Ayn Rand Worship: A Modern Religion?

[Boojatta]

What percentage of self-identified "Objectivists" are in fact simply people who worship Ayn Rand? Is it possible that the answer is somewhere between 80 percent and 99.9 percent?

[Poppyseedman]

1. The answer is "zero"

because that would be diametrically opposite what an "Objectivists" believes.

Objectivism is a philosophy, not a religion.

Read at least one of her books, even if you idealogical opposed to her philosophy, it's good to understand what they believe.

[xchrom]

4. would cult make you feel better?

[Poppyseedman]

11. They do not meet the definitions of a "cult"

Cults need a "god"

Objectivism is for young impressible men who fancy themselves the harborers of future great businessman until reality hits them in the face.

Very few can stomach unrestrained capitalism without moral parameters, which what "Objectivism" is boiled down to it's core.

[acmejack]

14. Interesting, online dictionary defines it thusly

Cult (kŭlt)
n.
1.a. A religion or religious sect generally considered to be extremist or false, with its followers often living in an unconventional manner under the guidance of an authoritarian, charismatic leader.
b. The followers of such a religion or sect.
2. A system or community of religious worship and ritual.
3. The formal means of expressing religious reverence; religious ceremony and ritual.
4. A usually nonscientific method or regimen claimed by its originator to have exclusive or exceptional power in curing a particular disease.
5.a. Obsessive, especially faddish, devotion to or veneration for a person, principle, or thing.
b.The object of such devotion.
6.An exclusive group of persons sharing an esoteric, usually artistic or intellectual interest.

dictionary

[Boojatta]

20. What is the difference between a philosophy and a religion?

Read at least one of her books, even if you idealogical opposed to her philosophy, it's good to understand what they believe.

Had her books been somewhat different, would her followers believe something somewhat different? In other words, do her followers at some point make a decision to accept everything that is written in her books, including things that they have not yet read?

My question is more about people who consider themselves to be "Objectivists" than about the books that those people read.

[bambo53]

2. Described as what?

How would you describe an Ayn Rand worshiper?

[neoblues]

3. What drives a person to think like that...

sick and twisted minds... seems like a mental illness along the same lines as the Republicanism mental illness (Political Conservatism as Motivated Social Cognition)

[Imagine My Surprise]

5. Total denial mind-set...I once had a date with one...

he believed that people were poor because they CHOSE to be poor. When I cited the most recent of countless studies indicating a clear bias against African Americans in their attempts to secure home/auto loans, he typically said he just didn't believe that to be true. And typically, this was NOT a "stupid" person. He was quite, otherwise, intelligent.

[Burma Jones]

9. A Real Objectivist would assert that one reason government exists

is to mediate arguments and that a victim of this discrimination would need to approach the government for redress.

I do believe that some people choose to be poor, they have other priorities, don't want to enter the rat race etc. Others just don't know what to do.

We have also become a society that will not support the "un-remarkable", you know, folks that just want to go do something mindless for 8 hours a day and then get on with their lives and yet still live a decent middle class life, we don't really play that any more....

[neoblues]

17. Yet, even mindless work is work...

it takes effort (often considerably more) and time (consumes an equivalent percentage of the person's life) and may be in a harsher work environment, have less job security, and usually involves poorer treatment, and so on. Therefore, it should pay a living wage.

Our society is, as you say, not paying enough to live a decent middle class life for such labor; but actually, it's not even paying that basic 'living wage' (as defined as being sufficient to provide food, clothes, shelter and basic medical care).

Many who appear not to have 'chosen' to get ahead, who are still working for poverty level wages, simply can't find opportunities for better pay and either don't have the time or energy (not everyone is truly robust and capable of full time work, life and part-time education as well) to develop enhanced skills outside the workplace (assuming there even is an opportunity for them that they can afford which would provide such additional training). Depending on where you live and what your life experience has provided (or not), getting ahead in life can be surprisingly difficult.

