Customer Reviews

The Contested Legacy of Ayn Rand: Truth and Toleration in Objectivism

5 star:		(4)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(4)

 

 

This is a truly wonderful book. In it, philosopher David Kelley analyzes several issues that have haunted the "Objectivist Movement." In particular, he discusses whether Objectivism is an open or closed system of ideas, and whether the practice of toleration is in fact consonant with the principles of Objectivism. Kelley answers that it is an open system of ideas, and he shows that the practice of tolerance is consonant with the fundamental principles of Ayn Rand's thought. [I give this book 4 stars, rather than 5, because its thesis - though correct - is of peripheral philosophical importance].

Moreover, this book serves as a manifesto and rally-point for Objectivists who are reasonable people. There is every reason for healthy, reasonable human beings to be interested in Ayn Rand's thought. She outlines a secular, life-affirming, benevolent morality that offers valuable, principled, fundamental guidance in making decisions. She also has many interesting philosophical theories on, e.g., the nature of historical and cultural change, concept-formation, philosophical methodology, and politics.

But historically, Rand's followers have been an odd cult of self-effacing, thought-policing, paranoid sycophants. Many of the Objectivists I have met were, well, blustering, inarticulate, wrathful nutcases who liked Rand mostly for her wholesale condemnation of contemporary society. These individuals hated all other people (and Rand did, too); they also hated themselves (Rand, in her worst moments, gives them an excuse for doing so). So basically, Rand's writings gave them a great swift sword to exercise in their dealings with others. These sorts of people delight, above all, not in creating values or living happily and productively, but in acquiring and exercising the power to CONDEMN, EXORCISE, REBUKE, VILLIFY, and EXCOMMUNICATE all of mankind. Rand gives them this power, in the form of rationalizations for militant misanthropy and unreflective, religious "commitment" to her ethical dicta (with no knowledge of their basis in reality). Such Objectivists - concretized in the person of Peter Schwartz - are a variation on the mentality of Jehovah's Witnesses and the Hezbollah.

Well, Kelley is - in letter and in spirit - the antithesis of this approach to Rand's work. He is a sane human being who wants to critically examine arguments and views. He thinks that Rand's fundamental framework is true and the proper superstructure for philosophical inquiry, but he is open and honest and invites the reader to explore philosophical issues in this spirit. David Kelley - more than Peikoff, Binswanger, or Schwartz - knows the meaning of the passage in Atlas Shrugged that reads:

"The vilest form of self-abasement and self-destruction is the subordination of your mind to the mind of another, the acceptance of an authority over your brain, the acceptance of his assertions as facts, his say-so as truth, his edicts as middle-man between your consciousness and your existence." (AS, 1019).

If the "Dark Side" students of Objectivism at the Ayn Rand Institute ever discovered the meaning of this passage, that organization would of necessity cease to exist.

A number of the reviewers here of Kelley's book are water-carriers for the ARI and their curious claim that NOBODY (except them, of course!) can speak for Objectivism and the legacy of Ayn Rand. Echoing Leonard Peikoff, they claim that Objectivism is a "closed system" that is perfect, complete, above criticism, and comprises ONLY the writings of Ayn Rand or those she endorsed (although ARI tries to ignore the Brandens' pre-1968 writings that Ayn Rand herself, endorsed). Ironically, this means that not only is Peikoff's own book on Objectivism excluded from the "canon" (as Peikoff admits in his Preface), BUT SO ALSO IS EVERYTHING ELSE THAT HAS BEEN WRITTEN ABOUT OBJECTIVISM, PRO OR CON, SINCE RAND'S DEATH! So even the Ayn Rand Institute's authors cannot claim that their writings are "Objectivist."

However, this attempt to stifle or disqualify any critical commentary on Ayn Rand's remarkable contributions to philosophy is doomed to failure, as has been repeatedly demonstrated in the history of ideological movements. The early followers of Saint-Simon, Auguste Comte, Karl Marx, and Sigmund Freud (to name a few examples) all tried to limit or disqualify any criticism or revision of their founders, but to no avail. In fact, such attempts inevitably lead to even more criticism, more revisions and additions, and the proliferation of schools of thought, all claiming that only they have found the "true" interpretation of what the original philosopher "really" meant.

