Atlas Shrugged -- For Adults Only
The first thing I read by Rand was Capitalism: The Unknown Ideal.
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THIS ARTICLE REPURPOSED FROM: http://lamrot-hakol.blogspot.com/2012/10...
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The other day, I was talking to my partner about Atlas Shrugged at the dinner table, and my 12 year old daughter asked what it was. I told her it's a book by Ayn Rand, and that she can't read it until she's 21.
My partner stared at me and asked why. After all, I'm an Objectivist. I think Rand's philosophy is incredibly important. So why would I bar my daughter from reading it until she's an adult?
I've felt this way for at least a decade, but given the President's comments about Ayn Rand's books being something you'd pick up as a 17-18 year old feeling misunderstood, and then get rid of once you realized that thinking only about yourself wasn't enough, I thought it would be worthwhile to explain why kids shouldn't read Atlas Shrugged.
The thing is, Obama is right. In a way. Let me explain that.
I didn't read Atlas Shrugged until I was 33 years old. In fact, other than Anthem, which I may have read in passing in high school, I never read anything of Rand's until I was 32, and I started with her essays. Maybe I'll post about how and why I got into those at a later date. But as someone who didn't get into Rand's philosophy as a kid, it took me a while to realize that for the vast majority of people, reading it as a teenager is almost inevitably going to create the opposite effect that Rand had in mind.
There's a common misconception that Objectivism is about being selfish and grasping and greedy. It's an understandable misunderstanding. After all, Rand wrote a book of essays called The Virtue of Selfishness. She spoke against altruism and in favor of selfishness. The thing is, though, that in Rand's writing, those are "terms of art". A term of art, or jargon, is a word that's used a specific way in a specific field, regardless of how it's used colloquially. In politics, to "depose" means to remove a leader. In law, to "depose" means to have someone give a deposition. In medicine, an "ugly" infection is one that doesn't respond well to antibiotics.
We're all familiar with groups "reclaiming" perogative words. "Queer" was an insult when I was growing up, and it still is for a lot of people. Yet to the younger generation of GLBT teens, "queer" is simply how they identify. Rand used the term "selfish" to mean acting to further ones long term and global well being, given the understanding that we are not alone in the world, and that what I do to others can be done to me as well. There is no other way to describe that in a single world, so far as I'm aware, than selfishness. Or if we allow a modifier, "rational selfishness".
But Rand failed. She failed to communicate this in a way that would be clear enough to get past the negative connotations of selfishness as meaning a blind, grasping devotion to ones short term desires, paying no attention to the world around us. Even expanding the term to "rational selfishness" didn't work, because people understood "rational" to mean "cold and unemotional" and concluded that "rational selfishness" meant cold, hard, unemotional, uncaring selfishness. Like a robot that lacks all empathy.
But adolescents are a different story. Adolescence is a time when we are detaching ourselves from our role as dependent children, and learning to stand on our own, personally empowered. When I was 17, I remember one evening during an argument with my father, exclaiming, "You're a person, and I'm a person. Why should you have any more right to decide than I do!" And I was absolutely convinced of my righteousness. Two years later, when my younger brother was 17, I heard him say virtually the exact same thing. I looked at my father and said, "I'm so sorry, Dad. And I wish there was some way I could explain it to him." But I knew there wasn't. You can't explain that to an adolescent. They have to learn to grow up and realize that the world doesn't revolve around them.
Which is one of the reasons why a lot of adolescents love Atlas Shrugged. They miss the bigger picture, and only pick up on the message that they shouldn't have to sacrifice themselves for others. Which is a good message, but they conflate it with their irrational selfishness. Their self-centered, almost solipsistic view of the world. And when they do grow up, as most of them do, they jettison Objectivism, thinking that it's part and parcel of the adolescent mindset they no longer need.
And that's why Obama said what he did. It's absolutely true that 17 and 18 year olds who are feeling misunderstood, and whose self is feeling threatened would pick up Atlas Shrugged and see it as a vindication of what they're feeling. And it's absolutely true that someone like that reading the book would, in the vast majority of cases, throw it away once they grow up and realize that we're all in this together, so to speak.
