Thursday, June 4, 2009

The time-management theory of appreciating art and thought

LemmusLemmus swiftly refutes Ayn Rand's philosophy in this post on his blog, The Church of Rationality. 

I've never read Ayn Rand. And now that I've read that blog post, I feel fine about missing out on her work. Is that ignorant or close-minded of me?

Well, LemmusLemmus goes on to say:

And that's it with Ayn Rand and me. Of course I could read all of her books and see whether she has addressed this rather obvious objection anywhere, but given that time is a scarce resource I prefer to spend mine on stuff that promises to be more worthwhile. The fact that pretty much everyone acts like this is the reason that most people who call someone's work overrated aren't terribly qualified to make that judgment.
This is the same point I quoted from a Metafilter commenter in the post about "simple concepts":
By the time you have paid enough attention to a work of art to know whether it was a waste of time to take seriously, it is already too late for the answer to be useful.
I also made this point in my post about "my problem with rap":
I have a finite amount of free time in my life for listening to new music. Like every other person in the world, I can't build up an encyclopedic familiarity with every music genre in existence, so the most I can do is thoroughly explore some of them while writing off others as not worth my time. That's a time-management strategy, not an objective judgment. I'm sure there's brilliant rap music that I'm missing out on. (I loved the Outkast song "Miss Jackson" from a few years ago, for instance.) But I've heard enough from rappers about "bitches," "hos," and "niggers" to decide: my time would be better spent on music that might not make a single controversial statement about society but is challenging to the listener in more unexpected ways.
For the sake of simplicity, from now on I'll refer to this general observation as "the time-management theory of appreciating art and thought."

16 comments:

Jason (the commenter) said...

JAC : Is that ignorant or close-minded of me?

Both maybe, but I've read one of her books and don't think you're missing anything.

Back in Rand's day, the Communism/Socialism movement had a religious following and she did her part to try and offer an alternative for the 'masses'. Think of Rand less as a philosopher and more as a religious leader, because that was what she was up against.

I agree with the blogger you quote, the passage he's talking about does not make sense as a logical statement, but Rand is talking about 'principles' not proofs. She's arguing against Utilitarianism. If Utilitarianism is an aesthetic choice, she would produce one of her own to rival it.

Whatever her philosophical ideas were, they have been overtaken by economics and if I wanted an attack on Socialism I'd turn to Friedman, Postrel, or even von Mises. But that is the entire history of philosophy, once ideas philosophers think up become practical they get named something else.

John Althouse Cohen said...

I don't think she should be excused by labeling her ideas "principles" rather than "proofs." If a principle is a good principle, it should withstand rational scrutiny.

Jason (the commenter) said...

JAC : If a principle is a good principle, it should withstand rational scrutiny.

I think you misunderstand, just as the blogger does. I will try to explain.

Rand : "The basic social principle [of objectivist ethics] is that just as life is an end in itself, so every living human being is an end in himself"

The blogger goes on to say : If we accept that life is an end in itself, by which she means (as is clear from the context) that the preservation of human life must be the one and only aim of ethics

This is where you guys are missing the point. Rand is saying that if people can claim humanity is an end in itself SHE will claim each individual as an end in itself. She thinks that the choice of trying to benefit all of humanity is an aesthetic choice on the part of Utilitarians and their logic could be applied just as well to an individual as to all of humanity.

John Althouse Cohen said...

Utilitarianism is not "an aesthetic choice." It's a substantive doctrine about ethics, not aesthetics. I believe one should try to benefit humanity as a whole (and more!). Assuming the synposes I've seen are correct, Rand disagreed with the whole idea of altruism. That's a serious substantive debate; these two positions are mutually exclusive, so at least one must be false. You can't just dissolve the whole question through hand-waving.

Jason (the commenter) said...

JAC : I believe one should try to benefit humanity as a whole (and more!)

You could style yourself a rational egoist or a utilitarian. That is an aesthetic choice on your part.

Perversely, Rand's philosophy may do more to benefit society than her opponents, but I'm sure she was okay with that.

John Althouse Cohen said...

You could style yourself a rational egoist or a utilitarian. That is an aesthetic choice on your part.

Well, clearly we can go back and forth on this all day, but my ethical positions aren't aesthetic -- they're specific substantive positions. I'm not saying I'm right about ethics. Maybe my positions are dead wrong -- that's a wide-open debate. But they're not just decoration.

I've noticed that the word "utilitarianism" seems to throw a lot of people off -- or perhaps a better choice of words (aesthetic choice!) would be it sets people off. People hear that word and they start thinking it means something other than ethics, something less dignified than traditional notions of right and wrong, or that it's all about what's "useful" in some superficial way. None of this has anything to do with actual utilitarianism (which, again, is agnostic about whether the doctrine happens to be correct -- there are plenty of reasonable arguments against it).

Jason (the commenter) said...

JAC : But they're not just decoration.

Aesthetics isn't just about decoration, it's about taste and judgment. When we come to problems we can't or don't know the answer to (that are wide-open to debate) we often rely on these things to make decisions. Look at Ockham's razor as it was first conceived.

I think Rand was aware of a certain sensuality that underlies all our decision making. Maybe you guys should go pick up a copy of Atlas Shrugged. Hopefully she's better at describing it than me!

LemmusLemmus said...

Jason, the essay I wrote about (and, as was clear even from the bit JAC quoted, I have not read or meant to comment on any of her other work) is called "The Objectivist Ethics".

John Althouse Cohen said...

Jason: In that case, it seems like you're making a similar argument to David Brooks's, which I responded to in this post.

LemmusLemmus said...

(What I said above implies that I did not try to refute Ayn Rand's philosophy as a whole; most of it I don't know.)

Jason (the commenter) said...

JAC, I think David Brooks was talking about a related topic, but not mine and not well. I would trace my ideas to Nietzsche, and since Rand was also influenced by him, perhaps that's why I don't find what she's talking about problematic.

As far as Brooks goes, Nietzsche talked about the relationship between evolution and thinking, so I thought it funny the way he made it sound like it was a new thing to combine the two.

Also, Brooks titled his article "The End of Philosophy" but I recently read a book where the author used the idea of our thinking being shaped by evolution to argue for the existence of Platonic ideals.

Jason (the commenter) said...

LemmusLemmus, I understood what you were saying. As I saw it, it was just a case where you had to have access to a radically different world view to make sense of what she was talking about.

LemmusLemmus said...

Jason, have you actually read the essay?

Jason (the commenter) said...

LemmusLemmus, Unfortunately, the Ayn Rand Institute has it posted online, so yes, I did have to.

LemmusLemmus said...

In that case, maybe it's best if we agree to disagree.

Jason (the commenter) said...

LemmusLemmus, certainly. I myself don't agree with Rand, but she did her part for humanity and I hate to see her being ill used, without someone coming to her aid.

I wish we could spend more time trying to find what wisdom can be salvaged from the past and less trying to expose its flaws.