Ayn Rand: Paradox, Paradox, Paradox, Irony, Irony, Irony.

Self centredness gets a blank cheque from Ayn Rand. 

And the values and happiness of others? That's supposed to
come out in  the libertarian wash! (or mangle!)

A necessary condition, perhaps, but
not a sufficient condition

One of my sons recently read Ayn Rand's Atlas Shrugged. He then circulated an email describing his reactions to the book. The notes below are my response to his email. Up to that point I had vaguely associated Rand's name with the extreme libertarian right and knew little else about her. But after just a little study it becomes clear how well her world view fits in with the current Trumptarian and right-wing shift we are seeing in the West. The libertarian right rail against the spectre of socialist government control just as Marxists rail against the self same government, claiming it to be a ruling clique who govern in the interests of the bourgeoisie and act as protector of their property rights. Both parties make loud claims to being the champion of freedom bent on ending oppressive government control. Both parties hold suspicions that the governments of the free market democracies are manipulative Machiavellian institutions with ulterior motives which favour either socialist control of the market (according to the libertarians) or preserving the power of the propertied classes (according to Marxists).  Both parties are fertile ground for collective paranoia and conspiracy theorism. Both parties feed off the disaffection resulting of the downsides of free-market democracy.  These downsides attract the authoritarian solutions of idealists like running sores attract flies. For the implicit logic of both Marxism and anarchic libertarianism, if allowed to run their full course, eventually leads to the insular dictatorships needed to implement and enforce an unadulterated form of their artificial & toy-town visions of how a society should operate; they will not come about except via the application of coercion.

 Read this to mean: "If you are in favour of one-person one-vote
you are voting for government and therefore you are a 
 crypto-communist! 
Don't vote; make way for the power law plutocrats!"

I used to think of myself as a fan of free market capitalism. But now the concept of the free market has been blighted by its association with the alt-right, an unholy blend of Trumpkins, quasi-anarchists, Christian fundamentalists, conspiracy theorists and quasi-fascists all of whom have reason to be disaffected with the Western free market democracies and seek to bring about radical change. Disaffection may lead to revolution which in turn leads to instability and unrest; fertile ground for the accession of a dictatorship.  

=====================

I haven’t studied Rand closely, so for the present purposes it will have to suffice to selectively quote from Rand’s Wiki pages and hope this will give us at least an approximation of her outlook. In the following quote the emphases are mine. According to Wiki, for Rand.....

……the proper moral purpose of one's life is the pursuit of one's own happiness (rational self-interest), that the only social system consistent with this morality is one that displays full respect for individual rights embodied in laissez-faire capitalism,….

Academic philosophers have mostly ignored or rejected Rand's philosophy. Nonetheless, Objectivism has been a significant influence among libertarians and American conservatives. The Objectivist movement, which Rand founded, attempts to spread her ideas to the public and in academic settings.

In ethics, Rand argued for rational and ethical egoism (rational self-interest), as the guiding moral

Wrong on all counts it would seem!
No (wo)man is an island.

principle. She said the individual should "exist for his own sake, neither sacrificing himself to others nor sacrificing others to himself". She referred to egoism as "the virtue of selfishness" in her book of that title, in which she presented her solution to the is-ought problem by describing a meta-ethical theory that based morality in the needs of "man's survival qua man". She condemned ethical altruism as incompatible with the requirements of human life and happiness, and held that the initiation of force was evil and irrational, writing in Atlas Shrugged that "Force and mind are opposites."

Rand's political philosophy emphasized individual rights (including property rights), and she considered laissez-faire capitalism the only moral social system because in her view it was the only system based on the protection of those rights.

She opposed statism, which she understood to include theocracy, absolute monarchy, Nazism, fascism, communism, democratic socialism, and dictatorship. Rand believed that natural rights should be enforced by a constitutionally limited government. Although her political views are often classified as conservative or libertarian, she preferred the term "radical for capitalism". She worked with conservatives on political projects, but disagreed with them over issues such as religion and ethics. She denounced libertarianism, which she associated with anarchism. She rejected anarchism as a naïve theory based in subjectivism that could only lead to collectivism in practice.

…..she also found early inspiration in Friedrich Nietzsche, and scholars have found indications of his influence in early notes from Rand's journals, in passages from the first edition of We the Living (which Rand later revised), and in her overall writing style. However, by the time she wrote The Fountainhead, Rand had turned against Nietzsche's ideas, and the extent of his influence on her even during her early years is disputed.

