Jun 25, 2018 04:43 PM
https://aeon.co/ideas/philosophy-shrugge...er-go-away
EXCERPT: Philosophers love to hate Ayn Rand. It’s trendy to scoff at any mention of her. One philosopher told me that: ‘No one needs to be exposed to that monster.’ Many propose that she’s not a philosopher at all and should not be taken seriously. The problem is that people are taking her seriously. In some cases, very seriously. [...] Rand’s books are becoming increasingly popular. The Amazon Author Rank lists her alongside William Shakespeare and J D Salinger. While these rankings fluctuate and don’t reflect all sales, the company her name keeps is telling enough.
It’s easy to criticise Rand’s ideas. They’re so extreme that to many they read as parody. For example, Rand victim-blames: if someone doesn’t have money or power, it’s her own fault. Howard Roark, the ‘hero’ of *The Fountainhead*, rapes the heroine Dominique Francon. [...] Rand champions self-sufficiency, attacks altruism, demonises public servants, and vilifies government regulations because they hinder individual freedom. Yet, she conveniently ignores the fact that many laws and government regulations promote freedom and flourishing.
[...] Some libertarian philosophers, such as William Irwin in *The Free Market Existentialist* (2015), have proposed variations of Rand’s ideology that introduce some state control to protect people and their property from harm, force, fraud and theft (although he doesn’t specifically support an environmental protection agency). However, for Rand, writing in her essay collection *The Virtue of Selfishness* (1964), ‘There can be no compromise between freedom and government controls,’ and to accept any form of government control is ‘delivering oneself into gradual enslavement’. Still, Rand didn’t always live by her own philosophy: in a stellar display of hypocrisy, she collected social security payments and Medicare later in her life. [...]
Vilifying Rand without reading the detail, or demonising her without taking the trouble to refute her, is clearly the wrong approach. Making her work taboo is not going to help anyone to think critically about her ideas either. [...]
Rand is dangerous precisely because she appeals to the innocent and the ignorant using the trappings of philosophical argument as a rhetorical cloak under which she smuggles in her rather cruel prejudices. Her writing is persuasive to the vulnerable and the uncritical, and, apart from the overextended set-piece monologues, she tells a good story. It’s her novels that are the bestsellers, remember. [...] People seem to be buying it for the story, and finding a convincing philosophy neatly packaged within, which they absorb almost without thinking. It’s not too much of a stretch to imagine what people find admirable in her characters: Rand’s heroes are self-interested and uncaring, but they’re also great at what they choose to do [...] Hoping that Rand’s ideas will, in time, just go away is not a good solution to the problem....
MORE: https://aeon.co/ideas/philosophy-shrugge...er-go-away
EXCERPT: Philosophers love to hate Ayn Rand. It’s trendy to scoff at any mention of her. One philosopher told me that: ‘No one needs to be exposed to that monster.’ Many propose that she’s not a philosopher at all and should not be taken seriously. The problem is that people are taking her seriously. In some cases, very seriously. [...] Rand’s books are becoming increasingly popular. The Amazon Author Rank lists her alongside William Shakespeare and J D Salinger. While these rankings fluctuate and don’t reflect all sales, the company her name keeps is telling enough.
It’s easy to criticise Rand’s ideas. They’re so extreme that to many they read as parody. For example, Rand victim-blames: if someone doesn’t have money or power, it’s her own fault. Howard Roark, the ‘hero’ of *The Fountainhead*, rapes the heroine Dominique Francon. [...] Rand champions self-sufficiency, attacks altruism, demonises public servants, and vilifies government regulations because they hinder individual freedom. Yet, she conveniently ignores the fact that many laws and government regulations promote freedom and flourishing.
[...] Some libertarian philosophers, such as William Irwin in *The Free Market Existentialist* (2015), have proposed variations of Rand’s ideology that introduce some state control to protect people and their property from harm, force, fraud and theft (although he doesn’t specifically support an environmental protection agency). However, for Rand, writing in her essay collection *The Virtue of Selfishness* (1964), ‘There can be no compromise between freedom and government controls,’ and to accept any form of government control is ‘delivering oneself into gradual enslavement’. Still, Rand didn’t always live by her own philosophy: in a stellar display of hypocrisy, she collected social security payments and Medicare later in her life. [...]
Vilifying Rand without reading the detail, or demonising her without taking the trouble to refute her, is clearly the wrong approach. Making her work taboo is not going to help anyone to think critically about her ideas either. [...]
Rand is dangerous precisely because she appeals to the innocent and the ignorant using the trappings of philosophical argument as a rhetorical cloak under which she smuggles in her rather cruel prejudices. Her writing is persuasive to the vulnerable and the uncritical, and, apart from the overextended set-piece monologues, she tells a good story. It’s her novels that are the bestsellers, remember. [...] People seem to be buying it for the story, and finding a convincing philosophy neatly packaged within, which they absorb almost without thinking. It’s not too much of a stretch to imagine what people find admirable in her characters: Rand’s heroes are self-interested and uncaring, but they’re also great at what they choose to do [...] Hoping that Rand’s ideas will, in time, just go away is not a good solution to the problem....
MORE: https://aeon.co/ideas/philosophy-shrugge...er-go-away