And that's why I won't let my daughter read the book. Because it takes a certain amount of maturity to understand that the kind of altruism that says doing for others is always more moral than doing for oneself is evil and anti-human, but that benevolence and empathy are vitally important virtues. The vice of altruism always leads to bad results in the long run, even if it may seem beneficial in the short term. Because giving requires a recipient. And if receiving is a bad thing, there's always going to be someone bad and wretched. More than that, you're always going to need poor people, because without them, you can never be virtuous. It's an ugly world that raises altruism up as the highest virtue.
Perhaps we need to find another term to reflect what Rand called "selfishness". The battle to reclaim that word was lost before it even started. All it does now is feed into the ignorance of the left.
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THIS ARTICLE REPURPOSED FROM: http://lamrot-hakol.blogspot.com/2012/10...
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The other day, I was talking to my partner about Atlas Shrugged at the dinner table, and my 12 year old daughter asked what it was. I told her it's a book by Ayn Rand, and that she can't read it until she's 21.
My partner stared at me and asked why. After all, I'm an Objectivist. I think Rand's philosophy is incredibly important. So why would I bar my daughter from reading it until she's an adult?
I've felt this way for at least a decade, but given the President's comments about Ayn Rand's books being something you'd pick up as a 17-18 year old feeling misunderstood, and then get rid of once you realized that thinking only about yourself wasn't enough, I thought it would be worthwhile to explain why kids shouldn't read Atlas Shrugged.
The thing is, Obama is right. In a way. Let me explain that.
I didn't read Atlas Shrugged until I was 33 years old. In fact, other than Anthem, which I may have read in passing in high school, I never read anything of Rand's until I was 32, and I started with her essays. Maybe I'll post about how and why I got into those at a later date. But as someone who didn't get into Rand's philosophy as a kid, it took me a while to realize that for the vast majority of people, reading it as a teenager is almost inevitably going to create the opposite effect that Rand had in mind.
There's a common misconception that Objectivism is about being selfish and grasping and greedy. It's an understandable misunderstanding. After all, Rand wrote a book of essays called The Virtue of Selfishness. She spoke against altruism and in favor of selfishness. The thing is, though, that in Rand's writing, those are "terms of art". A term of art, or jargon, is a word that's used a specific way in a specific field, regardless of how it's used colloquially. In politics, to "depose" means to remove a leader. In law, to "depose" means to have someone give a deposition. In medicine, an "ugly" infection is one that doesn't respond well to antibiotics.
We're all familiar with groups "reclaiming" perogative words. "Queer" was an insult when I was growing up, and it still is for a lot of people. Yet to the younger generation of GLBT teens, "queer" is simply how they identify. Rand used the term "selfish" to mean acting to further ones long term and global well being, given the understanding that we are not alone in the world, and that what I do to others can be done to me as well. There is no other way to describe that in a single world, so far as I'm aware, than selfishness. Or if we allow a modifier, "rational selfishness".
But Rand failed. She failed to communicate this in a way that would be clear enough to get past the negative connotations of selfishness as meaning a blind, grasping devotion to ones short term desires, paying no attention to the world around us. Even expanding the term to "rational selfishness" didn't work, because people understood "rational" to mean "cold and unemotional" and concluded that "rational selfishness" meant cold, hard, unemotional, uncaring selfishness. Like a robot that lacks all empathy.
But adolescents are a different story. Adolescence is a time when we are detaching ourselves from our role as dependent children, and learning to stand on our own, personally empowered. When I was 17, I remember one evening during an argument with my father, exclaiming, "You're a person, and I'm a person. Why should you have any more right to decide than I do!" And I was absolutely convinced of my righteousness. Two years later, when my younger brother was 17, I heard him say virtually the exact same thing. I looked at my father and said, "I'm so sorry, Dad. And I wish there was some way I could explain it to him." But I knew there wasn't. You can't explain that to an adolescent. They have to learn to grow up and realize that the world doesn't revolve around them.
