Objectivism: The Uninspired Religion of "Reason"

By Michael David Rawlings

My philosophy, in essence, is the concept of man as a heroic being, with his own happiness as the moral purpose of his life, with productive achievement as his noblest activity, and reason as his only absolute. —Ayn Rand¹
 

 

The politics of Rand's philosophy (called Objectivism for the postulate that all human knowledge may be objectively derived from reality via discovery rather than presupposition) calls for a minarchistic model of laissez-faire, an ideal arrangement of power whereby the state is not permitted to ameliorate the consequences of irresponsible behavior. Some critics on the left argue—due to their mindless reverence  for the politics of  bread and circuses—that Objectivism promotes rational anarchism (or anarcho-capitalism), despite the fact that it emphatically repudiates that model.

Government redistribution of wealth is a form of initial force (or coercion) that subsidizes and, consequently, encourages the sort of behavior that leads to poverty and dependency. It's the stuff of legalized theft exacted against the assets of individuals who aren't responsible for the circumstances, choices or failures of the recipients. In other words, beyond the general defense of the nation and the preservation of liberty and private property, including the necessary provisions and administrations thereof: it's immoral for the state to deprive a person of any portion of the fruits of his labor for the sake of persons who didn't earn them.

(Think President Barack You-Didn't-Build-That Obama.)

A Dirge for J. Alfred Prufrock: The Last Hurrah

By Michael David Rawlings

With hat in hand and at the feet of T. S. Eliot

Copyright © 2012

For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who hold the truth in unrighteousness; because that which may be known of God is manifest in them; for God hath showed it unto them. For the invisible things of him from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even his eternal power and Godhead; so that they are without excuse: because that, when they knew God, they glorified him not as God, neither were thankful; but became vain in their imaginations, and their foolish heart was darkened. Professing themselves to be wise, they became fools. . . .
 

Let us go then, you and me,
And stroll beneath a cloudy sea
As evening spreads across its face like a toothless grin.
Let us go a-meandering down narrow-minded suburban lanes,
Silky slick with sullen rains
And hemmed in by redundant four-bedroom stalls and grated sewage drains;
Past the immaculate parks and the quaint, steepled churches,
    the lofty perches,
Where the vagabond Riffraff lurches in the pristine shadows:
A restless Crowd that chases dreams of easy grace and meadows
And sings a melancholy hymn, a petulant brew, that lingers at your nervebone.

A chorus of crickets roll their eyes
And dance beneath the cloudy skies.

The Air is still tonight—drenched with slumber.
A withered leaf dodders on spindly legs across Its gnarled spine.

And above the tiny rustlings, above the glistening lanes,
Above the languid shadows that creep and close on the mournful strains—
The Stars draw back the shroud and peep,
Shake their bearded chins, cast their pearly eyes away and weep.
And below, crookbacked lampposts unfurl their hazy-white plumes and glare
At the four-footed heaps, at the white picket fences,
At the cracks in the sidewalks, at the manicured grasses,
As the musty night seeps through our senses.
And through the parlor windows we may see, you and I,
The flickering glow of that babbling flow on the walls:
The Soma of the enervated masses.

Morpheus has alighted on his throne at the commencement of another dreary evening. . . .

The "New Math" of American History and the Unobscured Truth

By Michael David Rawlings

Virtually all leftists and the occasional libertarian confound the history of America's cultural-political heritage. For many, their ignorance is a function of a deep-seated prejudice against religion in general and especially against the notion that the tenets of Judeo-Christianity played some role in the articulation of the Republic's founding.

 

Like many leftists, lots of libertarians are "freethinkers." That is to say, they're atheists (See also "Objectivism:   The Uninspired Religion of 'Reason' ".).  Hence, there is a strain of libertarianism that like the contagious rot of progressivism is wont to go on about the supposed primacy of the democratic theory of Classical Greece or of the monolithic repudiation of religion in the thought of the Enlightenment. My favorite red herring along this line is something or another about the Founders and the naturalistic, nonthreatening religion of Deism.

[T]he much ado over the fact that many of the Founders were Deists is about nothing. First, most of them weren't. Second, it's the sociopolitical principles extrapolated from the Judeo-Christian moral tradition that matter. Both the Deist and the Christian of the Anglo-American Enlightenment embraced them. —Michael David Rawlings, "Abortion on Demand, Homosexual "Marriage": what will they think of next?"

The salient, recurring theme in all of this: only "benighted Christians" actually believe that Judeo-Christianity significantly influenced the development of democratic political theory. God Darwin forbid that the most gloriously prolific system of thought in world history might have had something to do with it!

