From
[email protected] Jan 18 00:35:04 1996
Date: Tue, 4 Jul 1995 17:21:09 +0200
From: "Svein O.G. Nyberg" <
[email protected]>
To:
[email protected]
Subject: Non Serviam #17
non serviam #17
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Contents: Editor's Word
Chris Sciabarra: Ayn Rand - The Russian Radical
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Editor's Word
_____________
"Stirnerism" exists as a part of many intellectual movements;
Anarchists have their Stirnerite fringe, there tend to be some who
love Stirner in every libertarian circle, and Stirnerites often
hang out with Objectivists, as they are the only other ones who
do also speak warmly about selfishness.
Stirnerite thought is, though, a fringe minority view in these
movements, and - while acknowledged - is seldom integrated into
the dynamics of these movements' rhetoric. The lesson is recognized,
but not learned.
When Chris M. Sciabbarra told me a year ago about a book he was
writing, "Ayn Rand: The Russian Radical", where he sought to establish
Rand's intellectual and philosophical roots in Russian dialectical
thinking, that immediately struck me as both a profound insight,
and an opening for an approach from Objectivism to "Stirnerism".
Of particular interest I find his statement that the dialectical
heritage, as taken up by Rand, is one where mere interpretation of
the world is not enough. Philosophy must have as its end a praxis.
Mapping this back to Germany of one and a half century ago, this
fits better into the thoughts of the rebellious young Hegelians than
into the "purer" dialectics of the old Hegelians.
So I invited Dr. Sciabarra to write a piece for Non Serviam about
the central theses of his book, the results of which appear below.
And well, as a little sales plug, I can mention that his book will be
available this August from Penn State Press.
Dr. Sciabarra is a Visiting Scholar in the New York University
Department of Politics, and has previously authored "Marx, Hayek,
and Utopia".
Have an enjoying read and a good summer!
Svein Olav
____________________________________________________________________
Chris Sciabarra:
Ayn Rand - The Russian Radical
______________________________
Ayn Rand is one of the most widely read philosophers of the
twentieth century. Yet, despite the sale of nearly thirty
million copies of her works, and their translation into many
languages, there have been few book-length, scholarly
examinations of her thought. My book provides the first analysis
of Rand's Russian roots and of her place in intellectual history.
Its central theme is captured most fully by the title: Ayn Rand:
The Russian Radical. The book addresses two fundamental
questions:
- In what sense can Rand's philosophy be understood as a
response to her Russian past?; and
- In what sense can Rand's philosophy be understood as a
contribution to twentieth century radical social thought?
By answering these questions, I provide a new interpretation
of Rand's Objectivism with regard to its intellectual origins and
its significance for the history of social theory. It is my
belief that Rand achieved a unique synthesis that emerged from
her rejection--and absorption--of key elements in the Russian
tradition. What she rejected was the Marxist and religious
content of Russian thought. What she accepted was the
dialectical revolt against formal dualism. In her distinctive
integration of a libertarian politics with a dialectical method,
Rand forged a revolutionary link. She projected a dialectical
sensibility while formulating a fundamentally non-Marxist,
radical critique of statism.
Moreover, the book attempts to grasp Rand's Objectivism as a
developing "text" over time. The existential conditions from
which it emerged and to which it speaks are partially
constitutive of its very significance. By grasping these
conditions and factors, my book provides an enriched appreciation
of Rand's contributions.
Rand was born and reared during a revolutionary period in
Russian history. That context is the key to understanding the
peculiar character of her philosophy, her essentially dialectical
mode of inquiry, and her radical critique of power relations in
contemporary statist society. By the time she graduated from the
University of Leningrad in 1924, Rand had been exposed to a
dialectical revolt against dualism that profoundly influenced her
literary craft and philosophical project.
In the book, I explore Objectivism on three distinct levels:
(1) its intellectual roots, (2) its formal structure, and (3) its
radical social implications.
Rand's Russian nature was not reflected merely in her heavy
foreign accent or in the mammoth size of her novels. She was
Russian in more fundamental ways. In the sweeping character of
her generalizations, and in her passionate commitment to the
practical realization of her ideals, Rand was fully within the
Russian literary and philosophic tradition. Like most of
Russia's great literary figures, she was an artist, social
critic, and non-academic philosopher who constructed a broad
synthesis in her battle against the traditional antinomies in
Western thought: mind vs. body, fact vs. value, theory vs.
practice, reason vs. emotion, rationalism vs. empiricism,
idealism vs. materialism, etc. And like most of Russia's
indigenous philosophers, she presented an exhaustive, all-
encompassing theoretical totality. Her system is as much defined
by what she accepted in Russian thought as by what she rejected.
