The Virtue Of Selfishness 22

 

On Page 158 of her book, The Virtue of Selfishness, Ayn Rand present essay 18, Counterfeit Individualism, by Nathaniel Branden: “The theory of individualism is a central component of the Objectivist philosophy. Individualism is at once an ethical-political concept and an ethical-psychological one. As an ethical-political concept, individualism upholds the supremacy of individual rights, the principle that a man is an end in himself, not a means to the ends of others.

As an ethical-psychological concept, individualism holds that think and judge independently, valuing nothing higher than the sovereignty of his own intellect.”

 

My response: That is about right, the individuators should value nothing or little higher than the sovereignty of his own intellect. When he knows that God is talking to him, or a person of wisdom or an expert, he will listen and heed their suggestions, but the final decision must be that he welcomes their input by making up his own mind.

 

Branden: “The philosophical base and validation of individualism, as Ayn Rand has shown in Atlas Shrugged, is the fact that individualism, ethically, politically and psychologically, is an ethical requirement of man’s proper survival, of man’s survival qua man, qua rational being. It is implicit in, and necessitated by, a code of ethics that holds man’s life as its standard of value.”

 

Branden on Pages 158 and 159: “The advocacy of individualism as such is not new; what is new is the Objectivist validation of the theory of individualism and the definition of a consistent way to practice it.

 

Too often, the ethical-political meaning of individualism is held to be: doing whatever one wishes, regardless of the rights of others. Writers such as Nietzsche and Max Stirner are sometimes quoted in support of this interpretation. Altruists and collectivists have an obvious vested interest persuading man that such is the meaning of individualism, that the man that refuses to be sacrificed intends to sacrifice others.

 

The contradiction in, and refutation of, such an interpretation of individualism is this: since the only rational base of individualism as an ethical principle is the requirements of man’s survival qua man, one man cannot claim the moral right to violate the rights of another. If he denies inviolate rights to other men, he cannot claim such rights for himself; he has rejected the basis of rights. No one can claim the moral right to a contradiction.

 

Individualism does not consist merely in rejecting the belief that man should live in a collective. A man who seeks to escape responsibility of supporting his life by his own thought and effort, and wishes to survive by conquering, ruling and exploiting others, is not an individualist. An individualist is one who lives for his own sake and by his own mind; he neither sacrifices himself to others nor sacrifices others to himself; he deals with men as a trader—not as a looter; as  Producer—not as Attila.”

 

My response: The Golden Rule and egoist loving are at work here the egoist/individualist does not sacrifice himself to others, nor does he sacrifice others to himself, for sacrifice of the self is an altruistic or evil inclination and pattern of misbehaviors. To not sacrifice oneself to others (overall), nor sacrificing others to oneself (overall), is to live as a free, empowered, liberated person self-realizing, following one’s star, one’s final cause.

 

To push away all others so that they are free, liberated and empowered to self-realize, if they choose to live as first-handers, that is the greatest gift of love that anyone can give a child or another adult. They are now set free to work for the Good Spirits, to self-actualize and extend and maintain the cosmos, rated by God, and this admirable ethical quest and undertaking is to work for good and to fight evil, and the sincere, actual effort to live and influence the world as a living angel is most pleasing to the Mother and the Father. That is our assigned job o earth.

 

This Mavellonialist extension by me of Randian first hander lifestyle to the efforts in this world, to be undertaken by each aspiring great soul, my take is compatible with Objectivists, though they do not believe in God.

 

Branden on Pages 159 and 160: “It is the recognition of this distinction that altruists and collectivists wish men to lose: the distinction between a trader and a looter, between a Producer and an Attila.

 

It is the meaning of individualism, in its ethical-political context, has been perverted and debased predominantly by its avowed antagonists, the meaning of individualism, in its ethical-psychological context, has been perverted and debased predominantly by its professed supporters: by those that wish to dissolve the distinction between an independent judgment and a subjective whim. These are the alleged ‘individualists’ who equate individualism not with independent thought, but with independent ‘feelings.’ There are no such things as ‘independent feelings.’ There is only an independent mind.”

 

There are famous subject individualists like Kierkegaard, Max Stirner and Jordan Peterson (? An existentialist?). Here is a significant disagreement between Branden and Rand and me. They are black-and-white thinkers: the only authentic individualist with an independent mind is their Objectivist/Egoist paragon that only thinks and so is independent, actually, from the collective.

 

Subjective individualists like those three mentioned above, are not independent of collective consciousness and conformity because they feel as their primary psychological way of operating in the world.

 

 For Branden and Rand, one only thinks and reasons to be the authentic, Objective Egoist that is able to separate and divorce himself from any group influence or its control over him in any way.

