Atlas Meets The Godfather Meets Braveheart
Katherine Mangu-Ward | January 12, 2007, 11:27am
Dagny Taggart almost got into the olive oil business in 1972, when
...15 years after the publication of Atlas, [Albert S.] Ruddy, fresh from producing "The Godfather," decided to make a run at Rand, who was already in her late 60s. Atlas Shrugged, let's face it, was probably the most important novel of the 20th century that was never a film,' he said." ...
Rand told Ruddy she has worried the "Soviets might try to take over Paramount to block the project."
"I told her, 'The Russians aren't that desperate to wreck your book,'" Ruddy recalled in a recent interview with the International Herald Tribune.
Now there's another effort to make Atlas into a movie, starring Angelina Jolie. Delivery of a screenplay written by Randall Wallace, who wrote "Braveheart," is expected this month. The film is being produced by the team that made "Ray."
At least Wallace won't have one of the hurdles that Ruddy faced: Ayn Rand herself.
Rand's agents warned him to expect rejection, he said, but reluctantly set up an appointment. Ruddy said he warned Rand that it was not her ideas that interested him. "Forget philosophy," he said. "The abstract of the story is quite lovely: the power and the sustainability of the great individual, of the creative person, of the entrepreneur." Rand, he said, "thought that was brilliant, because that's how she saw her book," as a story first.
But Ruddy refused to grant Rand final script approval, and their courtship quickly broke off. "It's a fool's game to spend a lot of money and time only to have her say, 'I think you should take this out,'" he said. So, he recalled, he told Rand that he would wait for her to "drop dead" and then make the movie on his own terms.
Via A&L Daily
madpad | January 12, 2007, 10:16pm | #
I wrote my own critique of Rand, if you'd like to check it out...Let me know what you think!
Interesting, thought provoking and a delightful read, RSDavis. You're a good writer. Of course I disagree with some of your assertions.
BTW, you don't really critique Rand at all. You explain why you don't believe in true altruism using The Fountainhead and Star Trek as you foils. Which is cool. But you make an interesting logical error that is common to Objectivists.
Consider your statement,
"Let’s continue to examine Mother Teresa – was she an altruist? I don’t think so. I don’t think she – or anyone else, for that matter – would dedicate their lives to others if they didn’t gain satisfaction from it.
You assert that because she gained satisfaction from her work, it is not "altruistic."
According to wikipedia:
Altruism is unselfish concern for the welfare of others.
The Objectivist notion is that satisfaction from an act of generosity or sacrifice is actually selfish and thereby negates the altruism.
That's silly. There's nothing in any definition of altruism that says you can't be satisfied by the act.
This is a silly word game that oversimplifies a much more complex - and natural - part of man's emotional, evolutionary and rational makeup.
After examining Mother Teresa's motives for altruism you make a conclusion based on Rand's opinion regarding altruism e.i.
“Every major horror of history was committed in the name of an altruistic motive.”
Surely you can appreciate the difference 'tween a sincere act or feeling of altruism...and an evil act committed under the cover of an altruistic claim. This, for me, is a major weakness of Rand and all of her prattle against altruism.
As for your criticism of Roddenberry's universe and the idea that the needs of the many outweighing the needs of the few translate to "It means that you are a slave" would be a lot easier to buy if the characters in Star Trek acted and behaved like slaves. But since they all seem to be remarkably well-adjusted, sensitive, art-appreciating, well-educated people and the plots frequently revolve around freedom and personal achievement. I'd say you've got a ways to go to demonstrate your thesis.
Fortunately, I'm sure it will be a good read.
It’s not altruism, but forced altruism
This is another head scratcher I hear from Objectivists. There's no such thing as "forced altruism". Again, this is a word game used by Rand to defend a flawed premise.
If you buy the premise that Altruism is unselfish concern for the welfare of others, then how can anyone force you to be unselfish? Altruism, by definition , arises from a feeling. No one can force you to feel anything. No one can force you to be happy, or caring or any other way.
Objectivists often make the case that taxation + welfare = forced altruism. While I can buy that Communism can be characterized as 'forced altruism' (at least for the purpose of making a point) the welfare example is just conservatives co-opting Rand's word games and, like the devil quoting scripture, using it for their own purposes.
I loved your insight on Christianity through the lens of you Catholic upbringing and pean to
Dogma. Might surprise you to know I'm a Christian. Might also surprise you to know that many Christian writers have made similar points.
In all a good read. I look forward to visiting you blog again.