In her intellectual evolution, Rand both absorbed and abolished,
preserved and transcended, the elements of her Russian past.
In Part One, I discuss the process by which this
assimilation may have taken place. Though Rand used genuinely
inductive and deductive techniques to fashion her unique
synthesis, she also responded to real, concrete circumstances.
Abstracting Rand's philosophy from this context damages our
understanding of its historical importance. Living in Russia
during its celebrated Silver Age, Rand witnessed a burst of
Nietzschean and neo-Hegelian thought: the Symbolist movement,
Russian Religious Renaissance, and Russian Marxism each attempted
to resolve various manifestations of dualism. Rand's most
memorable philosophy professor at Leningrad University was N. O.
Lossky, the distinguished Hegelian neo-Idealist. My book
examines the motif of synthesis in Russian culture, and in
Lossky's thought, and, by relying on new historical evidence, it
documents the means by which Rand may have absorbed such themes.
I contend that Rand's revolt against dualism was the central
animating force of her project. Hence, in Part Two, my focus
switches from the historical to the synchronic. I examine the
formal structure and content of Rand's system. Part Two
reconstructs Rand's project in each of the major branches of
philosophy: ontology, epistemology, philosophical psychology,
aesthetics, ethics, and politics. I argue that Objectivism is
inherently dialectical and non-dualistic.
In Part Three, I examine Rand's radical assessment of the
nature of power as manifested in all social practices and
institutions. I scrutinize Rand's attempt to trace the internal
relations between culture, education, sex, race, and the neo-
fascist welfare-warfare state.
DIALECTICS IN RAND'S PHILOSOPHY
To claim that Rand is a "dialectical" thinker requires some
elucidation. The best way in which to understand the dialectical
impulse, is to view it as a technique to overcome formal dualism
and monistic reductionism. Dualism attempts to distinguish two
mutually exclusive spheres, though it often leads theorists to
emphasize one sphere to the detriment of another. In this
regard, one can differentiate between genuine philosophical
dualists who see two, co-equal principles at work, and
philosophical monists, who accept the dichotomies defined by
dualists, and reduce one polarity to an epiphenomenon of the
other. Wolf Heydebrand explains that these dualistic forms can
be found in nearly every branch of philosophy: in ontology, in
the radical separation of body and mind, or matter and
consciousness; in epistemology, in the radical separation of the
real object and the datum present to the knowing mind; in ethics,
in the radical distinction between good and evil.
Dialectical method is neither dualistic nor monistic. A
thinker who employs a dialectical method does not embrace either
pole of a duality, nor the middle of two polar extremes. Rather,
the dialectical method anchors the thinker to both camps. The
dialectical thinker refuses to recognize these camps as mutually
exclusive or exhaustive. He or she strives to uncover the common
roots of apparent opposites. He or she presents an integrated
alternative that examines the premises at the base of an
opposition as a means to its transcendence. In some cases, the
transcendence of opposing points of view provides a justification
for rejecting both alternatives as false. In other cases, the
dialectical thinker attempts to clarify the genuinely integral
relationship between spheres that are ordinarily kept separate
and distinct.
In Rand's work, this transcendence of opposites is manifest
in every branch of philosophy. Rand's revolt against formal
dualism is illustrated in her rejection of such "false
alternatives" as materialism and idealism, intrinsicism (or old-
style, classical "objectivism") and subjectivism, rationalism and
empiricism. Rand was fond of using, what Thorslev has called, a
"Both-And" formulation in her critique of dualism. Typically,
Rand argues that Both X And Y share a common premise, Z. Her
characteristic expression is: "Just as X depends upon Z, so too
does Y depend upon Z." Moreover, Rand always views the
polarities as "mutually" or "reciprocally reinforcing," "two
sides of the same coin." This is not merely an expository
technique. Rand was the first to admit that a writer's style is
a product of his or her "psycho-epistemology" or method of
awareness. By her own suggestion, one can infer that such an
expository style reflects a genuinely dialectical methodology.
Rand's resolution aims to transcend the limitations that,
she believes, traditional dichotomies embody. In some instances,
Rand sees each of the opposing points of view as being half-right
and half-wrong. Her dialectical approach also recognizes the
integral relationships of mind and body, reason and emotion, fact
and value, theory and practice. For Rand, these factors are
distinctions within an organic unity. Neither can be fully
understood in the absence of the other since each is an
inseparable aspect of a wider totality.
