An article from salon.com on Monday reminds us that philosophy matters, or (as I discussed a bit here) really trying to live the courage of your convictions, to live a life dictated by your philosophy rather than just going on with the crowd or what comes naturally, will more often than not make you a crank and/or asshat instead of a super-enlightened, saintly being.
Why? Because even if you're smart, you're probably not THAT smart; a little humility about your own capacity to reason is called for, as is a little charity towards those thoughtful people among those whose views you are so violently objecting to.
(And yes, I do mean to include that crank Kierkegaard in my criticism here, not just Any Rand fans as discussed in the article. Hegel was not so bad as K. thought, and all those happily married people were not just a bunch of sheep.)
-Mark Linsenmayer
What a sad tale.
There is an Objectivist participant on a blog I often follow. His entire ‘conversation’ often seems, and often is, simply cut and paste from Rand. Or actually memorized. Any disagreement is instantly an indication of his interlocutors inherent irrationality or stupidity. There can be disagreement between rational men, of course. The manner in which he ‘critiques’ opinions is very interesting – It starts with an insult then an ad hom which claims you are obvioulsy an adherent of philosophical school X and stating why you are wrong – according to Rand.
If a certain topic comes up you know, almost to a word, the response he will post. Apparently Kant is directly responsible for the Holocaust.
Rather than the rational thought that Rand prescribes, it is as if he has abnegated any responsibility for using that faculty or coming to his own conclusions.
I find the whole phenomenon quite bizarre. I live in Australia and Ayn Rand is not part of the curriculum – well at least not when I was young. Until relatively recently, my only knowledge of Ayn Rand was a reference to Atlas Shrugged in the Simpsons.
Hi Mark,
At the risk of missing your point, I’d like to mildly defend Kierkegaard (and all polemicists). First, I think it’s fairer to say that Kierkegaard had more of a love-hate relationship* with Hegel than did, say, Schopenhauer, who simply called Hegel out as a fraud.**
Also, I don’t think Kierkegaard was driven by intellectual inflexibility…I think he was tortured by an emotional disorder and an unhappy childhood, and his writing acted out accordingly. In other words, K. didn’t allow his philosophical convictions to become pathological. Rather, I think his pathologies defined and hardened his philosophical convictions. Same as with that Deadbeat Randian Dad (DRD) described in the Salon article. I don’t think he was living out the courage of his convictions. (For, unlike K., what sacrifice did DRD ever make for his convictions?) DRD simply adopted a philosophy that justified and enabled his latent sociopathy.
Anyway, Kierkegaard is in good company. So many major intellectual thinkers have been uncharitable toward their intellectual adversaries, it seems to prove the rule rather than the exception:
Paine vs. Burke
Schopenhauer vs. Hegel
Nietzsche vs. everybody
Freud vs. Jung
Foucault vs. Sartre
Wittgenstein vs. Russell
Hopper vs. Wittgenstein
Quine vs. Derrida
Bergmann vs. Heidegger
etc.
Maybe a little “crankiness” is the cost of people staking out a position? Maybe that kind of egotism is required to develop and advocate new arguments? Or perhaps what I’m really saying is that I don’t want to have to find these guys likeable (or even admirable) in order to appreciate their contributions to my intellectual development (such as it is)! Had they been more flexibly agreeable, they might never have bothered writing what they wrote!
That said, I agree that most of us simply aren’t the guys listed above, and tend to show more self-regard than insight when criticizing the positions of others. So your advice is well taken as far as it goes.
*See, e.g., Kierkegaard’s Relations to Hegel Reconsidered, by Jon Stewart (2007).
**Quick digression: Kierkegaard also had an ungrudging appreciation for Schopenhauer, although interestingly, he criticized Schopenhauer not so much for attacking Christianity (for which K. found S. to be mostly an enemy-of-his-enemy and therefore a comrade), but rather for failing to abide by his own stated principles. (That is, Schopenhauer advocated asceticism while living a luxurious, at times debauched, lifestyle.)
Whoops, I meant “Popper”, not “Hopper”!
