Libertarianism vs. racial reality

The Randian blogger at Rational Passion gets down to the fundamental issue between those who think that the racial composition of a society matters, and those who say that it’s both false and morally “noxious” (that’s his word for me) to think that it matters. It’s an amazing thing to see pure ideology at work. According to the Randian Objectivists, we are to be seen only as individuals who are completely free to choose what we are; and therefore it’s a great sin to see people as belonging to a group or as being in any way sharing or being influenced by group characteristics; and therefore it is immoral to notice the obvious fact that a black African country with an average IQ of 70, or a black American city with an average IQ of 85, will be on a very different level of functioning than a white society with an average IQ of 100. The Randian ideologists of reason have outlawed reason. We’re not supposed to see the world in front of us, because it contradicts Objectivism.

The gross logical error that so hangs up liberals and libertarians and turns them into the moral cops of the universe is their belief that generalizations about a group necessarily deny the individuality and moral liberty of the individuals belonging to that group. Of course this is not true. It would be like saying that if you believe the fact, shown by numerous IQ studies, that women are naturally less represented at the highest levels of math abilities than men, you are denying the human dignity of women. The reality of group characteristics does not impinge on the dignity of individuals. It nevertheless remains the case that group distinctions are real, and they matter. If you take a society where the people have an average IQ of 100, and replace them with people who have an average IQ of 90, that society is going to decline noticeably in intellectual competence, wealth production, level of culture, and many other marks of civilization. And all the professions of moral disgust in the world are not going to change this fact.

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John Hagan writes:

I just finished reading the Randian blogger’s updates this evening and I thought his observation that it was the “founding fathers” who created America not whites was a howler. I suspect we can write this off to youthful musings over there since most adults move away from Ayn Rand, and most of her teachings well before they reach 30.

James W. writes:

It ought to be perfectly obvious that many or most Caucasians already are willing and able to go to great lengths to see things in the way of Randian blogger. I don’t suppose it has occurred to Randian blogger that he may have to go to the trouble of convincing black people of this also in order to complete his illusion or he will have all mirrors and no smoke.

LA replies:

I had to think what James meant by “all mirrors and no smoke.” It’s brilliant. It’s poetry.

James M. writes from England:

As usual, it’s a surreal experience to see the Rand cultists attacking someone for irrationality, belief in truth-by-authority, collectivism and so on. Libertarianism is another religion-substitute and, like Marxism, Freudianism and their offshots, refutes its own anti-hereditarian premises by being largely the creation of the high-IQ Jewish minority. No doubt they’d find nothing to object to here:

Stephen Hawking seeks “Einsteins of Africa”

Prof Hawking’s speech at the African Institute for Mathematical Sciences (AIMS), titled Universe, marked the expansion of the postgraduate institution in an effort to accelerate Africa’s development. Two Nobel physics laureates—a prize which still eludes the author of A Brief History of Time—along with the head of Nasa, also took part. Prof Hawking, 66, said: “The world of science needs Africa’s brilliant talents, and I look forward to meeting prospective young Einsteins from Africa in the near future. If my visit helps to create opportunities for Africans to enter maths and science, I will be delighted.”

LA replies:

Up to this point there has only been one Einstein in the world. Yet Hawking expects to meet—just like that—not just one unknown Einstein in Africa, but many!

The dream will never die. But it will always remain a dream.

Also, I’ve been noticing just in the last two weeks that the British says “maths” instead of “math.”

Terry Morris writes:

You wrote:

“The gross logical error that so hangs up liberals and libertarians and turns them into the moral cops of the universe is their belief that generalizations about a group necessarily deny the individuality and moral liberty of the individuals belonging to that group.”

A fun and enlightening experiment would be to gather, say 5,000 dyed-in-the-wool libertarians, put them in a community all to themselves where they must be self-governing and independent of surrounding towns and communities, and in twenty years check to see how much of their extreme individualism they had abandoned for the “common good.” … or, for the sole sake of survival. ;-)

Mark Jaws writes:

I am always amused and amazed at how secular liberals, who dismiss our Christian beliefs as mere fairy tales, can so religiously cling to their own fantasy world of universal egalitarianism. For example, while the secular libs demand concrete proof of God’s existence, THEY ACTUALLY INSIST that within the ranks of sub-Saharan black Africans, whose IQ has been measured to be around 70, and who have collectively not produced a civilization worth mentioning or a single individual who has made any major contribution to the scientific community, are legions of little black Einsteins just waiting for the white man to allow them to live up to their full potential. Now that is a fairy tale! But more importantly we need to start holding these myth mongers accountable for perpetuating such lies. As I have often said to both friend and foe concerning population groups and their intellectual achievements: “If they could have, they already would have. And if they have not, it is because they can not.”

LA repllies:

Well, there’s our definition of a secular liberal: a person who thinks that God does not exist (after all, what is the evidence for him?), and who also thinks that a so-far-undisovered population of Einsteins in sub-Sarahan Africa does exist.