Sadly, the ARI people just don't get it. I guess we will just have to let history teach them. For everyone else who has read Ayn Rand and are looking for a deeper understanding of her ideas and their implications, I suggest that they read this revealing book by David Kelley (-AND Nathaniel and Barbara Branden, AND the Objectivist Center/Atlas Society authors, AND Leonard Peikoff and other ARI authors, among others) and then, judge for yourself as to who is more true to Ayn Rand's vision of reason and individualism.

... I actually found _The Contested Legacy of Ayn Rand: Truth and Toleration in Objectivism_ far from dull. Why? Because it instilled in me a sense of excitement and appreciation for well-reasoned arguments that I had not experienced since I first started reading Rand's works in the early 1980's. Back then, the more I read, the more my excitement waned. By the time I finished reading every book written by Rand and Peikoff, I decide to give up on Objectivism for two main reason: Intolerance and Dogmatism.

But in this book, Kelley addressed the issues of Moral Judgment, Sanction, Toleration and the nature of Closed/Open Philosophical Systems in such a carefully reasoned way that it has given me a desire to renew my interest in Objectivism. As an Open System, Objectivism can grow and flourish, and is worth investing Time and Rational Effort on. And with the immergence of the Objectivist Center, and other Objectivist organizations independent from Peikoff's Orthodoxy, I believe the Movement is headed in the right direction. If Objectivism remains a Closed System under Peikoff's stewardship (his "Tribal Leadership"), then it is not worthy of any additional expenditure of time, money or energy.<P...

In 1989, David Kelley spoke at the Laissez Faire Supper Club, a libertarian organization. Although he was an Orthodox Objectivist at that time, he was denounced and driven out of the movement by its second-hand leaders. Kelley responded to the ouster by writing Truth and Toleration in 1990. In The Contested Legacy of Ayn Rand, Kelley reprints this work without changes and adds a preface and a postscript bringing the discussion current to 2000.

A split in a minor, quasi-religious cult like Objectivism wouldn't justify an entire book, but that's not what Kelley wrote in 1990. Rather, Truth and Toleration is an interesting discussion of Objectivism and also of how one judges people and their ideas. For example, is a person who advocates an evil idea (Marxism) as culpable as those who murder millions of people in the name of Marxism (such as Stalin and his henchmen)? Even if we consider Kant evil, are we justified in laying at his feet the errors that his followers developed as a result of his flawed premises? Am I prohibited from doing anything that benefits an evil person, no matter how incidentally? Kelley gives interesting and basically common-sense answers to these and other questions.

Kelley also has an interesting discussion of Objectivism as an "open" versus a "closed" system. As Kelley notes, Rand's published writings on philosophy (excluding the philosophical selections in her novels) was fairly small (not more than 600 pages). Although she wrote on many issues in philosophy, some she only touched on briefly. For example, in her misnamed Introduction to Objectivist Epistemology, she only mentioned in passing the accuracy of the senses. She never published her major work on metaphysics. She didn't have much to say on propositions, the mind-body problem, or the philosophy of science. (Some of these are my examples, not Kelley's.) So even if an Objectivist attempts to follow Rand's philosophy as closely as possible, he still has to apply her ideas to new areas if he is going to do any creative work. Whether any development of Rand's philosophy in a given area is a legitimate extension of her ideas will therefore be subject to dispute. Perhaps this is one of the reasons why the output of Orthodox Objectivism has been rather slim -- best stay on well-trod ground than venture out for fear of excommunication. It is only Objectivists outside of the official movement and those who are sympathetic to her ideas who have published a lot, from what I can tell.

This book isn't perfect. It contains typical Objectivist snide (and ill-informed) attacks on religion, for example. However, it is well-written and thought-provoking.

It is hard to believe that a philosophy which preaches individualism, benevolence, and rationality would oppose toleration, but that is what Objectivism, in the version preached by Leonard Peikoff, actually does. Objectivism, according to Peikoff, is a closed system and anyone who dares to question any tenet of Objectivism is immediately to be ostracized and declared a bad and evil person. Kelley refutes this appalling view. He explains why toleration is a positive virtue and why Peikoff's view of Objectivism is guilty of tribalism. This book contributes a much needed corrective to dogmatic, cultist tendencies in Objectivism. Kelley has respect for people as individuals; he doesn't view people in terms of whether they agree or not with Ayn Rand. It is only in this way that Rand's ideas can be helpful. To be rational is to think for oneself, not to blindly follow some intellectual authority. Kelley shows that the true "objectivist" thinks for himself, even if that means he must disagree with some tenet of Ayn Rand.

