Filed under Culture, Literature, Politics
Gott ist tot: a review of The Myth of Natural Rights and Other Essays by L.A. Rollins
For all my busting of libertarians’ balls, I was more sympathetic towards libertarianism when I was younger. While in high school and searching for an ideological pier to tether my boat to, I happened upon my mom’s collection of dog-eared paperbacks by the world’s most famous female autist, Ayn Rand. Her philosophy and its ethos of capitalism, logic and reason was a refreshing change from the soft, squishy socialism that permeated the teachings of the Catholic school I attended. I glommed onto her worldview like a barnacle on an oil tanker, quickly devouring her four novels and her countless essay collections. I even cited Rand’s The Virtue of Selfishness in an essay in my religion class on how to create a world free of war and violence. I was just a kid then; I didn’t notice Rand’s repetitious, Aspergery writing style, her turgid prose, the massive logical holes in her arguments, her complete lack of humor (actual Rand quote from The Philosophy of Objectivism: “The worst evil that you can do, psychologically, is to laugh at yourself. That means spitting in your own face.”), and the fact that her writing actually got WORSE as time went on. Once I started tearing into the likes of Hayek, Mises, and Kirk, I was done with Rand for good. Objectivism is only a credible philosophy to the young and pliable of mind.
The Myth of Natural Rights and Other Essays, by L.A. Rollins, is the kind of book I wish I had had during my teenage years, as it would have saved me a whole lot of winding through bad writing. Rollins’ tract takes the foundation of modern libertarianism – the concept of natural rights – and not only smashes it into teeny-tiny pieces, he makes libertarian icons like Rand, Murray Rothbard, and others look like complete and utter morons in the process. As such, it’s a must-own book for anyone interested in political theory.
As Chip Smith, whose Nine Banded Books has republished The Myth along with a collection of Rollins’ other work, writes:
Originally published by Loompanics Unlimited in 1983, the central monograph is a two-fisted display of lib-targeted philosophical shit-stirring that holds up well after 25 years. In its previous incarnation, The Myth provoked a fair amount of measured praise along with entertaining fits of blustery outrage among libertarian stalwarts and natural law votaries, with much of the tooth-gnashing playing out in the pages of the Sam Konkin’s old New Libertarian magazine. Rollins’ thesis also famously prompted movement luminary Murray Rothbard to pen a delightfully truculent head-in-the-sand essay enjoining “The Duty of Natural Outlaws to Shut Up,” and it inspired Robert Anton Wilson to publish a lively book-length companion essay entitled Natural Law: Or Don’t Put a Rubber on Your Willy.
The central argument of The Myth of Natural Rights is that the concept of natural rights, as formulated by Enlightenment thinkers such as John Locke and serving as the foundation of libertarian theory, is a fiction, a religious idea that has zero relevance in the real, secular world. As blogger TGGP of Entitled to an Opinion writes in his introduction:
Without giving the game away, it is perhaps better to start out by saying what natural rights are not than what they are. If one were to begin a sentence with the phrase “natural rights are,” that sentence would already be false. Natural rights are not. That they do not exist is the blunt thesis of The Myth. Natural rights are the tooth-fairies of political philosophy, claiming no more substance than the epiphenomenal gremlins inhabiting Daniel Dennett’s car engine. Despite the carefully parsed semantic rigging, a “natural right” is to be found nowhere in nature, and unlike an actual legal or customary right, it confers no protection upon its claimant.
Rollins’ monograph is less polemic than carefully researched academic argument, albeit written with a snarky undertone, free of filler (the primary text of The Myth clocks in at less than seventy pages), and absent the panicked defensiveness that characterizes academic writing. In the opening chapters, Rollins draws a distinction between natural rights, which are “fake or metaphorical rights”, and “real rights” or “positive rights,” describing the latter as “those rights that are actually conferred and enforced by the laws of a State or the customs of a social group.” Contrasting the two groups, Rollins reduces natural rights to little more than wishful thinking on the part of libertarians, mocking them as “bleeding heart libertarians” who conjure up bogus rights out of thin air.
