Ayn Rand: The Russian Radical (68 page)

Rand rejected the founding of
utopian
communities as a solution to systemic
irrationality
. The utopia of
Atlas Shrugged
is a fictional device that projects an ideal
society
composed of ideal people. It is not a prescription for the
future. Rand (1964b) remarked that she “was interested in politics for only one reason—to reach the day when [she] would not have to be interested in politics” (14). Though Rand advocated broad principles on which to build an ideal society, she refused to construct a detailed, futuristic blueprint. She stated unequivocally: “I am not a government planner nor do I spend my time inventing Utopias” (12). In this regard, she was not much different from Marx, who refused to concoct a “doctrinaire recipe” “for the cookshops of the future.”
²⁶

But still Rand asks the question, “What can one do?” in the face of massive statist repression and cultural bankruptcy. Her question is the Objectivist equivalent to Chemyshevsky’s and Lenin’s query, “What is to be done?”
²⁷
It encapsulates the difficulty of advocating any reforms under prevailing
social
conditions, the problem of moving toward a new context from a position within the status quo.

First and foremost, Rand argued that no individual can fight a political battle without challenging the basic philosophic premises on which contemporary conditions have been built. Rand reiterated that
philosophy
is ultimately responsible for the current state and that only philosophy can lead to a cultural and political renaissance (
New Intellectual
, 50). Therefore, any political changes must be preceded by a cultural revolution.
²⁸
Considering the depth of her project, Rand acknowledged that “there’s only so much that one person can do.” She (1974T) stated, amusingly: “You don’t expect me also to be some kind of woman on the barricades and lead an army on Washington; it’s much too soon for that.” Even if every politician disappeared, the problems of the neofascist mixed economy would remain. Genuine change encompasses personal, cultural, and structural transformation.

Personally, an individual can begin the process of altering cultural trends by focusing on his or her own struggle for
enlightenment
(Rand 1962T). As Nathaniel Branden (1983b) emphasizes: “One of the core meanings of
enlightenment
is liberation from false and spurious value attachments that blind the individual to his or her true essence” (91). But even as each individual struggles toward the articulation and integration of subconscious and conscious elements,
some
personal political
action
may be possible—and necessary—within the current context.

In broad terms,
Objectivists
argue that the goal of
freedom
cannot be served by fighting the battle on the statist’s terms.
²⁹
Statism
compels people to accept their status as “sacrificial victim or moral cannibal.”
³⁰
And yet Rand believed that the victims of statist expropriation have the right, when necessary, to accept government jobs, research grants, public scholarships, unemployment compensation, social security, and
welfare
assistance, based on the premise of
restitution
. Only those who oppose state intervention have a right to such restitution, in Rand’s view. Those who support statism
have no such right, because it is they who perpetuate a system of codependency and institutionalized poverty.

This “paradox” is dictated by the inner
contradictions
of the system. The victims of statism do not advance the cause of the free
society
if they leave “their money, unclaimed, for the benefit of the welfare-state administration.” As
taxation
, inflation, and deficit-spending crowd out the avenues for advancement, individuals are left with little choice but to enter into the government sphere in order to sustain their own lives. Rand recognized, however, that government welfare expenditures are a “bribe” to co-opt the support of those who are injured by statist policies. She cautioned the victims not to accept any government jobs that would demand their ideological compromise or their participation in the enforcement of “non-objective laws.” In most circumstances, however, Rand believed that statism makes it impossible for individuals to determine a moral course of action. The “fundamental irrationality and immorality” of the system forces people into relations of dominance and submission. In their daily activities, individuals face persistent tests of their integrity. Rand warned that such a system leads to “a gradual, imperceptible, subconscious deterioration” in each individual’s mind. People are driven inevitably to compromise, evade, or submit to dehumanizing conditions of existence (44–45).
³¹
Just as certain ideas generate structural conditions of repression, these structures perpetuate repression on a personal and cultural level.

Rand offered another strategic technique by which the victims of statism can milk the inner contradictions of the system. She proposed a “fairness doctrine” for U.S.
education
. Such a doctrine would accept the statist premise that public or quasi-public institutions (e.g., the universities, the airwaves, etc.) should grant equal time to all sides of a controversial issue. Since nearly every aspect of U.S. education has become dependent on the government, Rand believed that the fairness doctrine could temporarily impede the perpetuation of intellectual monopolies. It would require that public universities offer courses from unconventional perspectives. Such a doctrine might benefit communists, religionists, multiculturalists, and astrologists, but it would also lead to courses on Aristotle,
Austrian economics
,
Montessori
education, and Romantic literature. Rand suggested that the Establishment could be bested at its own game, even if it did not fundamentally alter its faculties and administrations.
³²

THE OBJECTIVIST SOCIETY

Rand’s proposals for utilizing statist policies and doctrines to lessen their distortive impact were mere exercises in political technique. Rand recognized
that the mixed economy, just like the person of mixed premises, must move toward some kind of resolution as the internal contradictions of the system become apparent. But Rand offered no inexorable laws of motion. Though she believed that the imposition of controls would necessitate further interventions, she argued that people could opt out of the process and choose the path to freedom.

