William Hazlitt: An Evil Genius

This was an assignment I was given in my Essay-Writing Class in college. I had to review an essay of my choice. -CS

William Hazlitt: An Evil Genius

“On the Pleasure of Hating” is a contemplative personal essay about how the emotion of hatred is the centerpiece of man’s nature. Essayist William Hazlitt invites his readers to hear his thoughts about how man’s hateful spirit affects our relationship with friends, with artistic creations, with ideas, with life. Hazlitt is a Romanticist who idolizes good things like genius, virtue, and liberty. His passionate style, travelable structure, and lucid clarity make this an excellent essay; despite this, and in spite of this fact, I have reason to hate William Hazlitt for his hidden, underlying purpose in writing this attractively malevolent treatise.

The essay’s structure resembles that of a persuasive argument, since the last three sections consist of several supporting arguments for the position the author takes on the issue described in the first three sections. Alternatively, this essay could be considered the descriptive type, since it outlines Hazlitt’s stream of consciousness as he thinks about the hatred in man’s nature. He begins with a short anecdote of how he helps a spider escape from his room, through which he creatively introduces the reader to the subject and theme of this essay. In the second paragraph, he identifies how “Nature [is] made up of antipathies,” and how we see forms of hatred wherever we look, particularly in the behavior of men. In the third, he concludes his preliminary observations with a generalization: we claim to love virtue only to compensate for our “obstinate adherence to our own vices.” This principle, he says, has universal application; thusly, he applies to the principle to interpersonal relationships, art, and ideas, and he reviews these applications in this order. Hazlitt lacks transitional elements between many sub-points internal to his main ideas. He makes up for it, though, with great transitions between the main ideas themselves: one paragraph always ends with an idea that is related to the main idea of the next. Another strong point about his structure is that it has a clear and appropriate beginning, middle, and end; it can stand-alone.

As a Romanticist, Hazlitt is able to achieve many great qualities of writing. He talks about things in the most important of ways, with intensely emotional details and powerful analogies. Additionally, while most Romantics usually attempt to present what they think life ought to be like, Hazlitt does the inverse, and paints a picture of what about man prevents life from becoming how he seems to think life should be, and through this he has the Romantic element of originality. Unlike modern writers, he does not experiment with grammar at all, and that preserves his clarity. One feature that seems to be characteristic of Hazlitt is his extensive usage of allusions. In this instance, he might refer to Shakespeare lines to get the right meaning across, he might compare his subject of thought to historical concepts like Jeremy Bentham’s Panopticon, and he does not hesitate to talk about his personal friends. He can maintain the reader’s interest throughout the essay; the strong emotional reactions we receive from his words are our connection to his stream of consciousness, establishing a very high level of intimacy. He does not just talk about his ideas, he shows what he means with vivid analogies and easy descriptions, like how we may “lay upon the shelf” our “most amusing companion.” There is no question that Hazlitt’s chosen writing style is essentially what makes him a good writer.

Hazlitt’s selection of context and content is particularly interesting because it suggests contradictory thinking. These contradictions – once exposed – reveal an underlying purpose Hazlitt has in writing this essay. The contradiction is found between the second and last paragraphs. In the former, Hazlitt criticizes the majority of the population for taking a likening to things that incite pain and hatred, and for growing bored of things that are good and admirable. In the latter, he rages over the fact that these are the people responsible for destroying anything that he considered good (i.e., genius, virtue, liberty). If Hazlitt does, indeed, view these things as good, it is contradictory that in his writing he would deliberately ignore the good aspects of life, only to fuel the idea that Man’s hatred will prevail. Hazlitt is guilty of that which he is accusing the majority of doing. This is reason enough for Hazlitt to hate himself, but was he aware of his own hypocrisy? At the end of the sixth paragraph, he declares that the reason for hating himself is for “not hating the world enough.” But is there truly nothing good about the world he lived in? William Hazlitt lived during the Industrial Revolution, one of the least deserving-of-hatred eras in Mankind’s history for its constant and abundant days of discovery and invention throughout the world! In light of this fact, his professed reason for self-hatred seems like an alibi to conceal his hypocrisy. This action, at last, uncovers Hazlitt’s purpose in writing this essay: to emotionally blind the reader from anything good in the world, and lure him into seeing only the negative and hateful aspects of life so that he may eventually come to the same conclusions Hazlitt provides in his thesis. He ultimately wanted to destroy any remnant of self-esteem in his readers, granting them a terribly disappointing world as their cause for self-hatred, when in fact the cause is their own self-inflicted blindness.

