“Jane Smith of Seat 4B Once Put A Quarter In A Church Poor Box, So She Deserved To Be Asphyxiated To Death.”
Yes, as I think I’ve said before I’d have to say that this passage is pretty much definitive Rand.
As it happens, I’ve been reading Jennifer Burns’s very good Rand-and-the-right book Goddess of the Market , and this is indeed the most remarkable revelation:
Her diaries from that time, while she worked as a receptionist and an extra, lay out the Nietzschean mentality that underpins all her later writings. The newspapers were filled for months with stories about serial killer called William Hickman, who kidnapped a 12-year-old girl called Marion Parker from her junior high school, raped her, and dismembered her body, which he sent mockingly to the police in pieces. Rand wrote great stretches of praise for him, saying he represented “the amazing picture of a man with no regard whatsoever for all that a society holds sacred, and with a consciousness all his own. A man who really stands alone, in action and in soul. … Other people do not exist for him, and he does not see why they should.” She called him “a brilliant, unusual, exceptional boy,” shimmering with “immense, explicit egotism.” Rand had only one regret: “A strong man can eventually trample society under its feet. That boy [Hickman] was not strong enough.”
So I guess that when she made her Ideal Man a rapist she was making a concession to the altruists and parasites…
So these are Ayn Rand’s Little Eichmanns? Sorry haven’t read the book.
And you folks thought I was being snarky when I said that libertarians were just a bunch of sociopaths.
I didn’t think that.
Because a misleading representation of Ayn Rand’s early views is an accurate summation of the whole of libertarian opinion. Correct?
First off, Rand was looking at the relationship between Hickman and society. In her opinion, Hickman represented the man with no regard for the morality of society, and society was acting with outrage less for the murder of the girl and more for Hickman’s thumbing of social norms. She picked an incredibly unsympathetic character to use, but the analysis is somewhat valid: the manner in which Hickman committed his crime (openly, mockingly, seemingly for fun) was just as notable as the crime itself.
Rand also said that Hickman’s faults were purposelessness and degeneracy, which if you are familiar with Rand, is about as bad a fault as you can have. So all of these claims that she idolized this individual is just wrong. She idolized his rejection of social norms for his own egoism. So her ideal individual is the man who rejected social norms, yet behaved in what she considered a good way. There is no doubt that Ayn Rand rejected any morality that would have allowed for the murder and dismemberment of a adolescent child.
I don’t know if Ayn Rand’s philosophy or fiction is worse. I don’t like either at all. I think she is an elitist with a romanticized view of society that makes it very easy to have an absolutist and completely inept moral philosophy. But there is nuance in there that must be understood.
———————————————
I’m just going to lay out the logic of your statement, however, as I have no doubt that my partial defense of Rand will be dismissed off-hand:
Ayn Rand wrote approvingly of a murderer.
Therefore Ayn Rand is a sociopath.
Ayn Rand is a libertarian.
Therefore all libertarians are sociopaths.
After that, I just have to ask if you have been pursuing a degree in logic from Glenn Beck’s university?
Libertarianism, as a philosophy, argues that selfishness and the singleminded pursuit of personal gain/pleasure is the ultimate good and that there is no such thing as the “public good.” This is pretty much the definition of sociopathy. It is also empirically wrong and morally repugnant.
I should add that, while Rand is a rather crude and extreme manifestation of this, her views are indeed a fair representation of what is at the heart of the philosophy.
That could only be uttered by someone completely ignorant of libertarianism.
You really are incredibly insulting.
Some proponents of libertarianism have promoted selfishness and the primacy personal gain.
I cannot understand what kind of leap would be necessary to go from that to the conclusion that libertarianism is defined by its devotion to hedonism. If you can, I would like to see anything, other than some simplistic pejorative essay that defines libertarianism in the way you do.
Libertarianism is a political philosophy dedicated to showing the ability of human society to self-organize without the imposition of violence via the state or any state substitute.