What was I thinking? Hopper vs. Lynch?
Ah, making me psychoanalyze myself again, Daniel…
In truth, the root of this post is an ambivalence regarding the very real philosophical question of how much to be sure enough about your convictions to seriously deviate from social norms.
Being a skeptic, I’m suspicious of those who, for example, throw away their TVs out of deep-seated conviction that life is too short and precious to waste watching them, even though in the abstract, I can appreciate the sentiment.
It seems to me extremely likely that the core values of my culture are likely very very wrong, both through observations on my part, some picked up from philosophy (of the job system, consumerism, religion, a faulty notion of individualism, Manichean views of good and evil, and general anti-intellectualism) and also just a simple matter of induction: over time, we judge societies of the past to be really really wrong about things (slavery, castes, whatever made the Dark Ages so Dark, dumb cosmological theories, worshiping all sorts of things that are by today’s standards evidently absurd and the sacrifices that went with that, etc.), so why would now be any different; of course 2000 years from now our descendants will be laughing at what a bunch of rubes we are.
So on those grounds, it seems totally justifiable to really get out there on a limb and stake your own way… but in which direction? With what end? Shall I neglect my family and stalk the streets a la Socrates irritating people? Shall I join a cult, or better yet start one of my own? Shall I become a miserable crank posting screeds on the Internet about how misguided everyone is?
As per Montaigne, it seems wisest to me to free your mind while staying pleasant and orderly if this can be done without undue damage to yourself. Kierkegaard’s — and moreso Nietzsche’s — general misanthropy seem over the line in this respect to me, and I think it much more likely that someone seeking to emulate them is likely a pretentious bastard than a bona fide savant (if there even is such a thing). But, hell… maybe I’m wrong. It’s just a rule of thumb.
Well, you’ve already drawn the line at Super Bowl parties. Let’s hope that’s not heading down the slippery slope!
To riff on the Hegel theme, we don’t ultimately have to worry about curbing any cranks or asshats — so long as they’re only blabbering and not seizing political power — since each crank or asshat is already on their way to negation by being a finite moment of the world. Viva la différence!
Tom, spoken like a true Hegelian. It must be rubbing off because I was thinking the same thing. Nothing better than to provide a negation to Hegel who saw great value in negations. Now, here’s something to think about. I like Kierkegaard and now I’m liking Hegel but they are opposed (for the most part). So am I forming a negation or the opposite by liking two things in opposition? Or just an idiot. Eh, who knows. I have get back to reading PofS. Maybe things will become more…eh, less clear after that…
You never know what agreeable people really think – the not saying what they might like to is their method for remaining agreeable.
It’s not ass-kissing, but it is a similar behavior. It masks authenticity until one day, the person realizes s/he is no longer authentic.
Maybe someone here could address the following thought:
Aquinas and Kant both said YOU CAN NEVER LIE, but you can withhold the truth by any means of obfuscation (actually, the latter may be more posited by the friar than Kant).
Look at the range of authenticity here:
One one end, never lie – an ultimate principle, the categorial imperative for Kant as I recall.
And over at the other, you are advised to avoid negative consequences of telling the truth by any means of duplicity short of of violating such an imperative – the Thomistic take.
Truth tellers do not rise in the ranks of societal organizations, whereas the mumble-mouthed do.
How is this analyzed?.
Is agreeableness not an authentic stance to take?
It might be just me, but I find the whole notion of ‘authenticity’ with respect to life as lived quite an odd notion. I stick it in there with ‘meaning’ as one of those concepts so loose as to be of little use to me.
I can do little else other than live my life in accordance with the decisions I make at any given time. To be agreeable, or to simply avoid boring and useless conflicts, seems an entirely ‘authentic’ – as real and valid as any other – way to live my life.
It doesn’t mean I need not, or do not, express my opinions. It simply means giving up the need to be ‘right’ at all times, or carry the day, simply for the sake of it. Simply saying what I might like to – things like shut-up asshat, or you’re a crank and your opinions are wrong! – might bring a momentary relief from a frustrating situation, but they seem to me a hindrance to getting on with my life.