I should like to conclude this review with my personal assessment. As a man who was able to identify Hazlitt’s underlying purpose in writing this essay, I can experience the most brutal irony I’ve ever seen any author set up: despite the fact that this is an esthetically good personal essay – for its passionate style and clear structure – I am filled with nothing but vile disgust for this paper. (I wish I had room to explain this irony in greater detail, and correct the apparent hypocrisy in myself.) One thing I learned from reading this essay is that, while conciseness is a virtue in most literature, it is not always necessary in essay writing. Hazlitt was not concise in writing this essay, and yet I believe that every word, sentence, and paragraph was appropriate for the purpose of his theme. But, alas, I cannot agree with Hazlitt’s idea that the good has no chance of survival in the real world. Evil only has as much power as it is sanctioned by the good.

Brief Thoughts on the “Sorry, Not Sorry” Video

This video has been getting some attention recently. Somebody told me that the purpose of this video was to combat the psychological automatization women apparently have for apologizing for everything… I’ve been hearing it primarily from feminists, and they’ve been telling young ladies that “you’ve been taught to do this” due to a pro-male culture and system.

First of all, if you are interested in reading a detailed, clearly-written account for why the feminist movement is actually doing more harm than good, I suggest reading “Gender Tribalism” by Peter Schwartz. For some easy-access information, there are numerous websites you can check out, and I recommend two in particular: http://www.avoiceformen.com/activism/about/and http://womenagainstfeminism.tumblr.com/

Secondly, the premise for this whole video is completely arbitrary. Sometimes saying sorry is acceptable and respectable. In fact, in many of the situations shown in this video which I, being a man and all, have also done similar activities as, I will also apologize in that situation. But saying sorry is not inherently a sign of shame or guilt. Sometimes it is the most honorable thing a person can do. Furthermore, I rarely, if ever, hear my own female friends apologize even in situations like this. Maybe I have weird friends. Maybe I don’t listen carefully enough. But in any case, if ever they do apologize, I normally tell them not to feel sorry anyway (also done for the same reason they offer the apology — out of kindness and respect for each other).

Thirdly, and this is a rhetorical question, who the HELL is someone else to tell you that they know better than you do: what you do or do not know, what you have or have not been taught, how you think or act, your reasons for saying things you may say, your intentions for your actions, your motives for your choices, your thoughts along your life. When person A tells person B that they know person B’s mind better than person B knows his own mind, I get scared… from both people. I get scared of person A because of the fact that he would stoop to such a low level of manipulation, and I get scared of person B because of the fact that they BELIEVE these outrageous suggestions.

I can’t say anything to the kind of people who are like person A. You know who you are, and you know the evil you are committing. No amount of reason can help you.

But to anyone who has been in person B’s situation: as a dedicated researcher of both philosophy and psychology, I can offer you this short advice: become more aware of your mental activity. Keep track of your thoughts, judgments, and beliefs; organize your knowledge, moderate your emotions. Learn how to patrol your decisions, so that every time you make one, you know your conscious reason for doing it. If you have a stronger self-awareness of your mental activity, you will never believe anything by manipulators such as person A. Instead, you will know for a definite fact, with all certainty, that your life and your actions is entirely dictated and chosen by YOU; and not by some subconscious or unconscious mechanism unavailable to your reason.

Thoughts on Chapter Two of Atlas Shrugged

Chapter two is titled “The Chain” and exposes the reader to the life of Hank Rearden, one of the book’s many heroes.

Question: Why do the passengers on the train not recognize the achievement of the steel factory?

