No Ayn is an Island

Jonathan Chait has a review of a couple of new biographies of Ayn Rand (h/t Sullivan).  This passage struck me:

....Rand held up her own meteoric rise from penniless immigrant to wealthy author as a case study of the individualist ethos. "No one helped me," she wrote, "nor did I think at any time that it was anyone’s duty to help me."

But this was false. Rand spent her first months in this country subsisting on loans from relatives in Chicago, which she promised to repay lavishly when she struck it rich. (She reneged, never speaking to her Chicago family again.) She also enjoyed the great fortune of breaking into Hollywood at the moment it was exploding in size, and of bumping into DeMille. Many writers equal to her in their talents never got the chance to develop their abilities. That was not because they were bad or delinquent people. They were merely the victims of the commonplace phenomenon that Bernard Williams described as "moral luck."

The denial of familial help and social support is most striking, especially from an ancient Chinese philosophical perspective.  It is, simply, a pure yet deluded selfishness that ignores the most fundamental features of human life.  For a Taoist those features are an inescapable embeddedness in a vast and uncontrollable Way, and a profound limitation of human knowledge and action.  For a Confucian those features are an axiomatic sociality of humanity and a clear impossibility of morality in isolation. 

The contradiction may be greatest with Confucianism, since Rand seems to believe that she is developing a moral theory.  She wants to contend that morality is best achieved through the cultivation and empowerment of the individual without reference to social context.  This is an absurdity to a Confucian.  Morality can only be defined in social terms; we find our moral selves precisely in our relations to others.  Our individuality is determined by our familial and social roles and duties.  Indeed, that was the reality of Rand's life: she did, despite her protestations to the contrary, receive help from her family.  And she chose to simply ignored her obligations to reciprocate that care.  In that, and in other aspects of her life, she was deeply immoral.

Comments

[Ronit]

I agree. Objectivism is less a moral theory than it is a moral disease.

[Confucian Socialist]

Rand's ideas have caused a tremendous amount of damage in the world. Reagan, Greenspan (and the Presidents he has advised, including Clinton and Bush II), Thatcher....

The irony of course is that many right-wingers, even as they scramble to embrace Rand's free market ideology, also attempt to paint themselves as the defenders of the family. In fact there is no greater threat to family life than Rand's atomized vision of humanity and the unbridled free markets it champions.

[Bao Pu]

Hi Sam,

I am not overly familiar with Rand's philosophy, but I agree with some of what she has said (for example: http://www.objectivistcenter.org/showcontent.aspx?ct=406&h=42)

Regarding "No one helped me," this does indeed seem unfair to those who have been shown to have helped her, although I do not know the details of her entire relationship with this Chicago family. I am not sure any of us do.

In the grand scheme of thing, it is absurd to think that one is independent and receives no help. Someone fed us when we were an infant. Someone taught us how to read and write. Someone taught us the conventions of our society and how to conduct ourselves. And on and on.

re: "She wants to contend that morality is best achieved through the cultivation and empowerment of the individual without reference to social context."
-- You're right, this is absurd. I am suspicious of your claim. Morality is only possible in a social context, where there are interactions with others.

re: "Our individuality is determined by our familial and social roles and duties."
-- For a Confucian perhaps. In my opinion, these things contribute to our individuality, but are not the sole determinants.