The Christian Science Monitor (of all places) recently posted a set of 10 Favorite Quotations from Ayn Rand. I thought it was pretty lame, so I decided to do my own - not with quotations, but with the actual concepts she popularized and espoused.
10 best concepts from Ayn Rand and the Objectivists (a rock 'n roll band)
1. Social Metaphysics - Originally "distilled" or named by Nathaniel Branden, who was developing Objectivist Psychology at the time, "social metaphysics" describes the mechanism by which people are forced into obedience and conformity. The whole process of "bonding" and creating "affinity groups" (gangs) requires that each person give up his or her own view of reality, and conform to the social unit. In other words, one's metaphysical view of one's place in the world is totally social, not individual or free. Which leads us to
2 &3. Individualism - Rand was the leading individualist philosopher of her day. And this is both "ethical individualism" and "methodological individualism". The former refers to her politics totally dominated by "individual rights" and their protection. Rand believes (and claims Thomas Jefferson as a fellow-believer on this) that "in order to protect these rights, governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed." Wasn't that in the Declaration of Independence? Yes, But Rand and her "school" of libertarians believe exactly that, while most other political philosophers and practitioners apparently do not, believing instead that "might makes right" or some sort of "divine right of ......." - whether church or state officials, law, taxes, etc.
"Methodological Individualism" simply means that the individual is the "unit" for all social analysis and policies. The whole may be more than the sum of its parts, but it is the parts which are acting, sentient beings. Each individual is "sovereign", and has purposes, values, etc. of its own, which must be recognized and protected.
4. The Stolen Concept - This is a simple paraphrase of one of the rules of logic - like "begging the question" (petitio princippi). You arrive at conclusions which rely on some concept which you have already denied. She gives lots of examples of this, usually with a rightist bias. Like, "you can't have "socialized medicine" because that would be enslaving the doctors. With enslaved doctors, you don't have any good medicine at all." But it works equally well from the left. You learn the tools, and then apply them to your own projects or positions. And of course the real student will then study logic, to see if what Rand was saying is correct, and verified "in the literature" or whatever. Usually, they'd either find that it wasn't, or that there were already better explanations of the process or phenomenon in question.
5. Cigarettes are a symbol of freedom and liberation. So, Rand was a drug freak after all. Didn't we just know it? And everyone has the right to enjoy their guilty pleasures, whether sexual, pharmaceutical, alcoholic, etc. - "so long as it doesn't harm others." But of course all of these things harm others! So much for Ayn Rand!
6. Escape clauses - the above is an example of that. Ayn Rand isn't for everybody. In fact, it's for almost nobody - the 1%, the Mensans, the nerds and geeks, the sexually confused and dispossessed. Boys with Oedipus Complexes, and refugees from tyrannical religious sects and doctrines. It's the traditional proto-revolutionary class, or at least that's what attracted me to it. And I never feared that I could get back out if need be. I chose to be there, and I could chose to leave. I knew a hundred different perspectives on the Phenomenon of Ayn Rand, and being afraid wasn't any part of them.
7. Pride, self-esteem. This seems like such a cliche, now, but outside of Hollywood, these were not values prominently displayed in American society prior to Ayn Rand's influence in the 1940's with The Fountainhead. In that novel (which really was revolutionary at the time), Rand explained the various social types who are destroying our world, our souls, and our very existence as a nation and people. There wasn't any glorification of "capitalists" and bankers/industrialists there. They were all SOB's, while it was journalists, independent business people (entrepreneurs), and artists/musicians who were really important, and had "souls."
8. Ennoblement - Tim Leary used this term, I think. American society was "ennobled" by the youth culture of the 1960's, and the Objectivist movement was a big part of it, as was Scientology. It was seen, world-wide, as another Renaissance, and Objectivism was a Renaissance philosophy and movement.
9. The literature of music. Ayn Rand understood the importance of symphonic music to the educational and social process as well or better than anyone. You simply can't have an advanced society without a large number of people listening to and finding meaning in this essential cultural framework. Every advanced culture has it, and values it.
10. Romanticism - Those of us with an inherent interest in film, TV, drama, music, or the other arts were fascinated by Rand's defense of what she called "Romanticism." Not quite the same as the historical movement which started in Germany and France during and after the Revolution, but she had good taste, and read all those people critically. It's worth mentioning that Rand was also a Wagnerite, like many other Northern European Jews, and also much closer to Lutheranism than Catholicism insofar as cultural aspects were concerned. (Like Trotsky, who was educated in a German-language Lutheran gymnasium!).
The 19th century Romantics, on the other hand, were more - well, "Roman."
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