This has been an ongoing theme in all of Rand’s works. In the words of Roark on his trial:

“Men have been taught that the highest virtue is not to achieve, but to give. Yet one cannot give that which has not been created. Creation comes before distribution—or there will be nothing to distribute. The need of the creator comes before the need of any possible beneficiary. Yet we are taught to admire the second-hander who dispenses gifts he has not produced above the man who made the gifts possible. We praise an act of charity. We shrug at an act of achievement.”

The acceptance of altruism, striking at every man’s pride in himself, is the cause of their unadmitted shame that has caused them not to look up at that factory and look, in awe and respect, at the achievements of a man. Such acts as the kind done by these passengers on the train are done in order to maintain their acceptance of altruism as their moral code. Slowly, but surely, in a series of what may sometimes be the smallest steps, all acts of altruism lead one from life to death. Man is not meant to achieve; so when they see this factory, they see a man attempted to betray his nature, and they feel like he is their enemy. Such is the nature of Rearden’s own family, whose reaction to his news about the pouring of his first metal alloy consisted of silence from the majority of his listeners, and an indifferent “Well that’s nice,” from his brother. They act as if failure is the rule of life, but they know, buried in the depths of their subconscious mind, that this feeling is not right… that this should not be the way of the world. Hank Rearden is one of many who understands why: he is a man who accepts that success and achievement in Man’s life is to be expected. He knows this only because he rejects altruism. However, as we shall see in the following three questions, Rearden only rejects altruism in this one aspect of his life.

Question: What exactly is happening on pages 40-41? Why, exactly, did he have to “let [Lillian] win”? What would have happened if he didn’t let her win?

In this scene, Lillian Rearden informs Hank that she will be throwing a party in three months, and insists he come, but asks him which date he prefers, between the choices of December 9-11.. When he responds “It makes no difference to me,” Lillian replies “December tenth is our wedding anniversary.” This paragraph follows:

They were all watching his face; if they expected a look of guilt, what they saw, instead, was a faint smile of amusement. She could not have intended this as a trap, he thought, because he could escape it so easily, by refusing to accept any blame for his forgetfulness and by leaving her spurned; she knew that his feeling for her was her only weapon. Her motive, he thought, was a profoundly indirect attempt to test his feeling and to confess her own. A party was not his form of celebration, but it was hers. It meant nothing in his terms; in hers, it meant the best tribute she could offer to him and to their marriage. He had to respect her intention, he thought, even if he did not share her standards, even if he did not know whether he still cared for any tribute from her. He had to let her win, he thought, because she had thrown herself upon his mercy. 

Similar experiences have happened in my life, where I decided to judge a person’s actions as if they were done on good intentions, on the premise that all people are good at heart. But the reality is that Lillian had set him up for the very trap which he speculated. He does not realize that, if any of them were ever put in the same trap, it would be the hardest thing for them to escape, in contrast to how easy it is for him. It is easy for him because he does not care what people think about him. He does not fully realize how, for Lillian and the rest of his family, saving face and the image in their reputation meant everything up to the point that it is their means of survival. Besides this point, he decided the sacrifice justice to mercy. This is an act of altruism. He is not personally interested in going to the party, a selfish man would have said no to her request, with or without the trap. He does not value parties as a way of celebration, but going would make his wife happy. His decision indicates one of two possible interpretations of his values:

1. He values his wife’s happiness enough that it would not be a sacrifice for him to attend the party.

2. He values his wife’s happiness more than his own, which would be a sacrifice.

Here is where the fact of Rearden’s evaluation of Lillian’s intention is necessary to make our judgment. Had Rearden not decided to respect Lillian’s intention, he would have “escaped the trap” by rejecting her request. But he did consider her intentions. Whether he is correct in evaluating her values and intentions is of no importance.  He put primacy of her supposed values over his own. This is the fundamental flaw which makes both possible interpretations of Hank’s values equally-oriented to altruism. If he had not let her win, what could have potentially followed would be his humiliation before his family on their irrational standard of morality, Lillian would be upset, and he may have pursued his own values, but with his family getting in his way. It could have been the first step towards a divorce between Lillian and Rearden, for various reasons of him not making her happy.

Question: Is it right for Rearden to give advice, attention, and a tactful, patient interest in Paul Larkin because it is “harder” for him to accomplish anything and it is “easy” for himself? If someone were your ideological enemy, would you give him advice and interest in him for this, or any reason?