I don’t agree with Rand’s take on epistemology or her concept of rationalism (these are explained elsewhere on Wiki) but that isn’t what I want to critique here. In this commentary I shall focus on her rational and ethical egoism.

Going on what little I know of Atlas Shrugged, then while it’s not conspiracy theorism per see I suspect that it may help contribute to the paranoiac and suspicious moods which are pre-conditions for conspiracy theorism. Here’s a quote from the Wiki page on Atlas Shrugged:

Rand's heroes continually oppose "parasites", "looters", and "moochers" who demand the benefits of the heroes' labor. Edward Younkins describes Atlas Shrugged as "an apocalyptic vision of the last stages of conflict between two classes of humanity—the looters and the non-looters. The looters are proponents of high taxation, big labor, government ownership, government spending, government planning, regulation, and redistribution". [Well, surprise me! – TVR]

"Looters" are Rand's depiction of bureaucrats and government officials, who confiscate others' earnings by the implicit threat of force ("at the point of a gun"). Some officials execute government policy, such as those who confiscate one state's seed grain to feed the starving citizens of another; others exploit those policies, such as the railroad regulator who illegally sells the railroad's supplies for his own profit. Both use force to take property from the people who produced or earned it.

"Moochers" are Rand's depiction of those unable to produce value themselves, who demand others' earnings on behalf of the needy, but resent the talented upon whom they depend, and appeal to "moral right" while enabling the "lawful" seizure by governments.

Consumer choices are not  the only decisions about a
society which can be made.

Perhaps the book was very original in its day but today it’s a cliché to the point of being passé. Here we see all the things right wing partisans hate: taxation, central planning, big government, wealth redistributors, welfare dependents and even, it seems, those who are unfortunate enough to find themselves in circumstances which prevent them from being productive etc. Atlas Shrugged portrays government as the champion of the lazy, the talent-less and the parasites. Government, therefore, is a kind of conspiracy to defraud the hard working clever wealth producing heroes of the rewards of their own ingenuity, drive and labour. It’s no surprise that the conspiracy theorist Glenn Beck is an admirer of Atlas Shrugged. Conspiracy theorism is a pathological world view - see here.  But all this hides paradox and irony as we shall see.

***

So with those initial comments in mind I can now turn to Philip’s email. I’ve quoted it below and have interleaved my comments:

As all of you have expressed an interest in hearing about my experience with Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand, or are 'read' individuals, or have already expressed an opinion on the novel, I thought I might as well email the group as a BCC. 

This allows me to be somewhat impersonal and not accidently point anything directly at anyone. In fact I would like to make this clear before I move on, this is an introspection, not a persuasion piece. I am just making statements, rather than asking questions.

I have gained some practical philosophy from this book, this is not a tear-down of Rand's work, and I do not dismiss this book as being truly toxic as I once thought. The caveat being though, you do need to handle it with care. It is easy to fall into it's snares which play upon human weaknesses. Going into this book with a working idea of philosophy protects the reader. Pretty much.

MY COMMENT: Well, for me this is going to be a tear down of Rand’s ideas, if not her book. More

The fertile ground for conspiracy theorism ... and
Christian fundamentalism. 

or less restating what I’ve already said: In Rand’s book the baddies of the piece are the scoundrels, leaches and parasites (and perhaps even the weak who have little choice but to be carried along on the backs of others), all of whom are supported and encouraged by Rand's' depiction of the government as parasite in chief. These are, according to Rand, to blame for the run down social malaise. If I am right in my assessment of the book then I’m not too surprised by the interest and admiration that the right wing conspiracy theorists have for this book. After all, what is grand conspiracy theorism but the belief that a well organised covert intelligentsia are in positions of control and are living at the expense of the rest of us i.e. as parasites? The popularity of Atlas Shrugged with the American right wing probably results of it comfortably resonating with their paranoid fantasies about a governmental “swamp” hiding the most evil of parasitic bureaucrats, bureaucrats who churn out “fake news” to deceive us about their intentions or even their very existence.

Overall I would not encourage anyone to read this novel upon the merits of its 'fame' or 'infamy'. The book is far too long, and uses its length to lull the reader into a vulnerable state - one in which it attempts to then sow seeds of hatred towards people you might see as being inept or inferior. Underneath the barrage of speeches, there is a rather basic story about success and wanting a sense of achievement and purpose.