Not everyone is going to like me, but there seems little point in needlessly alienating people simply in the pursuit of some imagined authenticity.
Desiderata — written by Max Ehrmann in the 1920s —
Not “Found in Old St. Paul’s Church”! [yeah, take that all you fools like me who thought it was 400 years old just because somebody said so]
Go placidly amid the noise and the haste,
and remember what peace there may be in silence.
As far as possible, without surrender,
be on good terms with all persons.
Speak your truth quietly and clearly;
and listen to others,
even to the dull and the ignorant;
they too have their story.
Avoid loud and aggressive persons;
they are vexatious to the spirit.
If you compare yourself with others,
you may become vain or bitter,
for always there will be greater and lesser persons than yourself.
Enjoy your achievements as well as your plans.
Keep interested in your own career, however humble;
it is a real possession in the changing fortunes of time.
Exercise caution in your business affairs,
for the world is full of trickery.
But let this not blind you to what virtue there is;
many persons strive for high ideals,
and everywhere life is full of heroism.
Be yourself. Especially do not feign affection.
Neither be cynical about love,
for in the face of all aridity and disenchantment,
it is as perennial as the grass.
Take kindly the counsel of the years,
gracefully surrendering the things of youth.
Nurture strength of spirit to shield you in sudden misfortune.
But do not distress yourself with dark imaginings.
Many fears are born of fatigue and loneliness.
Beyond a wholesome discipline,
be gentle with yourself.
You are a child of the universe
no less than the trees and the stars;
you have a right to be here.
And whether or not it is clear to you,
no doubt the universe is unfolding as it should.
Therefore be at peace with God,
whatever you conceive Him to be.
And whatever your labors and aspirations,
in the noisy confusion of life,
keep peace in your soul.
With all its sham, drudgery, and broken dreams,
it is still a beautiful world.
Be cheerful. Strive to be happy.
The problem I have is that I only remember this advice after getting into some conflict or other!
To author a non-fiction work (or speech act) is to put yourself out to risk the judgment of others. Authority is not the ‘right of power’, it is the existential claim to worthiness when being an authentic individual.
What we cannot come to grips with is that there is not the One authority, but rather, there are the Many. I think Soren reluctantly wants to say this.
And, BTW, saying “Authority is not the ‘right of power’, it is the existential claim to worthiness when being an authentic individual,” assumes an individual acts honestly and non-duplicitously. So, most animals must be regarded as authentic persons.
You PEL guys seem to mention Solomon a lot…I wonder what he thinks og dogs as genuine persons?
Can you guys say a bit about Solomon? I like listening to his analysis.
What did he think of Deleuze?
He’s all about the “you are ultimately responsible through your freedom” part of Sartre. His analysis of emotions gives them a rational core: all emotions involve cognitive judgments, so the emotion vs. reason thing is just wrong. Spirituality is available without traditional religion.
Those are three big themes; I’d recommend his lectures on existentialism. http://www.amazon.com/No-Excuses-Existentialism-Philosophy-Intellectual/dp/156585344X
I don’t think he had a high opinion of post-modernism, but I never heard him talk about Deleuze (or know much about him myself).
He ends part 3 saying just what I was getting at in my posts above. I like Solomon.
Wow! What an interesting article! I never even heard Rand’s name dropped in the course of studying philosophy formally, but a cab driver and an “intellectual” friend of mine both raved about her. It seems to me that lay philosophers are more interested in Rand than academics (although I’m sure there are exceptions). I suspect, however, that if DRD were not using objectivism to justify his behaviors, it would be some other orthodoxy (a variation of Christianity, for example, or perhaps something having to do with evolution).
As far as the question of whether lying is ever permissable, I think there are instances in which almost anyone would agree that lying is permissable (think surprise party or protecting someone from liability).
I definitely agree that there is no strong emotion/reason distinction. Even when one thinks that one is being entirely “rational”, there are emotions in play behind the scenes. The prisoner’s dilemma comes to mind.