Ayn Rand: The Russian Radical

by Sciabarra, Chris

  Branden is not the only theorist to redress the imbalance of reason and emotion implicit in some of Rand’s formulations.55 Peikoff, too, has stressed the importance of somatic and emotive aspects of experience. Since he views the individual as a unity of mind and body, reason and emotion, Peikoff explores how emotions serve as crucial psycho-epistemological agents. For Peikoff, although emotions are not means of cognition, they provide an important tie to concretes. They enable individuals to maintain their contact with internal and external reality, concretizing their abstractions and contributing enormously to their creativity.56

  Like Branden, Peikoff further maintains that there are culturally related differences in how men and women deal with their emotions. In this culture, women are encouraged to exercise their emotions, whereas men are encouraged to intellectualize them. The tendency to equate femininity with intellectual self-alienation and masculinity with emotional self-alienation is disastrous to both women and men in their quest for genuinely human relationships.57 Peikoff inherits from Rand an antipathy toward the cultural bias to keep women “in their place.” Rand characterized sexism as “an ancient, primitive evil, supported and perpetuated by women as much as, or more than, by men.”58 In her view, women had accepted and sustained their own victimization, subverting their need for independence. Her novels present female protagonists who are strong-willed and autonomous, reflecting her own success in a male-dominated intellectual world.

  Nevertheless, Rand characterized herself as an ardent “anti-feminist” and “man-worshiper.”59 She dissociated herself from modem feminism because she believed that it had embraced biological egalitarianism and collectivist statism. Both Rand and the early Nathaniel Branden emphasized the anatomical and biological differences between men and women that served as the basis for their respective sex roles as “aggressor” and “responder.”60

  But in his work since 1968, Branden is far more concerned with the need to transcend culturally induced dualism in gender relations. Branden (1986, 241) observes that whereas men tend to disown tenderness, sensuality, and the capacity to nurture, women tend to disown strength, assertiveness, sexuality, and self-reliance. He argues that the most creative individuals are those who can integrate both “male” and “female” aspects of personality. By not conforming to cultural stereotypes, such men and women “are more open to the totality of their inner being.”61

  In this regard, Branden and Peikoff agree, surprisingly, with modern feminist methodology. Lynda Glennon, for instance, emphasizes the need for “synthesism” in the human personality. The male-female duality, according to Glennon, violates the wholeness of human nature, splitting men and women into half-people. In her view, “culturally specific connotations of ‘masculine/feminine’ as opposite categories is, then, but one more variation on the dualism that pervades everyday life and thought.”62

  It is fitting that both Peikoff and, to a larger extent, Branden, in their movement toward a fuller integration of alleged opposites, such as reason and emotion, the masculine and the feminine, have reaffirmed the tendency toward synthesis that Rand had absorbed from her Russian ancestors. This reaffirmation is all the more significant because it bears a subtle resemblance to the ideas of the Russian Symbolists. As noted in Chapter 1, Merezhkovsky had viewed the sexual act as the highest form of unity, since each body is interpenetrated by the other. For Merezhkovsky, true human being involves a synthesis of the womanly aspect in man, and the manly aspect in woman (Lossky, 1951, 337–41). While Peikoff and Branden would not embrace Merezhkovsky’s indivisible androgyne as a moral ideal, they are clearly engaged in a similar revolt against culturally induced sexual dualism. This revolt has become more apparent as Peikoff, Branden, and others have separated themselves from some of Rand’s personal attitudes, which had been codified by both her followers and detractors as part of the corpus of Objectivism. Rand’s traces of cultural conservatism, as expressed in her opposition to the candidacy of a woman president and her disapproval of homosexuality, were sometimes mistakenly elevated to the status of philosophical principle.63