Margarita time!
madpad | January 13, 2007, 3:26pm | #
Rick/RSDavis, well stated. Regarding your idea that "The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few, or the one" and your thought that it is "neither reasoned nor practical, and could have never been the conclusion of a purely logical mind" I say, "Hmmm."
Admittedly, you did put forth a well-reasoned and interestingly deep defense of your position. If I could pick one weakness to probe, I would pick your examples of European and Russian needs versus African, Polish, Chech or Afgani needs.
It's difficult to take an maxim that applies in one circumstance (man sacrificing himself for his comrades) and apply it to another (using same maxim to justify enslavement or oppression).
Simply put, Spock's circumstance allowed his choice while the oppressed and eslaved peoples from your example did not.
A better comparison might be a man ordered into a circumstance of certain death in order to save a larger number of men. His choice is no longer simply to commit an altruistic act but whether or not to follow an order which means his certain death. Notions of duty, honor and saving other no doubt come in but the argument becomes more complicated.
Additionally, while one of these situations - Spocks choice - clearly fits neatly into your maxim, the colonial aspirations of governments is decidedly more complicated. Other factors come into play.
For instance, one factor that comes into you colonial example is one of justice. It is clearly unjust by today's standard to oppress a people for their labor and raw materials. On that basis, we can clearly say that the idea that the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few is (at best) a flat no or (at worst) unanswerable.
In Spocks case, the question of justice is not even a component.
Genghis Kahn | January 13, 2007, 4:24pm | #
Rick,
[notice: this is a long post]
Good article, and I commend you for taking on a hard problem that needs to be worked. I think you're right as far as you go, but I also think you haven't gotten all the way through the fog bank just yet. Here's why.
Mother Teresa lived – as Ayn put it – “up to [her] highest possibility.” True, she dedicated her lives to others and to God, but she did this by choice. Her calling was to be altruistic – I doubt she would have been happy any other way.
The fact that it made Mother Teresa happy does not justify the choice. I could argue that Jack the Ripper also would not have been happy being anything other than what he was.
This is why I think altruism is a myth. The only time it is truly bad is when you are doing it out of a sense of responsibility and not because it is what makes you happy.
You are right that altruism is a myth, in the sense that it rarely motivates real people. But that doesn't alter the fact that Rand was right -- if you allow altruism to be held up as an ideal (and what else is the Mother Teresa example?), then somebody else will use it to justify this --
...altruism doesn’t exist, except as a motive for tyranny – it is something elites expect of other...
That is precisely the danger Rand was warning us of. She lived through it.
It’s not altruism, but forced altruism, that is dangerous and an affront to liberty.
Perhaps you're right here. But there is still a distinction missing somewhere in all of this (and I don't pretend to have the answer).
You see, in any of these instances, you are doing the one thing that will maximize your happiness.
Murdering the assholes who vote to take away my freedoms might "maximize my happiness", perhaps, but that would not justify such a choice if I made it. You may argue that I'm violating their rights with my choice, but I could then argue that they've already violated mine. So how do you resolve this little problem?
Something more is needed here.....
Now that I’ve exploded the myth of altruism
I don't think you've done that just yet.
but there is a place in the world for irrational emotionalism – just not in any intellectual pursuit.
Have you read Brandon's article on the relationship between reason and emotion? It's excellent, and has direct bearing on what you're trying to say here. Suffice it to say that after reading Brandon's article, you may understand why I disagree with this statement.
I don't know where to find Brandon's article online (if it even is), but you can find it in Appendix A: Emotions of _The Disowned Self_, which he said was an excerpt from _The Psychology of Self Esteem_ (which I have not read).
If you find happiness in the sit-stand-kneel of Sunday mass or in giving yourself for the public good, more power to you. Just don’t try to force others to share your values. Whether you think the locus of origin is God, the Earth, Mother Nature, King Kong, or your own self, your mission is the same.
Rand's problem -- and mine -- with this philosophical position, is that the irrationality that people end up advocating in the name of God, or today Mother Earth. In a free society, where majority opinion can ultimately impact laws (and violate the Bill of Rights, as is happening today), it is exceedingly dangerous to tell people they can follow whatever whims they please. Because soon enough, it will please them most to impose their whims on others.
Rand saw the only solution to this problem, to be cutting off the whims at their root. I'm not sure she was wrong about that.
OTOH, you are also hitting on a highly valid point with altruism. Rand lumped a lot of things into "altruism" that may not belong there. I have long felt that her concept of altruism was a proverbial "intellectual package deal" that contains, somewhere within it, "a false dichotomy". I just haven't put my fingers on where yet. But there are reasons a person may not follow Rand's heirarchy of values strictly. Or maybe, Rand's heirarchy could take on a form that she herself did not admit?