My biggest complaint with The Myth is that the bulk of it is focused not on proving the phoniness of natural rights but on making mincemeat of noted libertarians who base their arguments on the theory. To be sure, Rollins accomplishes his goal with aplomb, tearing Rand, Rothbard, Tibor Machan, and others to shreds, exposing the gaping holes, paradoxes, and pretzel-like mutilations of logic in their writings. In particular, his chapter on Rand rips apart her rationalist, atheist facade to reveal a deeply religious, irrational woman, amusingly dubbing her “Mrs. Illogic.” By spending most of his time picking fights with other intellectuals instead of making an independent argument, Rollins limits The Myth’s effectiveness as a standalone work. Nonetheless, for those who are looking for an airtight reason to disavow mainstream libertarianism once and for all, or those who’re looking for a book on ideology that is unlike anything else out there, The Myth of Natural Rights is a text you should read ASAP.
Reviewing this book without mentioning the “other essays” in the title would be dumb, considering that those “other essays” make up two-thirds of The Myth’s pages. The middle third of the book is a trio of essays on Holocaust revisionism which displays Rollins’ penchant for misanthropic iconoclasm. (DISCLAIMER FOR THE SLOW: While I support the rights of Holocaust revisionists and deniers to speak their minds, I am not a revisionist or denier myself.) In “The Holocaust as Sacred Cow,” he lays into “Holocaustorians” who perpetuate falsehoods about the Holocaust and who refuse to debate the subject, comparing them to religious fanatics. On the subject of the number of Jews killed in the Holocaust, he writes:
For many people, the six million figure is not a fact, although they call it that; rather it is an article of faith, believed in not because of compelling evidence in its support, but because of compelling psychological reasons. For such people, the Six Million figure is a Sacred Truth, not to be doubted and, if necessary, to be defended with dogmatism, mysticism, illogic, fantasy or even downright lies.
The second essay, “Revising Holocaust Revisionism,” is by far the most interesting of the bunch, because in it Rollins turns his guns on revisionists for pushing falsehoods and lies, accusing them of having hidden agendas beyond “set[ting] the record straight”. At the end of the paper, he declares himself to be “skeptical of both sides”, stating that “[n]either side in the Holocaust controversy claims a monopoly on falsehood.” The final essay, “Deifying Dogma,” is the most boring, as it’s nothing more than a point-by-point refutation of the anti-revisionist tract Denying History by Michael Shermer and Alex Grobman, who made the fatal error of smearing Rollins in its pages. Remind me to never get on this guy’s bad side, as it makes for poor writing on his part.
The remainder of The Myth is devoted to L.A. Rollins’ satirical writings, serving as the cherry on this ice cream sundae of idol destruction. “Lucifer’s Lexicon: An Updated Abridgment” is a Samuel Johnson-esque collection of witty, laugh-out-loud definitions (ex: “Blowjob, n. A nice job, if you can get it.”) that deserve to be re-published on their own. On the other hand, “An Open Letter to Allah” is simply awful, tenth-rate anti-religious invective delivered in the voice of a Rand-drunk teenager who keeps a copy of The God Delusion under his pillow. “An Ode to Emperor Bush” is a moderately entertaining bit of doggerel, but it lacks the spark that makes “Lucifer’s Lexicon” such a wicked read. The book would have been improved if both of these diversions had been taken out.
Aside from its few flaws, The Myth of Natural Rights and Other Essays is a great read, a well-crafted collection of works by a sadly-forgotten writer. Whether you’re interested in shibboleth-skewering essays or satirical shots at sacred cows, you ought to pick this one up.
NOTE: I was going to publish this review at The Spearhead with a section on men’s rights, but Jack Donovan stole my thunder on that front. Read his essay if you haven’t already. While I still consider myself an MRA of sorts, I believe the men’s movement needs to reconfigure itself philosophically if it hopes to see any success.
That assumes an atheist, materialistic truth. Natural rights are simply part of the natural law. Aside from statistical outliers, no culture innately believes lying, cheating, stealing, rape, murder, adultery and other moral issues to be acceptable. That is why the Romans said that there is a natural law that is as true in Rome as it is in Athens or elsewhere. We may disagree with practical implementations of it, but the fundamental moral foundation of society is rooted in a natural law.