For a good breakdown of the real heart of libertarian political philosophy, I borrow from Ludwig von Mises:
Libertarianism states that people should be free to live by their own values, to make their own decisions. Rand was a libertarian because she believed people should be free to be selfish, not because libertarianism preached selfishness.
I am a libertarian because:
1. I believe that people are fundamentally good by their biology. We are a social species, and we have been around for a long time without government.
2. I believe that, where that natural altruism breaks down over a large scale, trade and commerce within a division of labor creates an interdependency that leads to more moral behavior.
At no point does selfishness come into my libertarianism. Indeed my libertarianism is contingent upon the altruism of human beings.
Shorter Brad Potts: “Don’t insult me just because my worldview has been refuted by everything that has ever happened.”
First, he was insulting for completely misrepresenting my moral positions. I am a libertarian, and I do not believe in the primacy of selfishness.
Second, my world viewpoint has not been refuted by everything that has ever happened. I would surmise that you take the last 100 years, associate everything bad that happened with libertarianism and determined libertarianism refuted.
Third, what was the point of this, other than to be an asshole?
I don’t think I need to associate bad things that have happened in the last century to any particular school of thought in order to notice that the behaviors you claim are natural and biological have not, in fact, been the basis of any significant human society.
I’m not sure what natural and biological behaviors I have said form the basis of human society.
I know you are going to gainsay anything I say in support of libertarianism, but you could at least wait till after I say it.
WTF?
Brad Potts at 12:25 p.m. (excerpted):
So the gaps in our natural altruism are papered over by the (strongly-implied-to-be) organic market mechanisms that derive from our biological goodness.
But Brad Potts at 1:55 said:
Is this going to be like with the Journolist thing where you just keep talking in circles?
I know you are going to gainsay anything I say in support of libertarianism, but you could at least wait till after I say it.
Could you define that support, then, so that we can know which of the 24 types of libertarian you are?
Thanks.
Saying that human beings are naturally altruistic does not imply any behavior. Altruistic phenotypes exert themselves in many, many way depending upon the environment. Altruistic Inuit behavior is going to be very different from altruistic Maori behavior. The point is that we have evolved as social, altruistic creatures, at least on the level of kinship selection. The same goes for trends in the division of labor and commerce. They are widely varied, but they trend towards interdependency, fairness, and shared goals.
Now if you are going to argue that human society is not based on natural, biological altruism, there are literally dozens of very accessible books dealing with the various elements of the social and ethical evolution of humans.
I can merely advise you to read them.
Saying that human beings are naturally altruistic does not imply any behavior.
So it is a completely non-falsifiable statement, that cannot be tested in any way?
Malaclypse,
I have explained why I tend to be libertarian in general.
Of the 24 types, I would say I am a stoned, left-wing libertarian.
My favorite libertarians from old are Max Stirner and Benjamin Tucker. More recently, I am a fan of Bob Higgs, Kevin Carson, Glenn Greenwald, Arnold Kling, and Matt Ridley.
I believe conservatives have lost all credibility and defer to tradition far too much, and I believe modern liberals do not appropriately consider all of the costs of government. For every well intentioned liberal policy, there seems to be a politician ready to misuse it.
Malaclypse,
Empirical studies have shown innate moral decision making processes and universal moral codes.
This doesn’t imply property ownership, capitalism, communism or other social or economic organizations, but it does imply that people can organize their society without overbearing government presence or other top down direction.
There are instances where incentives and transactions costs may lead to suboptimal results and transactions that are not mutually beneficial or freely arrived at, at which we can debate the necessity of government, but I have yet to see a particularly good argument that the proper incentives can be maintained to provide for good government.
You’re not connecting your dots.
You said that libertarianism is the “ability of human society to self-organize without the imposition of violence via the state or any state substitute.” You also stipulated that the need for the state or substitutes is obviated by the natural, biological altruism that is the basis of human society. I say that it does not.
