideological issues.
Al Brown,
What's bad is collaboration that disregards differences of basic principles. In politics, those basic principles are:
1. Individual human rights, the necessary preconditions for being able to live a life appropriate to a human, are facts of reality, objectively knowable from the evidence of the human senses, and neither arbitrary nor supernatural.
2. These pre-conditions include non-interference with one's life, liberty, and the pursuit of one's own happiness on Earth.
3. The only proper function of government is to secure these rights - by bringing the legitimate use of force among individuals under the control of objective law.
To collaborate with someone who differs with any of these basic principles is unavoidably counterproductive. For example, consider someone who believes that rights are only granted to men by the deity of a supernatural religion, and are handed down by revelation in his religion's holy scriptures. Unavoidably, this man's support for my right to pursue my own happiness on Earth will end where the prohibitions of his religious scriptures begin. My collaboration will make him stronger, and thus better able to limit and infringe my rights - better able to undermine my ability to live according to my own basic principles, and eventually my ability to live at all.
It is rational for me, in the political context, to collaborate with people who are not Objectivists in other things - but only with those who agree with me on basic principles of politics. In particular, collaboration with Christianists - with Michelle Malkin and the like - is a means, not to the preservation of one's life and happiness, but to their destruction.
So what is one to make of Randians who give favorable references and Web links to Christianists, to the likes of Michelle Malkin - in the context of "going Galt?" Stupidity? Opportunism? A symptom of minds destroyed, even among wannabe-Objectivists, through the pervasive indoctrination of children into Pragmatism by the Comprachicos who run American schools?
I'm not sure if I'm understanding you correctly. Is it only in the context of "Going Galt," or would you say that about anyone who included Malkin in his blog roll, or linked to her in a non-condemnatory way regarding any issue?
Ardsgaine,
Malkin's hijacking of the character of John Galt to promote the Christian pseudo-morality, a pseudo-morality that is the exact opposite of what Ayn Rand created John Galt to stand for - that, to any rational being, should be a cause for outrage, not praise. Before that outrage, a wannabe-"Objectivist" who blogrolled Malkin's drivel was merely being an idiot. In the context of the hijacking, that former idiocy becomes, unless promptly repaired, a matter of personal complicity in the crime.
Of course, a rational person learns from everyone, so it is theoretically possible that someone will find something worthwhile, eventually, even in the output of a lunatic like MM. If that ever happened, a link and even contextual praise would be appropriate. For a good example of how that can be done without compromise, look up what Ayn Rand wrote about Noam Chomsky in the context of praise for his New York Review of Books article demolishing the pseudo-science of B. F. Skinner.
I just happened to click on Edward Cline's blog post "Obama's Obeisence" after reading your post. In it he links to a post by Michelle Malkin. Scrolling down, I noticed that she's included in the blogroll for Rule of Reason. Are the people who run that site the idiot, wannabe Objectivists to whom you were referring?
Ardsgaine,
As though you didn't know the difference between blogrolling and praising on the one hand, and citing/linking on the other...
As I wrote, rationality commands learning from everyone. And when you learn something from someone, no matter how despicable that person might be, elementary honesty requires that you give them a citation - or, in hypertext, a link. That's a long, long way from the praise implicit in blogrolling them.
Michelle Malkin was not the originator of the contemporary idea and phrase of "going Galt." That was the work of Helen Smith (http://drhelen.blogspot.com) back in October, that is, back when Bush was still President and Malkin, when she criticized Bush, mostly harangued him for not being theocratic enough. Helen Smith is a classical liberal (and possibly a crypto-Objectivist) - a good and honorable ally. Michelle Malkin, on the other hand, is both a pro-Theocratic Social Conservative and an anti-immigration National Collectivist, and totally unoriginal: she has not written anything about "going Galt" that had not been put out there already by "Dr Helen," (except as needed to spin Galt into a Christian Conservative) (barf!) In the context of "going Galt," citing MM rather than Helen Smith is counterproductive - and outrageously wrong.
Adam,
I know the difference, but you're the one making the argument, so I'm looking for you to explain exactly what you mean. You are making a serious accusation about people, and I'm trying to figure out who is included and who isn't. You said that anyone who included Malkin in their blogroll before this point in time was "merely" an idiot. Malkin is included in the blogroll at Rule of Reason. It would appear then that you think the people at Rule of Reason are idiots. I am trying to establish if that is really your opinion.
I agree with you, btw, that Malkin is a loathesome individual, and that it would be a mistake to collaborate with her. The objection I have to what you've written is that it looks more like an effort to intimidate than to persuade.
To help you understand my context, I have not read anything else concerning the question of placing Malkin in one's blogroll, so I'm coming to this issue cold. If you have posted on it elsewhere, or there's another place where the discussion has been ongoing, I would appreciate a link.