I hope that the definition of positive right that was used here is not what he used because that’s incorrect. A positive right is one that cannot exist without the state’s influence. My freedom to speak freely or arm myself are both negative rights, as they exist until someone forces me to behave otherwise; the Bill of Rights is a mixture of negative and positive rights in that it recognizes things like the negative right to worship freely or be secure in one’s home and then codifies it into a positive right context which requires inaction by the state.
In a reductionist sense, libertarianism is quite tenable as a streamlined, political libertarianism is simply a reflection of a state of nature with some civilized niceties thrown in to maintain order. It is actually too close to what humanity really is for many “realists” to accept, and so they trump up charges against libertarianism across the board so that people don’t realize that underneath the civilized arguments is a workable, if borderline nietzschean philosophy that respects very little morality.
I should add that in discussions of things like game, a lot of men see fit to engage in baboon pack morality and living until they need the niceties of civilization. This is why I am sick of men’s rights activists on blogs like Dr Helen who will, on the one hand, demand the right to have “their fair share of the sexual revolution,” but then act like a stuttering, “beta male” idiot when the same woman indulges in her natural impulses and royally fucks the man over in court.
As someone once said, “If you live with apes man, it’s hard to be clean…”
I’m not blaming the tool (game), but rather pointing out that people are quick to indulge in secular reductios to justify their pursuit of whatever it is they want until they collide with another individual doing the same thing and their differing goals result in a violent explosion.
Libertarianism is highly idealistic, which is my main beef with it. Would you consider yourself more a pragmatist when it comes to governing? I really doubt you are “conservative in politics” but must self-label yourself as such given the company you keep.
You can take the Deity and the life, liberty, et cetera out of liberalism, but you’re still left with some useful things like property rights.
Depends on the approach. I’ve met Calvinists who are libertarians and there is absolutely not one trace of idealism about humanity in a serious Calvinist.
If you believe that man is truly prone to evil over good, it naturally makes sense to believe that the government will tend to be evil in its own right and ineffective at curbing evil rather than occasionally securing justice.
Libertarianism is highly idealistic
Libertarians tend to have an overly simplistic view of human nature. This can be either overly optimistic, overly pessimistic or some schizophrenic combination of the two. Calvinisits often posit that man is utterly depraved and thus they are often overly pessimistic about human nature.
!!!The central argument of The Myth of Natural Rights is that the concept of natural rights, as formulated by Enlightenment thinkers such as John Locke and serving as the foundation of libertarian theory, is a fiction, a religious idea that has zero relevance in the real, secular world. !!!
Natural law may be a very useful superstition in a society where that superstition is broadly shared. In a society where nihilists and feminists vote to determine who has what right (and who’s going to get fucked by the government), it arguably isn’t worth much.
Most any useful notion of right v wrong comes from some superstition…or religion if you will. Easy enough to bash but much, much harder to replace.
Anyhoo…if the only rights that matter are those enforced by government and social custom, then it’s not at all clear that the German government did anything wrong in killing 6 million or so jews.
You have to be at least somewhat idealistic if you are going to allow the masses as much freedom as prescribed by libertarianism. Libertarian arguments often come from a moralistic view as well. Calvinists don’t believe in libertarianism. They believe in live-and-let-live.
I used to be a big natural rights proponent. Increasingly I have been less so, as they have been laid bare to me as mere wishful thinking.
In the rough and tumble real world, particularly one that killed God and erected a secular humanist strawman in His place, I have come to realize that there is what God wishes for us all and what we humans are actually capable of implementing. Government is a gift insofar as it is a notch above a Hobbesian existence.
With that, one’s rights extend only as far as the violence that one is willing and able to apply in securing them.
Thanks for disabusing me of fantasy, FB. I’ll be picking up a copy in the future.
