Discussion Creator / AynRand

Yeah. It's sad how people keep underestimating her like that.

Trope lists on creator pages should not normally apply tropes to the creator in real life. See Creator Page Guidelines.

You are allowed to weed out anything that does not comply with the guidelines.

That would have the opposite bias.

Jordan,

Then please explain how you would remove any bias at all?

It is a simple fact of pure logic that Ayn Rand's personality quirks do not prove or disprove Objectivism. To argue that they do is Argumentum Ad Hominem. This is not even possible to dispute. Again, Aristotle was a wife-beater. This, in and of itself, doesn't invalidate anything he actually said. What matters is whether or not what he said was correct irrespective of whether or not he was a nice person.

The same applies to Ayn Rand. It also applies to, say, Karl Marx and Sigmund Freud. Freud and Marx's personality flaws are and should be treated as completely separate issues from both of their ideas. Ideally, a hypothetical "Useful Notes on Freudianism" page would simply outline the Freudian theory of psychosexual development and make no comment at all about Freud's personality, and any hypothetical page on Freud himself would restrict all discussion of Freud's ideas to the Useful Notes. Ditto for Marx, of course.

But no. Apparently, Ayn Rand is an Acceptable Target and doesn't get the same "separation of philosopher from philosophy" that all other philosophers routinely get.

Ayn Rand was especially adamant in her teachings of Objectivism, which in and of itself is not a problem. Her philosophy speaks for itself, so I don't think her personality has anything to do with it. Which is good. Because she WAS a bitch. How else do you explain her abandoning all her preconceived notions on monogamy just so she could ridicule Nathaniel Brandon for leaving her?

Well, one issue with Objectivism is that it tends to be extremely centered around Rand's person. If you look at followers and students of Marx, John Stuart Mill, Foucault, Kant and most other philosophers, they usually have no problem admitting that they couldn't always stay true to their own principles, and they're also for the most part willing to state that they don't agree with several of their opinions.

But within orthodox Objectivism (the branch represented by Leonard Peikoff, the Ayn Rand Institute, Capitalism Magazine etc.) Rand tends to be elevated to almost messianic status and ascribed almost superhuman qualities (that she was the most rational, morally perfect being who's ever lived, that she was immune to "improper" emotions like jealousy or guilt etc.), and almost every opinion she held on every subject is considered sacrosanct. It is very, very rare for these people to openly state that they disagree with her on any issue; while they do occasionally present opinions I think Rand would've disagreed with, they usually take care try and justify them by pointing out passages from her writings that's meant to imply that she actually would've supported them after all. (The only issue I've seen them openly proclaim that Rand was wrong on is homosexuality, which Rand considered "disgusting" and "immoral". Apparently, that opinion is so politically incorrect that even the ARI aren't willing to follow her on it.)

And this isn't just on major issues like whether self-interest is good or capitalism is the only appropriate political system. If you go to any objectivist discussion board on the web, you'll find people arguing about whether it's okay to like folk music or non-representational art, since Rand despised them.

The point is that Objectivism makes itself very dependant upon Rand's personality to a degree that almost no other philosophical school does. It is considered very important to make her out to be the "ideal human being" and to insinuate that she had any significant flaws is regarded as bordering on treason against her philosophy.

Often of course, the founders of philosophical traditions are venerated and idolized by their followers to an inappropriate degree, where every word they stated is regarded as gospel and any flaws in their character are ignored. The sad thing about Objectivism is that you cannot blame this tendency on overenthusiastic followers; Rand herself encouraged this personality cult throughout her life by surrounding herself with yes-men and sycophants, refusing to associate with those who disagreed with her even on minor issues, refusing to debate or engage people with other philosophical or political opinions, and promoting the image of herself as the ultimate exemplar of truth and reason. This has sadly carried over to her disciples, who spend more time promoting and defending the personality cult than they do developing or examining her ideas.

What it all comes down to is that since Objectivism is so dependant upon Rand's character, it leaves itself more open to criticism against its founders behaviour and quirks in a way that most other philosophical traditions don't. If the most rational, morally perfect human being who ever existed is unable to remain consistent with her own philosophy which she's supposed to exemplify, it leads to questions about just how valid certain parts that philosophy is.

Objectivism isn't a sentient being that chooses to align itself with Ayn Rand, nor is it some specially revealed knowledge open to interpretation by anyone who claims to understand it. It is a set of ideas that are supposed to be logically valid. If any of the constituent ideas are shown to be logically invalid, they should rightly be discarded from the philosophy. If any ideas are shown to be validly derived from the core tenets of the philosophy and still be contrary to reality, then the entire philosophy should be discarded. There is no other fact, not what orthodox objectivists say and not what Ayn Rand herself would have said, that should be considered a criteria for determining the validity of the philosophy itself.

As far as the apparent integration of Objectivism with Ayn Rand's personality is concerned, those who view Objectivism in that manner are guilty of ignoring one of the central tenets of the Philosophy - "One must never fake reality in any form whatsoever". I believe that Ayn Rand herself, in assuming her thought processes to be perfectly rational and logical, was guilty of this, as are any of the "Randroids" who venerate her. It may be that in order to defend against actual dishonest attempts to invalidate her philosophy, Ayn Rand assumed a default position of "Right, no matter what", and in doing so betrayed her own philosophy.

I would like to add another consideration. Ayn Rand was not omniscient. By her own admission, her knowledge on a lot of matters such as psychology, biology (sp. evolution) and sciences (such as quantum mechanics) was insufficient to correctly comment on any implication these fields would have had on her philosophy. Her ideas on homosexuality were an unfortunate result of this.

In conclusion, validity of the ideas contained in Objectivism is not dependent on Rand's worldview or how perfect her devoted followers consider her to be. Any failing on her part to stay true to her beliefs and any compounding hypocrisy due to insisting that she'd remained true, is a failure on her part. I remember seeing this phrase repeatedly in many of her writings - "Don't take my word for it. Judge for yourself."

She didn't denounce Ludwig von Mises, even if she strongly disagreed with Mises' epistemology (Mises was a Neo-Kantian Rationalist).

And she didn't denounce Aristotle. Or St. Thomas Aquinas (the latter, whilst religious, was considered Fair for Its Day by Rand).

Other than that... yeah, she denounced a lot of people hastily. This troper is an Objectivist, but considers Rand's habit of moral condemnation to be rather unfortunate.