Thursday, April 28, 2011
Galt's Gulch, South Carolina
Readers of this blog will recognize that I am not a fan of Ayn Rand. Therefore, it's somewhat distressing to read news reports that move me to say "Here's a case where Ayn Rand was prescient." I'm referring to the attempts by the National Labor Relations Board to tell the Boeing Corporation it cannot manufacture its airplanes in South Carolina. This is outrageous. The NLRB ought to be added to the list of federal agencies (EPA, FCC) where the power of the purse of Congress should be used to reign in abuses of federal power over economic activity. To go further, I suggest a sweeping re-examination of all of the Progressive Frankenbureaus who believe that they can order Americans around outside of the originally-understood concepts of separation of powers.
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4 comments:
What disagreement do you have with the philosophy of Objectivism?
First, I should say that I read a lot of Ayn Rand when I was in high school, but that was before I read Atlas Shrugged. At the time, I appreciated her critiques of the New Left, the horrors of the Soviet Union, and, especially in the Fountainhead, her commitment to integrity and honesty. By the time I worked my way through Atlas Shrugged, however, I had to wrestle with what she was FOR (her skills certainly weren't as a novelist). Atlas Shrugged left me no doubt that I could never separate Rand herself and Objectivism from their radical, anti-Christian core principles. When Doug and I were discussing your comment, he pointed out to me a post by John Piper (http://www.desiringgod.org/resource-library/articles/the-ethics-of-ayn-rand). I have great admiration for this Piper essay because he does what I've been unable to do, which is to tease out a critical Christian perspective of what might be valuable in Rand while focusing on the impassable gulf between Rand's egoism and the Christian virtues of love and mercy.
I see what you are saying. The one hole I found in Objectivism is that it requires one to accept the axiom that our minds can perceive, integrate, and make sense of reality in order to further our survival. This may not always be true, as many phenomena are difficult to observe. Also, her Aristotelian argument relies on the fact that there is no observable evidence for the existence of God, to get to the conclusion that there is no God. Yet, new phenomena are being proven in laboratories routinely. I do, however, think that we must exercise prudence when taking conclusions and assertions on faith. Rand reminds us all to weigh the evidence logically and to think independently of whims or the desires of others.
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