I received numerous comments on my QUORA answer to Is Ayn Rand wrong about altruism? The following comment inspired a (partial) response from me:
William Delouvrely commented:
To me, and I could be wrong, there is a basic problem with Ayn Rand. Let me assure you that “I have not always been wrong.” (Churchill quote).
Ayn Rand and her followers have the habit to see everything in a purely ‘yes or no’, ‘black or white’, or ‘extremely correct or totally wrong’ frame of mind. The great majority of humans do not live and do not want to live within such a ‘permanent logic or bust’ standard. This is not a ‘wobbly mealy-mouthed argument’. If you can imagine it, in Ayn Rand’s world there is no room for feelings, kindness, for music, poetry, art and theater, because don’t all these distract from the ‘purely rational 100% productivity only, no jokes, no laughter, no good times allowed’ systemic standard that must be applied to all people of all ages, or else my philosophy is wrong, and we can’t have that as I always must be right, at all costs, no matter the human costs, no matter the consequences.
Do I still make sense, as I am trying to climb down into the rabbit hole of Randian logic?
In one way, to put a lighter spin on it, Ayn Rand is the philosophical personification of Jerry Seinfeld’s ‘Soup Nazi’. Wham, bamm, no soup for you!
In another way, the harshness that is shown by devoted, harsh, zealous, uncompromising followers of such political fashions as Nazism, Capitalism, Communism, as well as by militant & irrational proponents of any and all world religions & cults, all that points to the paranoid and super-logical world view espoused by Ayn Rand.
Do you want to live in a world like that, where a three year old might be expected to already be a productive member of society, and a seventy-five year old is expected to work until she croaks while at work? Well, me neither.
I remember that old Greek riddle: “What animal is this? It walks on four legs in the morning, on two legs at noon, and on three legs at nightfall?” The answer is of course, the human being, as it crawls on all four as a toddler, in the morning of life, on two legs at noon in the productive time of life, and on three legs (two legs and a cane) near the end of life. Ayn Rand would not have guessed it. Or would she?
Which gets me back to the beginning, where I said something like ‘well, I haven’t always been wrong’.
I’ll say that a civilized society cannot exist without a certain degree of altruism, which of course has to be counter-balanced [sic] with a degree of reason and willingness to assert oneself. Just taking without giving is as unsustainable as only giving without taking.
There, now I am going to shut up.
My emphasis.
I do not know where this Mr. Spock depiction of “Ayn Rand and her followers” comes from. His is just another complete strawman, which I will not waste my time responding to. Just the fact that he equates Nazism and Communism with Capitalism shows that Delouvrely does not know what he is talking about. But Delouvrely does close with a point that requires a response for the benefit of serious readers of this site. Here is my reply:
“Just taking without giving is as unsustainable as only giving without taking.”
Rand most emphatically rejected that premise as a false choice. In fact, she convincingly argued that that “choice” is really two sides of the same coin. I made this point clear in my answer above.
The alternative to that false choice that Rand posited is the trader principle—the win-win relationship.
Relationships need not be win-lose or lose-win, necessarily involving both an exploiter and a victim. People can get better together, with each neither taking without giving or giving without taking. The values exchanged can be material or spiritual, or a combination of both. But the ideal human relationship Rand promoted would leave each side better off.
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The word "altruism" (French: altruisme, from autrui, 'other people', derived from Latin alter 'other') was coined by Auguste Comte, the French founder of positivism, in order to describe the ethical doctrine he supported. He believed that individuals had a moral obligation to renounce self-interest and live for others. Comte says, in his Catéchisme Positiviste,[2] that:
[The] social point of view cannot tolerate the notion of rights, for such notion rests on individualism. We are born under a load of obligations of every kind, to our predecessors, to our successors, to our contemporaries. After our birth these obligations increase or accumulate, for it is some time before we can return any service.... This ["to live for others"], the definitive formula of human morality, gives a direct sanction exclusively to our instincts of benevolence, the common source of happiness and duty. [Man must serve] Humanity, whose we are entirely."
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