Which is one of the reasons why a lot of adolescents love Atlas Shrugged. They miss the bigger picture, and only pick up on the message that they shouldn't have to sacrifice themselves for others. Which is a good message, but they conflate it with their irrational selfishness. Their self-centered, almost solipsistic view of the world. And when they do grow up, as most of them do, they jettison Objectivism, thinking that it's part and parcel of the adolescent mindset they no longer need.
And that's why Obama said what he did. It's absolutely true that 17 and 18 year olds who are feeling misunderstood, and whose self is feeling threatened would pick up Atlas Shrugged and see it as a vindication of what they're feeling. And it's absolutely true that someone like that reading the book would, in the vast majority of cases, throw it away once they grow up and realize that we're all in this together, so to speak.
And that's why I won't let my daughter read the book. Because it takes a certain amount of maturity to understand that the kind of altruism that says doing for others is always more moral than doing for oneself is evil and anti-human, but that benevolence and empathy are vitally important virtues. The vice of altruism always leads to bad results in the long run, even if it may seem beneficial in the short term. Because giving requires a recipient. And if receiving is a bad thing, there's always going to be someone bad and wretched. More than that, you're always going to need poor people, because without them, you can never be virtuous. It's an ugly world that raises altruism up as the highest virtue.
Perhaps we need to find another term to reflect what Rand called "selfishness". The battle to reclaim that word was lost before it even started. All it does now is feed into the ignorance of the left.
Previous comments...
One of the earliest concepts a child develops is, mine - not yours. Many will try to expand that to everything else available. The parent has to teach them to limit that to what is truly theirs and that others feel the same way about what is theirs. They have to also teach them that it's right to protect what is theirs and that others should do so as well. They continually encounter takers and bullies in there school mates. If they've learned the mine and yours concepts well enough and the difference between self-interest and self-centeredness, they've also developed a good self esteem that is a shield from such.
A teen's (child) consternation comes from not having a firm grasp of that basic concept and then being exposed to the continuous peer and teacher pressure to fit in, yet knowing deep down that it's just not right. How do they resolve that if they're denied information beyond their parents words? AS is written so that anyone with the basic understanding of what is mine and what is yours is yours can grasp and understand the ideals expressed there and gain confidence in what the parents have taught.
What better way to re-enforce what the parent has taught than to let them explore the writings of others that think and reason like their parents do, such as AR.
As to finding another term to reflect 'selfishness', that is nothing more than allowing others (collectivist) to define you. I think AR went through a lot of thought to arrive at that word.
For me, I choose to struggle against other's attempts to define me or redefine or conflate the terms and descriptions I understand to explain my reasons and logic. We've allowed that type of nonsense for far too long.
I always use Mother Theresa to illustrate egoTist.
They are tired of hearing their parents tell them to "invest in their future" while watching their parents support the opposite. "I own myself" is a very powerful concept to explore. They just have to hear it for the first time.
Selfishness is a motive centered in placing self above all else - thus it rightly has a negative connotation. I can pursue self-interest on the other hand - especially through the market - at the same time as everyone else. Market transactions take place when my self-interest for one thing matches another individual's pursuit of another thing and we both trade believing that we have in some measure fulfilled our self-interest.
Selfishness is a zero-sum game. Self-interest isn't. That's the difference.
The psycho-epistemology of the looter, the moocher, the muscle-mystic is based on the evasion of reality. Evasion of objective reality the external world is only a consequence of their internal evasions, supressions, and repressions.
Most people get through life to the end of their days without having to face the ULTIMATE consequences of their DEEPEST contradictions.
The world ALTRUISM was invented about 1840 by Auguste Comte. I read that work for a graduate class paper I wrote on Herbert Spencer. Comte meant exactly what Ayn Rand said he did: the obliteration of self in service to humanity. Any other meaning is a twisting to avoid the fact.