It is this emphasis on the totality that is essential to the
dialectical mode of inquiry. Dialectics is not merely a
repudiation of formal dualism. It is a method that preserves the
analytical integrity of the whole. While it recommends study of
the whole from the vantage point of any part, it eschews
reification, that is, it avoids the abstraction of a part from
the whole and its illegitimate conceptualization as a whole unto
itself. The dialectical method recognizes that what is separable
in thought is not separable in reality.
Moreover, dialectics requires the examination of the whole
both systemically and historically. From a systemic perspective,
it grasps the parts as structurally interrelated, or "internally
related," both constituting the whole, while being constituted by
it. For example, Rand, as a dialectical thinker, would not
disconnect any single theoretical issue, such as the problem of
free will, from its broader philosophic context. She necessarily
examines a host of connected issues, including the efficacy of
consciousness, the nature of causality, and the reciprocal
relationships between epistemology, ethics, and politics.
From a historical perspective, dialectics grasps that any
system emerges over time, that it has a past, a present, and a
future. Frequently, the dialectical thinker examines the dynamic
tensions within a system, the internal conflicts or
"contradictions" which require resolution. He or she refuses to
disconnect factors, events, problems, and issues from each other
or from the system which they jointly constitute. He or she
views social problems not discretely, but in terms of the root
systemic conditions which they both reflect and sustain.
The dialectical thinker seeks not merely to understand the
system, but to alter it fundamentally. Hence, a dialectical
analysis is both critical and revolutionary in its implications.
Thus, Rand, as a dialectical thinker, does not analyze a specific
racial conflict, for example, without examining a host of
historically-constituted epistemic, ethical, psychological,
cultural, political, and economic factors that both generate
racism--and perpetuate it. In Rand's view, racism--like all
vestiges of statism--must be transcended systemically.
The dialectical sensibility then, is readily apparent in
every aspect of Rand's project, in her literary credo,
philosophic approach, and social analysis.
From a literary standpoint, Rand recognized her own novels
as organic wholes in which every event and character was
expressive of the central theme. Moreover, her fiction was
integral to the evolution of her grand philosophic synthesis.
Philosophically, Rand recognized Objectivism as a coherent,
integrated system of thought, such that each branch could not be
taken in isolation from the others. Her theories provide a basis
for both critical analysis and revolutionary social
transformation.
And from the perspective of social theory, Rand's analysis
of contemporary society was multi-dimensional and fully
integrative. Rand focused on relationships of power, examining
their historical genesis and their long-term deleterious effects
on the stability and cohesiveness of the social order. She
refused to view societal problems as separate from one another,
and proposed a resolution which was comprehensive and
fundamentally radical in its implications. In Rand's view, every
aspect of the totality was both a precondition and effect of
every other aspect, and their joint constitution as a totality.
Thus, Rand's dialectical method was dynamic, relational, and
contextual. It was dynamic because it viewed specific factors in
terms of their movement over time. It was relational because it
traced the inter-relations between and among factors. It was
contextual because it related these factors to their wider,
systemic context.
THEORY AND PRACTICE
One area that is of particular interest to dialectical
thinking is the synthesis of theory and practice. Their unity
was one of the most significant themes in the history of Russian
thought. Nearly every great Russian writer embraced a critical
praxis as the central, motivating task of philosophy.
Theoretical contemplation was considered incomplete and one-
dimensional; it required consummation in the quest for truth-
justice (iskaniye pravdy). This cultural predisposition toward
political criticism and action provided fertile ground for the
implantation of Marx's revolutionary doctrine, encapsulated in
the credo: "The philosophers have only interpreted the world in
various ways; the point is to change it."
Ayn Rand gives full expression to this radical, dialectical
impulse in Russian thought. She recognized that philosophical
contemplation was insufficient. Her initial theoretical musings
emerged as a response to the dualities she confronted in the
Russia of her youth. Her positive formulations constituted a
critical revolt against Russian religious mysticism and communist
politics. Just as Marx's dialectical method was "in its essence
critical and revolutionary," so Rand's dialectical sensibility
led her toward a comparable, radical resolution. But Rand's
project was neither theocratic nor communist in its political
implications; it was profoundly secular, humanistic, and
libertarian.
