When it comes to Ayn Rand, I agree with David Bentley Hart’s magisterial condemnation from our March 2011 issue:
Ayn Rand always provokes a rather extravagant reaction from me, and probably for purely ideological reasons. For instance, I like the Sermon on the Mount. She regarded its prescriptions as among the vilest ever uttered. I suspect that charity really is the only way to avoid wasting one’s life in a desert of sterile egoism. She regarded Christian morality as a poison that had polluted the will of Western man with its ethos of parasitism and orgiastic self-oblation. And, simply said, I cannot find much common ground with someone who believed that the principal source of human woe over the last twenty centuries has been a tragic shortage of selfishness.
But so what? Since Mitt Romney’s selection of Paul Ryan as his running mate this weekend, the chattering class has informed us that America faces an existential choice. When we choose our next president, we will not be selecting between two policy platforms that sometimes overlap and at other times significantly, even widely, diverge. We will rather be choosing between two visions of America: that of Saul Alinsky and that of Ayn Rand.
The former is the hero, supposedly, of our current president, the latter is taken to be the inspiration for every detail of Paul Ryan’s budget plan. Count me skeptical, both of the narrow claims and of the broader usefulness of tracing politicians’ intellectual genealogies while ignoring the policy details of their actual proposals.
August 13th, 2012 | 10:39 am
Paul Ryan is (still) not an Objectivist: cvote.at/204MyC
August 13th, 2012 | 12:27 pm
Explain the philosophical origin of the source of Representative Ryan’s “Makers vs. Takers” Manifesto at the Heritage Foundation in October 2011.
He only indicated that Randian influences were “an urban legend” in the Spring at Georgetwon University, while prior to that he had been a speaker at an Ayn Rand conference, had been so enamoured as to provide some of her novels as staff gifts, and has many public statements in support of this philosophy.
Many many on the Catholic right tried to unwrite this philosphical pedigree in the Spring, almost as if a memo had been sent. We see Mirror of Justice, First Things, and others repeating the “urban legend” PR statement. Once found to be mere shills for a party line of the conservative movement with the extensive documented intellectual pedigree of Paul Ryan, not one of these mouthpieces retracted its statements, with one commentator, once his PR campaign was revealed as false stating “oh, the interwebs…”
Now, the right is focused on again distancing Ryan from his Randian fascination.
The right wing needs to explain the “Makers vs. Takers Manifesto.”
August 13th, 2012 | 12:50 pm
Lots of people talk about “makers vs. takers” without being Randians. You really think she was the first person to speak in these terms? Nobody else had this idea until Rand came along?
Rand also thinks water flows downhill. So is anyone who thinks water flows downhill a Randian?
I personally know quite a few people who think Rand, objectivism, “the virtue of selfishness” and all of that is a bunch of cow cookies, yet also speak in terms of this distinction between makers and takers. Personally I think it’s oversimplified, but that doesn’t mean we get to immediately tar anyone who uses it with a whole ethical philosophy they’ve probably never even heard of.
On another subject, you use terms like “extensively documented” pretty aggressively. Would you mind pointing me to where I can find more information on this “Ayn Rand conference” you say he spoke at?
August 13th, 2012 | 1:32 pm
“Makers vs. Takers” is an ideology that suggests that everyone on the creativity scale south of a John Galt, which is again, the fire-fighters, the police, the teachers, the doctors, and the hospitals, is a taker.
This needs explanation.
August 13th, 2012 | 1:58 pm
Whoa, Paul Ryan believes doctors, police, firefighters, teachers are “takers”? Any documentation that such a thought has uttered his lips, much less crossed his mind? I too would like to know the where and whence of the Ann Rand conference.
August 13th, 2012 | 2:02 pm
Would you mind pointing me to where I can find more information on this “Ayn Rand conference” you say he spoke at?