I've always preferred the term charity, anyways, using the definition: service done out of sincere care for another without expectation of compensation. I can't call government welfare that because they are expecting compensation: votes and power.
Agree. Pretty much what I meant. One can not kill the instinct only twist it in the frontal lobe to become misguided nonsense.
I've been "mining" the gulch for "precious"....can sleep well now. Very enriched.
I'll give you another reason why you fight a losing battle: religion. To anyone who is Christian, Jewish, Muslim, etc., selfishness is a predefined sin with a very concrete definition from which society has derived its use. Even the irreligious left use it as a brow-beating stick to implement their welfare principles. In short, you are never going to alter the definition of selfishness no matter how much you want to try to justify it. Far more effective to leave selfishness as it is presently defined and use another term and argument.
As a Christian, selfishness is *not* a predefine sin. For thousands of years, the teachings of Jesus have been appropriated to gather wealth for those who use religion, and with it political power. But, that doesn't make it predefined.
Even the list of 7 deadly sins doesn't include "selfishness".
A proud look
A lying tongue
Hands that shed innocent blood
A heart that devises wicked plots
Feet that are swift to run into mischief
A deceitful witness that uttereth lies
Him that soweth discord among brethren
The definition of avarice is excessive or insatiable appetite for wealth... but even that's not selfishness.
Compiled half a millennium after Christ, the common list doesn't include selfishness, since selfishness implies hoarding or taking to oneself *at the expense of or to the detriment of others*.
gluttony
fornication, lust
avarice/greed
hubris, pride
sorrow/despair/despondency
wrath
vainglory
sloth
I think "selfism"would be a much better term than selfishness. Parallel and opposite to altruism (other-ism). I'm proud to call myself a selfist.
Just a question, but how do parallel and opposite work? Geometry wasn't my favorite discipline, but I believe the concept of "skew" lines is the closest I can come to visualizing what you are after there. Can you elaborate?
Inappropriate? Wrong word. Pointless? Absolutely. When a concept is already defined and you are outnumbered a billion to one against changing it, I have to question your definition of who is rational.
Again, go back to the point of persuasion and conversation - you have to start from common ground and common lingo. Starting off by trying to define your own terms for everything is bound to fail to persuade the listener - and even less so when you are trying to replace a term already in their vocabulary with such a core foundational meaning and significance.
As far as changing words to suit a wrong or twisted definitional understanding, what do you gain? I think it just gets you stuck in intellectual mud. If you're allowing others to redefine your philosophical language, particularly in describing first principles, then you don't have your own philosophy.
Note that Rand did not "co-op" the term; she defined it (as with all other words) going back to the root of words and to create a cohesive philosophy.
Again, do we want to communicate effectively, or do we want to be dicks?
This was understandable. Most people think of selfish as the opposite of selfless. Rand opposed selflessness as life-killing. She was right about that. But the opposite of selfless is not selfish. It never has been. No more than the opposite of helpless is helpful.
It's Rand who was engaging in the purposeful propagandizing of words, meanings, and concepts. And while her intent was praiseworthy, I can hardly think of a single thing that has been more counterproductive.
She always used definitions to best explain concepts, not to confuse them.
I would also point out that self-interest is tempered selfishness. True selfishness is unbridled. I will give you an example.
In the market, those who consummate a transaction are NOT acting solely on selfishness and thinking only of themselves. A market transaction occurs when both sides MAXIMIZE the utility of the transaction, but both still incur a cost. The difference is that each side compares the cost to the value gained and is satisfied. Selfishness happens when one side bears a cost that is higher than the value they gained from the transaction. Theft is a pursuit of selfishness. Why? Because it crosses the line where one party benefits at the expense of another.
When pursuing self-interest, both parties can be satisfied and you have a win-win situation. When one party seeks only to be satisfied at a cost which is unsatisfactory to the other, you have the conditions for selfishness. It should also be noted that selfishness also entails a portion of coercion or force, since without it, the transaction simply fails to take place.