Rearden’s appeasement to a man like Paul Larkin is as unjust as any man handing his enemy the weapon used to kill him. Paul Larkin is concerned with achievement, but he is not concerned with going about it the right (or the wrong) way. He is a pragmatist; whatever way works is the answer; and for Larkin, taking advantage of men in Washington, and preserving one’s “public image” is the sort of tactics that work. Rearden overlooks the reason why it is harder for Larkin to accomplish anything. It is for the same reason Larkin converses about such pragmatic tactics.

Question: When Philip accepts Hank’s charity, Hank feels insulted mostly at the part when Philip says he wants the money for no selfish interest. Would Philip have been less insulting to Hank had his request for money been selfish?

I would think so. The thing about people like Hank Rearden is, he is a businessmen, a trader, seeking to receive a mutual payback for any investment. He can respect any other man who lives by this policy, and if a man earns that respect, that may be enough for him to give charity. But Philip is asking for charity without such respect. He does not seek to receive any mutual benefit with the money at all. He just wants to distribute it to some cause of his choice, to poor people who need money but don’t want to live up to the responsibility of earning it. That money will only go towards the charity’s wants and needs, only to all be eaten up and have them asking for more money without anything in return except the idea that it “went to a good cause.” With this in consideration, I think it’s perfectly reasonable to suspect Hank would not have felt insulted if Philip requested that money for selfish reasons. But his altruism is another performance of the evil in his moral code: he is wasting away the intellectual and productive efforts of an inexhaustibly hard-working man like Hank Rearden.

As a final thought, I’d like to bring attention to a paragraph near the beginning of the chapter:

Two hundred tons of metal which was to be harder than steel, running liquid at a temperature of four thousand degrees, had the power to annihilate every wall of the structure and every one of the men who worked by the stream. But every inch of its course, every pound of its pressure and the content of every molecule within it, were controlled and made by a conscious intention that had worked upon it for ten years.

This paragraph has significance to me because it represents how productiveness is a virtue of men. The achievement made at this steel factory could not have been possible without the individual efforts of every worker who labored for thousands of hours in colleges and trade schools, practicing and training and experimenting in their profession to bring their skills up to the very best that was required to operate a human creation such as Rearden Metal. This paragraph emphasizes the value of knowledge, the existence of an objective reality, and the morality of productiveness with its practical consequences. It is a tribute to the power man has the potential to attain, and can only be destroyed by the morality of altruism.

Notes on Leonard Peikoff’s Essay: “Aristotle’s ‘Intuitive Induction'”

The most fundamental purpose in Peikoff’s essay is to recognize the Aristotelian school of thought as denying the false premise that the laws of logic cannot be learned empirically. He does this by investigating Aristotle’s account of the process of learning the Law of Contradiction.

Under this basic purpose, Peikoff’s essay covers three specific purposes:

1. To present a study of Aristotle’s method of learning the Law of Contradiction through a process called “intuitive induction,” and revealing any inconsistencies.
2. To present the range of issues involved in “sustaining an Aristotelian interpretation” of the philosophy of logic.
3. To suggest an explanation as to “why later Aristotelians drop “intuitive induction” and strive to reconceive the Law of Contradiction.”

Through his series of arguments, Peikoff brings the reader to a clear picture on the inconsistency in Aristotle’s philosophy of logic. Like most contradictions, this inconsistency spawned two separated classes of thinkers. Peikoff illuminates the two sides of the contradiction as being epitomized in the work of Thomas Aquinas on one side, and John Locke on the other. He suggests, furthermore, that Aquinas’ thinking is preferable of the two. Still, he insists that the Aristotelian school of thought is in need of a renewed system of thinking, particularly in regard to their position on the problem of universals. (See Introduction to Objectivist Epistemology for further details.)