Ardsgaine,
Thank you for letting me know that what I've written "looks more like an effort to intimidate than to persuade." That was not intentional, and perhaps an instance of me "being an idiot" myself, in the sense in which I meant it then. Had I given my language more thought - as I wish whoever blogrolled MM on "Rule of Reason" had given more thought to the implications of blogrolling her - I would have communicated differently.
MM projects herself as a beautiful and passionate woman, a combination that's a big-time emotional turn-on for many men, myself included. It tends to lead men to react to her as they would to an aria, listening to how the music makes them feel more than to the meaning of what is being sung. Unlike many, I've learned that acting on projections of this kind in an intellectual context tends to be a mistake, and this is what I meant by "being an idiot."
This is an area in which I am currently quite interested: the degree to which one needs to stay "pure" both in one's allies and in one's presentation of ideas to others. I find some Objectivists use the consistency argument in a way that blocks meaningful dialogue and beneficial interaction with those who do not embrace Objectivism fully, or who have a differing understanding of its meaning. Accompanying this, is condemnation of Objectivists who do attempt to build bridges where agreement with Objectivism is incomplete.
I do not advocate hiding or lying---but diplomacy and a willingness to engage in honest disagreements are key elements in being listened to, which is an important first step to having effective influence.
I've been reading lately about the efforts by Booker T Washington and W.E.B. DuBois to promote political and economic progress for black Americans following emancipation. DuBois had a more direct political approach, demanding and agitating for immediate political equality. His rhetoric clearly insisted on full equality for blacks. Clear. Uncompromising. Consistent.
Washington preferred to work behind the scenes, quietly supporting political and social equality while publicly making statements carefully constructed so as not to inflame or alarm white supremacists. He did not want to endanger the fragile educational and economic progress blacks were achieving through schools like his Tuskegee Institute. He also lived at real risk of death by lynching. In spite of all the good he was able to accomplish, he has been criticized as a compromiser, an "Uncle Tom"
Looking back at the convoluted path of race relations, neither approach alone was sufficient. Both added to the debate and to concrete, if incremental, progress.
So my question is, can't there be a place for both approaches? The pure and uncompromising statements of principle, and the more carefully measured statements aimed at building bridges and opening dialogue?
Beth,
Dialogue and collaboration are different things. The function of dialogue is to clarify ideas, and perhaps change minds. The function of collaboration is to accomplish shared existential goals.
Dialogue with people who hold different basic premises is useful in accomplishing the functions of dialogue. As an academic, I do a lot of it (my chapter in the recent Long & Machan "Anarchism/Minarchism" volume would be a good example) and so do other Objectivists at universities, ARI etc. The essence of dialogue is making one's differences clear. So if you are invited to a forum by an organization or a host with whom you have basic disagreements - for example, you hold that it is selfishness and not self-sacrifice that is moral - you, as a rational person, will talk about the things that you disagree on (e.g., you will advocate for selfishness as a virtue.)
Collaboration, on the other hand, will strengthen, and thus benefit, those with whom you collaborate. Unlike dialogue it does not challenge any participant's principles, and so it will work to give greater power to those who are fundamentally in the wrong.
So, what does a rational person do when invited to collaborate with those with whom one has fundamental differences? I think that the best solution is not to collaborate, nor to turn down the invitation, but instead to treat the invitation as an invitation to dialogue. Look at ARC's tea-party leaflets, or listen to what Yaron Brook says to conservative hosts and at conservative conferences, for excellent examples of how it's done.
That's a very helpful distinction. Thank you.
Adam,
Query: you sanction partnering up with classical liberals here and cite Balko/Postrel. You object to alliances with Libertarians but isn't Libertarianism often used interchangeably with classical liberalism? Is it that classical liberals tend to be more focused and less disparate?
The fundamental difference is that Classical Liberals, like Objectivists, (1) correctly identify force and fraud, whether by individuals, private organizations, or governments, with violation of individual rights; and (2) support government action, in the form of law enforcement and defensive/retaliatory warfare, against violations of individual rights - whether those violations were perpetrated by individuals, private organizations, subsidiary units of government, or governments of foreign entities. Libertarians, on the other hand, tend to oppose some or all actions by which governments restrain these violations of individual rights - or oppose government per se. Thus libertarians oppose Federal restraint of State and local government and "community" violations of individual rights; they oppose legitimate wars (even wars against slavery, dictatorships, terrorist states) and so on.
One of the more unfortunate effects of Pragmatist mis-education in America is that many Americans can't follow distinctions of principle, of which this distinction is an exemplary example.
Balko has written about returning abortion to the states:
http://www.reason.com/news/show/120792.html
I figured you might appreciate knowing that!
Nat,
Classical Liberals (such as Balko) don't have an epistemological foundation under their politics, and it shows, in positions such as the one you point to. Left to their own mental devices, they are often wrong in how their basic ideas apply to specific situations such as this one. In alliances with CLs, Os, being more consistent, are able to take the lead. Balko's article is an example of the kind of Pragmatist mess the CLs can get into when Os are busy with other things...
Post a Comment