Speaking of Rand, here is an excellent blog that I wish I had come across when I was younger and just beginning to leave the Randian fold:
http://aynrandcontrahumannature.blogspot.com/
Greg Nyquist is a professional philosopher with a keen intellect who critques Rand from what is to my mind the most relevant angle: the a-rational, evolutionary quality of human nature. I’ve come across a lot of polemics against Rand in the past, and while they might make a point here or there, I felt they were all somewhat flawed by the authors’ own biases. Many of them also didn’t have a true appreciation for the depth and nuance of Rand’s thought. Nyquist however, understands the philosophy as well as any acolyte. And because of his familiarity with emprical research dealing with human choice and behavior, he is able to show how Rand suffers from the same utopian idealism that we here in this corner of the internet often attack feminists for. In other words, he critques Rand for her autistic tendencies.
Here’s a sample, selected pretty much at random:
http://aynrandcontrahumannature.blogspot.com/2009/04/objectivism-politics-part-7.html
Even if you have no interest in Objectivism, the blog discusses a lot of issues that I think many here would find interesting, if you’re into that sort of thing. Lots of brain candy over there.
Not necessarily true.
Oh, and while we’re on the topic of Ayn Rand, here’s a juicy bit of info I just couldn’t pass up. I think those of us in the Roissysphere will find this story particularly amusing.
I was never made aware of this, but apparently, Rand’s early journal entries reveal her to be just another bad-boy loving hypergamist! Yes, that’s right! Mrs. “I’m-so-rational-and-above-human-whims” was reduced to a puddle of vag juices in the presence of a sadistic and psyhopthic serial killer! Even Randroid females can’t avoid the pull.
It seems that in 1928, William Edward Hickman was convicted of armed robbery, child kidnapping, and multiple, gruesome murders. And Ayn Rand was tickled pink by the fellow, such that she used him to model her notion of an “ideal man” for one of her early novels. This is a guy who cut a girl in half and tossed the upper part onto the front lawn of the girl’s father’s lawn. After wiring her eyes to stay open.
I won’t go into all the details here concerning this dubious moment in the annals of Objectivistism. Micheal Prescott gives the story the entire run-down here:
michaelprescott.net/hickman.htm
Unfortunately, Prescott, being something of an Objectivist,is shocked SHOCKED I tell you, that Rand would find anything desireable in such a man. Thankfully, we here know better.
Step right up folks! Come SEE the amazingly rational Ayn Rand squeal for blood:
At times, Rand — who, we must remember, was still quite young when she wrote these notes — appears to be rather infatuated with the famous and charismatic boy killer. She offers a long paragraph listing all the things she likes about Hickman, somewhat in the manner of a lovestruck teenager recording her favorite details about the lead singer in a boy band.
Be AMAZED at the twisted nature of female hypergamy:
Rand’s inventory includes:
“The fact that he looks like ‘a bad boy with a very winning grin,’ that he makes you like him the whole time you’re in his presence…”
You can practically hear the young aspiring author’s heart fluttering. I have always been puzzled by the psychology of women who write love letters to serial killers in prison. Somehow I suspect Ayn Rand would have understood them better than I do.
Be DAZZLED at the rationalizing HAMSTER WHEEL:
At one point, a sliver of near-rationality breaks through the fog of Rand’s delusions: “I am afraid that I idealize Hickman and that he might not be this at all. In fact, he probably isn’t.” Her moment of lucidity is short-lived. “But it does not make any difference. If he isn’t, he could be, and that’s enough.” Yes, facts are stubborn things, so it’s best to ignore them and live in a land of make-believe. Let’s not allow truculent reality to interfere with our dizzying and intoxicating fantasy life.
Punctuating the point, Rand writes, “There is a lot that is purposely, senselessly horrible about him. But that does not interest me…” No indeed. Why should it? It’s only reality.
Hi Dana ;)
If people are by nature good, then everything is hunky dory. However, if people are by nature bad, then it makes little sense to put one person or group of persons in charge of all others. Either case, the argument for centralized authority is discredited.
Speaking of Rand and Hickman:
Worse sins and crimes in their own lives?
Oh right, this is a woman who probably considered tacit agreement with the major parties’ platforms to be a crime worse than murdering and dismembering a child.
Hmmph. Thanks Mike. I stand corrected.