Consumerism: The Enemy of Business

We commonly see more and more businesses adopting altruistic policies, conforming to the demands of the consumers, culture, and society. There is no doubt that the ideology running rampant among businesses today is consumerism. Costco’s CEO proudly stated how his business must continue to “do what is best for the consumer.” McDonald’s has been committed to “giving back” to communities, and stressing to their employees that “the customer is always right.” Best Buy, as a company, supports the “E-Fairness” legislation that would place higher taxes on their own business for the sake of “fair competition.” Nearly every single major business has a “sustainability” page on its website, detailing the steps they are taking to “reduce their environmental impact” in their business and manufacturing practices. Google has it’s very own philanthropic website, it’s homepage stating “Each year, we donate $100,000,000 in grants, 60,000 hours, $1 Billion in products.”

A business’s charitable policies are not inherently irrational. Many businessmen may, in fact, be putting their investments in the lives of other people for selfish reasons, as they expect to get some values in return for their investment.

But now I must ask: why don’t businesses make that known? Why must they hide their selfishness from the world and emphasize the ways in which they are providing a means for others to survive? The answer lies in their acceptance of consumerism: their consumers hate selfishness.

Businessmen have a legitimate problem: how can they expect to have business if they declare an ethical practice that goes against their consumers’ ideology? If they were to come clean on their selfishness, how could their business survive? Indeed, the moment one business declares their intentions to be selfish, their consumers will predictably take their money to their competitors – but only if their competitors maintain the altruist ideology.

What if all businesses were to come clean?

If all businesses came clean, and discontinued the policy that “the customer is always right,” they will commit a justice greater than anything we have ever seen in the history of the world.

Consumerism is a masochistic ideology.

Let us look at this by taking it to an extreme scale. What if the majority of consumers demanded businesses to provide a means of creating gang warfare on the streets, slavery, or nuclear genocide? The policy of consumerism says that they must comply. The customers are always right. Always?

With all altruistic ideologies being hypocritical, consumerism is no different. It is based on the idea that selflessness is the moral code to live by, to have consideration for one another and care for each other’s well-being. When customers interact with the employees in a business, their relationship should contain mutual respect. But in reality, what we see every day is a constant attitude from customers thinking that the employees they deal with are their slaves, and the employees – working as hard as they may to provide their customers with their goods and services – are afraid of the customers. If they make the slightest mistake in their work, it’ll cost them a civil court case. If they make an “excess profit,” you can bet they will hear someone asking for his unearned share.

Let me touch on that issue about taxes. Why should Best Buy reject the E-Fairness legislation? Because they deserve to exist without it. The E-Fairness legislation suggests that companies of all shapes and sizes should be subject to the same, equal tax rate, and will thus take action to make this a reality. But I say: there is a good reason why bigger and better companies should have lower tax rates than their smaller competitors: like establishing credit, the achievement of growth amongst a barrier of obstacles proves one’s ability to create values. Best Buy has proven that ability; and should be rewarded with lower tax rates. Raising their tax rates will only mean less investment, less employment, less production and higher prices in their business.

On the matter of environmental issues and sustainability: the best way to counter this movement is to promote education. People, whether they are businessmen or consumers, need to learn the truth about the state of their environment, and the nature of humanity. There are many myths which must be derailed, and many truths which must be exposed; and consequently, the environmentalist movement will die.

The last thing you may be wondering is: if not consumerism, what sort of fundamental philosophy should businesses adopt? My answer is to visit the Ayn Rand Institute’s webpage and check out some of their articles, particularly the ones under Capitalism. Listen to Don Watkins talk about why “giving back” is one of the worst policies a business can adopt, or to Yaron Brook on whether CEOs deserve their extremely high salaries. This is the only organization (that I know of) that exists for the sake of rationality, productiveness, and selfishness; not for the sake of emotional appeasement, charity, and altruism. Their principles are the means of making this world a better place.

Nobody “Has” Faith

If faith is the opposite of reason, then nobody “has” faith. If you have faith, you must have a reason to have it… and therein lies the contradiction.

There are reasons to support the assertion that reason is Man’s only means of acquiring knowledge. There is nothing to support faith.

I Can Think of Seven Purposes of Epistemology

What gives rise to the concept “epistemology?” I can think of seven different purposes.