 

I am a moderate of many kinds so must insist that these Randian thinkers are mostly correct in asserting that the only genuine individualist is the logical, thinking, Objective egoist, but the sentimental, intuitive, feeling subjective idealistic individual is in part an individualist and independent of the group, and genuine, though she ultimately will yield to collectivist directives and plans for her, in spite of her conscious rebellion not too.

 

Branden: “An individualist is, first and foremost, a man of reason. It is upon the ability to think, upon his rational faculty, that man’s life depends; rationality is the precondition of independence and self-reliance. An ‘individualist’ who is neither independent nor self-reliant, is a contradiction in terms; individualism and independence are logically inseparable. The basic independence of the individualist consists of his loyalty to his own mind; it is his perception of the facts of reality, his understanding, his judgment, that he refuses to sacrifice to the unproved assertions of others. That is the meaning of intellectual independence—and that is the essence of an individualist. He is dispassionately and intransigently fact-centered.

 

Man needs knowledge in order to survive, and only reason can achieve it; men who reject the responsibility of thought and reason, can exist only as parasites on the thinking of others. And a parasite is not an individualist. The irrationalist, the whim-worshiper, who regards knowledge and objectivity as ‘restrictions’ on his freedom, the range-of-the-moment hedonist who acts on his private feelings, is not an individualist. The ‘independence’ that an irrationalist seeks is independence from reality—like Dostoevksy’s Underground man who cries: ‘What do I care for the laws of nature and arithmetic, when, for some reason, I dislike those laws and the fact that twice two makes four?’”

 

Branden on Pages 160 and 161: “To the irrationalist, existence is merely a clash between his whims and the whims of others; the concept of an objective reality has no reality to him.

 

Rebelliousness or unconventionality as such do not constitute proof of individualism. Just as individualism does not consist merely in a rejection of collectivism, so it does not consist merely in the absence of conformity. A conformist is a man who declares, ‘It’s true because others believe it’—but an individualist is not a man who declares, ‘It’s true because I believe it.’ An individualist declares, ‘I believe it because I see in reason that it is true.’

 

My response: His points in this last paragraph are very useful. What is true is true because it is reasonable, and that reason capture objective reality.

 

Branden: “There is an incident in The Fountainhead that is worth recalling in this connection. In the chapter on the life and career of Ellsworth Toohey, Ayn Rand describes the various groups of writers and artists that Toohey organized: there was ‘ . . . a woman who never used capitals in her books, and a man who never used commas . . . and another who wrote poems that neither rhymed nor scanned . . . A few friends pointed out to Ellsworth Toohey that he seemed guilty of inconsistency; he was so deeply opposed to individualism, they said, and here were all these writers and artists of his, and everyone was a rabid individualist. ‘Do you really think so?’ said Toohey, smiling blandly.’

 

What Toohey knew—and what students of Objectivism would do well to understand—is that such subjectivists, in their ‘rebellion against the tyranny of reality,’ are less independent and more abjectly parasitical than the most commonplace Babbitt they profess to despise. They originate and create nothing; they are profoundly selfless—and they struggle to fill the void of the egos they do not possess, by means of the only form of ‘self-assertiveness’ they recognize: defiance for the sake of defiance, irrationality for the sake of irrationality, destruction for the sake of destruction, whims for the sake of whims.”

 

My response: the Objectivists teach us many things, but one of their most important and wise warnings for aspiring egoists is that reason and individualism are not authentic, for the mast part, unless they are connected to an epistemological orientation to objective reality out there.

 

Branden: “A psychotic is scarcely likely to be accused of conformity; but neither a psychotic nor a subjectivist is an exponent of individualism.

 

Observe the common denominator in the attempts to corrupt the meaning of individualism as an ethical-political concept and an ethical-psychological concept: the attempt to divorce individualism from reason. But it is only in the context of reason and man’s needs as a rational being that the principle of individualism can be justified. Torn out of this context, any advocacy of ‘individualism’ becomes as arbitrary and irrational as the advocacy of collectivism.

 

This is the basis of Objectivism’s total opposition to any alleged ‘individualists’ who attempt to equate individualism with subjectivism.

 

And this is the basis of Objectivism’s total repudiation of any self-styled ‘Objectivists’ who permit themselves to believe that any compromise, meeting ground or rapprochement is possible between Objectivism and that counterfeit individualism which consists of declaring: ‘it’s right because I feel it’ or ‘It’s good because I want it’ or ‘It’s true because I believe it.’”

 

It is easy to see that Rand’s and Branden’s uncompromising, pure, dogmatic assertion that their epistemology, ontology, and ethics given them unshakable truth about life and living, how this could turn off professional philosophers with their subjectivist and irrationalist epistemologies, and with their anti-essential and anti-foundational perspectives today.

 

It is also easy to see where Randianism as a closed system, could degenerate into a cult with its true believers, it believer and their adulated ideology, as seemed to have occurred with the young collectivists following Rand in her heyday. Despite her excesses and rigidity, Rand offers more that is worthy than what is chaff.