Happy new year to all!
The start of a new year is traditionally a time for taking stock and a time for new beginnings. It is a time when, if ever so briefly, we try to pull together the threads of our lives, to think about its meaning and purpose, and perhaps to set new goals and directions for ourselves. At its best, it is a time to re-examine and re-affirm our values and to view our lives as an integrated whole.
The new year is thus a particularly appropriate time to begin our exploration of Objectivism. Objectivism takes life seriously and regards man's existence on earth as important, and man as competent to determine and to achieve the human values of his existence.
Objectivism offers a coherent philosophy for man. It starts with the most basic considerations of reality and of human existence. It constructs a clearly reasoned logical framework that includes all of the important aspects of man's existence, from productive work to love, from economics to politics, from ethics to esthetics.
Objectivism demonstrates why philosophy is a necessity and not an option. It shows why there need be no conflict between the theoretical and the effective, between the moral and the practical, and between the emotional and the rational.
To those encountering Objectivism for the first time, I wish to say first that I envy you. If you have somehow lost hope of unifying into one consistent whole all the fragments of your life and your existence, if you have given up trying to understand, much less resolve, the contradictions and the evasions you see all around you, you have a true intellectual adventure in store.
You will find that a coherent framework for all of life and all of existence is indeed possible. You will learn why the most abstract of philosophic concepts have the most concrete of consequences. You will know when you know something and when you don't, when you understand something and when you don't, and why. You will also realize why morality and ethics are too important to be left to anyone but yourself. In sum, you will know what human existence means and implies.
With the next essay, I will begin at the very beginning, with fundamental considerations of what exists, how we know it, and what that knowledge implies. We will discuss some basics of reality, reason and logic. You will soon see why the name ``Objectivism'' is so well chosen and how great was Ayn Rand's achievement. All the prior centuries of human existence have not seen constructed so cohesive a framework for human understanding.
In this introductory statement, I need to make a number of digressions which should not have been necessary. Those of you who have followed some of my recent exchanges have seen my right to introduce Objectivist thinking challenged prior to any formal presentation of such thinking. My right to call myself an Objectivist has also come into question.
I do not wish here to review these exchanges in depth. To those who are new to this forum, I do need to state the following -- hopefully for the last time -- so that you will know my context and my foundation. From here on in, I expect to deal only in fundamentals and reasoned consequences. I consider myself an Objectivist because my deepest philosophical base is identical to the fundamental logical framework of Ayn Rand's Objectivism.
The question of what happens if I should, somewhere down the line, differ in some particular from Ayn Rand is specious. If my thinking is valid, my conclusions are part of Objectivism if they flow from Ayn Rand's fundamental premises. This is true in exactly the same manner as a theorem in geometry is part of Euclidean Geometry no matter who states or originates it, so long as it is proven from Euclid's premises, by his methods. This much is obvious. Axioms have consequences, and these consequences cannot be severed from their premises.
It will be very simple for you to know if I am proceeding honestly and fairly. If I misrepresent Ayn Rand in any of her fundamentals, then I misstate, and to that extent do not understand, Objectivism. To that extent then, I will deserve and expect to be corrected.
However, by the same token, if I reason accurately from Objectivist premises, that reasoning and those conclusions are ipso facto part of Objectivism. As Ayn Rand affirmed, no individual can claim a monopoly on correct reasoning and what flows from a foundation, regardless of who states or proves it, is part of its superstructure.
I intend always to be scrupulous in attribution; what is Ayn Rand's will always be acknowledged as such. All of the foundations are. Any reasoning that is my own, perhaps in an area Ayn Rand did not discuss or examine in depth, will be so labeled.
If I do not reason from Objectivist premises or if I err in so reasoning, I expect to be corrected and will gain from the transaction. I offer these essays as a trader -- exchanging my best intellectual efforts for yours. If I assert error and you give me back truth, I benefit enormously. Hopefully, in other transactions, I will have something to offer in return towards your understanding of reality, reason, life, and man.