Tupac, didn’t you write about how the girls you knew from the Objectivist club at university were all promiscuous bad boy chasers? Let us hear more.
The ONLY rights we enjoy are those enjoyed in comfort from the bloody sacrifice of others, or those rights we cherish due to bloody sacrifice of our own.
When we let the lesson of this sacrifice carelessly slip away in our pampered social indulgences, we sadly re-discover our duty to fight the same battle over again.
Men realize this. Or, once did.
mout
Nihilists and amoralists like to point out the flaws in other people’s philosophy, but don’t really lay out the societal implications for their own philosophy. The fact is, a government that is not rights-based means a more stagnate society and a more miserable population. It’s no accident that the countries with the highest standard of living all have rights-based governments.
I loved the Fountainhead for Howard…sexy rebel that he was. Of course I loved it for the romance plot mixed within the prose that I was floored to find as a young adult. And the sex scene…goooooodness. It’s a good, solid book. It teaches a lot about architecture as well. I can’t finish Atlas Shrugged no matter how hard I try. She wrote ahead of her time, you’re leaving out that she was pushing the boundaries of the era a bit. I like that. I don’t always agree with the rule breakers but I like that they are risking. She was good at calling corporate indulgence and abuse out. She would of loved little Bush.
p.s. bit o gossip: The character of Howard Roark was said to be based off of American architect Frank Lloyd Wright.
Of course natural rights are a myth – ask the victims of crime about their rights they couldn’t defend.
On the other hand, technically speaking – yes the extermination of the Jews was perfectly legal and right within the Nazi system. But then what of the extermination of Communists by Nazi? Communists are evil therefore they don’t count. But then what of the extermination of Homosexuals by Nazis? Homosexuals are evil because the Bible says so and the Bible imposes the death penalty. And what of the Gypsies? Who cares about the Gypsies they’re the vermin of humanity who get zilch symapthy since the Holocaust. Aside from the extermination of the Jews, people are quite happy of the extermination of real undesirables by the Nazis.
Mike:
Society at large assumes an atheist, materialistic truth. Attempting to argue for theistic concepts in a secular world is, as Rollins shows, a fruitless endeavor.
From page 35:
“Real rights are those rights that are actually conferred and enforced by the laws of a State or the customs of a social group. Such rights are sometimes called “positive rights.” As Maurice Cranston puts it, “Positive rights are facts. They are what men actually have.” In short, positive rights are actual, factual rights.”
Make of that what you will.
synthesis:
I suppose. I’ve increasingly become turned on to the version of “progressive conservatism” or “technological romanticism” espoused by Alex Birch and the boffins over at CORRUPT.
What makes you think that? Unless you’re a Larry Auster-type who defines conservatism so narrowly as to exclude almost every actual living conservative.
Tupac:
Not surprising at all. Have you read her books? I was actually drafting an installment of “Mr. Bardamu’s Bookshelf” on We the Living (in fact, the opening paragraph of this post is partially taken from that draft), but I can’t go back to reading Rand. Too…effing…painful.
Lindsey:
Ah, but what if people are neither good nor bad, but just are? How does central authority fare then?
Sparks:
Translation: “You may have proven us wrong by using our own metrics and methodologies, but somehow, we’re still right.”
Rights are perfectly fine. Just don’t try to justify them on some nebulous concept like “natural law.”
Anouk:
Woman praises Rand book on the strength of the gina tingles it gave her…unsurprising. But sexy sex scenes and hot heroes do not compensate for a dull plot and painful prose. Nothin’ wrong with smut – we all need to get our rocks off time after time – but don’t shit on my shoes and call it chocolate ice cream.
Why do Randroids and Rand-fans have absolutely no historical perspective? The underlying principles of Objectivism were debated and debunked during the Enlightenment. Jonathan Swift, in Gulliver’s Travels, wrote the ultimate refutation of Rand’s ideology not only before she created it, but before she was even a filthy, perverted thought in her father’s head. The reason why Objectivism only makes sense to young’uns and fools is because neither of them have done their homework.