MY COMMENT:  ".....one in which it attempts to then sow seeds of hatred towards people you might see as being inept or inferior". That’s just a little worrying.  What does one do with the inept, the inferior and ….the weak? That’s got a slightly musty smell about it which reminds me of prototypical social Darwinism, Nazism even. In Nazism’s interpretation of Nietzsche the Nazi leaders considered themselves as the ubermenschen, the superior class which do all the clever work and consider races like the Jews, Slavs and Blacks as all but subhuman. The latter were the untermenschen.

The abstract of 'wanting to achieve' is what keeps the plot going. It’s nice to read about trains, and cars, and machinery in a revered light for once rather than a negative one (pollution for example). I like engines and at a very base level, in the reptilian part of my brain, I like thinking about resources being used up. This book has a lot of that, the plot is about as advanced as scratching an itch. Rand tries to tap into that sense of subduing nature, not stewarding it. Flattening, concreting, commanding nature - rather than embracing it and being at one with it. It feels very Western, and Rand goes as far as to label anyone without this mechanical mind as a savage. We're talking full-on racist 'savage' use of the word here. 

MY COMMENT: Interesting: Are we seeing here the stereotypical masculine ubermenschen who are apt to subdue and exploit mother Gaia and her retinue of savages? I’m reminded of the polarised fault line we see in our society between the right wing who believe resources are for the taking and the left wing eco-warriors who oppose them.  Avatar was typical! It is very unlikely that the market, which tends to respond to signals from local conditions, is capable of addressing long view issues like climate change without the "eyes" of a "central processor" called government. (See here for more about the nature of the free market)

Atlas Shrugged comes across as a novel written by an adult with a child's brain, it has a rudimentary and narrow understanding of how the world works - this simple world is how she attempts to shoehorn her ideas into a 'believable' setting. To boil it down, only about three locations exist on Rand's map of the US in her mind and when forced to mention things outside of this scope the prose become quite vague. If this happens, then, all of a sudden, a character is quickly brought in and talks for 19 pages, leaving the reader to forget -where- they are on the map of the US. Locations are used as stages for the talking heads.

MY COMMENT: Rudimentary and narrow: Would you say that Atlas Shrugged is a world of heroes vs. villains? That is ubermenschen vs untermenschen? That's hardly a realistic vision of compromised human nature which is fifty shades of grey!

She kills people in her book in a way that a child plays with toys that die in a game of make believe. The toys of her narrative are stood up again and played with again, to aid a point. When I realised this is what she was doing, this child-like approach, the little straw dolls of her story are not something you can emotionally invest in because they are so basic. They have certain endearing characteristics to them, but its certainly the, 'aww she's trying so hard' feeling more than anything else.

I've taken away from this book a few ideas that certainly made me question myself. Rand points the finger of blame upon 'looters of the mind' and 'parasites' - which are basically people who take something from someone else without paying for it. The basic idea is that if you left the world to people like this, everything would collapse because they are 'unproductive' and just take from other people rather than make anything. The result being things just get stolen and no one is inventing anything, gathering resources or producing new things - just pure entropy.

No comment needed

MY COMMENT: Many on the American right would very likely identify Rand’s looters and parasites with the establishment “swamp” that Donald Trump wants to drain, perhaps also with the welfare seekers.  Finding a group on which one can pin the blame for one’s problems is classic Trumpism …. and classic Hitlerism.

Interesting you should mention entropy. As I have already proposed Rand’s ideas are part of a spectrum of ideas which shade through libertarianism into conspiracy theorism. She appears to be painting the parasites as a disordered and inchoate bunch…. and yet … and yet that would be far from the view of the Glen Becks of this world who have developed the idea that the parasites are part of well organised covert conspiracies that major in deception of the masses. And here’s the irony and paradox in Beck’s views and many other North American conspiracy theorists, right wingers and Christian fundamentalists: Well organised undercover conspirators would need to be clever enough and hardworking enough to have the potential to be the very opposite of lazy underachieving slouches. In fact they would have to have the very temperamental qualities which make up the self-serving ubermenschen and alpha males which Rand would praise as movers and shakers!

Compensation and payment is what sticks in my mind about this book, it’s a common thread throughout. This made me think about myself. 

At times I know that I have taken things from people and certainly not compensated them for it, emotionally and perhaps physically. Rand points out that this leaves a debt - and this is where I diverge from her ideas, as they then skew into pure fantasy. However, I am aware of how I have taken advantage of others in the past, and should be more mindful of asking for things. 