Sage McLaughlin writes:

Objectivists, of course, fall into the sheerest irrationality, as must anyone be who denies categories and exalts each individual as perfectly estranged in essence from all other beings. I usually respond to their lunatic ravings (so often punctuated by chapter-and-verse quotations of the High Priestess herself) by answering that they have convinced me—and that I therefore no longer believe in the category “Objectivist,” only in individuals. I also now believe in their materialism, and therefore I believe that there is no such thing as “Objectivism,” only the atoms within Ayn Rand’s brain which, having long since decayed, has taken with it that interaction of electrons we refer to as her thoughts, and that therefore Objectivism no longer exists. Having dealt with them on their own terms, and with nothing of substance to discuss, I shall go on ignoring them.

It is one thing to claim, “All that I know is that I am not you.” It is another thing to say that there is nothing else worth knowing, or that this notion could actually guide human beings living in society with one another. Somehow they have convinced themselves that the fundamental premise of their philosophy—that, as they put it, “existence is”—somehow implies the denial of any useful language for describing existence. This is the height of madness.

LA replies:

I was not aware that Randians are radical nominalists, that is, people who deny the reality of larger concepts and classes to which individual things and phenomena belong, e.g., chair, dog, man, virtue, and say that these categories are only names under which we conveniently group individual things, and do not have any objective reality. Yes, the Randians seem to deny the existence of larger classes when it comes to human races and cultures, because they (falsely) see the belief in such classes as denying the freedom and moral responsibility of each individual, but do they deny larger classes as such?

James M2 writes:

“When you felt proud of the rail of the John Galt Line… [d]id you want to see it used by men who could not equal the power of your mind, but who would equal your moral integrity—men such as Eddie Willers—who could never invent your Metal, but who would do their best, work as hard as you did, live by their own effort, and—riding the rail—give a moment’s silent thanks to the man who gave them more than they could give him?”

“Yes,” said Rearden gently.

I had always read this passage as Rand’s acknowledgment that different individuals have varying degrees of inherent mental potential. My understanding was that Eddie Willers was a good guy who could never, by simply making the correct choices and working hard, be equal to the primary strikers of Galt’s Gulch; he was limited by his genetics.

“A genius is a genius, regardless of the number of morons who belong to the same race—and a moron is a moron, regardless of the number of geniuses who share his racial origin.”

Wouldn’t most people derive an implication from this quote that the different races have differing average abilities?

“Racism is the lowest, most crudely primitive form of collectivism. It is the notion of ascribing moral, social or political significance to a man’s genetic lineage … . Which means, in practice, that a man is to be judged not by his own character and actions, but by characteristics and actions of a collective of ancestors.”

Even this quote is dealing only with judgment on the level of the individual. Where does Rand speak against large scale observation and acknowledgment of group behavior?

Sometimes I wonder if the Randians are really paying attention.

Not a follower,
James M2

Jon S. writes:

What is still the best criticism of the Rand cult was written by Murray Rothbard back in 1972.

Steven Warshawsky writes:

There is no question that many so-called Randians hold ahistorical and non-empirical views towards society, politics, and economics. Yet these people do not speak for Ayn Rand (obviously), and do not necessarily understand and apply Ayn Rand’s philosophy correctly. I myself find great value and insight in Rand’s writings. There is no critique of collectivism that is more penetrating and uncompromising than Rand’s. She makes F.A. Hayek look like a “moderate” liberal (which, in many ways, he was). Having lived through the early years of Soviet Communism, and having studied history, she knew that the values she considered highest in life—individual freedom, private property, objective reason, and human achievement—were not universally recognized and promoted. She loved the United States because it was here where these values achieved their highest and most widespread expression. Not surprisingly, she was deeply troubled by the spread of collectivism in this country during her lifetime (she arrived in 1926). Rand truly believed that the United States was (in Abraham Lincoln’s famous words) “the last best hope of earth.” Unlike many dogmatic libertarians today (not to mention liberals and neoconservatives), Rand recognized that the United States is a unique historical entity that is eminently worth defending against foreign aggression and domestic subversion alike. There is no support in her writings for any version of the modern liberal non-discrimination principle. She most certainly did not believe that all people were “equal” in any substantive sense, only that they should have the freedom to make of their lives what they can—and may the best man win!

LA replies:

I don’t know off-hand if Rand said anything about race, about the compatibility of mass non-Western immigration with the America she loved, and so on. I doubt she said anything about these things, since they would not have fit in her philosophy. She would have asserted the importance of complete non-discrimination, while opposing collectivist group privileges. In other words, she would have been a neocon, making a lot of noise against affirmative action and multiculturalism, while continuing to support the transformation of America into a Third-World country via mass non-discriminatory immigration. Since to her the individual was all, she was intellectually unequipped to deal with the reality of significant racial differences in civilizational abilities, and probably even with cultural differences as well. She would probably have said that to think the differences of another culture should be considered by us in deciding who should be permitted to immigrate into America would be a collectivist crime against all the people belonging to that culture, who should be seen as individuals, not as members of a culture that supposedly determines their qualities and beliefs.

I believe the publication “The Last Ditch” is written by modified Randians who combine Objectivism with an awareness of the importance of race.

By the way, Rand’s inability to incorporate the reality of race into her philosphy is reflected by the fact that in Atlas Shrugged, her panoramic novel about the destruction of America, there is not a single black character.

Posted by Lawrence Auster at May 12, 2008 07:11 PM | Send