Read Rand's book on this subject.
And to try yet again in your vocabulary of one to redefine theft to be selfless is absurd and an affront to logic itself. Thieves think of no one EXCEPT themselves (definition of selfishness) when they steal. They are not concerned about an equitable trade at any level in either a moral or physical context. To be selfless requires an act of sacrifice of one's own property/time/etc. in order to better someone else. You can't sacrifice or give away something you don't own!
Now really, I'm quite content to converse with someone who can come up with a cogent argument, but you're doubling down on nothing more than your own irrationality at this point. Neither you nor I is going to have any more success with attempting to redefine selfishness than Ayn Rand did when she tried it. Choosing to continue to do something that has been done before and expecting a different outcome isn't rationality, but rather obstinate stupidity and a complete waste of time.
Rational self-interest is essentially = rational selfishness. "The exact meaning and dictionary definition of the word “selfishness” is: concern with one’s own interests."
"Man’s self-interest can be served only by a non-sacrificial relationship with others." A thief is not truly acting in his best interest (despite your use of terms like "absurd" or "affront to logic". Your use of "selfless" is too narrow.
"The meaning ascribed in popular usage to the word “selfishness” is not merely wrong: it represents a devastating intellectual “package-deal,” which is responsible, more than any other single factor, for the arrested moral development of mankind." Do you really want to accept that?
what do you allow your child to read? do you talk to her about Rand, or will you have her discover her writing on her own later in life?
I can say that none of my kids is likely to be interested later on in the self-loathing aspects of Progressivism, nor do I think that adolescents with access to adult explanations are incapable of understanding Rand's idiosyncratic use of words like "selfishness" or "altruism". Mine aren't, at least.
I've spent 38 years as a scientist and an engineer and despite Rand or Objectivism, there is more than a little validity to modern physics, including quantum and relativity, and to evolution in biology.
While its true that many of our ancestors in science and other areas of study had Kantian flaws, they also believed in classical physics. Revolutions in knowledge require that you stand on the shoulders of giants to make new discoveries, even when those discoveries invalidate some of what you long held to be true. The same goes for Objectivism.
When my own daughter came along, she was taught the same things. She could read whatever drew her interest, but we discussed it. By then I had learned via my degree in English, that readers come to works and take from them different levels of understanding, which then change and grow as they mature. I did try to ban Marilyn Manson CDs, but she implored me to read the lyrics. Doing so, I did some referencing and found they reflected his interest in Nietzsche. Once I showed her my books from my philosophy degree and told her his ideas were not original, her interest in Manson waned and her interest in philosophy blossomed. Earlier,when the schools started teaching, There is no "I" in team" - I handed her "Anthem" and said nothing. I watched as at age nine, she devoured it in a single sitting. Closing the book, she said, "Now I understand what they are doing to us!" She learned to question, not just accept what was told to her.
Never forget, you may be banning your child from a work you admire, and that is your choice, but the public school system is feeding them all means of brainwashing and subliminal messages promoting collectivism and socialism.
They think there is no age too young for propaganda. I am just happy my daughter continued to read Rand in college and now works as co-director of business where there are other Randians. She has one Masters degree and is presently part way through an MBA, where her reading of Rand is finding practical application. Kids don't just grow up and become responsible, somewhere it has to be modeled and shown to be the rational path.
Like many people, including my father, I went through phases (and I'm sure I'm in store for a few more yet) where as a teenager through to about 20 years old, I believed that "selfishness" (in the conventional sense) was an evil. I think when I was 13 or 14, I read Mao's Little Red Book ("borrowed" from my father, actually — he liked to review all sides to things, a trait I've adopted as well), and thought IT was the be all and end all as far as a philosophy for living went. Had I tried to read Ayn Rand at age 20, I would likely not have read more than 50 pages, and then dismiss it as garbage. This fact alone is probably proof that the author's correct in establishing a Rand-age limit for her/his child. I think I had to attend university, and see firsthand what a divergence of views there actually are, and how certain views tend to be fostered in post-secondary educational institutions as "the" views, the politically correct ones, to even begin to question my views, eventually casting off the "glasses" I had adopted in adolescence (from peers, media, family, etc.), and even start to craft a pair of my own.