Rand's philosophy applies well to capitalism at its best. This means (to me), capitalism at the stage where a nation is building its wealth up from, perhaps, an agrarian economy. Like the US in the 1800's.
In Rand's mind, the next step along the road is Francesco deAnconia. He just wants to make even more money, but that begs the question -- for what purpose? Francesco arguably has more money than he'll ever be able to spend. If you say "he should do it, because it is the only moral thing to do", that's on the ragged edge of being an altruistic argument.
What should a Frencesco want to do with himself, and why? What about Batman (in the sense of "Batman Begins"), would this be a rational pursuit or not?
In short, what kinds of things should the rational person desire to do once they've reached the top of Maslov's pyramid? Rand utterly failed to address this question in a convincing way.
To say it's okay for Bruce Wayne to give away his billions requires some careful justifying. Because what he's doing will, like Mother Teresa, soon enough become the example that is held up to justify tyrrany -- and it is nearly impossible to fight against this argument once it hits the streets.
To say "you should not force people by law to be altruistic" isn't going to cut it (it isn't today, look at what the Democrats argue and get away with). Government is all about forcing people via laws. If altruism, Mother Teresa style, is "good", then tell me why the government
shouldn't force people to do it? By the time the argument has gotten this far, you've already lost it.
Again I commend you for tackling a hard problem, and you do write well. I encourage you to keep chewing on this yourself.
RSDavis | January 13, 2007, 5:22pm | #
Admittedly, you did put forth a well-reasoned and interestingly deep defense of your position. If I could pick one weakness to probe, I would pick your examples of European and Russian needs versus African, Polish, Chech or Afgani needs.
It's difficult to take an maxim that applies in one circumstance (man sacrificing himself for his comrades) and apply it to another (using same maxim to justify enslavement or oppression).
Simply put, Spock's circumstance allowed his choice while the oppressed and eslaved peoples from your example did not.
A better comparison might be a man ordered into a circumstance of certain death in order to save a larger number of men. His choice is no longer simply to commit an altruistic act but whether or not to follow an order which means his certain death. Notions of duty, honor and saving other no doubt come in but the argument becomes more complicated.
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Point taken. Although, I am not sure if it matters. If Spock's maxim is true that communal needs outweigh individual needs, then it further can be decided that it is the right of the community to take from the individual, as their needs take precidence over his.
That being said, following a logical course from the situation that presented itself to Spock would not have led a rational, dispassionate mind in the direction his took. He'd simply realize that he had two choices:
1. Save everyone and he dies.
2. Save no one and they all die.
There is no cost to this decision, as he will die anyway. So, logically, the best way to maximize a positive outcome would be to make his individual death useful to his mates.
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Additionally, while one of these situations - Spocks choice - clearly fits neatly into your maxim, the colonial aspirations of governments is decidedly more complicated. Other factors come into play.
For instance, one factor that comes into you colonial example is one of justice. It is clearly unjust by today's standard to oppress a people for their labor and raw materials. On that basis, we can clearly say that the idea that the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few is (at best) a flat no or (at worst) unanswerable.
In Spocks case, the question of justice is not even a component.
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Maybe I misunderstand you, but I don't think there is anything both a government and an individual would do that would be moral for the former and immoral for the latter. I don't think any complications that arise when you add beuracracy to the mix changes the moral components of a choice.
I also don't think justice is subjective to its time. I think we develop a broader understanding of justice, but justice doesn't change.
For instance, colonial slavery was just as wrong as the slavery currently practiced in Sub-Saharan Africa. The world is more enlightened now, but right and wrong are the same.
Great discussion!
- Rick
RSDavis | January 13, 2007, 6:49pm | #
Genghis Kahn | January 13, 2007, 4:24pm | #
Good article, and I commend you for taking on a hard problem that needs to be worked.
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Thanks! :-) I love praise.
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I think you're right as far as you go, but I also think you haven't gotten all the way through the fog bank just yet. Here's why....
The fact that [the choice to dedicate her life to others] made Mother Teresa happy does not justify the choice. I could argue that Jack the Ripper also would not have been happy being anything other than what he was.
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No, you're right - it does not justify the choice. If I were seeking to justify the choice to commit one's self to others it would be that it makes one happy and harms no one.
Ayn seeks to actually
discredit that choice as altruism, as if that is a bad word. As free-born human beings, I would agree with Ayn that our only responsability is to maximize our own happiness.