But this choice was only possible within the context of a
philosophic
and cultural
revolution
. Without such a change, people would have neither reason nor desire to embark on the path toward freedom. Rand saw revolution as “the climax of a long philosophical development.” Justified as a response to tyranny, “it is an act of self-defense against those who rule by force.”
³³
While Rand admitted the possibility that people, “in sheer anger and despair,” would resort to violence and mass civil disobedience, she did not view these political techniques as primaries.
³⁴
She argued that ultimately, it was the cultural base that provided individuals with a specific menu for social change. Within the context of a massive cultural transformation, people could choose political alternatives that were radically different and realistically attainable.

But in keeping with her theory of history, Rand believed that such a cultural revolution depended on a new intellectual movement, led necessarily by a small minority,
³⁵
a kind of intellectual vanguard. The philosophic system-builder is the source of revolution. The system-builder presents a compelling philosophic alternative and a structure of analysis that answers the human need for a comprehensive view of existence.
³⁶
Over a long period of time, the essential ideas of the philosophic system-builder are grasped and perpetuated by intellectuals who pass on the doctrine in education, art, and the communications media. As the purveyors of ideas, these human actors generate conditions favorable for personal, cultural, and structural change.

In Diagram 5, Rand is presented as a new philosophic system-builder, akin to Plato, Aristotle, and Kant. Rand believed that the Objectivist paradigm offered a radical intellectual shift away from the dominant trend of the anti-mind, anti-man, anti-life
culture
. Though Rand believed that
Objectivism
had global implications, she emphasized its applicability to the American context, which was the subject of her social critique (Peikoff 1991b, 460). She knew that American society would not adopt her program in a month, a year, or even a century (1971T). She hoped to be the fountainhead of a philosophical renaissance that would culminate in the establishment of a society based upon the principles of laissez-faire capitalism, individual rights, and nonexploitative social relations. She instructed her followers to break from the culture, the schools, and most
important, the ideas that were destroying American society; they were “to be the creators of a new culture” (1961T) (Diagram 5).

In Rand’s view, an Objectivist society could emerge only
after
the dominant philosophic trend was fundamentally Objectivist. The political and economic institutions would reflect this cultural base. Self-directed thought and self-responsible action would be confirmed as efficacious in the dominant philosophy and psychology of the new age. In aesthetics, the dominant trend would be Romanticism, though many schools of art would continue to exist. The projected aesthetic ideals and values would be contemplated and appreciated by individuals whose sense of life matched their rational, conscious convictions.
³⁷

In an Objectivist society, the socialization process would aid, rather than hinder, the development of maturity,
rationality
, and self-responsibility. Parents and teachers would treat
children
with respect, encouraging them to think, rather than to evade. They would not deliver moral ultimatums or religious injunctions, but present the child with
reasons
and explanations within the context of his knowledge, for every rule (Rand [1964] 1993bT).

The development of human cognitive and evaluative capacities would turn the tide away from modern anti-conceptualism. Whereas the anti-conceptual mentality treats “the passage of time, the four seasons, the institution of marriage, the weather, the breeding of children, a flood, a fire, an earthquake, a revolution, a book [as] phenomena of the same order,” genuinely
conceptual
beings would distinguish between those things that were open to human choice and those that were metaphysically dictated by the nature of reality.
³⁸
People would not act on the basis of an uncritical acceptance of traditions and/or of tacit rules of behavior (48). They would understand the nature of their actions and the implications of their beliefs. They would develop a sense of identity that would be reinforced by a sense of self-efficacy and self-worth. Accepting their own uniqueness and potential, such people would have a benevolent attitude toward one another.
³⁹
Human communication, sexual relations, spiritual commitments, and material exchanges would not be marked by strategic lying and deceit, but by mutual trust and respect.

Thus, in seeking to overturn the dynamics of
power
, an Objectivist movement would spark a revolution on each of the three levels in which power is manifested: the personal (Level 1), the cultural (Level 2), and the structural (Level 3). Rand’s multilevel analysis of power relations (see Diagram 1 on page 278) becomes a model for Objectivist social relations.

Rand believed that only reason and
freedom
could defeat faith (i.e., irrationality) and force. In
statism
, irrational power relations are apparent on each of three levels. In the Objectivist society, rational and free social relations would be manifested across the same personal, cultural, and structural dimensions. Rand argued that an Objectivist revolutionary movement would seek first to consummate reason and freedom on the personal and cultural levels, before seeking their realization on the structural level.

On Level 1 (the personal), the practice of a
rational
psycho-epistemology and a rational
ethical
code would simultaneously confirm and perpetuate the primacy of existence and the identity of
consciousness
, which is, in its essence, volitional (i.e., free). People would relate not as masters and slaves, but as independent equals, trading value for value.

On Level 2 (the cultural), the forms of culture and of
language
would simultaneously confirm and perpetuate the
objective
validity and necessity of rational and free discourse.

On Level 3 (the structural), the achievement of a libertarian political and economic ideal would end the domination of statist brutality. Rand envisioned an identity between the rational and the free social order. The genuinely rational
society
is
free. The genuinely free society
is
rational.