Letters and answers

Letters and Answers

The Philosophy Newsletter is a very variable enjoyment, but it comes as a shock to see the ridiculous self-centred balderdash of Ayn Rand still being put forward as a worthy basis for a way of life.

Her influence on the world of business, economics and government has been entirely bad, in that it justifies greed and selfishness as the basis of a way of life.  Her philosophical image of the world has been the basis of the trend over the recent decades for the rich to get richer and the poor poorer, because the rich believe they deserve their "rewards", and they can use their money to influence government policy in their favour and create or destroy governments.

Her "individualists" are seen as struggling against others to achieve a better quality of life and keeping the world going by filling wage packets and paying taxes, but that is rubbish.

The vast majority of them start off rich anyway, and those that become rich make their fortunes by finding new ways of acquiring wealth without directly competing with their established rivals.

They make sure they don't fill any more paypackets than they absolutely have to and put as little in as they can get away with.

They demand lower taxes and find ways to avoid paying them wherever possible.

I could go on at length, but that would mean looking carefully  - even scientifically - at what is happening in the real world.

Putting that stuff up as the basis of a philosophical argument is making philosophy look ridiculous.

Sid Gould

Life as an Individual: The Morality of Independence. - By Glenn Bullivant

Life as an Individual: The Morality of Independence.

Capitalists abuse the world. Capitalists are evil men of greed. Capitalists destroy the prospects of the workers. These are some broad statements which may be found in any left-wing school of thought and, perhaps, they can be found in the minds of many members of the population. But I’m not so sure of their validity. If the capitalists of the modern age ever stop to think, whenever they take a break from their daily task of grinding the faces of the poor, may quickly realise that quickly realise that the world hates them and their kind. They may reasonable decide “Enough! I have all the money I could ever want. The people of the world accuse me of abusing them for profits. I’ll end their misery and my own misery too. I’ll close my businesses and go off to enjoy my life. I’ll go on strike.”

This is the main theme of Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand, a writer and philosopher who spelt out the moral basis of capitalism in her novels, essays and lectures. In Atlas Shrugged the capitalists of the world tire of their businesses being over-taxed in the name of a common good, and, as a result, go on strike. They bore the weight of the world on their shoulders like Atlas and they shrug, abandoning the world and allowing it to seize up through a lack of economic activity. John Galt, the leader of the strike in the novel, tells the world plainly that after being called evil abusers of humanity the capitalists and closed their businesses. The world is left with no capitalism to fill wage packets or to power the industry that produces food. There’s no longer any tax for the government to claim and redistribute. After the capitalists have gone the world in Atlas Shrugged is left filled with unemployed workers on the brink of starvation. But, as John Galt says, the so-called capitalist abuse of the world has ended.

The principles at work here are not to be underestimated. Without capitalists and capitalism, we’ll soon find a large government taxing and borrowing for every small element of our lives. Freedom will undoubtedly diminish and will continue to do so for as long as any government expands it’s way into the lives of free, rational, intelligent honest individuals. The one moral way to live independently with liberty, according to Ayn Rand, is to live with one’s own self-interest as a primary concern without ever allowing anyone to tread on your life or to ever allow the lives of others to tread on you. One lives independently, as a true individual.

One may cry out at this point: what about love? Yes we love. Yes we marry. Yes we sacrifice ourselves to our loved ones. But we only do so because the people we love make us happy. Selfishly we can enjoy and value the company of others because there are certain people in our lives who satisfy our needs, both intellectually and emotionally. To spend thousands of pounds on saving the life of a partner is not a sacrifice. Without that partner the world will quickly become a duller and less happy place. It is an act of self-interest to sacrifice ourselves for the people we love.

To act as an individual is a concept stating that one person has the capability to operate without receiving or giving help to others, and without receiving any instruction (whether by regulation or rule of law)on how to act. Individualism is the philosophy that a world of individuals should be promoted as an utilitarian good for all (utilitarianism being, of course, the belief that any action should promote that greatest good for the greatest number of people), rather than the collectivist philosophy which states that the good for all is defined and worked towards by a government, a government which also defines what a good society might be. Capitalism benefits all people of all classes. This is especially the case with those who, by some lacking in education, ability or purpose, suffer at the hands of market forces and are thus directed into a new line in life. An individual has the ability to function independently by the power of their own mind. In all people the mind has the rational and intelligent ability to decide that individual’s actions. Some will set high goals with a realistic means of achieve their highest dreams of what a life they could forge for themselves, dreams which could be quite meagre to the rest of us. Others will abandon their goals and their means to indolence and apathy. But there’s always the rational ability for an individual to think.