1. Given any particular state of knowledge, some questions are more difficult to solve than others.

2. Given any particular answer to a question, one’s level of certainty on the truth of that answer may vary.

3. The total summation of one’s judgments and answers form one’s philosophy. If epistemology studies the process of answering questions, then epistemology is necessary for people to answer fundamental, philosophic questions. It is unsettling to proceed in one’s life without having an answer to important questions, particularly ethical ones.

4. To conform man’s history of knowledge to the crow epistemology. Man’s history of knowledge is of great benefit to future generations – but it is of absolutely no benefit if Man cannot know that the Men who discovered answers in the past were absolutely certain about their answers. Without such certainty, we could not proceed from where they left off; we would have to re-investigate and re-test their ideas, opinions and answers ourselves, and we would spend all of our time doing that that we never get around to moving on to the next issue.

5. As a psychological benefit, epistemology gives on an advantage in clearly understanding and controlling their mental actions.

6. Epistemology is famously helpful to us in polemics. Whenever we must debate, negotiate, or argue, epistemology guides our defense.

7. Epistemology acts as the foundation for all other sciences, including philosophy.

Yaron Brook’s State of the ARI

 

Wonderful news by Yaron Brook on the state of the ARI. Congratulations to all the experts and everyone working for a great cause over there~

http://youtu.be/bKyBxcArq0w?list=UUM6z9wqPxdRHjAC_Pjdp5yQ

Here are some of the major points of his speech:

The goal of the Ayn Rand Institute — to reach out and educate young people.

The launch of their newly-designed website, with new content, videos, material and access to a vast amount of information regarding Ayn Rand and Objectivism.

Statistics on ARI’s popularity and amount of Ayn Rand books distributed around the nation.

Success stories on student internships at ARI.

Call to action — we need more student club organizations promoting Objectivism in college campuses.

ARI’s partnering with The Undercurrent

Carl Barney’s “Atlas Venture Fund”

Talking about Objectivism at Capitol Hill and around the world

New courses are becoming available on the ARI online Campus

Today, ARI has the power to make a difference, but now they are looking for contributions to fund their programs — they ask for any financial support they can get.

 

There’s More Than One “War on Humans”

In the recently released documentary War on Humans, Wesley J. Smith discusses and condemns the immoral ideology of animal rights activists and their campaigns to equalize humans and animals on moral terms. Unfortunately, the alternative morality Smith offers is no more human-oriented than that of the activists.

Smith distinguishes between the activists’ and his own view of morality in the following quote.

[I]f being human isn’t what gives us the duty to treat animals humanely, what does? It is the fact that we’re human that we have that obligation. But animal rights — the ideology — they say being human isn’t what gives value, [it is] ‘the ability to feel pain,’ or ‘the ability to suffer.’ And since a cow can feel pain and a human being can feel pain that means what we do to a cow should be viewed the same way as if that action was done to a human being, meaning that cattle ranching, just as one example, is akin to slavery.

First, understand that “value” is used in this context to mean the source, or rationale, for a living organism’s rights. Now we can see why neither of these views on morality is logical.

As Ayn Rand observed, rights originate not from any sort of value (intrinsic or otherwise), but from the faculty of free will. Human beings do not live by instinctive behaviors the way animals do; they think, act, and select their values by choice. Without free will, human beings could not launch wars, nor could they hold rights. Without free will, the issue of right and wrong does not apply.

But, whereas the activists avoid the issue, Wesley J. Smith destroys the very idea of free will. Contrary to Smith’s claim, it is the fact that we’re human that we have no obligation, no duty, no unquestioned obedience to any course of action. Generating a war much more destructive than “animal rights,” the moral ideology of “duty” is truly akin to slavery.

Luckily, these wars can be resolved. Both Smith and animal rights activists must drop a morality that actively works against mankind, and learn how an objective rights-based morality is the only proper philosophy for mankind. They can start by recognizing that humans have free will.

There is no “Anarcho-” or “Open-” or Anything-Objectivism

I recently read a self-proclaimed “Objectivist” saying this: “The only kind of Objectivism worth discussing is open Objectivism.”

As many should know, Objectivism is divided into those who follow Peikoff’s claim, that Objectivism is a closed philosophy; and those who follow David Kelley’s claim, that Objectivism is an open philosophy.