Let’s say I’m robbed. I have three options: 1. let it be, 2. enforce justice myself, 3. rely on someone else to enforce justice.
The first is not a very practicable option. Let’s not waste time laying out why.
How are the second and third options practicable without relying on the state or a state substitute?
Empirical studies have shown innate moral decision making processes and universal moral codes.
….
Altruistic phenotypes exert themselves in many, many way depending upon the environment.
Perhaps in some environments, the impulse towards altruism expresses itself through the collective democratic creation of a robust and humane welfare state.
DJW came out and said what I was (clumsily) trying to get around to.
mark f,
I would posit that there would be a mixture between two and three, by way of insurance companies or similar entities. People hedge against the loss of something of value, then the issuer and purchaser of the hedge will both attempt to protect whatever the asset may be. Ultimately, government acts in this way, basically as a cradle to the grave hedge against loss of property or well-being by the actions of others.
I recognize that this most people are skeptical of a solution like this, and I recognize that they have good reason for it. But in my defense, I don’t look to implement that sort of system through political means. I am an agorist (at least it is an interesting philosophy if you wish to look it up), and look for these state free systems to come into existence through the black market.
Maybe that will be my saving grace, at least as far as your opinion of my politics is concerned: I am opposed to voting. I am definitely sympathetic to the arguments of Ron Paul (although I find it disappointing that he often uses libertarian rhetoric to support positions hostile to personal rights), but I will not vote for him, and I do not support his political ambitions. I think the libertarian undermines his position by using government to further his goals and is better suited to argue, debate, and discuss. Libertarian victory is measured in attitude, and political success will merely follow.
DJW,
I understand what you are saying, and I am sympathetic to progressive causes. I fully admit that government can be rooted in our altruistic natures (although I certainly can see it rooted in our lesser, more primal natures). I consider myself a liberal in opposition to progressivism, though. I see progressivism through the critiques of WA Williams, Gabriel Kolko, and Murray Rothbard, whereby progressives sought out the general welfare by granting untouchable status to the elite. That state of affairs can hardly be denied in wake of the stimulus and bailouts. To me, mass unemployment is a preferable scenario than the continued reliance upon a group of parasitic elites for our jobs.
I have never said that liberals and progressives were wrong in their values and ambitions, I just believe that their methods have subverted what they were working for.
I believe that, where that natural altruism breaks down over a large scale, trade and commerce within a division of labor creates an interdependency that leads to more moral behavior.
You really need to read some Adam Smith, who basically refuted this notion over two hundred years ago.
I prefer more timely evidence:
Study
Summary
“Members of large-scale, complex human societies have learned to play nice with strangers through the norms that are associated with market participation and world religions, and not solely due to an evolved psychology for cooperation in small groups as previously believed, according to UBC-led research.
In a paper to appear in the March 19 issue of Science, lead author Joe Henrich and a 13-member research team explore the evolutionary underpinnings of human societies.
Fifteen years in the making, the study combines two major, comparative cross-cultural projects that examine how motivations for fairness and punishment influence economic decisions, and how these motivations relate to variables that differ across societies, such as community size, adherence to a world religion and market dependence and exchange.
“Our results contradict previous theories that humans learned to treat strangers fairly by transferring behaviour and norms developed in their actions and attitudes toward family and kin,” says Prof. Henrich, an anthropologist who holds the Canada Research Chair in Culture, Cognition and Coevolution and teaches in the UBC Departments of Psychology and Economics.
The interdisciplinary team of anthropologists and economists conducted behavioral experiments with 2,100 respondents from 15 societies, whose communities ranged in size from 20 to 10,000 people. These small-scale societies, from Africa, North and South America, Oceania, New Guinea, and Asia, included hunter-gatherers, marine foragers, pastoralists, horticulturalists, and wage laborers.
