One of my best friends told me the other day that her favorite author is Ayn Rand. I was shocked and kept my mouth shut. I just made a funny face. Because we did not have time to discuss this statement further, I do not know if she simply loves her fiction writing or whether she had bought into Rands entire Objectivist philosophy. I can not make assumptions, but I can see that my friend has changed quite a lot in the last year or so. She seems much more isolated and concerned with the end of the world. Her paranoia and distrust of humanity is a concern to me, because I care about her. She used to be much happier, and I am now thinking that she has become less connected to her social group and less compassionate in general. I have come to the conclusion that people who are Objectivists could become quite lonely and unemotional, so I want to explain to people a little bit about why I disagree wholeheartedly against seeing life through the very dark, bland, and lonely lens of Objectivism.
Ayn Rand writes that altruism is evil and selfishness is good. She explains all this using fictional characters in a pseudo-philosophical format. She proclaims that capitalism is perfect and laissez-faire capitalism is perfect. She avows that any one or culture who does not believe this are savages, and that people who get any social benefits are parasites and do not deserve love. She also states that greed is good, and that business people will do the moral thing if given no regulations. If she weren't such a powerful influence on modern society in the US, it would all be very laughable and absurd. Even Alan Greenspan, a longtime student of Rand, now states that Rand's philosophy has a fatal flaw: deregulation does not guarantee morality from financial people and only causes greed, which caused our latest economic disaster. There are no John Galts, so to speak, but certainly Bernie Maddofs and other people who destroyed Americans hard working retirement and investments with hideously unethical derivatives. But people still continue to believe in laissez-faire capitalism. Without going further into detail about my political beliefs, I am going to discuss my deep distrust in Rand and Libertarians core nature using biology and history.
Through literary manipulation, Ayn Rand forces people to drop any right brain thinking. Yet, it is biologically impossible for healthy people to live life without using the right side of our brains. If we assume that altruism is bad, then we longer are using 50% of our brains that took all of our evolution to acquire. The right side of the brain is our emotions, art, creativity, humanity, culture, a desire for knowledge, compassion, and even democratic ideals. (We the people, in order to form a more perfect union...) In a wonderful book called Social Evolution, Bob Trivers (a biology professor of mine at UCSC) details the parental investment and reproductive success of many species on Earth. It is fascinating to really understand that our reproductive success depends on our parental investment. It is likely that our brains have developed perfectly to match the essential needs for our offspring to survive. One of the obvious necessities for caring for our young is compassion. We simply can not deny that we are here to care for other people, and out brains are massively developed for nurturing our young. To pretend that we are not altruistic creatures is denying our human biology. Furthermore, biologists and psychologists now know that making decisions requires that both sides of our brain are working: the logic side and the emotional side. Critical decisions will always be bounced between the left and the ride side of our brains. Any decision that ancient or modern man, from where to hunt to who to marry, requires both sides of the brain working together. So if a philosopher (or cult leader) asks you to turn off the entire right side of your brain and tells you to turn off your compassion, morality, and altruistic nature, it should be a HUGE red flag. If you are no longer allowed to check in with your emotions or your moral compass, then you can imagine that the author (or cult leader) is about to ask you to do something that you would normally not do. For example, they might ask you to give absolute power to a small select group of people (the rich business man), give them power that does not have term limits, does not require an election, and has no system of checks and balances or regulations. Sounds like a fucking bad idea, totally undemocratic, and totally against The Constitution. If giving absolute power to anyone is not a very dangerous recipe for tyranny, I can not imagine what is. One could even argue we are currently being dominated by a tyranny of greed today thanks entirely to Ayn Randists.
On a side note, I would also like to say that I believe that The Constitution is the most mutually and reciprocating altruistic documents I have ever read. How this gets ignored by Randists, I have no idea.
What also concerns me is that very few people understand where in our history the obsession with individual liberty and big government comes from. Back when slavery was a hot topic, southerners did not want the "big bad government" to take away their private property (slaves), and the "big bad government" wanted to liberate black slaves. OK, so who's fucking liberty do you care about- the white guy who owns slaves or the black slave? I am 100% happy that the government came in and ended slavery. I am also 100% in support of President Johnson and the "big bad government" sending in the National Guard to protect young black children from being violently assaulted as they went into white schools for the first time. Oh the poor states, they must have felt so oppressed by the government (sarcasm). If we are going to accurately define "liberty" we absolutely must talk about slavery. In my opinion, Liberty that does not benefit the "general welfare" is not liberty at all. The Constitution mentions "general welfare" 2 times-in the preamble and in the 10Th amendment. We must consider that the white private property owner is not the only one who's liberty is important. I believe that this historical context is why people consider Libertarians and Objectivists racist, because history dictates that black people's liberty was not important to them. Which brings me to an unfortunate point. Philosophies and political systems that are only interested in benefiting white people are by definition White Supremacist groups. No one in The Tea Party, Libertarian Party, or Objectivists will say that they actually are into White Supremacy, but these groups are always fighting to maintain wealth in the hands of the historically established elite. (and our historical elite is white) I know it's a hard one to swallow, people. Perhaps you have no intentions of being racist as you support Ron Paul and others like him, but you are DEFINITELY rubbing elbows with the white supremacy groups in the USA. Do you really want to affiliate yourself with such a small unemotional group of white people, or do you find that the multicultural working class represents more of your ideals and needs as a people? Are there any liberty issues that you all have in common? Perhaps Environmentalism is a big concern of yours, and objectivism is not compatible with this interest. Perhaps you are concerned with Veterans benefits, but Rand forced you to forget about this interest. Think about these critical issues as you turn on your emotions and the right side of your brain. There is no reason to ever shut down your own emotions or invalidate other people's emotions. We have evolved into humans with large compassionate and logical brains and shutting that off would be denying your humanity. Denying humanity seems to be a very lonely lifestyle and political choice. Being able to appreciate Native American art and culture and/or the rich black history that we have in our country makes for a happy brain. Otherwise, we may as well be robots: "I have no empathy for humanity and I only find perfection in successful entrepreneurs." Yikes.