Let me demolish the idea of discussing only “Open Objectivism” by explaining why this does nothing to help Ayn Rand’s philosophy, and only does damage to the movement.

Some dramatic differences in the ARI and the Atlas Society are as follows:

In discussing the issue of America’s debt crisis, a writer at the Atlas Society gives a gratuitously long article—with the first two paragraphs being nothing but fluff—and when it finally gets down to the subject of the matter, the author gives no indication of why this should matter to us or what Objectivists can do about the problem. Plus he makes many claims without giving any evidence for them—such as his assertion that some of the victims of the debt crisis “are rebelling.” He says “Their voices made it impossible for the politicians to include new taxes in the debt deal.”(1) Whose voices? What new taxes? I haven’t heard of these occasions, and they seem unlikely because as I’ve typically seen in the news: if a politician wants something, he’ll get it. Nothing is impossible for the politicians these days.

A different author at the Ayn Rand Institute discussing the same issue gets straight to the problem of the matter, using a brilliant analogy to not only describe the essential immorality of the debt crisis, but to illustrate what caused it, and what philosophic principle is underlying the entire movement—in the first short introductory paragraph. Immediately following, this author tells us what we can do about the problem.(2) He accomplishes in a total of three paragraphs what the author at the Atlas Society could not accomplish in seven.

Another example of poor writing-activist skills is seen when comparing their campaigns against the Environmentalist movement. At the Atlas Society, author Robert James Bidinotto practically rewrites Ayn Rand’s famous article “The Anti-Industrialist Revolution” in his own article called “Green Cathedrals: Environmentalism’s Mythological Appeal.”(3) Whereas the Ayn Rand Institute shares that same article Rand wrote, and uses it as the base for many other, smaller articles where they apply the ideas she taught in order to run an offensive against the Environmentalist movement as well as a defensive for the Industrialists.(4) Furthermore, I ran a search at the Atlas Society for articles tagged for “Environment and Energy,” and every single result that I got had a title that gave no indication of how the article dealt with Environment and Energy. They looked unappealing, unintegrated, and non-objective. At the Ayn Rand Institute, however, their objectivity is much more obvious, attractive, and understandable.

So is this my only complaint about the Atlas Society? That they’re just not better (by a long shot) at spreading Objectivism than those at the Ayn Rand Institute? Of course not.

Many of us know about the horrible scandal that fell before Leonard Peikoff after he fired the clumsy John McCaskey. In his official letter concerning that scandal, Leonard Peikoff made it very clear that he—like many other professed “Objectivists”—did not follow Objectivism consistently, by violating important epistemological principles. He was right, of course. John McCaskey should not have been working for the Ayn Rand Institute. He should have went to work with the Atlas Society—the movement Peikoff deliberately broke off from for a reason—because, you see, the epistemological principle that McCaskey violated is the same principle that the Atlas Society violates every day.

It has somewhat to do with David Kelley’s “Virtue of Tolerance” bullshit. Note that the definition of “tolerance” is, according to Merriam-Webster’s dictionary, “willingness to accept feelings, habits, or beliefs that are different from your own.” Tolerance gives way to non-objective thinking.

One of the things the Atlas Society is notorious for is its constant defense for Ayn Rand against stupid, repulsive charges like myths and scandals and rumors that have circulated her life and work since her first publication. It has been fourteen months to this date, and they have yet to take down from their headline page news about David Kelley’s book “Myths about Ayn Rand.” He is an apologist. He is sickening.

Objectivism does not need apologists. Anyone who is an honest thinker will know not to accept everything anyone says to be true out of blind faith or trust. An honest thinker will seek whether or not the misconceptions of Objectivism is true from the most verifiable source (typically being the source whom the charges are up against), and an honest thinker would check for Objectivism’s validity before he accepts the philosophy to be true.

This is how I learned Objectivism—as an honest thinker. I was skeptical of Ayn Rand—not because of what other people spoke about her, but because of what she spoke about her own ideas. If I ever took into consideration the ridiculous things people said about her (she was on drugs!, she had sex with Branden while married to her husband!, she’s a rationalist!), it was because she was speaking about an idea of her philosophy related to these accusations. She spoke of drugs once. She spoke of sex many times. She spoke of rationalism versus empiricism versus objectivism. She also said she lived up to her philosophy every day of her life (“And I mean it!”).