A practical example is with my daughter, I ask, and ask and ask her to do things of a morning when I need to get out of the house. I am only thinking of myself. She reacts by saying no. That is quite fair as I am trying to withdraw from her bank with no credit and no deposit. At no point during the morning had I ever 'paid' her in the coin she holds value in at this point in time - cuddles, love, attention, puzzles and horseplay. 

I changed this approach and instantly noticed a difference, thanks to what Rand pointed out. I pay Emily what she deserves, I always make our transactions fair and the result is a relationship where we both benefit and both respect each other. I'm sure this will change over time, but she seems to have a deep sense of fairness, so a balanced equation, a fair transaction, does not seem to cause an upset. I hasten to add, I can ONLY speak of her, not of all children. I have no data regarding all children - I have one data point. This is not advice to follow.

As for my friends and co-workers, I am trying to be more mindful of what I ask them to do for me. I am attempting to 'pay' without being asked, and only 'withdraw' when I have made a 'deposit'. In the field of my job, this has resulted in a lot less stress. I am more proactive, and this lead me into another point Atlas Shrugged has helped with.

MY COMMENT:  Here we have the core of the Rand paradox.

Potential contradiction alert!

A social system which displays full respect for individual rights cannot, with stability, be based on a self-serving rational egoism because social systems inevitably contain implicit potential conflicts of interest; “moral” rules are needed for resolving the deadlocks which result of competing claims on resources. Rand demands that the ubermensch neither sacrifice themselves to others nor conversely sacrifice others to themselves. This generates a paradox when facing competing interests. For when faced with an conflict of interest do the Rand players......

a) Attempt to take us much for themselves as possible (i.e. sacrifice others for themselves)?

b) Give way to others? (i.e. sacrifice themselves to others)

c) Come to some kind of sharing arrangement.  (i.e. mutual sacrifice; reciprocity)

Randians can’t choose c) because this entails sacrifice on the part of all players! But then a) & b) also entail sacrifice on the part of one party or another. Hence because Rand’s moral criterion blocks sacrifice, her self-serving class of ubermenschen would naturally lead to deadlocks resulting of competing claims on resources. Society would either lock up like a badly programmed computer or, more likely, descend into hatred, violence and barbarism.

Rand portrays the looters as parasitic. But let’s recall that successful and clever spiv parasitism is a viable survival niche for the appropriately gifted. And who are more suitably gifted for such a role than the assertive group of unbermenschen with their rational egoism which allows them to serve self with untroubled conscience? They have the ability to exploit the population by underhand means, thereby effectively undermining the individual rights of those they exploit. This, I suggest, is the most likely solution to the Randian deadlock; it’s the path of least resistance for the rational egoist.

Production is a key point of the book, and a phrase that is drilled into the reader as being VERY bad is 'Its not my fault, it was out of my control, it can't be helped'. Rand identifies these people as the parasites, as the feeble minded, dumb and incapable.

Has she ever heard or reciprocity? 

MY COMMENT: As I have already said, good parasites are clever, hardworking, if immoral operators; they have found a successful niche of exploitation that may bring them riches. They are hardly dumb. If they can successfully shift the blame for parasitic culpability from themselves to some kind of scapegoat (Remind you of anyone?) that is a pretty smart "ethical" move from the point of view of self-centred rational egoism. If anything, from the perspective of the successful parasitic rational egoist, the exploited untermenschen are the suckers. Rand and her alt-right admirers may not see it but clever parasitism is the implicit logic of Randism, a logic which ultimately favours those who are quite capable of putting themselves first when it comes to conflicts of interest with other feeling beings and doing it with a clear conscience. If the ubermensch can exploit their fellow humans and successfully cover it up, that makes them pretty smooth (albeit immoral) operators. However, the way Rand and the alt-right spin things it makes it look as though those who thrust themselves forward regardless of their fellow beings are the heroes!

Rand's objective was to make the reader agree with her, but what I take from the above mentality is to ask myself, 'Before I say I can't help, what can I do to help; what about emotional support?' and 'Can I get control of this and do good?' plus 'Have I helped enough, in every way I can?'. I reject Rand's view of the parasite and see everyone as differently minded, differently capable and on equal ground - hierarchies are good for organisation, but unhealthy for a person to judge others by. Socrates refuted that 'justice is the advantage of the stronger' and I agree with Socrates, it is an injustice to judge others by their strengths. To me, people are all differently strong.

MY COMMENT: The irony of Randism is its hidden logic whereby Randian self-serving parasites can perceive themselves as hardworking heroes and leaders. These are the very people Rand would praise as ubermenschen.  Rand should have factored in the egocentric fantasies to which the human mind so easily falls prey. When this happens the world is viewed through a filter of egotistical  and paranoid fantasies. E.g. Glenn Beck, Alex Jones, Barry Smith..