Greg Forster,
The Atlas Society has released the audio of the speech Paul Ryan made at the 2005 “Celebration of Ayn Rand” event. The icon to play the audio isn’t very prominently placed. Scroll down to right below the excerpts from the speech, and the icon is on the left right above the word “Average” and five yellow stars. If he rejects Ayn Rand now, he has changed dramatically since 2005.
If you listen to the audio file, or take a look at the 2009 video that was still on his Facebook page yesterday but won’t play there today (I have linked to a Youtube version), it’s clear he sees the world in terms of Ayn Rand’s work, particularly Atlas Shrugged.
(Some of the above has been posted on other sites in substantially the same form. I mention that because, as Bob Dylan said to Johah Lehrer, “Document, dude! Always document!”)
August 13th, 2012 | 2:37 pm
His “rejection” of Rand is incomplete and convenient. When one witnesses him taking a more thorough rejection of her thought, he will be more credible on this point.
August 13th, 2012 | 3:07 pm
The framework of “makers vs. takers” is pure Randian objectivism. In such a construct, those on salary as public servants are takers. One should be reminded this also includes those receiving Medicare or Medical Assistance reimbursement, since these are from government sources. Now, hospital employees and physicians are “takers.”
Its a substantially different construct than the now acceptable meme of “welfare queen” which has a firm place in conservative orthodoxy.
August 13th, 2012 | 3:25 pm
I don’t really know one way or another whether or how Paul Ryan is inspired or guided by the thought of Ayn Rand.
If he does take direction from her philosophy, I do believe that is significant, and should be explained as to what he agrees with and where he disagrees and why.
Ideas have consequences – which I thought was a fairly widely accepted proposition here at First Things.
August 13th, 2012 | 5:29 pm
Well, that video you linked on YouTube certainly does establish that the connection to Rand is not simply, as we have been led to believe, that her novels got him interested in the topic. In the video he says, “I think Ayn Rand did the best job, of anybody, to build the moral case for capitalism.”
That makes a striking contrast with what he said to National Review in 2012:
“I reject her philosophy,” Ryan says firmly. “It’s an atheist philosophy. It reduces human interactions down to mere contracts and it is antithetical to my worldview. If somebody is going to try to paste a person’s view on epistemology to me, then give me Thomas Aquinas,” who believed that man needs divine help in the pursuit of knowledge. “Don’t give me Ayn Rand,” he says.
He should be asked to speak to this.
August 13th, 2012 | 10:22 pm
I witnessed a televised session of the hearings for one of the candidates for the Supreme Court when the then Senator Biden vigorously and aggressively went after the candidate on whether or not he believed in Natural Law-with Senator Biden quite forcefully stating that there was no Natural Law
While perhaps this is acceptable from the ‘liberal’ point of view, Mr Biden is still a Catholic and this position will not hold up from within the Catholic Teaching.
I accept Mr Ryan’s statement that he rejects Ayn Rand’s philosophy etc especially in favor of Thomas Aquinas.
What is needed however is not ‘ideological preferences or blind spots’ but objective reasoning, ‘seeking the truth in love’
August 14th, 2012 | 8:23 am
Botolph,
The question of how far Natural Law is accessible to us, in a state of fallen nature, is one that has been debated amongst Catholics, ever since the time of St Augustine.
The proponents of the Nouvelle théologie take a very nuanced view of the subject, insisting, with Blondel and Laberthonnière that a state of pure nature is an abstraction, leading to the notion that the state could be self-sufficient in the sense that it could be properly independent of any specifically Christian sense of justice.
Thus, Blondel says, “one cannot think or act anywhere as if we do not all have a supernatural destiny. Because, since it concerns the human being such as he is, in concreto, in his living and total reality, not in a simple state of hypothetical nature, nothing is truly complete (boucle), even in the sheerly natural order.”
In that sense, a Catholic may well have serious reservations about any Natural Law theory, as Suarez and the Neo-Thomists understood it.