“Our findings suggest that the evolution of societal complexity, especially as it has occurred over the last 10 millennia, involved the selective spread of those norms and institutions that best facilitated successful exchange and interaction in socioeconomic spheres well beyond local networks of durable kin and reciprocity-based relationships,” says Henrich.
The study measured participants’ motivations for fairness and their willingness to punish unfairness in interactions with an anonymous other. These experiments took the form of games played with real money where participants would give a portion of the cash to the second player, someone unknown to them. Some of the games allowed the second player or a third-party participant to pay some of their money to punish the first player for making low offers.
The findings show that people living in small communities lacking market integration or a world religion – absences that likely characterized all societies until about 10,000 years ago – display relatively little concern with fairness or punishing unfairness in transactions involving strangers or anonymous others, a pattern that makes sense given how local norms and institutions actually function in these societies.
Third-party observers, for example, from the smallest-scale, purely face-to-face, communities from Tanzania and Kenya to Amazonia and Oceania, show little willingness to pay to punish those making unfair offers.
“It’s a pattern that makes sense given how local norms and institutions actually function in these societies,” says Henrich. “Small-scale communities have local norms governing all kinds of interactions, but they often don’t have default social norms of dealing with strangers or anonymous others in monetary transactions.”
In contrast, the largest societies with the highest levels of market integration and participation in world religions show both a greater willingness to make fair offers and the most willingness to punish unfair offers.”
This article is very interesting. It synthesizes the behavioral economics school (Bowles, Gintis, Ostrom, et al) and the cultural evolution guys (Richerson and Boyd). But none of the figures in both those schools would ever buy something like what you say above:
First of all, a particular political philosophy might take into account evidence adduced in support of (or against) the proposition “human societies have the ability to self-organize without the imposition of violence by the state or any state substitute” but no political philosophy I know tries to “show” such a thing. Social sciences verify claims; philosophy uses the claims of social sciences.
Anyway, Elinor Ostrom, integrating her husband Vincent’s work on government with the behavioral econ you cite above, has interesting things to say about multi-level and multi-centered state forms, but they certainly aren’t straight-out anarchists. Very few people are, actually, but anarcho-capitalism, which is what most people who call themselves “libertarian” support, just pretends to be against the state. As has been exhaustively shown, they are perfectly happy with state enforcement of property rights. Hence the jibe that they are better called “propertarians.”
If you don’t want to associate with those people, you probably should give up trying to reclaim the term “libertarian” from them, and try “anarchist” instead. There’s a nice left anarchist tradition (Kropotkin, et al) you could identify with instead, since Kropotkin has the added advantage of being a better Darwinian than the Darwinians, if you know what I mean (and you should if you’re going to talk biology and economics).
Members of large-scale, complex human societies have learned to play nice with strangers through the norms that are associated with market participation and world religions
Are those also societies that have “the state or state substitute”? Unlike the smaller, more face-to-face societies? Funny, that.
Thank you John.
You are probably correct that I have jumped a step on my definition of libertarianism. Libertarianism is basically a political philosophy based on opposition to coercion. Since it never stops there I just extended it to the pursuit of showing how such a political philosophy is sustainable. (I would like to believe that the non-aggression roots of libertarianism are universally preferred, just not accepted as a reasonably possible) It has gotten to the point where libertarianism is its own monster, with social sciences often merely serving to support the philosophy. I would point to GMU for an example of that.
I am sure that I will continue to make errors like that, as it is exceedingly difficult to begin to defend the basics of a political philosophy I adopted a decade ago. If I could put down a Spinozan ethical geometric proof documenting all of the ideas that went into my libertarianism, I would.
And yes, I borrow evidence to support my arguments and do not imply that all of these individuals support my conclusion.
I don’t really want to associate or disassociate with anyone. I would rather call myself a libertarian or defend a particular part of right libertarianism I sympathize with without being immediately discounted.