So armed with these questions I make sure that I don't fire off an email, or say something which defers blame, or be unproductive. Its even made me think twice about unproductive questions. These would be questions which do not help the other person move their idea or knowledge along. The sort of question that you ask because you actually don't want to think about the topic right now, but want to appear as if you are moving the conversation along. I feel that could be disingenuous, so if I do such a thing, and not think, Rand would agree that not thinking is a [paraphrased *ahem*] very bad idea. I need to think about what I ask more often, rather than just react.

MY COMMENT: Once again note the irony: Rand was herself, albeit implicitly, apportioning blame by pointing to a class of untermenschen as the cause of societal ills. In this connection it’s worth noting that people like Beck (and Trump) are first class blame game players.

The book used to be called 'The Strike' because of its topic being the 'great minds' of the world going on strike and refusing to be drained by the people who do not think. I have realised that I am also on strike.

I refuse to let the world dictate to me that my life is ranked, and use the world's measure of my success by my job title and how much I earn. That is in direct opposition to Rand's ideas on free enterprise, because I live to serve others, and I am on strike from what the world is telling me: I need respect and I need status. Categorically, no, I do not acknowledge that as a personal value. As I said before, my purpose in life is different, not better, not less than anyone else's. I won't say any more about this as it is a very lengthy topic, but I'm sure you get the idea. The concept of the 'strike' of the mind has been useful to define my own purpose.

The Sociopathic philosophy of Ayn Rand

MY COMMENT:  Rational egoism doesn’t require one to place much emphasis on taking into account the interests/rights of others; the interests of others, I think, are supposed to follow as a matter of course if the Randian players are being truly rational egoists. For Rand the ideally moral person is the go-getter where the individual rights of others are thought to take care of themselves if one is truly rational. Well, of course we know that this simply doesn’t work because in any real situation there is a potential for clashes of interest; situations where a self-based rationality doesn’t throw up clear answers. Thus, in any practical morality the interests of others has to be proactively pursued with the possibility that a sacrificial altruistic morality may have to be adopted in some circumstances. Moreover, human beings are aware of one another as centres of conscious cognition and any half decent person is unlikely to be indifferent to the needs, desires, motivations, hurts and feelings of others;  to expect humans to pursue their interests regardless of conflicts of interest just isn’t realistic. Although selfish acts abound in society there are also many acts of sacrificial “love” shown between humans; the very thing that Randian libertarianism despises.

Those who regard themselves as an innately superior class and hold an inflated opinion of their entitlement are well suited to be some of worst exploiters of them all. If these “ubermenschen” identify themselves with the Atlas Shrugged wealth producers and therefore deserving their wealth, it may not be a bad thing if they went on strike and got themselves out of the system!

The degenerates that Rand labels as such often spout the Straw Man 'I'm trying my best' and as a reader you're meant to be disgusted by their lack of abilities, as if it is their choice to 'not think' and 'not produce'. However, this poor attempt at making an abstract villain, to me it comes across as paper dolls DOING their best, not TRYING their best. Support and raising standards as a whole is what makes the world a better place, philanthropy is progress, not putting up a pay wall. Rand goes about proving the inverse of her philosophy to me by her own attempt to misrepresent the opposition.

Rand is not evil, her childhood was horrible, and she fought back the demons of her past with objectivity. The book is a rational response that got out of hand because it plays on the human weakness of wanting recognition. Those after her have picked it up and run a mile, forgetting that this concept works in a playpen, but not in a world as complex and as layered as our own.

As this email has run on, I shall draw this introspection to a close. If I have raised any questions, I will happily act as a forum for replies - keeping submissions anonymous. 

To conclude, Atlas Shrugged is a book I gave my time to and was rewarded by looking at how dark a shadow it casts; yet ultimately understanding more about the light in the world.

Phil

MY COMMENT: Yes, Rand has created the abstract baddie, a straw man which can then be readily identified with certain classes of “looser”, thereby offering a smug feel good factor for those who see themselves as part of the hero class. This draws attention away from what I have suggested is obvious; namely, that Rand’s “clever” hard working rational egoists are the very material which are readily suited to the role of super-parasites. Their self-centred ethic which sears conscience (as it did with the Nietzsche inspired Nazis) and their sense of entitlement makes them ideal exploiters. Deception and exploitation is one “solution” to the Randian resource deadlock. Nazism may not be explicit in Randism, but it is clearly on a similar evolutionary branch.