August 14th, 2012 | 3:41 pm
Michael PS
You rightly speak of the theological movement called Nouvelle Theologique and such a light as Maurice Blondel. Blondel’s emphasis on the subject who is doing the willing, itself a rediscovery of sorts of Augustine, brings about ‘the anthropological turn’ found in such great theologians as Karl Rahner, SJ and Bernard Lonergan SJ. We have indeed come a long way from ‘Natural Law’ understood in its objectivist by the likes of Suarez and the Neo Thomist school.
The subject who is doing the willing is indeed important [the older interpretation of Natural Law all but 'forgot' 'the subject.
However is not freedom itself 'shared with others'? [Pope Benedict XVI] or as Alan Bloom wrote,
“A Civilized people is held together by its common understanding of what is virtuous and vicious, noble and base” [Shakespeare's POlitics 1964]
We are in a fallen state, yet the Catholic tradition does not share the full pessimism of the Reformers concerning our ability/inability to access “Natural Law”. Augustine himself speaks of this with a bit of humor in his Confessions when he reminds us that the thief believes stealing is wrong when someone steals from him or the adulterer believes adultery is wrong when someone commits adultery with his wife. All of us would agree in saying even the murderer would consider murder wrong when he is about to be murdered. See it is not that difficult lol
The Compendium of Social Doctrine of the Church #22 teaches this:
“The Ten Commandments, which constitute an extraordinary path of life and indicate the surest way for living in freedom from slavery to sin,contain a privileged expression of the Natural Law”
August 14th, 2012 | 4:41 pm
[Greg Forster] “Well, that video you linked on YouTube certainly does establish that the connection to Rand is not simply, as we have been led to believe, that her novels got him interested in the topic….”
Pardon me, but who’s been led to believe this?
In any case, does anyone actually have trouble believing that – over the seven years from 2005 to 2012 – Mr. Ryan may have changed how he sees her work? And particularly as he’s proactively sought out and had ongoing conversation with the Catholic Bishops to refine his approach, a fact that no-one disputes?
Let’s NOT get caught up in the inane ‘flip/flop’ ridiculousness here.
August 14th, 2012 | 7:25 pm
In any case, does anyone actually have trouble believing that – over the seven years from 2005 to 2012 – Mr. Ryan may have changed how he sees her work?
JDD,
The Youtube video, in which Ryan says, “I think Ayn Rand did the best job, of anybody, to build the moral case for capitalism,” is from 2009, not 2005.
But if Ryan changed his mind, why didn’t he say so. He didn’t say he changed his mind. He said talk of his admiration for Ayn Rand was an “urban legend.” But it wasn’t an urban legend. The evidence is there for anyone to see.
And particularly as he’s proactively sought out and had ongoing conversation with the Catholic Bishops to refine his approach, a fact that no-one disputes?
I dispute it. Show some evidence. When the USCCB criticized his budget, he tried to pass it off as some individual bishops disagreeing with him. A USCCB spokesperson then announced that it was not individual bishops, it was the USCCB itself, and the bishops who wrote the critical letters were representatives of the entire USCCB.
If you have any evidence that Ryan has met with the bishops since to modify his views or his budget, I would be fascinated to see it. But I don’t believe any such thing happened.
August 15th, 2012 | 11:06 am
[David Nickol] The Youtube video, in which Ryan says, “I think Ayn Rand did the best job, of anybody, to build the moral case for capitalism,” is from 2009, not 2005.
Ah – I didn’t see that second clip you’d linked to – only the one from 2005. Okay, 2009 then. Not trying to spin this, but this looks like it’s part of a question and answer format. In other conversation threads I think you’d be demanding more context. Is he being asked to compare two worldviews? In any case, see my points at the end of this post.
[David Nickol] “…He didn’t say he changed his mind. He said talk of his admiration for Ayn Rand was an “urban legend.” But it wasn’t an urban legend.”