A further problem is that I really am a propertarian of sorts. I believe that a division of labor necessary to support modern society requires some respect of property rights, and ultimately property rights will be respected in a more natural state. I also have called myself a free market anarchist, a mutualist, an anti-capitalist, but ultimately I believe in a limited state that protects contractual agreements and property. I am a libertarian.
And I do follow the leftist Proudhon/Stirner/Tucker individualist tradition of anarchy.
None of which actually supports your position on libertarianism (or even addresses my point). Human beings certainly can and do organize themselves into societies without coercive authority, but these are all relatively small scale societies which rely on face to face interactions to re-enforce societal norms. They also tend to have significant problems with relatively high levels of internal violent conflict and homicide, as there is no coercive authority to stop the escalation of conflicts. There are no larger scale societies (chiefdoms or states) which do not rely on coercive authority. Markets do emerge in these societies to structure routine economic exchanges between strangers, but part of this emergence is the development of external, coercive regulatory structures which enable the operations of the markets (standardized currency and weights and measures, tort and contract law, and the rest). Without enforceable rules (coercive regulations) markets simply cannot and do not exist. Fairness is not natural to markets (cheating, lying, and theft are), but is externally enforced (which is why you are willing to trust the strangers). This latter statement is based on observations of actual market behavior over millennia and across hundrerds of cultures.
I would also add that at no point did I personally insult you (though I can see how my generally snarky indictment of libertarians could be insulting). Frankly, you seem like a relatively nice, if somewhat misguided, person. Libertarianism, with its emphasis on the operations of unregulated markets, remains, for the reasons I have already stated, a fundamentally sociopathic philosophy.
Altruism is a fundamental human trait and its expansion far beyond what is found in other primates (or any other animals) is a key factor in human evolution. The problem is that this altruism tends to break down once you move beyond the face to face community. It does not totally disappear, and there are a wide array of social mechanisms for extending it, but you can no longer rely simply on natural altruism to regulate society once society achieves a sufficiently large scale. It is also the case that a degree of xenophobia or at least strong ethnocentrism is also natural in humans and found in all societies.
I would also add that based on your statements here, that you strike me as more of an anarchist or a anarcho-libertarian than a true libertarian.
society was acting with outrage less for the murder of the girl and more for Hickman’s thumbing of social norms
I don’t quite follow the distinction here between a “social norm” and “don’t murder children”.
You missed the little detail that Ayn Rand wasn’t a libertarian.
I used to think that Rand’s ne plus ultra was her deeply informed and humane remarks at West Point about American Indians. How naive of me!
Though they don’t quite match her train narrative for ponderous depravity, here’s an excerpt for anyone who’s interested:
(I should add here that I’ve seen more than one version of the West Point remarks–which leads me to suspect that we may be dealing here with one or mor paraphrases, rather than direct quotation.)
The realisation that their own tenure is equally fragile, and that Randian ideology expects them to make way in turn for any new immigrants who can occupy the land more efficiently and more densely, could be one reason why white people in the US (and in Australia, now I think of it) are so paranoid about immigration.
Oh. My. God. The main character in “Fountainhead” demolishes a building he designed when someone adds balconies against his will–and the jury acquits him? And people take the author of this seriously???
so serious question: How do Rand-ites respond to these quotes from their goddess?
Well, on the Ayn Rand contra Human Nature website, in a discussion of her remarks on American Indians, someone posted:
I responded that this was a morality fit for thieves, rapists, and conmen. Is it orthodox Randianism, though? I don’t know.
That Slate piece is pretty good. The real question is not what drove Ayn Rand, but how such a manifestly juvenile ideology and such a damaged person managed to entrance and entrain a significant chunk of the US political culture. It is just amazing that Alan fucking Greenspan was a cultist, meaning this drivel was directly exerting influence on the highest reaches of economic policy.
She called him “a brilliant, unusual, exceptional boy”
This is pretty close to the words Hannibal Lecter uses to describe the Tooth Fairy in Red Dragon. Maybe Thomas Harris has been secretly writing political satire all these years?