As you say our societal world is many layered, a system where politics, sociology and economics form a complex coupled triad, so complex and coupled that they are an organic whole. Market transactions are just one part of this complex system. Libertarian analysis is less a description of society than a prescription which aspires to seeing economic transactions as dominating the social process. In fact libertarians may see the transactional choices of the market as a form of democracy; a decisional process everyone can get involved in. Actually, I would accept that as true as far as it goes, but it is far from a sufficient form of democracy; it is just part of what ought to be a much bigger stage on which democracy needs be applied……

Market transactional decisions are made with only local conditions in mind, not global conditions. Those many decisions made on the basis of solving local problems have unforeseen consequences at the higher level, consequences which may include chaos, instability and a power law distribution of wealth favouring the emergence of a plutocratic autocratic elite (e.g. Donald Trump) and reactionary Marxist defectors and agitators. Like chess players the market players are consciously and democratically choosing the moves at the level of the point of sale but they don’t chose the total game; that will be a ramifying product which they will not consciously chose.

It is ironic that both libertarians and Marxists see government as the pantomime villain, the supporter, enabler even, of a parasitic class; the myths are too similar to be a coincidence. 

In the libertarian perspective government is seen, on the one hand, as controlling, regulating, taxing and generally ripping off the heroic entrepreneurial wealth creators and on the other hand protecting the government-supporting-socialist-slouches who are parasitic upon the heroes of the libertarian narrative. The irony is, as I have said, that such a clever parasitic government is unlikely to consist of the lazy losers but much more likely the rational egotistical ubermenschen with high capability, a class who have the potential to exploit with impunity. It’s no surprise that many in government are taken from the very high achieving entrepreneurial class, the class that Rand would admire.

Marxists see our current governmental system and the trappings of state as the means of protecting the wealth grabbing owning class and their property interests against the broad mass of heroic workers who are the real wealth generators. The entrepreneurial owning class are cast in the mould of exploiters and parasites. A Marxist state is regarded by classical Marxism as a temporary arrangement needed to uphold the dictatorship of the proletariat until the socialist revolution is complete; that revolution is considered complete when a classless society is achieved obviating the need for a state whose role, according to Marx, is to protect the interests of one class against another. 

***

Both Marxists and Libertarians think of themselves as ultimately wanting to minimise government if not do away with it altogether. So, on the one hand we have the Marxists who see government as the outcome of a class ridden system which seeks to protect the property rights of the owners of the means of production; the exploiters of the working class. On the other hand we have the libertarians who see government as the stamping ground of crypto-socialists who they think of as effectively exploiting the entrepreneurial class and draining  them with taxes and regulations.

And yet it is likely that the logic of both hard socialism and hard libertarianism drives them toward an enlargement of government, an enlargement needed to enforce and impose their pedigree vision on society. Like all pedigree breeds their respective visions for society are entirely artificial, unnatural  and pathological and can only be brought about by careful (and oppressive) dictatorial management.  As for the rank file I doubt they would notice much difference between the two kinds of dictatorship.

Rand, with her almost sociopathic version of the capitalism, has effectively handed hard socialism a strong argument against the free market.  As Paul Ryan has said in 2009

"What's unique about what's happening today in government, in the world, in America, is that it's as if we're living in an Ayn Rand novel right now. I think Ayn Rand did the best job of anybody to build a moral case of capitalism, and that morality of capitalism is under assault."

Is that what Republicans call a "moral case" for capitalism? No wonder capitalism is under assault! Thank you very much Ryan for playing into the hands of the Marxist revolutionary mythology. And imagine it, his office is churning out a lot of little Randians! You, idiot Ryan, you must need your brains testing! 

However, to be fair there has been, according to Wiki, some backtracking:

In April 2012, after receiving criticism from Georgetown University faculty members on his budget plan, Ryan rejected Rand's philosophy as an atheistic one, saying it "reduces human interactions down to mere contracts". He also called the reports of his adherence to Rand's views an "urban legend" and stated that he was deeply influenced by his Roman Catholic faith and by Thomas Aquinas. Yaron Brook, executive director of the Ayn Rand Institute, maintains that Ryan is not a Rand disciple, and that some of his proposals do not follow Rand's philosophy of limited government; Brook refers to Ryan as a "fiscal moderate"

But would you buy a used car from this man?

