The answer to Branden's question is: Because Fromm is much more realistic than Branden and Rand. He sees that what we frequently call "neurosis" is partly or largely the human condition; and that it inevitably accompanies, to some degree, our biological makeup as well as the fact that we live in social groups. Actually, as I have shown in the final chapter of Reason and Emotion in Psychotherapy (Ellis, 1962), there are many important ways in which people are restricted by their biological tendencies and are strongly biased toward behaving neurotically. This does not mean they cannot improve remarkably. They can teach and train themselves to overcome many of their innate limitations and to behave more rationally. But this does not gainsay the fact that in many ways it is easier for them to be irrational than sane, (Ellis, 1976, 2001b, 2002, 2003, 2005).
Rather than admit this, objectivists speak pejoratively of most humans as "tramps, morons, and neurotics," dehumanizing them, and assume that just as soon as they see Rand's light they will become hardworking, noble citizens. But, if they do not see the light, they deserve to perish. This anti-biological bias leads them into all kinds of other anti-empirical conclusions, some of which we have already seen and many of which will be examined in the chapter on objectivism and religion.
2. Rand also does not face the fact that adolescents have an innate tendency to think crookedly and to be highly suggestible and overemotional. She writes, People, by the time they reach adolescence, have sufficient knowledge to deal with fundamentals of life, (1964). But this is the period when they become aware of the need to become conscious beings and formulate principles, ideals, and values and, for self-assertion. But because nothing is done, in our anti-rational culture, to young people in this crucial transition, the result is a frantic, hysterical irrationality of most adolescents. Minds go through a process of atrophy at the time set by nature for their growth.
Note, here, the strong implication that adolescents are innately uncrippled, non-frantic, and non-hysterical, and that it is only the non-Randian philosophy with which they are instilled in this society that makes them unthinking and disturbed. Not that our anti-rational culture does not help adolescents to become more upsettable, anxious, and hostile than they otherwise might be. It does! But adolescents easily acquire and make use of silly ideas: Their general tendencies are merely aggravated, and by no means caused, by the nonsense of our culture (Cloninger, 1999; Ellis, 1966c, 1976, 2001b, 2002).
3. Rand's anti-biological notions are carried over into her views of people and their economic behavior. She paints this idealistic and unrealistic picture of a trader: "a man who earns what he gets and does not give or take the undeserved." (1964). He supposedly treats people as independent equals. He deals with them by means of a free, voluntary, unforced, un-coerced exchange. "A trader does not expect to be paid for his defaults, only for his achievements." He does not blame others for his failures, and does not mortgage his life into bondage to the failures of others.
It could be argued, the reverse of this picture is true. All over the world in various kinds of economies, a trader generally is mainly interested in taking what he does not (according to Ms. Rand's standards) deserve. One siren call of capitalists is "caveat emptor" or "let the buyer beware." As stated above, Socrates lamented that the only law of a trader was "to buy low and sell high." A trader does not treat people as independent equals, but usually tries to fool them, even enslave them to his wishes. He prefers to deal with them by means of trickery or forced and coercive exchange--without competition--trying to get them to do his bidding, whether they like it or not. He does expect to be paid for his defaults as well as his achievements. And, in most cases, he tries to blame others for his failures--not to mention to rationalize, when he does fail, and pretend that he has not. Rand's picture of the capitalist producer and trader is ideal; and it is an ideal that is so far removed from social and biological reality that it probably never will be realized. Worse, she deludes herself that her ideal is reality, that people are the way she pictures them. No wonder she is so horribly disillusioned with people's actual behavior!
Inconsistency and illogicality. Probably all people and all philosophies are somewhat inconsistent. That is hardly surprising, because human animals are not always logical in their thinking. Rand, however, pretends to be exceptionally logical and rational; and keeps emphasizing the Aristotelian law of identity--that A cannot, at the same time, be both A and not A; that a person is a person; that reality is. Consequently, we might expect her to be reasonably consistent in her beliefs.
Unfortunately, her main consistency springs from her premises rather than her rationality. She constantly sets up un-provable axioms--as I have been showing throughout this book--and then, for the most part, she proceeds logically. However, what she deduces from these rather meaningless, and sometimes downright irrational, propositions is therefore just as meaningless and irrational. Like most religions, therefore, objectivism is fairly consistent. However, Rand's statements are internally inconsistent in several important respects, including the following:
1. While touting the New York skyline as "a monument of a splendor that no pyramids or palaces will ever equal or approach," Rand insists that the skyscrapers of Moscow and the great Soviet dams were not fine achievements because "it is impossible to compute the human suffering, degradation, deprivation, and horror that went to pay for a single, much-touted skyscraper of Moscow." (1964). But it is also impossible to compute the human suffering, degradation, deprivation, and horror that went to pay for a single, much-touted skyscrapers of New York. Who can say how many Americans, in the course of building such skyscrapers, went bankrupt, ruined their lives with business worries, killed themselves with heart attacks, deprived themselves of good times, and otherwise suffered?
Rand contention that the Russian skyscrapers were erected more inefficiently than were their American counterparts may be true. But for her to deny Russian achievements--especially considering how far behind Americans the Russians were at the beginning of their revolution in 1917--is for her to use quite a different yardstick in measuring the two sets of accomplishments.
Dualistically, the dark side of these "accomplishments" is that many died, many were maimed, and many more were injured in, or deprived by, the building of these largely unnecessary, monumental tombstones.
2. "It is not," states Rand, "a man's ancestors or relatives or genes or body chemistry that count in a free market, but only one human attribute: productive ability." (1964). It is by people's individual ability and ambition that capitalism judges them and rewards them accordingly. But what, if not people's ancestors, relatives, genes, and body chemistry, creates this productive ability? If they were basically born with this ability, their genes and body chemistry obviously were involved; and if they were raised rather than born with it, then obviously their ancestors and relatives were involved. Unless, of course, Rand believes in magic.
3. In Rand's book, The Virtue of Selfishness, Nathaniel Branden says: "Pleasure, for man, is not a luxury, but a profound psychological need." Pleasure accompanies life, the reward of successful action. Pain accompanies failure, destruction, and death. On the very next page, Branden states, "it is his values that determine what a man seeks for pleasure." (1964b.)
Now, which is it? If pleasure is actually a need--meaning a necessity --of humans, and if it automatically flows from their successful actions, how can it also depend on values or philosophies? Suppose a man believes--as I, for one, do--that he does not need pleasure, but merely desires it strongly. Is it then one of his necessities? Or suppose he believes--as I, even more strongly, do--that he can enjoy himself even when his actions fail and when he is not achieving anything notable in life. Can he then experience enjoyment in spite of his non-achievement?
Pleasure, actually, stems from (a) physical enjoyment or release from pain and/or (b) psychological enjoyment, which stems from evaluating something as "good' (whether or not others similarly evaluate it). Rand, who ostensibly has a value-system concept of pleasure, is so overly-eager to deify successful action that she becomes inconsistent in her concepts of pleasure, and wrongly connects it with successful action instead of with the human's view of his or her successful action. She declares that every person is an end in themselves, not a means to the ends of others. She is not a sacrificial animal. As a living being, she must exist for her own sake, neither sacrificing herself to others nor sacrificing others.
The achievement of his own happiness is man's highest moral purpose, Rand claims. Ironically, if man is to achieve his own happiness he'd better (at times, at least) make moderate sacrifices for others; otherwise, they will probably not sacrifice time and energy for him when he needs their help. Complete selfishness is a serious contradiction: As long as man lives in a social group, and as long as he wants to be happy while so living, complete selfishness will alienate him, help make him miserable, and perhaps destroy him.
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