Yes, I get that, and I think the phrase ‘urban legend’ is a legitimate criticism that Ryan has to live down. The full meme however is that Ryan *completely* shares Rand’s worldview – all of it – and its applications to policy – all of them. That is an urban legend. He clearly doesn’t admire Rand’s atheistic worldview, and no-one who did would bother to consult with or even acknowledge the Bishops at all. I think it’s worth pointing out the huge difference that atheistic component makes in how the practical details of one’s philosophy, economic and otherwise, shake out.
I hope you get a chance to listen to this interview and really listen to Ryan’s own words – if you can stand the obvious bias of a Conservative softball interviewer. ;)
http://www.facebook.com/l.php?u=http%3A%2F%2Ftinyurl.com%2Fc2t4zx8&h=aAQGW-mcH&s=1
[David Nickol] “If you have any evidence that Ryan has met with the bishops since to modify his views or his budget, I would be fascinated to see it. But I don’t believe any such thing happened.”
“Met with”? No, that’s your phrase. I said, “… proactively sought out and had ongoing conversation with the Catholic Bishops to refine his approach…” as evidence of his intentions to be in conformity with the tenants of Catholic social teaching. No one disputes this because his letter to Cardinal Dolan, and Cardinal Dolan’s return letter, are readily accessible. These are only the official documents of course and we don’t know what other conversations may have taken place, but Mr. Ryan certainly hasn’t just ignored the concerns of the Bishops. And yes, I’ve read the attempts to deconstruct and discredit the exchange, and rework it as some kind of ‘scolding.’
A few points of hypocrisy are worth noting here – from the media in general; (I’m not pointing the finger at you) :
1) Suddenly the Democratic party is *very concerned* about what the Catholic Bishops have to say about a certain policy. Suddenly the Democratic party wants everyone to be aware that a certain politician is, in their opinion, *at odds* with Catholic teaching… while the outright refusal of another well-known politician to even meet with the Bishops to address another policy concern is quietly swept under the rug. That *other* policy concern is quite as large in scope and economic and social impact as is the area of Medicare, and ALL of the Bishops are flat-out against the policy, without nuance.
2) The instant calls of politicians from the opposing party being called ‘hypocrite’, ‘twofaced’ and ‘flipfloppers’ right from the get-go is long past becoming tiresome. No matter how much one explains his current position, no matter how much the details are clarified, the opposing side want to replay tapes from last decade. Recently, another well-known politician suddenly ‘evolved’ on a position. He further mentioned that, actually, he’d evolved on it a while ago. The press nodded in approval, said “well that’s quite admirable,” and it was out of the news in a week.
3) Coincidentally, a number of years ago, that same politician disavowed his association with a man who he previously said had been perhaps the most influential person in his life, who had formed both his family and himself, and who had inspired the title of his autobiography. Interestingly enough, I don’t recall that that politician *ever* disavowed any of those *past* years of influence, (“I listened to him for years, yes, but internally I was shaking my head the whole time…”) – only that he suddenly decided he didn’t agree anymore with the man’s views. The press approved, said, “well that’s all very reasonable,” and moved on with talking glowingly about that politician’s mainstream character. If we’re going to discuss Paul Ryan in Randian terms now, does that mean Wright is back in play?
August 16th, 2012 | 7:02 am
Botolph
“a privileged expression of the Natural Law” Indeed, but “privileged” is doing a lot of work here.
As Pascal says, ““Men admit that justice does not consist in these customs, but that it resides in natural laws, common to every country. They would certainly maintain it obstinately, if reckless chance which has distributed human laws had encountered even one which was universal; but the farce [la plaisanterie] is that the caprice of men has so many vagaries that there is no such law Theft, incest, infanticide, parricide, have all had a place among virtuous actions.”
He says, too, “Thus, without Scripture, which has only Jesus Christ for its object, we know nothing and see only obscurity and confusion in God’s nature and ours.”
Of course, the great outlines of Natural Law are clear enough, like Ulpian’s little list in the Digest [1.1.10.2] “Live uprightly, do not harm anyone, give to each his due.” It is when we come down to specifics that the trouble starts.
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