Rand, Republicanism and Christianity

The following images were found on the web and only serve to underline the paradoxes and ironies of the Ayn Rand & Republico-Evangelical axis. 

Note on Alex Jones:

My other son tipped me off about this:

https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/not-fake-news-infowars-alex-jones-performance-artist-n747491

http://time.com/4743025/alex-jones-infowars-divorce-donald-trump/

https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/infowars-founder-alex-jones-discusses-custody-battle-n752406

Evolution: It's not just chance says PZ Myers!

A peepy eyed Myers dispenses his evolutionary wisdom

The above video was posted on PZ Myers blog here.  It is a useful resume of six basic points in the standard theory of evolutionary mechanisms as explained by Myers in his usual unanimated, deadpan puffy eyed, almost languid manner (I'm OK with that; content over style any day). In the second point of this video Myers stresses the chance component of evolution and contrasts this over and against "purpose". Well, I can't expect Myers, or any atheist for that matter, to take on-board purpose or teleology; for atheists dynamics is driven by law and disorder imperatives which push from behind and not teleological declarations which work from the front. Fair enough! However, when I first viewed this video I was immediately reminded of my recent two part critique (here and here) of "Intelligent Design" where I took the de facto IDists to task in their faux characterization of evolution as a process where the apparent design of living things is an illusion and that the illusion of design is explained by the working of random events (My emphasis). Myers, by exclusively emphasizing chance, was playing into the hands of the de facto IDists who (rightly) point out the cosmically unrealistic probability that life could come about as a product of chance. But as I pointed out in my two part series the established understanding of evolutionary mechanisms implicitly assumes that the process of evolution starts with a huge burden of information in the form of some kind of (non-teleological) constraint, most likely in the form of imperative laws within which the agitating random motions of evolutionary "searching" works. If this constraint exists, and perhaps it is implicit in the known laws of physics (?), then this constraint can be visualised as a network of fuzzy channels in configuration space, a network I call the spongeam. However, whether or not my picture of the spongeam is useful it seems from the comments left by atheist Joe Felsenstein in the following posts.....

http://quantumnonlinearity.blogspot.co.uk/2014/10/dembski-and-felsenstein-part-ii.html
http://quantumnonlinearity.blogspot.co.uk/2015/11/intelligent-designs-2001-space-odyssey.html

.... that he agrees evolution can only work if its random selections are highly constrained to a very limited set of possibilities. Felsenstein believes this constraining factor is likely found in our physical regime, but he takes the matter no further than that, other than to say it's a question for physics, not biology. The point here, however, is as I stressed in my two part series that atheists like Joe Felsenstein do not accept de facto ID's straw man interpretation of evolutionary mechanisms which all but exclusively stress the random component, which, of course, could not by itself generate life with a realistic chance given the size and age of the cosmos. 

OK, so that brings us to a second video by PZ Myers. In this video he is largely responding to a comment to his first video by none other than Joe Felsenstein. This comment by Felsenstein reads as follows:

Joe Felsenstein

5 January 2018 at 7:52 am

Joe Felsenstein

Very good video, PZ, quickly killing off major misconceptions. I would just put one more point on the list for any similar video in the future. Creationists are always insisting on the point that evolution is “only chance”, so that they can then run around saying that natural selection is ineffective. So they’re happy to have “chance” be the main focus. I realize that you were aiming at believers in long-term cosmic guidance, but we also have to think of the misrepresentation of evolutionary biology as explaining remarkable adaptations by purely random wandering, a picture that just happens to leave out natural selection. As you know, that is used by creationist debaters to persuade gullible audiences that evolutionary biologists have no way to account for nonrandomly good adaptations (My emphases).

I agree, it's a good video where the absence of glitzy style helps one focus on useful content. Moreover, I would agree with Felsenstein's main point here:  Evolution can't work just by chance: If standard evolution is to have a cosmically realistic probability of generating life, the agitations of chance must be exploring a relatively tightly restricted space of options, a space narrowed down by some kind of constraint, spongeam, physical regime, laws of physics or what-have-you.... If this point is not emphasized enough then as Felsenstein points out "creationists" will latch onto the straw man depiction of evolution as mere random wanderings.

PZ Myers no doubt understands this, but nevertheless felt it necessary to echo and reinforce Felsebtstein's point in his second video which he posted on this blog entry and which I present here:

Peepy PZ gives us the evolutionary low-down

Myers is concerned that his videos are boring. Well, maybe he lacks the pzazz of some YouTube presenters, but nevertheless the videos are well constructed as far as content is concerned. Moreover, as far as style is concerned what could be funnier than Myers abrasive dry humour and "Don't give me sh*t" tired cynicism as the frizzen for America's ebullient authoritarian anti-science crackpots of unshakable confidence and self-belief! This is comedy that could only be sourced in the Divine mind!