Anyone who discusses Objectivism as an “open philosophy” forgets the important epistemological principle that Objectivism requires objectivity. Do you think you cannot have an active mind with a closed philosophy? It is precisely that a philosophy must be closed for a mind to be consistently active in its thinking processes.

Look at various philosophies and religions in history and tell me that open philosophies keep the mind active. Christianity, a religion that has only ever been open — from the Great Schism to the Reformation periods – has caused crusades, battles, and endless disputes amongst their own followers. Hinduism, Buddhism, Islam, and Judaism are no different. Perhaps only Chinese Religions—like Confucianism and Taoism—have never had internal conflict and they are some of the oldest religions to exist. While these Chinese religions are, of course, more closed-minded than active, they have not caused any brutal internal fights like the open-minded religions have.

An open philosophy demands an open mind. When you “open” your mind, it is not active, but reactive, to any factor that enters or leaves its premises. But a closed philosophy can have either closed-minded or active-minded followers. What distinguishes the type of follower is what that philosophy consists of: its principles, virtues, and vices. This is why many closed philosophies, such as Kantianism, Hegelianism or Spinozism, breed closed-minded disciples. Their philosophic principles cause such bad habits. But when one accepts Objectivism, which teaches rational principles, as a closed philosophy, they become an active-minded follower, because bias, prejudice, stereotyping and dogmatic following is what one is required to evade in order to be objective.

The very fact that Objectivism has had to be involved in, I think, three different scandals and/or schisms since Ayn Rand wrote We the Living is the appaling consequent of the fact that it has been drawing in followers who do not care to apply objectivity consistently in all departments of their life. I suppose it’s forgivable, seeing as Objectivism was introduced to a world breeding with virtually nothing but subjectivists and intrinsicists, but I’ve a hunch Leonard Peikoff would not agree, and with good reason.

As I learned Objectivism, I also delved more into the moral and political applications of Objectivism than I did the metaphysical and epistemological. I thought, perhaps, this was the easy part, that I could just have a faint idea of what they mean and still understand it in the back of my mind. But, as Ayn Rand pointed out, philosophy is primarily epistemology. After I put a conscious effort into learning Ayn Rand’s theory of concepts, and Objectivist epistemology, I began to see dramatic improvements in my thinking, my own writing, and other activities in my life. I could thoroughly explain Objectivism, rather than spew long articles of nonsense and repeat Ayn Rand’s virtues in the form of bromides like the authors at the Atlas Society do all the time.

Since I have made my judgment about the Atlas Society, I have not engaged into any discussion with them or with anything they do. I will not, additionally, discuss “open objectivism” any more than I have in this letter in which I am condemning it. Objectivism is closed. Period.

-Christopher Michael Speciale

Sources:

1. http://www.atlassociety.org/americas-civil-war-debt-battle

2. http://ari.aynrand.org/issues/government-and-business/individual-rights/The-End-the-Debt-Draft-Campaign#filter-bar

3. http://www.atlassociety.org/tni/green-cathedrals-environmentalisms-mythological-appeal

4. http://ari.aynrand.org/issues/science-and-industrialization/environmental-issues/No-Footprint-No-Life#filter-bar

Note: This letter itself isn’t written entirely “objectively.” I’m actually practicing my writing still. Consider this letter a “rough draft” even though I have no intention of editting it later. The main purpose of this letter was to respond to a ridiculous statement and make a point clear, not to teach the fundamental principle that Objectivism requires objectivity. I hope I’ve convinced you, my readers, but if I haven’t, it’s entirely my fault–for not putting my best effort into the letter. If this is the case, and you are not convinced, I urge you to take it upon yourself to do more research into the division of Objectivism, re-read Rand’s writings, and pay special attention to how she claims her ideas to be true, not just the ideas themselves. Ask yourself how she had to have come to the conclusions she did, and you’ll realize, soon enough, that David Kelley–and everyone else at the Atlas Society–do not follow the same process. I hope, ultimately, that you can learn this process, and use it yourself.