Guru Status

 

There was a fascinating, recent taped debate between Craig Biddle and Stephen Hicks on the question of whether or not Objectivism is a closed system or an open system.

 

Biddle argues with other Randian purists that Objectivism is closed, not because Rand’s ideas were perfect or the last word on Objectivism, but because when she died, her body of work was closed in that it cannot be added to or altered, although people can add to it or alter it, as long as they maintain that the changes are theirs and not hers. Fair enough. But they seem to not face the charge that the purists and traditionalists, years ago, did not allow for new ideas to be added, or criticisms of her flaws to be highlighted.

 

Biddle and his supporter seem to deny by implication that Rand was something of a guru in her heyday, and that her views were dogma, and intellectual dissent in her inner circle was not tolerated or rewarded—in fact, quite the opposite.

 

Stephen Hicks argues that Objectivism is an open system that can and should be challenged and amended for it is a science, and science is never finished evolving. I agree with Hicks, though Biddle claims Objectivism is closed because Rand is gone, and her work is what it is and is not to be redone, though people are free to amend it if they state that the change is theirs, not hers.

 

Biddle and company don’t seem quite forthright to me: if they were more candid, they would admit that Rand had guru and cult status in her prime, and that her philosophy was a dogma for her adherents, and that that should not have occurred and was an immoral, unfortunate, undesirable development that likely hurt public and professional acceptance of her great philosophy. As Hicks noted, she is not a demigod, and nor should she be worshiped as one.

 

I conclude that Objectivism back in the 50s and 60s was a closed system but should not have been, and that no system should be closed, and no philosophy needs to be dogmatic, a one, true faith.

 

Rand was a great thinker, but she has feet of clay like all of us, and David Kelley wants us to challenge, her, ourselves, and all thinkers all the time.  No one should be censored or punished for criticizing the thinking of another, and pure Objectivism was closed in that sense, as it  is closed in the Biddle sense that it ss closed because when Rand died,  so there was no more to be said by her, so that body of work is hers, closed and final with her death.