  The issue of homosexuality, in particular, dramatically illustrates the contrast between Rand and her successors. In 1971, during a question-and-answer session following her Ford Hall Forum lecture “The Moratorium on Brains” (1971T), Rand asserted that although every individual has a right to engage in any consensual sexual activity, homosexuality is a manifestation of psychological “flaws, corruptions, errors, unfortunate premises,” and that it is both “immoral” and “disgusting.” Ignoring factors of social environment and/or genetic-biological endowment, Rand viewed homosexuality as a moral issue, based on her implicit assumption that it was a consciously chosen behavior. Whereas behaviorists see human beings as primarily products of social conditioning and the psychoanalysts see them as primarily creatures of internal drives, Rand emphasized the volitional aspects of consciousness.64

  Rand’s bias against lesbians and gays has been challenged by both Peikoff and Packer. Though these thinkers continue to regard homosexuality as a psychological detour from the norm, they are less inclined to moralize about it.65 Branden, too, has exhibited much growth in his view of homosexuality. He formerly maintained that the polarity between man and woman most fully fosters each individual’s awareness of his or her male and female aspects. He therefore saw both homosexuality and bisexuality as a “detour or blockage on the pathway to full maturity as an adult human being” (N. Branden 1980, 94). More recently, however, Branden has argued that many factors contribute to our integration as psychological and physical beings: genetic endowment, maturation, biological potentials and limitations, life experiences, explicit knowledge, conscious philosophy, and subconscious conclusions form a complex interrelated totality that cannot be easily reduced to any of its component parts.66 Indeed, science has yet to discover the roots of sexual orientation. Thus, Branden argues against moralizing about homosexuality, for it is not within the realm of conscious choice and cannot possibly be a moral issue. Allan Blumenthal, a psychotherapist working within the Objectivist tradition, has expressed the same opinion.67

  Such developments among Objectivist and neo-Objectivist thinkers suggest that they have appropriated from Rand a highly dialectical view of human psychology. In extending Rand’s legacy, these thinkers have reaffirmed inadvertently her dialectical Russian roots. They have even exhibited a willingness to distinguish between Rand’s personal attitudes and the philosophy of Objectivism. Although Rand’s revolt against Russian mysticism sometimes led her to a one-sided emphasis on reason, her successors have more fully realized the integrative character of her philosophy. They have moved toward a conception of psychological integration that builds upon Rand’s insights while transcending their limitations.

  8

  ART, PHILOSOPHY, AND EFFICACY

  Throughout Rand’s writings, one can find a persistent emphasis on the process by which human beings articulate the tacit dimensions of consciousness. This theme is implicit in Rand’s theories of concept formation and emotion. The concept formation process is largely dependent on an act of measurement omission, which takes place in the mind whether people are aware of it or not. By articulating the tacit principles by which people form concepts, Rand attempted to provide an objective foundation for human knowing. She suggested that even though measurement omission is a tacit process, it is necessary to make explicit its reality-based principles in order to defend the objective integrity of our knowledge.

  The Objectivist theory of the relationship between reason and emotion stresses a similar articulation process. By delving deeply into the inarticulate contents of the mind, and the habitual methods by which the subconscious integrates these contents, we can make explicit that which is implicit. Rand sought to provide an objective account of human emotional response. Even though we may be unaware of the cognitive roots of many of our emotions, she argued, it is both possible and desirable to initiate a therapeutic articulation process.

  Thu
s both in concept formation and in emotional discernment, Rand’s Objectivism aims to bring implicit elements of consciousness into more thoroughly explicit, articulated form. She suggested that knowledge and emotions are not mysterious, ineffable phenomena beyond our comprehension and control. Understanding the components of our consciousness enables us to better integrate—and alter, if necessary—the contents and methods of awareness.

  Rand extended this impulse toward articulation into the realm of aesthetics and ethics. She attempted to show how the interaction of the conscious and the subconscious can move people toward acts of spiritual and material creativity.