Fundamentalist Ray Comfort: He's bananas

***

And now for some impressionistic reflections of a theological nature. 

Although I certainly agree with Felsenstein and Myers that the random agitations driving evolutionary diffusion are only effective if there is some kind of constraining envelope in configuration space, this constraint need not necessarily be a preordained imperative because from a theological perspective it could also be a teleological (declarative) constraint. I would be the first to admit, however, that in exploring this option I'm engaging in a highly speculative blues skies project that could well ultimately lead up the garden path. Fortunately, not being a partisan of any particular social group means I can afford to be a bit adventuress, tentative, exploratory and off-the-wall in my projects. In contrast I have really grown to dislike party-line pulling partisan polemics.

As I have said before given the known laws of physics there are, I suspect, simply not enough functional organic forms to populate configuration space with a spongeam sufficiently connected for it to be exploited by standard evolutionary diffusing mechanisms. In any case to me  (and admittedly this is only a hunch) quantum theory suggests that reality is potentially a very powerful search engine, an engine which combines both imperative constraint (quantum signalling cancels much unwanted randomness) and a potential for expanding parallelism. Also, the fundamental units of the cosmos (i.e particles) have very convenient "glue" or "fixing points" in the form of potential fields, as if it were some kind of elaborate construction set. Somehow, I guess, this quantum system is being used to search for organic solutions that are too widely separated to form an interconnected spongeam, although I'm not sure about some of the details of this search mechanism. But if this process is actually extant it would look like a form of evolution capable of relatively long distance hops.

Such a system would be "declarative" rather than imperative because its sheer processing power does not call for the front loading of imperative information as per standard evolutionary mechanisms. For apart from very general declarative criteria (such as survivability, self perpetuation etc) the exact form of its output would not be determined by information specified in advance, any more than the model manual for a meccano or lego set contain all the possible ways in which these construction sets can be used; such construction sets score because they embody potential rather than algorithmic imperatives about what to build. For example, I doubt it was ever purposefully conceived that wood, stone, grass, mud, and dung would one day be resources used by hunter gatherers for constructing bivouacs, or snow used by Eskimos to build igloos. Likewise, it is unlikely to have been purposefully specified in advance that silicon would one day be used to construct computers; if silicon didn't exist perhaps nano-engineered electromagnets or cogs would be used instead; intelligence sifts through the possibilities and improvises rather than designs strict imperatives in advance.  If the construction set has sufficient potential and the search engine sufficient power, constructive improvisations can always be found. 

How material resources are eventually used is not designed in advance but is subject to very generally formulated declarative purposes (such as a need for shelter) and then the seek, select and reject search engine of intelligence will do the rest.  Cognition with its array of general goals seeks, improvises and exploits the most unlikely resources. But for intelligence to successfully achieve its declarative goals the environment, although absent of constraining imperative information concerning those goals, must have the potential of a  huge implicit possibility space, a space which intelligence is free to explore. Given that the trials and errors in the use of material resources are part and parcel of the process of declarative discovery, it is all but impossible to say where sentience and insentience demarcate. 

Meccano Fullerene

So called Cosmic Fine tuning means that if a small arbitrary adjustment is carried out on the basic parameters defining the dynamic status-quo the current cosmos would never be generated or would fall apart. Fine tuning adjustment is a bit like changing the precision of the male to female lugs of a lego set; any such change would compromise the set's construction potential. However, if we continue to make an indefinite number of small adjustments then there may come a point where the construction set has morphed into something so different that once again it becomes a viable construction set in its own right (perhaps a meccano set!). It is fairly self evident, nevertheless, that the number of construction sets with creative potential are probably very thinly spread throughout the appropriate configuration space. Hence, hitting on a workable construction set by chance is going to be very small - too great a precision will be needed for such sets to come about randomly. Useful construction sets  are therefore likely to be spaced as are evolutionary solutions - namely, too far apart; that is, there is no spongeam for construction sets, either!  Although it seems that viable constructions sets are relatively few, wide apart and very varied, there is nevertheless a universal here: The method of searching is made by a "walk" of incremental adjustments. This ushers in the subject of quantum mechanics - something I am looking into elsewhere - which seems to be the universal search process! Perhaps even the universal cognitive process!