Assorted Evils of Capitalsim, Libertarianism, and Objectivism

          8.        The inherent perfectionism of the objectivist code of ethics is nicely stated by Ayn Rand's   favorite hero, John Galt: "Man has a single basic choice: to think or not, and that is the gauge of his virtue." (1957). He and Rand hold that moral perfection is an unbreached rationality--not the degree of your intelligence, but the full and relentless use of your mind; not the extent of your knowledge, but the acceptance of reason as an absolute.   Well, that certainly wraps it up!   If you are in the least irrational or if you do not absolutely accept reason as the determiner of all that is good in the world, you are clearly immoral.   Shall we get the hell fires ready for you now?

          9.        Further, contrary to the principals laid down by Skinner and the behaviorists, Rand seems to believe that pure punishment without clear explanation and a scientific schedule of application will change people -- or that they deserve to suffer and die if they do not change under such a system. Skinner, etc. al., showed that people will not learn from such a method of punishment. From reading Rand one gets the sense that she does not believe her system will change anyone either -- that she is really advocating economic social Darwinism with her "reality" as the executioner. The huge problem with this is that almost everyone will be executed with the remainder mired in a producers' hell without rest or customers, since everyone is producing all the time.

          Sexual Puritanism.   Along with her unrealistic theories of economics, politics, and human worth, Rand has some views of human sexuality that are divorced from facts, and that have overtones of a puritanical nature.   For example:

          1.        Branden declares, "A man falls in love with and sexually desires the person who reflects his own deepest values," (1964b).   Since when?   Innumerable men fall in love with women who reflect their shallowest, let alone their deepest, values.   They fall in love with women who disagree with them violently in politico-economic areas, who have radically different philosophies of life, and who represent almost everything they do not like.

          As for sexual attraction, the relationship between it and one's deepest values is practically nil.   Any male whose hormones are working properly tends to sexually desire innumerable women who do not in the least reflect his own values--except in so far as he values large breasts, well-shaped behinds, sensuous lips, long legs, or certain other attributes.   There is often almost as little correlation between a man's sex desires and his deepest values, as there are between his tastes in food and those same values.

          2.        To a man of self-esteem, Branden continues, "sex is an act of celebration, it's meaning is a tribute to himself, and to the woman he has chosen.   It is the ultimate form of experiencing concretely and in his person the value and joy of being alive," (1964b).    But the fact remains that to a man of self-esteem sex is very often one hell of a good time and little more.   Only occasionally is it a special act of celebration with a rare woman he has chosen.   He can have sex simply because he enjoys it--and not to celebrate the fact that he is alive or to prove anything at all.

          3.        "Man's sexual choice is the result and sum of his fundamental convictions.   Tell me what a man finds sexually attractive and I will tell you his entire philosophy of life."   Rand continues, if you show me the woman a man sleeps with, I will tell you how he values himself.   Sex, when cut off from your code of values, is a fool's self-fraud.   Only the man who extols the purity of a love without desire is depraved by his desire devoid of love. (Rand, 1957).

          What frightful puritanical rot!   As noted above, there exists considerable observational, autobiographical, historical, and clinical evidence that whom a man finds sexually attractive may have practically nothing to do with his basic philosophy of life and his valuation of himself.   In fact, the more he unqualifiedly values himself, the more he is usually able to sleep with all kinds of women, and to refrain from thinking himself a worm when his bedmates are not from the "right" social class.   It is men of objectivist and similar persuasion, who cannot stand that they sleep with the "wrong" women, and who therefore have serious problems of low self-acceptance.   And, of course, their status-seeking philosophy in part causes them to have such problems.

          As for sexual desire devoid of love being depravity--shades of nineteenth-century Puritanism!   To virtually any self-accepting contemporary individual, sex is good in, of, by, and for itself.   It may often be better, or more enjoyable, when it is experienced in the context of a loving human relationship.   But loveless sex is not in the least depraved--except by arbitrary, puritanical definitions (Ellis, 1958, 2002b, 2003b; Ellis & Blau, 1998).   Just as the insistence that sex be embedded in a love relationship is typical of modern religious groups which once used to condemn it under all circumstances, so Rand's Puritanism goes with the religiosity inherent in objectivism.

          The objectivist attitudes about sex epitomize the basic tenets of objectivism, which take it out of the realm of science and reason and place it squarely in the field of religious devoutness.   In swearing allegiance to the dogmas of Ayn Rand and her associates, people gain the salvation of their soul by (a) having profound faith in unverifiable, ultra-idealistic assumptions; (b) continually working in a highly productive manner; (c) achieving pride in their own superiority over others; and (d) rigorously abstaining from any purely sensual or sexual enjoyments.

          It is revealing that most orthodox religions, particularly those steeped in the Judeo-Christian-Islamic tradition, emphasize these puritanical sex views, and that Rand--whether or not she is fully conscious of the fact--does precisely the same thing.