Ayn Rand wrote extensively on how the philosophy of individualism works in all of our lives. So far we’ve only taken a brief glance at the matters which surround an individual’s experience of the world. It is only by acting as individuals in a rational and intelligent way, that we in a free country can truly draw real “value for money” from our one life on this planet. The alternative is to surrender our time, efforts, energies, minds and independence to abstract ideas about a common good.

Capitalism does make a minority of people rich. These are the same people who provide the world with jobs, services, industry and wage packets. The whole world benefits by their efforts. Anybody, in capitalism, may work hard to achieve his goals whatever they might be. Big or small. Artistic or technical. Inspired or modest. We’re free to pursue them. Do not misunderstand me, I was born to a working-class family in Lancashire. My parents didn’t have much mean, but they lived according their means and according to their abilities. They never asked for help from the government or for help from the wealthy. Everything in their lives was achieved by their own independent and honest efforts. There was never any sacrifice to others or any sacrifice from others. They lived their lives.

Try it now. Try being independent. Try being an individual. Try to live by your own efforts. Insist on your right to your own life. Do not cannibalise the lives of others by demanding sacrifices from them. Do not degrade your own efforts by sacrificing yourself to others. Stand tall by your own mind and whatever it may achieve. Try it now. If you like, you can pronounce John Galt’s oath: “I swear, by my life and my love of it, that I will never live for the sake of another man, nor ask another man to live for mine.”

By Glenn Bullivant

The Philosophy Takeaway 'Open Topic' Issue 32

Who was Ayn Rand? - By Glenn Bullivant

Who was Ayn Rand?

To some she was an immoral sociopath who preached morality and virtues in destruction of others. To others she was in intellectual icon who delivered a philosophy dedicated to self-esteem, self-interest and self-regard. It is here where I shall attempt to distil the facts for the benefit of those who are curious and knowledge-hungry.

She was a writer and philosopher who used her life to spread the nature of the philosophy, named Objectivism. Objectivism, based upon the idea that there is an objective reality in all of our lives, has been described as a philosophy for living on Earth. Objectivism requires a person to use their mind as the one basic tool of survival and as a means of achieving one’s desires and achieving happiness. It is also required by objectivist principles that a person should act as an individual without any duty-given obligation to any other person, and says that a person can be moral by acting in such a manner.

Ayn Rand was born as Alisa Rosenbaum in 1905 within Russia and, growing up at the time of the Soviet revolution, was marked by a deep sense of loathing of the collectivist nature of the communist society in which she lived in. In 1926 at the age of 21 she escaped to the United States of America in order to live in a free nation and to take up work as a writer.

In 1943, after years of work as a screenwriter and playwright Ayn published the novel that made her and her philosophy famous. The Fountainhead told the story of an individualistic architect, Howard Roark, who wouldn’t sacrifice his talent for anyone. Howard Roark is held as being an ideal man for operating within the objectivist philosophy and not compromising his beliefs on how he should lead his life as an individual.

Metaphysics being philosophical analysis of the nature of the world, the metaphysics of objectivism states that reality, the world external to a person, exists independently of anyone’s beliefs, desires or fears. Reality is, to objectivism, whatever a person may perceive, rather than whatever a person may create or invent. Ayn Rand encapsulated this idea with the statement “A is A.” Objectivist epistemology (epistemology being the nature of knowledge) extended that idea by stating that the reasoning capability of a free and rational man is more than capable to know the full facts of reality. It was held by Ayn Rand that intelligent reasoning was the only way for a person to acquire knowledge.

In 1958 Ayn Rand published her magnum opus, a novel of more than 1000 pages in length, Atlas Shrugged. From it’s now famous opening line (“Who is John Galt?”) Atlas Shrugged spells out the full philosophy of objectivism and tells the story of business leaders (those who bare the weight of the world of their shoulders like Atlas) in the railroad and metal industries who decide to stop being exploited for their talents and labour by an ungrateful society which calls them greedy capitalists. They go on strike, they shrug.

Capitalism provides the political philosophy for objectivism. Complete laissez-faire capitalism is held to provide a scenario where government plays no role in the life in a free, independent and rational person and man is left to live in liberty. It is a system where no man’s life can be taken away from him and where consensual trade between men can bring about benefit for all.

Ayn Rand dedicated the latter part of her life to giving lectures on Objectivism as well as writing and publishing non-fiction works about her Objectivist philosophy, including The Virtue of Selfishness, For the New Intellectualand The Romantic Manifesto. Ayn Rand died in her New York City home in 1982, having used her life, and the value she placed upon it, to change the world and the realm of philosophy.

I’ll leave you with a thought from John Galt, a key character in Atlas Shrugged:

“The world will change when you are ready to pronounce this oath: I swear by my Life and my love of it that I will never live for the sake of another man, nor ask another man to live for the sake of mine.”

By Glenn Bullivant