A ground-breaking work in philosophy, this work shows why toleration is an important virtue for rational and objective discussion. It also explores why some followers of Rand end up dogmatic and authoritarian. Kelley shows that a true Objectivist is an independent thinker who is not only reasonable and objective but tolerant of others in the realm of ideas. It is both clear and cogent.

Some obviously confused people call Dr. Kelley a second-hander, but Kelley is a first-rate thinker who is one of the few Objectivist philosophers to do any orignal and independent work as an Objectivist. This book along with Unrugged Individualism are path-breaking works that already have inspired thousands and will continue to do so.

Objectivism is the name that Ayn Rand gave HER philosophy. If you change it's fundamentals around, it's no longer Objectivism. If I want to change Objectivism so it includes religion, or astrology or faith, that new philosophy I created is no longer Objectivism. Kelley wants to do just that. Change fundamentals, but still get away with calling it Objectivism. That's about as dishonest as you can get.

If you want to understand Objectivism, read Ayn Rand's books.

If you want to learn about Kelleyism, read Kelley's books.

But do not confuse the two.

Immoral conduct has something to do with what used to be called "bad character." Rand knew that beneath it all, our habits, emotions, and characteristic attitudes are largely the result of our thinking or failure to think. If Rand was right -- if thinking is a volitional choice -- then, of course, EVERY idea one believes is either honest or dishonest (taking into account the context of available knowledge, of course.) EVERY belief is, therefore, moral or immoral -- no matter how difficult this may be to determine in a particular case. Dishonest thinking is morally bad even BEFORE it is acted on, precisely because it helps shape behavior. ... Rand believed that intellectual dishonesty of this kind is the result of volitional choices and that intellectual dishonesty of this kind is causally related to bad behavior. It is, all by itself, a bad thing. One might even say that the simple-minded confusion between political "tolerance" and moral "tolerance" by smart people is likely to be dishonest. It also shows just how much damage the Popper-Hayek crowd has inflicted on the libertarian capacity to think. Another bad result of bad thinking, hmmm ...

The great philosopher Karl Popper once noted that any denial of the dualism between fact and standards (or fact and values) "is dangerous," because those who believe they have found an objective morality may seek to impose it on other people. Ayn Rand, in her so-called "Objectivist" philosophy, believed she had found a way around Popper's stricture. By combining an objective morality with an uncompromisingly individualistic, anti-aggression politics, Rand could argue that her philosophy escaped the totalitarian taint of previous ideologies that denied the fact-value dualism. Although morality is objective, this doesn't mean, Rand contended, that the government should used force to impose moral values on people. One of the most important moral values in hierarchy of ethics are those supporting the freedom of the individual, even if this means the freedom to be immoral. Freedom, then, must come first. But this doesn't mean that the individual himself must approve of how other people use (or misuse, as the case may be) their freedom. As an implacable moralizer, Rand insisted that everyone, morally, had an obligation to "judge" other people. This passion of Rand's inspired in her a hatred of tolerance, a value essential to democracy and freedom. Rand's faithful protege, Leonard Peikoff, has followed Rand's lead and waged furious and uncompromising polemical war against tolerance. In an essay entitled "Fact and Value," Peikoff attacked fellow Objectivist David Kelley for not appreciating how immoral it is to be tolerant of other people. Kelley had been pushing the envelope for years within Objectivist circles with his "outrageously" tolerant attitudes. He had suggested, for example, that not every academic marxist has horns and tail or is dripping with evil and that it is possible to learn from someone you disagree with. Peikoff would have none of it. He charged Kelley with defending the "dichotomy between fact and value" and boasted of having broken off all relations with so reprobate a thinker.

"The Contested Legacy of Ayn Rand" is Kelley's reply to Peikoff's "Fact and Value." Kelley attempts to use Randian conceptual analysis to defend a kind of mitigated tolerance. He argues that ideas, in and of themselves, can only become evil once they are acted upon. This being the case, he concludes that we should not necessarily judge a person because he or she espouses bad ideas. We must first determine whether the person has acted on those ideas. Kelley also warns about the difficulty of distinguishing between a person who mistakenly holds bad ideas and one who holds them maliciously, with intent to be evil.