In my own work I've known large numbers of people whose parents paid for their college, yet they feel as though they've raised themselves up by their own boot straps. To a far smaller degree, I've encountered people who did the very difficult task of putting themselves through college, sometimes as full-time students while struggling to maintain full-time jobs. Surprisingly, of the two groups, it was this group that didn't brag about pulling themselves up; but it was difficult to say the least--they had to live on next to nothing (most of them). Still, they had both the personal wherewithal, fortitude and ambition to do it and they also had the opportunity--they were lucky enough to get the college loans, lucky enough to live near junior colleges or state universities and so on. Some folks out there simply don't have access to, don't know how to find or simply wouldn't be personally able to take advantage of such a difficult set of opportunities. Of course, and alas, there are some who wouldn't be willing to work that hard even though they might be able to.

Regardless, a person's hard work and precious living time should be worth enough to cover the basics. Of course, even those who have failed to apply themselves well should not starve; even if a person doesn't feel they deserve it, for the sake of society we should ensure people aren't starving to death or dying from exposure to the elements. Some level of charity is required...

My personal opinions continue with the final proposition that (a) if you were born with the same genetics/body, and (b) faced the same obstacles and experience the same difficult environment (both substandard opportunities, discrimination as well as higher prevalence of corrupting influences/tempations to make the wrong choice), it's my guess that you'd turn out exactly like the original person. That is to say, if you walked a lifetime in their bodies, you'd be them (as opposed to a mile in their shoes with your own mind). Of course, that smacks of determinism and infers that 'free choice' is but a complex illusion. Go figure, but if that's the case, then those who have it well are all the more morally responsible for helping those facing adversity, for but for the grace of random chance (or God), there go they.

[CatholicEdHead]

13. Same here, she thought ALL lazy people were "Communists"

[neoblues]

18. Strange notion...

though, Communism (or Socialism), if done right (if the people were free from the corruption of human nature), would provide for all members... There being no rich and no poor and to each according to their need and from each according to their abilities. Alas, we've seen what happens when a population of humans attempts utopian ideals; seems the best we can do is do the best we can. (how eloquent? okay, okay, maybe not)

[Finder]

21. This is a misrepresentation. n/t

[CatholicEdHead]

22. Yet that is what my ex-girlfriend actually said

before plugging Rand's books to me.

[Tandalayo_Scheisskopf]

6. There are stories from the old days...

Of people in the original objectivist circle who were known for strange behaviors, like dressing up wierdly and whatnot. When I hear what passes for logic from some of them, I get the feeling it is more about their enthrallment with that crazy White Russian bint and the fictitional John Galt.

It is interesting, however, that certain movements with their provenance in the 50s, like Objectivism and The John Birch Society, seem to have reached primacy of their ideas now.

[Imagine My Surprise]

7. That's an interesting observation...

god forbid if you're right.;-)

[Imagine My Surprise]

8. and that fact that her biggest disciple ultimately debunked her...

would naturally have no more bearing than when Madeline Murray O'Hara's son bebunked her and became a born-again Christian.

[Finder]

10. Silly, most do not even understand the philosophy she...

promoted. Rand is like Darwin--everyone knows the name, but rarely do they read or try to understand what was written. Ironically, both wrote from their own observations. Rand went further by applying those observations into fictional circumstances to make it more understandable to the average person.

This is similar to the way fundies accuse evolutionists of worshipping Darwin.

[TallahasseeGrannie]

12. I have heard of her

but know nothing about her and never read her books. Am I fortunate?

[charlie]

15. Yes, you are

Mean, pinched writer expressing her mean, pinched philosophy in a series of turgid, cardboard-charactered books. If you live to be 1000, 5 minutes wasted on Ayn Rand would be too dear.

[varkam]

23. Incredibly fortunate.

I wrote a paper during my sophomore year in college entitled "Ayn Rand Will Eat Your Children" - if that doesn't give you a good sense of what I think of her, then maybe nothing will. My big beef with her was her adherence to the philosophy of ethical egoism. Ethical egoism holds that people who behave altrusitically are beneath contempt as they are robbing other individuals of their self-worth. You know, it's a good chunk of the conservative doctrine when it comes to social issues.

[TallahasseeGrannie]

24. blech

[undergroundpanther]

16. objectivism is a cult of personality

http://world.std.com/~mhuben/critobj.html

[NAO]

19. Nathaniel Branden, once "The Chosen" of Ayn Rand, now apostate

has done many excellent pieces on Rand and the Objectivist movement.