Gil:
You mean that certain groups of dead untermenschen are worth more than others in the eyes of the crowd? Shock! Horror!
Ferdinand-”The underlying principles of Objectivism were debated and debunked during the Enlightenment. Jonathan Swift, in Gulliver’s Travels, wrote the ultimate refutation of Rand’s ideology not only before she created it, but before she was even a filthy, perverted thought in her father’s head.”
-you have a point and are you are not the first to make this reference for me. I was a little more relaxed in my “defense” of her not because I am a huge fan of hers, I just thought she was relevant to an extent. In comparison to the many great greats, no. I think the Fountainhead could be put on the table as more than just a smut novel though. Her prose are a bit much at times but she had some really poetic moments. You’re losing the beauty of her painting a portrait of a true Maverick. Those stories are always good.
Objectivism is too detached to float my boat. I always thought of Ayn Rand as a feminist. She’s just too hard and ballsy to be a girl.
…and yeah, Roark brings the tingles. What can I say? guilty.
Ferdinand:
The problem is that I can’t seem to get a fix on a contemporary definition of conservatism. It used to be that certain concepts came to mind: religion, tradition, values, reverence of authority. Now we have paleoconservative atheists and progressive conservatism. It seems conservatism is all things to all people…except anything/anyone liberal. This last point seems to be the only common thread.
Translation: “You may have proven us wrong by using our own metrics and methodologies, but somehow, we’re still right.”
I haven’t read Rollins’ work, so I’m not willing to say that he’s “proven me wrong.” I’m just making a practical, utilitarian argument for individual rights.
Rights are perfectly fine. Just don’t try to justify them on some nebulous concept like “natural law.”
Then how are they to be based? If they’re based in society, then isn’t society the one conjuring rights out of thin air? A right based in society is a contradiction because a right is something based in justice and morality and cannot be morally taken away from you. It’s the equivalent of “Mother, may I…”
The underlying principles of Objectivism were debated and debunked during the Enlightenment. Jonathan Swift, in Gulliver’s Travels, wrote the ultimate refutation of Rand’s ideology not only before she created it, but before she was even a filthy, perverted thought in her father’s head.
I be interested in seeing you write more fully about that because I wasn’t able to find many making a comparison between the two. People have been writing stories about the fallibility of man for millennia, that doesn’t mean we’re a bunch of livestock to be commanded.
Sparks:
Fair enough.
Rights are based in morality, which is a construct based on the collective human physiological experience of the world. For a quick example, the Judeo-Islamic prohibition of pork is a legacy of the fact that both religions came from a region of the world and a time where eating pork was a bad idea.
No, but it doesn’t mean we’re all rational, self-interested, potential ubermenschen either.
“Ah, but what if people are neither good nor bad, but just are? How does central authority fare then?”
The notion that natural rights are a myth also excludes the legitimacy of any concept of authority at all. I do not accept the concept of moral authority at all. My freedom-oriented world-view doesn’t require any notion of natural rights at all. In fact, it doesn’t require any justification at all. I do what I want when I want to. If you don’t it, ithat’s tough. Your job is to convince me to make the choices that you think I should make.
Rights are based in morality, which is a construct based on the collective human physiological experience of the world. For a quick example, the Judeo-Islamic prohibition of pork is a legacy of the fact that both religions came from a region of the world and a time where eating pork was a bad idea.
I fully agree that morality is the basis of rights, but we have differing views on what morality is. In my assessment, morality is a code of values a person uses to guide his actions. It mainly is determined by the facts of reality and what people need to do to lead a happy and fulfilling life. So, perhaps at one point, there was a morally valid reason to not eat pork, but it has long since past.
No, but it doesn’t mean we’re all rational, self-interested, potential ubermenschen either.
Agreed, but the few who are should be able to achieve their greatness.
I mean the now-jewish victims of the Holocaust are still despised today.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PymLiIBgQ9g&feature=related
Natural law is not necessarily theistic. The Greco-Roman world accepted the concept long before Christians expanded upon it, but then our society doesn’t really grok the overlap between philosophy, religion and truth.