Like her dialectical forebears, Rand refused to disconnect
any part from the totality which gave it meaning. Rand's
critical method recognized the fundamental relatedness of all
social phenomena. She adamantly opposed reification in social
inquiry. Where some attempted to universalize a historically
specific concrete, Rand saw "frozen abstractions." Where others
asserted certain premises as true and without need of proof, Rand
saw "frozen absolutes" and "false axioms." Where still others
sought to combine two or more issues which needed to be analyzed
and considered separately, Rand saw "package-dealing." She
rejected the modern tendency to "think in a square," the
contemporary disposition to accept a constricted, narrow
definition of a social problem, without understanding the
principles underlying the issue, or the various links between
issues. Everywhere that she looked, Rand attempted to identify
the principles which united seemingly separate and fragmented
spheres of human existence. She observed facts, identified the
essential issues, integrated the data from diverse areas of
inquiry, and articulated the basic principles at work. Her
dialectical methods uncovered startling connections between
economics, psychology, sex, art, politics, and ideology.
Rand's dialectical assault on contemporary statist relations
of power is a case in point. This analysis can be comprehended
on three distinct levels. While it is possible to abstract and
isolate these various aspects, it must be understood that they
are interrelated constituents of a single totality. Below is a
diagram of how Rand conceptualized such power relations.
RAND'S MULTI-LEVEL ANALYSIS OF POWER RELATIONS
| LEVEL THREE (L3): STRUCTURAL |
| (ECONOMIC/POLITICAL) |
| | |
| | |
| LEVEL TWO (L2): CULTURAL |
| (LINGUISTIC/IDEOLOGICAL) |
| | |
| | |
| LEVEL ONE (L1): PERSONAL |
(PSYCHO-EPISTEMOLOGICAL/ETHICAL)
On L1, Rand examines relations of power between persons.
She focuses on the psycho-epistemological and ethical principles
at work in exploitative inter-personal relations. The psycho-
epistemic and normative aspects are two, coextensive vantage
points on the same phenomenon. These aspects are so closely
related that they constitute a double-edged sword. On this first
level of analysis, Rand comprehends the significance of the
master-slave duality (how each presupposes and requires the
other), the "sanction of the victim," and human alienation.
On L2, Rand considers many of these distortions in social
interaction as by-products and reflections of cultural practices.
She argues that modern intellectuals have mounted an assault on
the integrity of concepts and language which has the effect of
ideologically legitimating social, political, and economic
exploitation. She traces the impact of such conceptual (or
"anti-conceptual") and linguistic subversions on every area of
culture, including art, literature, music, education, religion,
sex, and race.
On L3, Rand views exploitative social relations within the
structural context of statist interventionism. The relations of
power at this level are mediated through a variety of economic
and political structures and institutional processes. Rand
examines the essential role of the predatory state in creating
conditions of economic dislocation, class (both inter-group and
intra-group) struggle, social fragmentation, and brutality.
Each of these three levels of analysis seeks to uncover
another facet of modern statist power relations. Each is
internally related to and implicit in the others. Each level
incorporates personal, cultural, and structural dimensions. Each
level is a relation between real people. Thus:
- The codependent relationship of master and slave (L1) is
reproduced on a cultural level (L2), and on a structural level
(L3);
- The distortion of concepts and language (L2) provides
ideological legitimation for the codependency relationship (L1)
and for the structural context within which it occurs (L3);
- The sustenance of the predatory state (L3) requires
individuals whose autonomy has been fundamentally thwarted (L1)
and whose conceptual and linguistic practices have been distorted
(L2).
For every problem that Rand analyzes, one can see these
three levels at work. In my book, I document many examples, the
most prominent of which is the issue of racism.
What must be emphasized is that for Rand, the goal of all
social analysis is emancipatory. In each aspect of her developed
critique, change and transcendence beckon. Rand proudly declared
that she was a philosophical "innovator" and a "radical" for
capitalism, with everything that this implied. She wore these
labels as terms "of distinction . . . of honor, rather than
something to hide or apologize for." In keeping with her
revolutionary fervor, she sought to uncover the "fundamental"
roots of contemporary social problems, "boldly proclaiming a
full, consistent, and radical alternative" to the status quo.
---------------------
All endnotes have been deleted for the purposes of this abridged
introduction. All material: Copyright 1995 by Chris M.
Sciabarra
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* *
* "The self must become concrete, and this it *
* becomes through the process of action. [...] *
* [T]he abstract man, as only general self, is *
* abstract as long as he is not yet a proprietor. *
* Only as proprietor is man a particular and *
* real man." *
* -August von Cieszkowski *
* in 'Teleology of world history', *
* ch.3, "Prolegomena to Historiosophie" *
* *
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