The problem with Ayn is that she seemed to believe the only way to do that was through her own narrow vision of a useful and productive person. She seemed to ignore the fact that for some people, dedicating themselves to others is the only way for them to find happiness and fufillment. As long as they are not hurting anyone or forcing anyone to help them, I think we should refrain from judging that kind of a choice.
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You are right that altruism is a myth, in the sense that it rarely motivates real people. But that doesn't alter the fact that Rand was right -- if you allow altruism to be held up as an ideal (and what else is the Mother Teresa example?), then somebody else will use it to justify this....
Murdering the assholes who vote to take away my freedoms might "maximize my happiness", perhaps, but that would not justify such a choice if I made it. You may argue that I'm violating their rights with my choice, but I could then argue that they've already violated mine. So how do you resolve this little problem?
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Well, I was never saying that choices to maximize one's happiness are never wrong. But to be personally altruistic harms no one, so it shouldn't be incongruous with a principle of non-violence.
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Rand's problem -- and mine -- with this philosophical position, is that the irrationality that people end up advocating in the name of God, or today Mother Earth. In a free society, where majority opinion can ultimately impact laws (and violate the Bill of Rights, as is happening today), it is exceedingly dangerous to tell people they can follow whatever whims they please. Because soon enough, it will please them most to impose their whims on others.
Rand saw the only solution to this problem, to be cutting off the whims at their root. I'm not sure she was wrong about that.
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Perhaps not, but what is the alternative? It seems that is a concern for which the cure is worse than the disease (look to her own homeland to see that much).
The key is not to force everyone to be completely rational all the time, but to hold dear to the principles of The Enlightenment, like tolerance and justice and imprescribable rights.
For instance, do you think that Islam is inherently more violent than Christianity? I do not. Christianity has had a violent past, surely, but why is it only violent at its most extreme fringes now? The Enlightenment, of course.
Our nation was founded on these principles, and most of what we do is filtered through that prism. That's why we don't have terrorist wars between religions on our soil, even though we have our own Jews, Christians, Muslims, Buddhists, etc. All of those religions in America have been changed by the principles of tolerance that our country holds dear.
Surely, we have a long way to go in realizing perfect tolerance, but the story of this country has been one of progress on that front, not devolution.
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OTOH, you are also hitting on a highly valid point with altruism. Rand lumped a lot of things into "altruism" that may not belong there. I have long felt that her concept of altruism was a proverbial "intellectual package deal" that contains, somewhere within it, "a false dichotomy". I just haven't put my fingers on where yet. But there are reasons a person may not follow Rand's heirarchy of values strictly. Or maybe, Rand's heirarchy could take on a form that she herself did not admit?
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I don't know if it can. Her views on personal philosophy were so fixed. I've always found the rigidity of her personal philosophy to be at odds with the "do as you will" of her governmental and economic philosophy.
In fact, I have little use for her personal philosophy. I think dealing with your familial and friendly relationships with that level of selfishness won't win you many friends.
Which leads us to...
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Rand's philosophy applies well to capitalism at its best. This means (to me), capitalism at the stage where a nation is building its wealth up from, perhaps, an agrarian economy. Like the US in the 1800's.
In Rand's mind, the next step along the road is Francesco deAnconia. He just wants to make even more money, but that begs the question -- for what purpose? Francesco arguably has more money than he'll ever be able to spend. If you say "he should do it, because it is the only moral thing to do", that's on the ragged edge of being an altruistic argument.
What should a Frencesco want to do with himself, and why? What about Batman (in the sense of "Batman Begins"), would this be a rational pursuit or not?
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This is the crux of the bisquit, no? Where I differ from Rand is that I do not want to impose my values on Frencesco. I think he should make more money if he wants, burn it, throw it away, give it away - it's his money. As long as he doesn't try to make me do anything, I could care less. His only responsability is to find his own path to happiness without infringing upon the rights of other people.
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In short, what kinds of things should the rational person desire to do once they've reached the top of Maslov's pyramid? Rand utterly failed to address this question in a convincing way.
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The rational person, no matter where they are, should desire whatever they want to desire. This is not up to you, me, or Rand. This is up to the individual.
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To say it's okay for Bruce Wayne to give away his billions requires some careful justifying. Because what he's doing will, like Mother Teresa, soon enough become the example that is held up to justify tyrrany -- and it is nearly impossible to fight against this argument once it hits the streets.