As I said, natural law can be seen at work both in terms of how virtually all of humanity has similar notions of right and wrong, and how human civilization goes horribly awry when it behaves contrary to the natural order. Issues like ritual aversion to pork and boiling milk and meat together are side issues to the fact that our foundation assumptions about what constitutes core moral issues are very similar. An ancient Spartan man, a South American male from 5,000 years ago and a typical Chinese man would agree on murder, theft, rape, adultery, etc. insofar as they are serious moral issues and crimes.
Unfortunately for Rollins, people like me simply won’t accept a moral code based only on reason, let alone based purely on the will to power of other men. If morality is simply human opinion in a cold, dark world then I would rather live my life in a more nietzschean way than according to some “moral philosopher” whose ideas will die with him.
Gil,
In their defense, given the cost of a big performer’s tickets and the low wages of most Eastern Europeans, a political lecture on two outlier groups, one of whom is hated for fairly understandable reasons (Gypsies), is just rude.
!!!!“Real rights are those rights that are actually conferred and enforced by the laws of a State or the customs of a social group. Such rights are sometimes called “positive rights.” As Maurice Cranston puts it, “Positive rights are facts. They are what men actually have.” In short, positive rights are actual, factual rights.”
Make of that what you will.!!!!
This everything that can be made of this — Positive Rights are WHAT IS.
OUGHT cannot be derived from IS.
This is all such pretty talk.
In the future,
archaeologists will dig up this server
and point tothis singular moment
as the moment that changed it all.
Pretty.
Craig Biddle gave a pretty good discussion on the nature of rights. It’s quite but you can just skip to the 49 minute mark for a summery. Basically “rights” are not something that exist in nature but are they are a factual recognition of the things man has to do in order to live fully.
http://bit.ly/cgcfbh
alexamenos,
Positive rights are no more or less real than natural rights as known through natural law. Just because a bunch of politicians wrote down a positive right on paper and called it a law doesn’t mean that the right goes from “ought” to “is” until the state chooses to act upon it.
A lot of elderly and dependent Americans will find out in a decade or so how meaningless positive rights (Social Security, Medicare/Medicaid) are when Congress just abolishes them by fiat.
Tupac, didn’t you write about how the girls you knew from the Objectivist club at university were all promiscuous bad boy chasers? Let us hear more.
I might have overstated the case. I would say the O-girls were *at least* as promiscuous as your standard issue female student at the time. I.e., rapid succession of serial monagmy type affairs, with the occasional ONS thrown in. I wouldn’t say they were “bad-boy” chasers though. I’d say their hypergamy was of the more sensible sort: men who were socially popular or going places. So, in that sense, Objectivism might have steered them in a better direction. The reason I made that comment was because the Randian conception of relationships — which is made to sound very noble and uplifting — is really just a disguised argument for hypergamy. When Rand writes that casual sex is a form of whim-worship, but that “appropriately rational” relationships are based on “one’s own highest values”, and that the essence of femininity is hero-worship, then you have the seeds for a blossoming young female’s hypergamy.
So, the way it worked out in practice is the Rand chick (ginas a-tingle and imagining herself as Dagny), would do what every other female has done since the beginning of time and seek out high-status, socially-dominant males. Maybe the men were handsome, or maybe they were popular, or maybe they were on a good career track. The diference was, these Rand chicks now had a lovely pretty lie of a philosophy to assist in their denial about what they were doing.
Your average college chick deals with the discrepancy between her PR statements about the kind of guys she likes versus the kinds of guys she actually fucks by simply EVADING the whole damn thing. Head in the sand.
Rand chicks on the other hand have a fine philosophy to reinterpret and make NOBLE what it is they were doing, so in that sense their hypergamy was strident and flew on the wings of self-justifying rationalization.
I remember when we once organized to have a major figure from the ARI come to give a lecture. You should’ve seen these girls at the after-party with this guy. Just like schoolgirls at a Beatles concert.
My first college bang was with an officer in the club, and she truly was an “empowered slut” feminist type a la Jessica Valenti. I was lame and had no game then, and I certainly wasn’t a bad-boy, so I can only assume in that case it was a combination of her sexual appetite and the dashing figure I cut at the time. ;)
There are women who are into Ayn Rand and objectivism?