  THE FUNCTION OF ART

  In this section, I am concerned with Rand’s view of the fundamental nature of art and its function in human life, rather than with Rand’s personal artistic tastes, or her specific views on literature, painting, music, aesthetic judgment, or beauty.1

  One of the most distinctive aspects of Rand’s theory is her belief that “the source of art lies in the fact that man’s cognitive faculty is conceptual.”2 For Rand, the central function of art is not social, but epistemological. Certainly art reflects the cultural milieu, but its essential function pertains specifically to the nature of human consciousness. The mind grasps the infinite complexity of the world by reducing the number of units with which it must grapple. As we have seen, concept formation and definition also serve this cognitive need for unit economy. By abstracting various aspects from a totality and forming relational units, our minds synthesize an infinite number of similar concretes under a particular concept, designated by a particular word. The efficiency of our cognitive processes depends upon how well we have automatized and integrated these units.3

  Art is the product of a comparable tacit process in which the artist’s “metaphysical value-judgments” are concretized. As we have seen, such metaphysical abstractions pertain broadly to the nature of existence. They are usually held subconsciously, in an implicit form, as a component of our sense of life. Metaphysical value judgments are core evaluations of the self, the world, and other people. For most people, they are not consciously deduced judgments, but are an unintended, emotionally charged consequence of innumerable life experiences, from the earliest moments of childhood on.

  While an art work, like every human creation, involves the application of both explicit and implicit knowledge, articulated and tacit skills, it remains far more dependent on the artist’s subconscious integrations than on any conscious philosophical convictions. And “since artists, like any other men, seldom translate their sense of life into conscious terms,” they are just as likely to produce works of art that project all of the tensions and contradictions of their inner worlds.4

  Rand defined art as “a selective re-creation of reality according to an artist’s metaphysical value-judgments” (Romantic Manifesto, 19). Guided by their sense of life, artists automatically isolate and integrate those aspects of reality which epitomize their unique views of the world. Their creations therefore emphasize the aspects they regard as important. Since the building blocks of knowledge derive, in Rand’s view, from perception, art completes the epistemic circle by bringing one’s most important metaphysical abstractions back to the perceptual level. Every art form fulfills this same function. An artist’s metaphysical abstractions can be concretized in a variety of material, visual, or auditory forms, in literature, sculpture, painting, or musical composition. Rand argued that despite technological innovations, the basic art forms have remained constant since the prehistoric period because they depend on sensory, perceptual, and conceptual means of consciousness that are innate to the human species.5

  Rand’s understanding of the creative process was informed by her introspection into her own literary craft. In writing, Rand argued, authors draw on the knowledge stored in the subconscious mind. The capacity to summon such knowledge must be so automatized that the author “just knows” what to do as if by “instinct.” In constructing plot and character, authors can program their subconscious minds to direct their conscious thoughts.6 Authors achieve a “feel” for their craft that follows from the logic of their own literary context. Harking back to an Aristotelian aesthetic, Rand argued that in the totality of the author’s creation, the parts and the whole generate and imply each other.7 Rand explained that in her own writing, she created descriptions on four distinct, though interrelated, levels: the literal, the connotative, the symbolic, and the emotional. While she never calculated these interconnections consciously, she presented the reader with a totality—an integrated, emotional sum that provoked a corresponding emotional response.8

  According to Rand, the artist and the responder enter into a communicative interaction.9 The artist begins with a broad abstraction that he or she concretizes in the art work. The responder perceives and integrates the particulars, grasping the abstraction concretized by the artist. The communicative circle is completed through two interacting psycho-epistemological moments. The first resembles a process of deduction, in which there is a movement from a broad, general abstraction to a specific, concrete, artistic expression. This is a movement from the artist’s core evaluation to an aesthetic, concrete embodiment in literary, visual, or auditory form. The second moment of the circle resembles a process of induction, in which there is a movement from the artist’s concrete forms to the responder’s emotional experience. This experience in turn, reflects the responder’s own sense of life.10