To say "you should not force people by law to be altruistic" isn't going to cut it (it isn't today, look at what the Democrats argue and get away with). Government is all about forcing people via laws. If altruism, Mother Teresa style, is "good", then tell me why the government shouldn't force people to do it? By the time the argument has gotten this far, you've already lost it.
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This is where you will find my most vehement disagreement. If we cannot distinguish between what is right and what is law, we have already lost.
Isn't that the fulcrum of the libertarian position? The disconnect between what is moral and what is legal? For instance, just because some might think it's immoral to do heroin or see a prostitute, it shouldn't be illegal because all parties consented to the crime.
I don't see how it would be any harder to defend a position that it's nice to do things for people, as long as you do it of your own free will. This is something even the writers of the Bible got, in the ideas of free-will vs. coerced virtue.
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Have you read Brandon's article on the relationship between reason and emotion? It's excellent, and has direct bearing on what you're trying to say here. Suffice it to say that after reading Brandon's article, you may understand why I disagree with this statement.
I don't know where to find Brandon's article online (if it even is), but you can find it in Appendix A: Emotions of _The Disowned Self_, which he said was an excerpt from _The Psychology of Self Esteem_ (which I have not read).
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Thanks, I'll definitely check that out. I don't know much about him other than what I saw in
The Passion of Ayn Rand, hahaha...
Great chatting with you!
- Rick
Madpad | January 13, 2007, 10:51pm | #
I don't think there is anything both a government and an individual would do that would be moral for the former and immoral for the latter.
Not sure I'm understanding you on this one. I didn't make a distinction of morality 'twixt governments and individuals. I merely suggested that Spock's choice was a much simpler one than the colonial example you used. By the way, I like your explanation of Spock's logic. I'll be chewing on that for days.
I also don't think justice is subjective to its time.
My use of certain phrases shouldn't be construed as an apology for slavery or oppression based on the norms of the times. It was simply my recognition that those
were the norms at the time.
I've been thinking of your "needs of the many outweighing the needs of the few" and I've actually come up with a fine support of it in our own Bill of Rights.
It's probably no stretch to assert that - in terms of actually needing to use or exert them - most of the people in our society will have little need for many of the various 10 ammendments making up the document. Comparitively few people have or will ever exercise the need for the 2nd, 3rd, 5th, 6th, 7th and 8th amendments.
Indeed, the "Big Discussion", as framed by the Bush Adminsitration is that need for safety of the many U.S. citizens outweighs the needs of a few folks to be given due process rights.
Most libertarians seem to appreciate the fact that not only are the needs of the few more important than the needs of the many, in this example...but the needs of the few are critical to protecting the needs of the many.
As for Gengis's most astute remark:
I'm just saying, there's "something" that still needs defining here, that's all... maybe it's this: If an individual is happy doing something altruistic and doesn't force someone else to join in, we should honor his choice. When a politician asserts anything altruistic and claims we all need to join in, be suspicious.
Madpad | January 13, 2007, 11:15pm | #
For me, the problem with Rand and Objectivism is one of Absolutism.
It's all fine and nice to assert man's need for individual choice. It's terrific to sneer at the pedestrian mentalities that jockey for position amongst lesser talents and use collectivist arguments to convince people to value broader mediocrity over individual greatness because it's safe.
But to live life aspiring to a world as imagined by Rand is to live in a world many people just don't want to live in. And living up to the demands of Rand's example takes a level of energy most folks can't maintain when they've got to deal with kids, mortages, neighbors and the minutiea of daily life.
Don't get me wrong here, please. Rand points the way to a great and dynamic way to live ones life. But let's be honest, Rand herself didn't even live up to her own examples. In addition to her talent and influence, she could also be vain, petty, selfish, irrational, overly-pedantic and sometimes just plain screwy.
It's great if your life has been influenced by Rand's work. Despite my occassional detractions, I can admit where her writing has influenced me in my path. But as I've said before, a wise adherant understands the limits of his philosophy...lest he become a fanatic.
Tieing that back to absolutism, there's little difference between a Rand follower who insist on labelling everyone who allows a taint of collectivism in their philosophy as immoral...and a Christian fundamentalist who asserts everyone who doesn't believe in their brand of Christianity is going to hell.
In any case, I tend to take all things philosophically. Rand is a prominent influence in the marketplace of ideas. To demand more than that is not only tilting at windmills...it's giving her more credit than she deserves. Is her influence more important than Locke? Jesus Christ? Adam Smith? Neitze? Ghandi? Mother Teresa? Ceaser? Napolean?
There's no right answer. It's a personal choice and decision. What's more Randian than that?