It is definitely a cult; Rand herself claimed to value reason above all else but when some evidence or argument contradicted one of her cherished "basic premises" she would become enraged and refuse to consider that she had been wrong.

Just Google "Branden Hazards Benefits Ayn Rand" and you will find his articles.

[Boojatta]

25. What kind of Objectivity is this? Words from some "Objectivists"...

Are you interested in who said what? Check the links for that information.

From: "Territorial Limits For Non-Objectivists In OO.net?"

I think calling it a subforum for "Advanced Members" is better than calling it "Objectivists Only." My concern is that the latter might be misinterpreted by Objectivist newbies as meaning that such members postings somehow qualify as "official Objectivist doctrine."

The real difficulty is judging who is an Objectivist and who is not.

http://forum.objectivismonline.net/index.php?showtopic=5271

From: "Debater Criteria"

An Objectivist is someone who, as far as he has studied and understood it, agrees 100% with Objectivism, that is, with every element -- concept, principle, theory, branch -- of Objectivism, which is the philosophy that Ayn Rand created and published, both in her formal writings and in her lectures.

At some point, a moderator or topic-participant must make a decision. We cannot fall into the trap of Platonizing Skepticism: The belief that we cannot perfectly understand the perfect Form of a thing, so all we can do is just shrug: "Who knows?"

Yes, there are some confusing or borderline cases, but in my experience in this forum, such cases are very rare. And even then, they can usually be solved by asking simple questions of the suspected non-Objectivist. The most obvious question to ask is: "Mr. X, are you an Objectivist?" Another one is: "What is your purpose in participating in this forum (or topic or debate)?"

I think it would promote efficiency if some Objectivist members with a thorough knowledge of Objectivism devised an organized checklist of these elements so that each potential debater could merely quote the list and then add his (dis)agreement and understanding in his reply. Since your knowledge of Objectivism is much more thorough than mine, I am curious if you could forecast accurately how long such a task, done properly, might take for a very knowledgeable person(s) to complete.

I can offer an informed guesstimate (based on years of estimating writing, editing, and other publication projects). I would say: Several thousand hours, in other words, a full "man year." The project would be huge, if it is to be complete in its first draft.

Writing a list would be easier than writing a coherent book (because the issue of presentation would be minimal), but it would still take thousands of hours of labor, at least.

http://forum.objectivismonline.net/index.php?showtopic=5177

From: "Forum Atmosphere"

A particular member who used to post here quite frequently but doesn't any more, and friend of mine, often comments on the difference in atmosphere's between this forum and "THE FORUM."

I like the fact that there is no dictator type here deciding which post will stand and which ones get sent back.

The dictator type moderator will tend to form a group of supporters who he will allow to post just about anything they want in any way they want. Then when an outsider comes along and disagrees with the clique the outsider's posts get the heavy hand of the law. In other words a double standard is applied.

This forum, based on my limited experience, does not appear to be run that way. So far so good -- keep up the good work!

Just for the public record, did you mean to say that THE FORUM is run by a "dictator?" No need to elaborate on why or how or validate your claim, I just want to know what your claim is. Anything beyond a "yes" or "no" answer will be deleted, as well as any more discussion publicly evaluating any other forum besides this one.

Furthermore, I want to make it clear that no one has asked for anyone to evaluate other forums, you did this on your own and now I ask that you come out and say exactly who it is you're evaluating, since you've already underhandedly done so. Your evaluation is yours and yours alone, and you will be judged accordingly.

Though the more frequent posters have no monopoly on intellectual accomplishment, they have had, more often than not, more time to study and understand Objectivism, and since this is why we are all here, new members like myself should pay attention to not only their answers, but also the instances when they remarked negatively about a post. In these cases I find it wiser to re-read and try to check the premises of the poster to see if I can find for myself what has elicited such a response.

As a writer, I am concerned that I may need to try addressing two audiences at once, an Objectivist audience and a non-Objectivist audience.

One approach I am considering taking, whenever I have doubts about the other participant's philosophy, is to always ask him whether he is an Objectivist. Ideally, I realize now, everyone's Viewing Profile should indicate whether he is an Objectivist, at least indirectly. Unfortunately, most Viewing Profiles are worthless for this purpose. They contain no information -- direct or indirect -- about the member's philosophy.