I fear many readers will find all this a rather tedious exercise in belaboring the obvious. What is extraordinary is not so much that Kelley should write a book defending tolerance but that such a debate should be taking place at all, or that advocates of a philosophy that supposedly supports freedom and opposes any initiating of aggression should be arguing over whether tolerance is a virtue. Tolerance may not be the most immaculate and perfect of all virtues, but the alternatives to tolerance are very much worse. Intolerance breeds hatred, social division, senseless rivalry and, ultimately, violence. How can any decent person possibly support that? Nonetheless, I believe that "unimatrix" has a point in accusing Kelley of being confused about Objectivism. If you believe, as all good Randites are supposed to believe, that "reason" can discover objective moral absolutes that can be validated beyond all doubt, then I do not see how one can escape Peikoff's position that tolerance is essentially vicious. And if you add to this espousal of moral certainty the view that moral ideas are important factors in political and social change and that bad moral ideas lead to widespread misery and death, then the moral obligation to practice intolerance seems unavoidable. For if the existence of civilization depends on the espousal of the right ideas, then of course bad ideas must not be tolerated. In the final analysis, Peikoff is a more logical thinker than Kelley. If Peikoff can be criticized at all on this issue, it is for not being logical enough: for if it is really true that the espousal of a bad idea can lead to widespread devastation and misery, it is hard to escape the conclusion that bad ideas must be put down by force. The Objectivist view of moral certainty, if taken to its logical extreme, would lead to a totalitarianism of the most uncompromising sort. We can only hope that Rand's followers will continue to be poor logicians. Otherwise, they would seek to become grand inquisitors intent on stamping out heresy!

I first read this work when it came out in 2000. At the time, I had been quite a believer in objectivism but completely irked by the Peikoff-style iron fisted approach to philosophy (that Rand was indubitably a part of). Objectivism was not much better, it seemed, than the very religous dogma it rebelled so much against. Then I read Kelley and decided that one could actually have a more tolerant and open objectivism. Unfortunately, as objectivists say, A is A - Objectivism is Objectivism (still with a capital "O") and my new found optimism only lasted about another six months. The "movement" will never change; it never could; the intolerance Kelley wants is built into the fiber of Rand's philosophy. Despite Kelley's efforts, I decided to quit.

This is NOT to say that Kelley doesn't put forth a noble effort. In fact, for those that admire Objectivism, this is really a great book and you should read it. In it, Kelley's main target is objectivism's assertion that as all ideas are moral to some degree, we as right thinking people should always - ALWAYS - condem those who hold "immoral" views - whether it be Kant, Marx, your co-workers, or your college professor.

Kelley tries very hard to draw a distinction between when it is appropriate to morally condemn and write off, and when it is not. Unfortunately, his argument is pure rhetoric and fails to do much except, as another reviewer nobley said, belabor the obvious. The problem, as that same reviewer said, is that intolerance is simply built into the system of objectivism.

So as to explain only enough not to bore the reader, there is an odd and unresolved tension in Kelley's simultaneous view that (a) "there is no dichotomy between fact and value" and (b) his dislike of the belief that things have intrinsic values discovered through Reason (natural law and the like). He correctly notes that it is a hard line to keep straight, but fails to mention that he doesn't ever actually draw the line. When one believes that values are a form of fact and that those facts can only be discovered through reason, one is - no matter how one sells it - a believer in the very intrinsicism one is preaching against.

Secondly, Kelley talks of toleration as, to a decent degree good, because 'there is a difference between error and evil.' We tolerate others because they (he never says 'we') have a right ot err. That is not tolerance that anyone wants; it is rather like a heterosexist tolerating her flaming gay cousin or someone tolerating a buzzing fly. That is not tolerance; it is condescension in 'tolerance's' clothing.

(And if objectivism isn't supposed to be Leonard Peikoff's religion anymore, then why does Kelley still capitalize the "O"?)

What Kelley, I think, doesn't realize is that, as Greg Nyquist below writes, the moment one suggests that there is no dichotomy between fact and value - between is and ought - the tendency will always be to suggest that "since I'm right and you're not, you should go my way; or I could just tolerate you by silent condescension."

Read the book. See if it makes sense to you. I cannot tell you what to do (as I have given up those Randian pretensions). But for my money, Kelley is running against a current that is so fast and strong that while he might feel he is making good speed, he will still do nothing but lose ground.