Having said this, one further matter needs to be addressed. It is not by pure whim that I have been challenged prior to any substantive presentations. Those of you who are not specifically aware of the early history of Objectivist thought can hardly comprehend the extent of the vilification to which Ayn Rand was subjected -- vilification, if I may say so, precisely because she was right and because she dared to re-think the whole tradition of Judeo-Christian morality of the past several thousand years from fundamental premises.
The only consolation Ayn Rand and her adherents could draw from this stream of vitriol and vituperation was the awareness that, although unintended, she was being paid the highest of compliments. Her thinking was almost never challenged on its merits. Her critics had to misrepresent before they dared attack, as they still do. Truth remains truth.
Perhaps in reaction to this intense campaign of misrepresentation and distortion in the media and even in academic and philosophical arenas, supposedly dedicated to objective thinking, the early Ayn Rand circle developed a bunker mentality.
Many adherents genuinely seeking truth were expelled from the inner circle, or dropped as students of Objectivism, for various ``lapses'' in total adherence to the entire body of Ayn Rand's pronouncements or for supposed inconsistencies between Objectivism and the manner in which they conducted their lives or the values they held. With true justice, some of the earliest and closest disciples, those entrusted with the enforcement of full orthodoxy, were themselves read out by Ayn Rand herself.
These events, and the further ossification of Objectivism into a second generation orthodoxy were truly tragic. This internal strife splits Objectivists along artificial lines, saps Objectivism's vitality, and grants its opponents an ad hominem excuse for not taking Objectivism seriously. If its own adherents regard Objectivism as so brittle that it cannot openly compete on even terms in the intellectual marketplace, if its image is presented to the world as some delicate caged bird that supposedly can not survive unless ringed with rigid protective barriers, then why should anyone care about it?
The tragedy is that Objectivism is a robust, coherent philosophy that can more than hold its own. It can empower one's thinking and revitalize one's life.
The tragedy is that a philosophy devoted to reason, a philosophy consistently extolling intellectual independence and self-reliance, a philosophy that recognizes the power and objectivity of truth, but also appreciates that a truth is not yours until you have thought it through for yourself, is undeservedly cast in an image of intellectual protectionism and fear of the free marketplace of ideas.
The tragedy is that Objectivism still bears the scars of those earliest, most brutal and unjust assaults upon it. So afraid were the early Objectivists of being misrepresented by one of their own, as they were by their opponents, that they took no chances, conveying the title ``Objectivist'' much as a symbol of membership in an army, where ideological disputes could only lead to weakness. To this day, this attitude remains.
The tragedy is that, if the bird of Objectivism is allowed to soar freely, it can fly high and far. All that it takes is a genuine commitment to reason on all sides. Truth is objective, but to have potency in your life it must be your truth. Ayn Rand could typically argue rings around her intellectual adversaries, even in the fields of their specialization, not because she was smarter than they, but because she always thought in terms of fundamentals and always retained a luminous commitment to reason.
Clear thinking is not all that difficult, nature has given you the capability in abundance, as your specifically human mode of survival. The hard part is to trust yourself enough to use it and to follow it wherever it may lead. The deepest payment I can make to Ayn Rand for the riches she has given me is never to focus on her authority but only on her reasoning and on our shared premises.
Lastly, I need your feedback to keep this series robust and on track. Any communication I receive regarding the material in this series, from which I think we all may benefit, I will feel free to post and attribute. I consider this part of the scrupulous crediting of ideas and of the feedback that I owe you. I realize however, from a prior private communications, that some may not desire direct quotation or attribution. If so, please notify me to that effect and I will respect your wishes. If the ideas are important however, they will be addressed.
I look forward to an intellectual adventure from which we all can profit. Again, best wishes for a prosperous new year.
Entire contents Copyright (C) 1993-94 by Joel Katz
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Permission is given to distribute this material electronically provided that it is unedited and presented in its entirety, including the copyright notice. Distribution in print or distribution of excerpts (I realize it isn't always the beginning of a new year) requires permission, address requests to djls@gate.net, no fee will be requested. I wish to be assured that I am not misrepresented and am made aware of where my work is being distributed. Quotation of brief excerpts is permitted so long as they are attributed.