When Rand writes that casual sex is a form of whim-worship, but that “appropriately rational” relationships are based on “one’s own highest values”, and that the essence of femininity is hero-worship, then you have the seeds for a blossoming young female’s hypergamy.
Well put. This is exactly why it’s so misguided to call Rand a feminist. She had far too much admiration for a the masculine to be one. She’d completely reject the Gloria Steinem notion that a woman needs a man like a fish needs a bicycle. Later in her life, Rand stated that a properly feminine woman would not want be President of the United States and she described herself as a “male chauvinist.”
BTW, I would say that the typical female mating strategy of finding a high-value mate is probably more moral and just than the typical male mating strategy of trying to find the hottest piece of ass. But that goes under the assumption, that the men women are chasing are actually high value and not just bad boy players.
The statement “natural rights aren’t” is not wholly a statement about the existence or non-existence of natural rights. It means the idea no longer has power over human minds. Other ideas have taken its place (less functional and useful ones, IMHO). All human ideas of ordering society are myths, unproven, unprovable, and at variance with the natural world and human nature. Why people believe some are true for time; why ‘true’ ideas are replaced by other ‘true’ ideas; and why people surrender good and useful ideas for inferior beliefs (fascism, socialism, communism, etc.) is unknown to me and to everyone. (I favor the boredom theory of intellectual history.)
The idea, for instance, that ‘rights’ are issued by the state at its discretion and may be withdrawn at whim, is vastly inferior to the idea of innate, natural rights. Under the latter, everyone has a right to various freedoms by birth. Under the former, the state grants freedoms in return for servile behavior and withdraws freedoms from the disfavored, who cannot object even in theory to their disfavor.
Sparks123 said:
I fully agree that morality is the basis of rights, but we have differing views on what morality is. In my assessment, morality is a code of values a person uses to guide his actions. It mainly is determined by the facts of reality and what people need to do to lead a happy and fulfilling life.
Correct. Morality is properly derived from the nature of human beings. Specifically from the facts that: 1) human life requires the volitional application of reason to action for production and trade in the service of surviving and thriving as a human being, 2) the fact that the process is not an automatic bodily function as it is in other animals, and 3) the fact that human actions have long range consequences. Those facts require a code of principles (ethics) for appraising and choosing to pursue the values to sustain and enhance human life.
But as Lindsey Abelard aptly put it in a previous comment,
If people are by nature good, then everything is hunky dory. However, if people are by nature bad, then it makes little sense to put one person or group of persons in charge of all others. Either case, the argument for centralized authority is discredited.
So the fact of man’s fallibility (a corollary of his volition), necessitates, as a moral principle, that the application of reason to action in the service of life shall be autonomous. And since physical coercion is the only enemy of autonomy, the only moral society would be one that prohibited the use of physical force to interfere with individual autonomy.
Political rights to life, liberty, property, and the pursuit of happiness are the principles that define the spheres of autonomy with which others may not interfere. So, rights pertain only to actions, not to things. A human being’s rights properly impose only negative obligations on others — to not interfere.
Consequently, rights are “natural” in the sense that they are necessitated by and derive from the identification of the nature of man. They are not natural in the sense of being some intrinsic human attribute. In fact, in a non-societal context in which there are too few persons to form an independent third-party institution that would require such principles to guide its mandated and precluded actions, there would be no such thing as political rights.
And as if on cue, the ARCHN blog begins a new series critiquing Objectivist Natural Rights theory:
http://aynrandcontrahumannature.blogspot.com/2010/02/objectivism-politics-part-42.html
[...] I saw a link from the Objectivism Online forum. I clicked it and found that someone had linked to my review of L.A. Rollins’ The Myth of Natural Rights and Other Essays, writing this: I accidentally [...]
If only I had a quarter for every time I came here… Amazing writing.
[...] time to time, is a doomed ideology. Let’s forget the fact that Rand’s philosophy is an intellectually incoherent ripoff of Nietzsche and Stirner as filtered through her literary masturbations over a serial killer [...]