I’ll insist that it’s unfair to tarnish Nietzsche with any association to such thoughts.
Agreed. At least his contention that humans are capable of incredibly awful deeds (like, say, taking Ayn Rand seriouisly) has some grounding in historical realities.
To
plagiarisemisquote John Sladek, blaming Nietszche for Ayn Rand is like holding Francis of Assisi responsible for the Spanish Inquisition.How is that?
I think Nietzsche would have been fairly amenable to what Rand said about Hickman.
Why? Based on which passages in which books?
Moreover based on another description from Rand of Hickman from her journals:
“Yes, he is a monster—now. But the worse he is, the worst must be the cause that drove him to this. Isn’t it significant that society was not able to fill the life of an exceptional, intelligent boy, to give him anything to out-balance crime in his eyes? If society is horrified at this crime, it should be horrified at the crime’s ultimate cause: itself. The worse the crime—the greater it’s guilt. What would society answer, if that boy were to say: “Yes, I’m a monstrous criminal, but what are you?”
I meant which Nietzsche passages!
“Crime belongs to the concept “revolt against the social order.” One does not “punish” a rebel; one suppresses him. A rebel can be a miserable and contemptible man; but there is nothing contemptible in a revolt as such–and to be a rebel in view of contemporary society does not in itself lower the value of a man. There are even cases in which one might have to honor a rebel, because he finds something in our society against which war ought to be waged–he awakens us from our slumber.”
“One can enhance only those men whom one does not treat with contempt; moral contempt causes greater indignity and harm than any crime.”
Nietzsche’s writings are loaded with examples of where he critiques non-egoistic society for imposing shame and indignity upon criminals for the roles they played as upstarts and revolutionaries.
I have not read Rand’s journal (and I have serious doubts anyone on here has), but it seems to me that she cast Hickman as a monster who was suppressed and rendered into a “purposeless monster” and then treated more as a rebel to social norms by a society concerned with maintaining a herd mentality and leveling.
She did not praise Hickman in the slightest, rather she saw Hickman as a sympathetic figure who was basically destroyed by society.
I neither know enough of Hickman’s life or of the context of Rand’s comments to say this is precisely what she is saying, but it is far more likely than the “Ideal man” argument.
what you quote is from the notebooks, composed Spring-Fall 1887, in the lead up to Genealogy of Morality. it’s available at WP 740, but the selection and composition of WP, by N’s sister, is often misleading and consequently there’s a lot of debate about how to handle the notebooks material in relation to the published works. i tend to say that when there is overlap, you should go with the publication, but when there isn’t, you can use the notebooks.
in any case, there’s the bit about the criminal as revolutionary in there, but there’s also a whole passage about the degenerate race of criminals and the need to make war on members of that class before they commit any acts, and that the first thing we should do then is to castrate him. so it helps when you cite the whole thing, so that we can judge what the context is.
anyway, the treatment of crime and punishment in GM doesn’t have much to do with criminal as revolutionary, but with debtors and creditors and so on. but that’s about primitive society, and you can’t take what N says about primitive societies and apply them to our society straightforwardly. GM doesn’t say much about contemporary criminal law, except that the more powerful the society, the less punitive its laws, so that the beautiful name justice gives to its self-overcoming is “mercy.”
Reading Rand made feel that I was being covered with the drool of a sycophant and borderline personality. I could see a gollum-like character hunkered and drooling, stalking the object of her clinically insane adoration.
I’m just glad she did everyone a favor and never reproduced.
Jerry Pournelle pointed out once that there are no infants in Rand’s books, and no room for them in her philosophy, because they are parasites. They take and take, and if they have any sense or strength of character then they’ll pay you back by throwing you out on the street when you’re old and feeble.
The Mountain People might be bad anthropology but it strikes me as a good depiction of a Randian society.