Like many conservative/libertarians, I went through an Ayn Rand phase. Apart from being presumptive, this piece may also be futile since adherents to Rand’s philosophy are not so much adherents, but worshipers. I know this from personal experience since I gulped gallons of the Objectivist Kool Aid myself, bought three t shirts, and a coffee mug. Yes, I literally have in my possession three Atlas Shrugged t shirts and an Atlas Shrugged mug.
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| Notice the "Atlas Will Shrug" Mug |
Her philosophy is based on the primacy of logic and reason above all else. It is an elegant theory, a perfect counterweight to communism. One would expect that given her experience in Russia’s communist revolution, that the horrors she saw there would drive her to be the yin to the collectivists’ yang.
Man’s logic and reason create all that is necessary for life and advances our quality of life. Man’s intellect makes all this possible, and no one can make a claim to another man’s creative intellect, even on humanitarian grounds. Others may reap the rewards of another’s intellect, but only by the voluntary exchange of something of value. The individual is the primary focal point, not the collective.
But as my wife said, “People just don’t work that way.” My wife is an old soul and intuitively sensed that Rand’s theory didn’t mesh with our messy reality.
Scientific studies show infants demonstrate empathy for others before they even learn to speak. This suggests that we, as a species, are born with an innate sense of empathy. We are born hard wired to empathize and sympathize with others.
I can imagine how this might be interpreted in an evolutionary biology framework. Scientists have argued at what level or levels does survival of the fittest take place? Is it the fittest gene, cell, individual, group, species, or all of the above? Our species may not have evolved to be the fittest individual but the fittest group. Survival rates for an individual would have been zero for most of our evolutionary history. A loner would make easy prey for animal or enemy.
Grok the Neanderthal may not have been the fittest or smartest of his clan. But he was still a needed for hunting and fending off rival clans. If he was a slacker on the hunt, I imagine that he would take home a smaller share of wooly mammoth than other group members as punishment. But unless food resources were scarce, he would not be allowed starve. He was still useful for the survival of the group.
Our species did not evolve to be loners, let alone the heroic loners of Rand’s novels. We evolved in groups, attuned to the emotional states of one another in order to assure group harmony and success. This is reflected in the following thought experiment.
If two people are performing an identical task, and one produces more than the other due to a superior work ethic or intelligence, our innate sense of fairness dictates that the out performer deserves greater compensation. But if $5 would save someone’s life and a billionaire refuses to give up an amount of funds insignificant to him, most would consider his refusal immoral.
We don’t suffer the lazy for long. But we also expect those who have an abundance of resources to share with the less fortunate, at least to the extent that their standard of living is not affected. We shouldn’t be surprised. During the millennia in which we evolved, great disparity of wealth did not exist. We are still struggling with the idea that Bill Gates or Warren Buffet live only a few thousand miles from Haitians dying from a lack of clean water.
One of Rand’s central tenets was an adherence to Aristotle’s Law of Identity: Everything in existence has a particular nature. That particular nature gives the object its identity, and an object cannot have two identities. A is A. It is what it is.
Humans are what we evolved to be. A is A. We are neither purely collectivist nor individualist. We are a motley mixture of both intellect and emotion with an innate sense of justice that rewards exceptional individual ability and values charity. And a quick perusal of our history will confirm that we have always been so.
Reward for individual effort is the engine that drives human progress. But individuals pursuing their own interests do not ensure the success the group, or in our age, the nation. Numerous civilizations have collapsed as individuals pursued their own goals with blinders on, steaming their societies along like a rudderless ship to unfortunate ends. (Warning, book recommendation follows. Read Jared Diamond’s Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed).
My wife sensed what Ayn Rand could not see. Perhaps it was because she was born in a South Bronx housing project but has gone on to receive her Masters degree.
She will testify that she didn’t succeed alone as a Rand heroine would. Her success is due to her exceptionality, luck, and some helping hands, including some from the government. We’ll never know exactly which factor figured most prominently in her avoiding the traps that ensnared many of the young women in her neighborhood. There is no elegant or simple explanation. But that is the human condition. A is A.
