D.D. 05/04/06

I couldn't disagree more with the assertions raised in this post over at Volunteer Voters about objectivism and my conversion. A.C. Kleinheider says:

I have long thought that while Randianism is very appealing in certain ways and far preferable to its flipside on the godless coin, Marxism, it was, at root, an immature framework to work from. Essentially, it is the political philosophy of a very intelligent 15 year old boy.

Objectivism is too serious (and dangerous) a philosophy to dismiss through demeaning. For one thing, Objectivists get many things right, especially with regard to epistemology. Their basis of their metaphysic - objective reality - isn't bad except that objectivists can stake no claim to answering the question where free will came from in their naturalist view of things.

Even their disgustingly selfish moral conclusions, with regard to the heirarchy of moral value carries some weight. After all, Christ asks us to look after our own souls first, then our neighbors souls, and then our own bodies, etc. in that order. That is a heirarchy of moral importance.

Rand's political conclusions are weak in as much as no man is an island, but spot on or perhaps marginally wrong because an ounce too much emphasis on "if a man will not work, neither let him eat" [2 Thessalonians 3:10]. Objectivist aesthetics are absolutely correct - especially with regard to the emphasis on projecting an objective reality.

So again, the closer the wrong answer gets to the right, the closer we must adamently show its places of error - and the more seriously we should take it as competition to the truth. Okay, that's enough for a defense of Objectivism. Onward.