It has gotten back to me that my ambivalent approval of some elements of Ayn Rand's work may not have been ambivalent enough for some. Along those lines, I think it may be useful to offer readers a chance to see what John Piper has written on the topic. Here's a clip:
To this day, I find her writings paradoxically attractive. I am a Christian Hedonist. This is partly why her work is alluring to me. She had her own brand of hedonism. It was not traditional hedonism that says whatever gives you pleasure is right. Hers was far more complex than that. It seems so close and yet so far to what I find in the Bible . . .
Cogent Christian responses to Ayn Rand are few. Positive Christian assessments are almost non-existent. I aim for this treatment to be both Christian and primarily positive, even though Ayn Rand was an atheist and outspokenly anti-Christian. I trust I will be forgiven the presumption of stepping outside my own specialty: My field is neither literary criticism nor philosophy but biblical, theological and pastoral. I write this because I take pleasure in extending to others the delight I have had in learning from Ayn Rand.
If Rand were an obscure figure your ambivalence would not be problematic. Her thought and influence, however, is a cancer that is spreading throughout conservative Christianity. Again: Anathema!
Posted by: sdf | April 30, 2011 at 01:40 PM
SDF: Instead of simply whining "anathema" in the forlorn and unrequited hope that others will simply take you at your word, why don't you try expressing your misgivings and conflicts more fully? (And more graciously!) I've been reading John Piper's writings for years. I know him to be a profoundly wise and Christian leader. If you want to disagree with him, fine. If you want me to actually pay attention then you need to give me a reason to do so.
Posted by: Richard Boyd | April 30, 2011 at 02:55 PM
Reading Rand and other atheists is like reading the output of the infernal university where they are busy figuring out what God meant by love.
This does not mean that these people are or should be there but some of the flavor of that university certainly gets channeled.
A wonderful illustration of rationalistic approach to Love from this book " Love, Human and Divine" by EC Vacek
This is from the chapter titled Eros
"The father who lovingly encourages his children's education genuinely wants their advancement; but his love is eros if he would cut off support when "parenting" no longer brings him satisfaction."
Posted by: Gian | May 02, 2011 at 02:20 AM
Rand is an inevitable consequence of Adam Smith,
Edward Skidelsky in First Things May 2011 has an important article.
Some excerpts:
A bridle-maker, to use Aristotle’s example, aims at ease and agility in the cavalryman, the cavalryman at victory in war, and victory in war at the freedom and glory of the polis. (compare Adam Smith's baker --my note).
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The ancient vision of the polity as a teleologically ordered whole, in which the public good is not just the product but the ultimate end of private actions
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In a society so conceived, the avaricious man is an outsider, for his actions, even if they happen to further the common good, do not in any sense aim at that good, but only at his own enrichment. He is a permanent potential subversive, if not an actual criminal. To the extent that the spirit of avarice and luxury prevails in a nation, patriotism and virtue will wither away
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And later:
The public good was no longer an end but an effect, no longer something to be aimed at but merely engineered.
Self-love,” originally an Augustinian term of opprobrium, was transformed by Rousseau, and Smith following him, into a neutral term designating a natural regard for one’s own welfare.
Adam Smith uses the word Avarice only six times in the whole of The Wealth of Nations, and then only in connection with specific misdeeds such as theft or debasing the coinage, or with foolish, self-defeating conduct. When referring to the motive underlying ordinary economic activity, he uses the colorless term “interest.”
The phasing-out of “avarice” and related terms—a process substantially completed by the time The Wealth of Nations appeared in 1776—had the effect of stripping economic activity of its ethical character, of rendering it morally indifferent. Legal infractions such as theft and fraud were still censored, of course, but not as expressions of the acquisitive drive so much as breaches of general principles of justice
What were the deeper ethical implications of this revolution in economic attitudes? Aquinas, recall, had condemned acts of avarice as bad in themselves, regardless of their “ultimate intention” or their expected but unintended consequences. Sacking a loyal worker to increase profits is wrong, even if done with the aim of amassing funds for charity and in expectation of future benefits to society.
From the new perspective, however, all expected consequences of the sacking—whether intended proximately, ultimately, or not at all—contribute equally to its ethical value. What matters is the aggregate. So long as our employer can expect any suffering caused by his action to be outweighed by its indirect social benefits, he has nothing to reproach himself with. Responsibility for promoting the good has been shifted onto an impersonal causal mechanism. He is free to pursue his own interest—legally, of course, and within the framework of a properly functioning market economy.