Actually

By Michael David Rawlings

Thomas Jefferson is not the father of the phrase pursuit of happiness, and it's not merely a poetic turn  or an allusion to something new or different. It's a construct with a great deal of history behind it. That very terminology was used by John Locke and other classical liberals before Jefferson. Jefferson's terminology regarding the third element of Locke's triadic formulation of natural law—life, liberty and property—was used to emphasize the meaning of property in its entirety.

Neither Locke nor the Founders held that one's personal property was merely the material possessions or assets that one might own. Personal property in the political sense begins with the ownership of one's own self, the ramifications of which are (1) the right to be secure in one's material possessions, (2) the right of personal well-being and (3) the right of freedom of opportunity. Those familiar with the terminology of the emerging political theory of natural law understood why Jefferson used that phrase.

Hence, pursuit of happiness refers to the ownership of one's own self and to everything that entails.

A Mountain of Nothin' out of Somethin' or Another

by Michael David Rawlings
 

There is frequently more to be learned from the unexpected questions of a child than the discourses of men.  —John Locke

For those of you who believe in nothing and, therefore, are easily deceived by almost anything, atheistic scientists like Lawrence Krauss, who intentionally muddle ontological distinctions merely to get a rise out of the philosophers and theologians they detest, do a disservice to science. Whether in jest or not, it's irresponsible. They dishonor their profession and treat us all with contempt when they imply that the problem of existence is strictly a scientific matter. As a group, atheists, whether they be accomplished scientists or not, are notoriously bad thinkers outside the comfort zone of their presumptuous metaphysics and are theologically illiterate bumpkins to boot. Karl W. Giberson, an evolutionary theist, is something else altogether . . . or is he?

I agree with Krauss that religious creation stories don't explain, at least from a scientific perspective, why there is something rather than nothing. The claim that "God created the quantum vacuum and its ordering principles" simply replaces a scientific mystery with a theological one: Where did God come from? — "Can science explain the final mystery of creation?"

The Bible doesn't "explain, at least from a scientific perspective, why there is something rather than nothing"?!

So?

Given that the Bible does in fact explain it from a theological perspective, what's Giberson's point? Rather, what's the point of acknowledging this fact in one breath and then heedlessly rattling on about a theological mystery in the next?

(Does the Bible explain it from a theological perspective or not, Mr. Giberson?)

The issue is metaphysical and arguably goes to the concerns of aesthetics as well. At the level of immanence, why do humans produce works of art? The scientific answer, stated colloquially: because they're wired to do it . . . but the next question is why are they wired to do it?

When a child asks, "Why is the sky blue?"

Science answers:  "The sky is blue due to the Rayleigh scattering of electromagnetic waves as refracted by the Earth's atmosphere."

But that doesn't tells us why light has different wavelengths or why these wavelengths are the sum of many different frequencies and so on ad infinitum. Science will never get at the ultimate why of anything.

There is no reason that something exists rather than nothing . . . except in the context of consciousness!

Think about that for awhile. . . .

Abortion on Demand, Homosexual "Marriage": what will they think of next?

By Michael David Rawlings

David Kirby writes some good news . . . sort of.

Emily Ekins and I have an op-ed in today's Politico¹ pointing out that while the Tea Party is united on economic issues, there is a split virtually right down the middle between traditional social conservatives and those who think government should altogether stay out of the business of "promoting traditional values." Candidates and representatives hoping to appeal to the Tea Party, we argue, need to focus on a unifying economic agenda that takes into account this strong libertarian undercurrent.

We conducted a survey of 639 attendees at the October 9, 2010 Tea Party Convention in Virginia, one of the larger state Tea Party gatherings of its kind to date. We included the same questions from Gallup and the American National Election Studies that David Boaz and I have used to identify libertarians in our previous studies. . . .

In our new survey, we found libertarians were 48 percent of Tea Partiers, versus 51 percent who held traditional conservative views. We defined traditional conservatives as agreeing that "the less government the better," and that "the free market can handle these problems without government being involved," but also believing that "the government should promote traditional values." Tea Party libertarians agreed that less government is better, and prefer free markets, but believe that "the government should not favor any particular set of values."  —David Kirby, "The Tea Party’s Other Half"²

Caution:  The libertarian faction of the Tea Party "think[s] government should altogether stay out of the business of 'promoting traditional values.' "

Well, it's not the government's role to promote any particular set of cultural values!

Wait for it. . . .

However, the government—if it's to be legitimate and stable—must obey the commands of certain principles commonly lumped in with things that have come to be thought of as mere traditional values.