I honestly don't think I would have been ready for Rand's philosophy any sooner. After two degrees and necessary forays into the world of academia, along with the types of work experience I've been fortunate enough to have so far, let's say I'm pretty used to having to explain, defend and justify my decidedly Randian opinions, which tend to be outside the norm for the circles I frequent for obvious reasons.
Maybe it's just the old saying, if you're not a liberal in your 20s, you have no heart, and if you're not a conservative by the time you're 40, you have no brain. Though I use those terms "liberal" and "conservative" loosely, in this case.
That said, I'm not sure I can forbid or would try to prevent my children from reading her work, if they want. My own parents never censored anything from me, just gave me their opinion if I asked, and told me if i wasn't satisfied with that, or if I wanted to learn more and decide on my own, I should watch/read it for myself. Anytime I think back on my childhood and developing a love of reading, or consider how and why I am the way I am, I recall that I was always free to make my own choices on cultural consumption and media. Not that all of them were good, but at least they were mine.
Notwithstanding my own feelings (and I don't necessarily think parents' shielding or protecting their children from material they determine to be too mature to be a "censorship" or even a bad thing, exactly, as it's every parent's choice to make, and not anyone else's right to interfere, barring physical endangerment), I still very much appreciated the nuanced discussion about the very language Rand employed. It's unfortunate there are such negative connotations with the words she was forced to use, out of necessity I would say, for lack of more suitable terminology with which to describe her theories.
But to get back to the point, I would only hope that if there are any courses in universities that are currently teaching Rand's work, the instructors are as well-versed as this author on the semiotic issues inherent in the language of her texts, so as to be able to forestall the unfortunate (and somewhat inevitable) confusion that may result among first-timers, particularly young ones who may be less prepared to fully digest and appreciate it.
I still must conclude, that if I encountered any young person that showed a genuine interest in reading and discovering the works and ideas of Ayn Rand, whether my child or not, I would have a hard time denying them the opportunity. However, knowing of their endeavour (being unarguably ambitious and challenging, even for older, more experienced readers), I would hope to encourage or assist the particular young person as much as necessary, but actively try my best not to colour their judgment, at least not to the extent that I would challenge someone older.
Who knows? I just love the language in this post. There will probably always be a little "understandable misunderstanding".
Lisa, I enjoyed reading your post. I first read Atlas Shrugged when I was 19, after having read We The Living and The Fountainhead. I never got confused about moral selfishness, and Rand surprised me when she said that "the world ends" when we die, indicating that everything revolves around the sovereign individual. But it's true -- each of us makes personal decisions on an individual basis.
When Nat Taggart said, "The public be damned" he was talking to adults and meant that caring for self is the adequate motivation for choices sufficient to "lift all boats", in my view. However, most adults are too numb -- from the horribly imprecise language which we share -- to think through this with real rationality. (And, of course, the imprecision is made worse by intentional distortions for political reasons.) So, even adults are unable to see that altruism is a vice. Especially when compassion is paraded in front of us as the license for the political enterprise of buying votes by any means available. Especially when compassion is paraded in front of us as the license for the political enterprise of buying votes by any means available.
I just hope that the current disillusionment with big government takes root and grows. The three installments of Atlas Shrugged, in whose blog your essay was cited, should also help.
Thanks again for your words, and Happy 2014! -- johnPE78
I see what this article is saying about kids mistaking it for selfishness, BUT Rand's message is even more important for kids who are going through the developmental stage of establishing their own identity. They are trying out different ideas. They need to read Rand and Emerson and anyone who will tell them it's better to try stuff and be wrong than to follow others blindly. As they say at Facebook and other parts of the software world, move fast and break things!
I will introduce my kids to Rand's ideas as soon as they can understand. They can find the kinky stuff on their own.
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