Since I began participating in ObjectivismOnline.net (and now only one other Objectivist forum), I have assumed: The burden of proof that a particular member is qualified to participate here is on the participant not on the moderators.

I have often wondered if the administrators of ObjectivismOnline.net see themselves, at least implicitly, as judges in a criminal trial. Besides being objective, judges must be fair.

Fairness is appropriate in a courtroom, but very few places elsewhere in life.

I am not saying that non-Objectivists should be excluded. To the contrary, I hope that this forum welcomes a few non-Objectivists as participants, but only under rigidly controlled conditions (...) and only when they identify themselves as non-Objectivists.

He kept offering refutations to what people were saying, and eventually he was banned. Maybe it's because I haven't studied as deep as some of the moderators, but I saw value in every one of his posts to the end, and then he was banned. There have been a few other posts with similar results where the guy who came out on the wrong side of the argument was banned. I think, for someone like me who reads about 50x more than I post, that is a huge discouragement, especially to a student.

It is in the nature of students to make mistakes, and when they arrive to a conclusion, try to back it up. Students here, who come to a conclusion that is a mistake in the eyes of Objectivism, and try to back it up, are banned. True students are in search of the truth, and they are open minded. They understand that they can be wrong, as long as you show them how they are wrong, then they can get back to fixing the problem.

I understand that it is very possible that I just need to study it more for everything to make sense. However, right now I tend to think that I don't agree with everything on here because I believe that ARI, like all organizations, has a central motive behind it that might distort their own interpretation of Ayn Rand's writing. I might be completely off (and) I certainly don't want to spread anything that is anti-Ayn Rand, or anti-ARI (...)

http://forum.objectivismonline.net/index.php?showtopic=5374

[NMMNG]

26. The Unlikeliest Cult in History

snip

But if you leave the "religious" component out of the definition, thus broadening the word's usage, it becomes clear that Objectivism was (and is) a cult, as are many other, non-religious groups. In this context, then, a cult may be characterized by:

-Veneration of the Leader: Excessive glorification to the point of virtual sainthood or divinity.
-Inerrancy of the Leader: Belief that he or she cannot be wrong.
-Omniscience of the Leader: Acceptance of beliefs and pronouncements on virtually all subjects, from the philosophical to the trivial.
-Persuasive Techniques: Methods used to recruit new followers and reinforce current beliefs.
-Hidden Agendas: Potential recruits and the public are not given a full disclosure of the true -nature of the group's beliefs and plans.
-Deceit: Recruits and followers are not told everything about the leader and the group's inner circle, particularly flaws or potentially embarrassing events or circumstances.
-Financial and/or Sexual Exploitation: Recruits and followers are persuaded to invest in the group, and the leader may develop sexual relations with one or more of the followers.
-Absolute Truth: Belief that the leader and/or group has a method of discovering final knowledge on any number of subjects.
-Absolute Morality: Belief that the leader and/or the group have developed a system of right and wrong thought and action applicable to members and nonmembers alike. Those who strictly follow the moral code may become and remain members, those who do not are dismissed or punished.

snip


Much, much more:

http://www.2think.org/02_2_she.shtml

[Boojatta]

27. Three Commandments of Ayn Rand Worship?

First Commandment: Put all your heart into your role in the economy. Spare nothing for family life, hobbies, social life, volunteering, philanthropy, etc. The amount of money you make measures your virtue. What you do with the money is completely irrelevant. However, money is just a tool or vehicle. It won't replace you as the driver, but it will measure all dimensions of your worth as a human being.

Second Commandment: You shall oppose any government attempt to go beyond its proper functions: using violence, making threats, and figuring out the appropriate threats or violence in a given situation. Threats and violence are the only way that governments can prevent, halt, or deter violations of your rights. One of your rights is the right to maliciously torture dogs, cats, and chimpanzees just for the fun of it, provided that you bought the animals. The reason animals have no rights whatsoever is that animals don't understand the rational language of threats. Animals only understand violence.

Third Commandment: Be a creator. The creator builds tools. The parasite decides what the tools will be used for. Von Braun created the V2 rocket for the Nazis. Maybe you can be like Von Braun. The only other choice is to become a Nazi.