  The responder experiences not only the content of an artist’s work, but the artist’s style as well. Both the content and style reflect the artist’s sense of life. Artists choose subjects that manifest their metaphysics, their views of existence, what they believe to be worthy of contemplation. An artist’s style reveals his or her psycho-epistemology; it is the manner in which the artist presents the subject.11 Artists may choose to present the heroic or the mediocre, the triumphant or the vanquished. They may do so in stark, precise terms, or in blurred abstractions (40–41). Every aesthetic choice made by the artist, every aesthetic experience of the responder, is a psychological confession (N. Branden 1967T, lecture 18). While Rand presumptuously claimed that she could pinpoint the exact nature of the confessions involved, she admitted that it can be very difficult to infer the basis of these choices and responses because there are many cross premises at work in the human psyche (in Peikoff 1976T, lecture 11). Nevertheless, when one responds positively to a work of art, one experiences a certain congruence with the artist’s sense of life. When one responds negatively to a work of art, one’s sense of life is at odds with the artist’s projections.12 Thus, an art work will confirm or contradict the responder’s fundamental outlook on reality.13

  Though Rand analyzed this communicative interaction between artist and responder in epistemic terms, she recognized that every art work has cultural implications. Each individual’s psycho-epistemology and sense of life, developed mainly in early childhood, is influenced by the dominant values and ideas of the culture in which he or she lives.14 A culture may stress the importance of independence or obedience, of reason or religion. Just as an art work is a reflection of the artist’s soul, so, too, it is a barometer of the culture. However, Rand did not posit strict cultural determinism.15 She did not believe that the individual artist slavishly mimics the values of the culture at large. But most artists, like most individuals, tacitly absorb the dominant ideas of their age. Although a few artists may rebel against the dominant views, the vast majority will give material expression to a culturally specific sense of life.16

  In absorbing dominant artistic and cultural fashions, the majority also tends to accept the dominant moral trends. It is for this reason perhaps that Rand conjoined her aesthetic and ethical visions. Although all art fulfills a fundamental epistemic need to concretize humanity’s broadest abstractions, Rand argued that literature in particular can serve as a means of communicating a moral ideal as well. From the sacred texts of religion to the pages of Atlas Shrugged, the most abstract moral code
s have found concrete literary expression. Through literature, Rand hoped to provide an image of things not as they are but as they “ought to be.” Whereas an ethical code can enunciate abstract moral principles, only literature can create a concretized model for their application in the realm of human action. In Rand’s words, “Art is the technology of the soul.”17

  Rand’s literary credo can be made the subject of a book in itself.18 Yet it must be mentioned that Rand saw herself as promulgating a new Romantic literary tradition. She was influenced by such nineteenth-century Romantic writers as Hugo, Dostoyevsky, Schiller, and Rostand. Like these writers, she was deeply concerned with the realm of moral values. She argued that the Romantic movement celebrated the individual as an efficacious being of free will. It partially and implicitly affirmed the Aristotelian sense of life and the individualist culture of nineteenth-century capitalism. But the Romantic movement was, she points out, full of inner contradictions. Its brand of individualism was antimaterialist and emotionalist. As the movement collapsed under the weight of its internal conflicts, its writers were criticized for presenting escapist novels bordering on fantasy.19 The Romantics were opposed by the Naturalists, who accepted the premises of determinism. Viewing human beings as puppets of their environment, the Naturalists set their stories in more contemporary, “realistic” settings. In keeping with her dialectical impulses, however, Rand rejected the traditional Romantic-Naturalist dichotomy and viewed herself as a “Romantic Realist.”20 As a Romantic, Rand aimed to project a vision of the ideal man. As a Realist, she presented her moral vision almost exclusively in a contemporary, this-worldly context.21

  Like other aspects of her thought, Rand’s literary aesthetic was an outgrowth of her Russian intellectual roots. As both novelist and philosopher, Rand remains true to the rich Russian literary tradition. Dostoyevsky, Tolstoy, and the Symbolist poets all strove to integrate literature with philosophy. Having grown up in the Silver Age, Rand was exposed to the Symbolist’s Nietzschean imagery. The Symbolists, such as Blok, Bely, and Merezhkovsky, believed that the artist should be a Promethean superman, aiming for the “transvaluation of values.” Like Nietzsche, the Symbolists were both poets and philosophers. Beginning with the facts of the real world, rather than in the realm of fantasy, they aimed to transform that world. In Bely’s words: “Art finds its support in reality. The reproduction of reality is the goal of art or its point of departure. Reality is like food in relation to art, without which its existence is impossible” (Shein 1973, 311).