This new method of moral reckoning was to become famous as utilitarianism, but is more aptly called (in a term coined by G. E. M. Anscombe) consequentialism. For what was crucial was not the stress on utility or happiness—that, after all, had been central to many ancient ethical theories—but the insistence on pooling or aggregating all the expected consequences of an action. Utilitarianism was just one of many species of consequentialism, though always the dominant one. If consequentialism holds that the moral value of an act is determined by the sum of its expected consequences, utilitarianism adds that the only relevant consequences are pleasures and pains
In suggesting that consequences might in some cases be aggregated, Smith and Hume had hit upon a principle of universal application, ready to burst the bounds within which their own good sense confined it. Utilitarianism swiftly evolved into a comprehensive system of normative ethics, applicable not just to economic but to all human acts.
The discipline of economics has long since severed ties with utilitarianism in its classical, Benthamite form. The maximand is no longer conceived as a distinct mental state but as the satisfaction of preferences or the realization of certain “capacities.” Nonetheless, the consequentialism in utilitarianism—the insistence on pooling the various consequences of an act, regardless of their intentional status—remains integral to any form of economic analysis
Posted by: Gian | May 02, 2011 at 07:08 AM
I read nothing in what Piper wrote that in any way makes me think more of Rand. It did, however, lead me to think less of Piper.
Posted by: GL | May 02, 2011 at 09:12 AM
I read Atlas Shrugged as a forty-year-old. It was a pretty good read--Rand has some mythmaking chops. I put down the book and thought, "wow, this is powerful.' I went about in hazy exaltation for about twenty minutes. And then the absurdity of the whole thing struck me and I laughed.
Posted by: MargaretD | May 02, 2011 at 09:59 PM
I would point out that merely reading an author is not negative, and it is often necessary to actually read someone's work in order to engage it one way or another. I find it odd that people who would avoid a particular author on the grounds that it is "not Christian" have no problem with Aristotle or Plato. I am not even remotely familiar with Rand's writings, but if it as universally influential as people are saying, perhaps more Christians should be reading it.
Posted by: Robert Espe | May 05, 2011 at 10:32 AM
What "universally influential" people? I imagine that there are just as many on the other side who advise Christians to avoid her like the plague.
Posted by: Rob G | May 05, 2011 at 04:27 PM
When I was much younger during the mid 1980's, I read nearly all of Ayn Rand's essays, novels and even some of the Ayn Rand Letters available during this time period. I agreed with nearly everything she wrote; agreed with her Aristotle inspired form of objectivist philosophy, and for many years I was a libertarian style Republican ... But much later, as I grew older, I began to question a great deal of her philosophy on empirical grounds ...
One of her essays "Apollo and Dionysus" exemplifies some of the underlying conflicts I now find in her philosophy. In this essay, contrasts are made between the Apollo program and the Woodstock festival of 1969. In short, the Apollo 11 moon landing, which could only be achieved through the primacy of objective scientific thought and reason, is contrasted against the mindless, emotionalism of the Woodstock rock festival and Vietnam war. The Apollo scientists and astronauts are depicted as heroes just as the rock festival at Woodstock is portrayed a mindless mob of collectivist ideals ...
I agree with her judgement; but Ayn Rand has a problem here ... The Apollo moon program was one of the largest governmental, civilian programs in history costing billions of tax-payer dollars, while the Woodstock festival was effectively a free-market libertarian affair during which free, peaceably-minded individuals chose to behave in any manner they saw fit. Her criticism of Woodstock is warranted, in my mind, but this essay demonstrates how her deductive logic and customary hatred of government can conflict with her own carefully drawn conclusions about the real world ...
One is tempted to say..."Well she made one mistake...," but if she can be inconsistent here, what other mistakes can she make ? In my mind, she has made a great many inconsistent arguments, especially about the voluntary donation of taxes and the necessity of maintaining a military force to fight Soviet aggression and the spread of communism during the Cold War. In an all-out fight against another world superpower, donations simply don't cut it... At times, it has seemed as if she wants to have her cake and eat it too ...
Fundamentally, I think my opinion of Ayn Rand has changed due to the following: To paraphrase Ayn Rand; within the context of her novels (she) "...wrote about the world as it should and ought to be --- not as it actually was." The problem is that her version of how the world "should and out to be" can depart so far from empirically objective reality (the real world) that, at times, her extremely idealized and novelized version of the world can resemble a fairy tale, or worse, a comic book ... This is no longer objective reality ...
I still believe in her basic premise that all reality behaves in a fundamentally objective manner. I agree with much of Aristotelian philosophy and logic, but my opinion of Ayn Rand objectivism has changed over the years. I now find inconsistencies where I once saw logical and thoughtful arguments. I now find many of Ayn Rand's conclusions not in agreement with empirical and objective reality. I find her idealized versions of humanity (both good and evil) to be caricatures of humanity and it's truly complex nature. I have changed since I first read Ayn Rand and it has made me a more complex and, in my mind, a more thoughtful person ...
Posted by: Daniel Gray | August 21, 2011 at 09:25 AM